US 8428830

I'll verify the patent details against live sources before summarizing.

Verification note

I checked the patent's Google Patents record (which mirrors USPTO data) and ran targeted searches for litigation and Federal Circuit activity. Findings below are grounded in the authoritative full text you supplied, which I treated as controlling.

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Bibliographic data — US 8,428,830 B2

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8428830/en

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Abstract (as printed)

"An agricultural working vehicle has a plurality of working assemblies, at least one control unit for influencing the setting parameters of the working assemblies, a memory unit, and at least one display unit, and it is configured such that even an untrained operator may optimize the setting parameters of the working assemblies in a rapid, reliable manner. An expected change in the function and/or the working result of individual working assemblies or a plurality of working assemblies is depicted in the display unit in a manner that depends on how an operator influences individual setting parameters of the working assemblies."

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Plain-language overview of the claims

Claim 1 — the only independent claim. It claims an agricultural working vehicle with four elements: (1) multiple working assemblies; (2) at least one control unit for influencing their setting parameters; (3) a memory unit; and (4) at least one display unit. The novelty sits in the fourth element: the display is configured to show an expected change in the function and/or working result of one or several working assemblies, and that depiction depends on how the operator influences the setting parameters. The claim closes with the key limitation that the expected change is displayed "in the form of a trend of expected effects" — i.e., a predictive/directional indication rather than a post-hoc measured value.

The point of the invention, per the specification, is to bypass the sensor lag that plagued the prior art (EP 1 297 733 A1 was expressly distinguished): the operator sees the predicted consequence of a knob turn immediately, before any crop material has passed through the affected region.

Claims 2–11 (dependent on claim 1, or on 3, 6, 10):

• Claim 2 — the expected change is displayed in an evaluated manner (positive / neutral / negative judgment, not raw data).
• Claim 3 — the memory unit recallably stores a large number of setting parameters together with their influence on function/working result, which are compared against the operator's current settings to generate the display. This is the lookup-table/database implementation.
• Claim 4 — the database is self-expanding: deviating setting parameters and results are stored too.
• Claim 5 — alternative to the lookup table: at least one algorithm stored in the control unit and/or memory unit computes the expected change.
• Claim 6 — the expected change is shown as different pictograms.
• Claim 7 — pictogram shape, color, and/or size vary with the expected change (spec examples: red for negative, green for positive; smiley/frowning faces, arrows, thumbs).
• Claim 8 — the expected change is displayed only for a certain period of time.
• Claim 9 — when the expected change is negative, the system also shows stored setting parameters that would produce a positive result (i.e., a corrective recommendation).
• Claim 10 — operator-selectable subset of functions/working results to display.
• Claim 11 — the selected expected changes can be weighted by the operator.

Claims 12–17 — combine-harvester-specific species claims. Each is drafted in dependent form ("as recited in claim 1, further comprising means actuatable by an operator and configured so that...") but recites a full stand-alone scenario plus the display response. They are effectively narrowing claims to concrete cause-and-effect pairs:

• Claim 12 — excessive tailings → operator reduces concave width → if set too small, display shows damaged grain will tend to increase.
• Claim 13 — excessive damaged grain → operator increases concave width → if set too great, display shows tailings will tend to increase.
• Claim 14 — excessive contamination in the grain tank → operator reduces upper/lower sieve opening width → if too small, display shows cleaning losses will tend to increase.
• Claim 15 — excessive cleaning losses → operator reduces sieve width → if too great, display shows grain-tank cleanliness will tend to worsen.
• Claim 16 — excessive contamination → operator increases cleaning fan speed → if too high, display shows cleaning losses will tend to increase.
• Claim 17 — excessive cleaning losses → operator reduces fan speed → if too low, display shows cleanliness will tend to worsen.

Note that claims 12–17 recite the operator's action ("the operator reduces…") as a claim element. That drafting choice is unusual — it arguably imports operator behavior into the claimed apparatus — and a practitioner evaluating this patent should look closely at how that was treated during prosecution.

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Litigation / CAFC docket check

I searched for CAFC 2026 docket activity and for infringement litigation naming this patent. I found no evidence of any litigation, appeal, IPR, or other post-grant proceeding involving US 8,428,830. The only CAFC 2026 matters that surfaced in my searches concerned unrelated patents (e.g., AudienceScience v. Google, Magnolia Medical v. Kurin, Teva v. Lilly) and no result referenced 8,428,830 or application 12/236,195.

Uncertainty statement: I do not have direct, queryable access to the full CAFC docket system or to PACER, so while repeated targeted searches returned nothing, I cannot affirmatively certify that no 2026 docket entry exists. The absence of results is consistent with (and I believe reflects) the patent being unasserted, and it aligns with the "Expired – Fee Related" status. Treat this as "no litigation found," not as a legal conclusion.

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Analyst observations

1. Single independent claim. The patent's scope rises or falls on claim 1. Its broadest limitation — displaying a trend of expected effects as a function of operator input — is a predictive-display concept, which raises obvious § 101 and prior-art questions against later art in the cited-by list (notably US 11,042,280 to Agco, "Harvesting machine with visualization system," and the Claas driver-assistance family US 2014/0019017 and US 2014/0019018).

2. Printed-text inconsistencies (flagging, not correcting). Several reference numerals in the disclosure appear mismatched: the pictogram passage refers to grain blown "past upper sieve 11 or lower sieve 12 and out of combine harvester 1," and to "upper and lower-sieve loss measuring devices 12, 26," which conflicts with the numeral map earlier in the description (upper sieve 10, lower sieve 11, upper-sieve loss measuring device 17). FIG. 4b is also described as containing "a symbol 45 for a tractor" where FIG. 4a attributes that to symbol 47. These look like typographical errors in the printed patent, but I have preserved the numerals as printed per the literal-interpretation rule.

3. Priority chain. The U.S. case claims benefit of DE 10 2007 046 678.3 (2007-09-27), with EP 2042019 B1 (filed 2008-06-27) and RU 2 482 654 C2 in the same family. The German application itself is recorded as withdrawn/not active.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8428830 across patent litigation databases.

The initial searches returned results for unrelated "883" patents. Let me search more specifically.

None of those results concern US 8,428,830. Let me query the litigation databases more directly.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 8,428,830

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,428,830.

Before giving the details, one important caution that bears directly on your strict "do not auto-correct identifiers" rule:

A note on the "883"/"830" identifier confusion

My searches for 8,428,830 / 8428830 were repeatedly polluted by results for different patents that share similar trailing digits. None of the following relate to your patent, and I am listing them only so you can see what I filtered out:

• U.S. Patent No. 5,563,883 — C-Cation Techs., LLC v. Comcast, Charter, Cable One (E.D. Tex.) — cable/DOCSIS patent.
• U.S. Patent No. 8,842,655 and other "883" patents in Dominion Resources Inc. v. Alstom Grid Inc. (E.D. Pa./D. Del.).
• The Sonos "883 patent" in Sonos v. Google (C.D. Cal., Judge Kronstadt) and the related ITC investigation.
• U.S. Patent No. 9,941,830 (Resonant Systems/Revel HMI) in IPR2024-00808 and related Resonant v. Apple/Samsung/Sony suits.
• U.S. Patent No. 8,994,830 (STA Group v. Motorola) — a different '830.
• The number "8428830" as a Brazilian company-registration entry (MINIMERCADO PONTO CERTO LTDA) — clearly unrelated.
• U.S. Patent No. 12,479,883 (Genentech v. Biocon) — a different '883.

I am deliberately not attributing any of these to US 8,428,830. They are separate patents/proceedings.

What US 8,428,830 actually is

Per the authoritative full text you provided:

• Title: "Agricultural working vehicle"
• Assignee: Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH (Germany)
• Inventors: Norbert Diekhans; Lars Peter Meyer zu Helligen
• Priority: 2007-09-27 (DE 10 2007 046 678.3); Filed 2008-09-23; Granted 2013-04-23
• Status: Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2032-02-22)
• Family: EP2042019B1, DE102007046678A1, RU2482654C2

Litigation record

I could not identify any district court action, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or appeal in which US 8,428,830 was asserted as a patent-in-suit, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

Consistent with that, the Google Patents page you supplied contains a "Cited By" section (forward citations by later Claas and Deere applications such as US2014/0019017, US2014/0019018, US9,089,092, and Deere's US2015/0305238) — but forward citation is not litigation, and no litigation table appears.

Confidence and limitations (stated explicitly, per your rules)

• Confidence that no litigation exists: Moderate-to-high, but not certain. US 8,428,830 is a German-origin agricultural machinery patent owned by an operating company (Claas), a profile that very rarely generates infringement suits. That supports the negative finding.
• Limitations: I was unable to complete direct queries against Docket Navigator, PACER, the Unified Patents litigation portal, or CourtListener before running out of search steps, and general web searches for the exact string were overwhelmed by same-suffix patents. My conclusion is therefore based on (a) the absence of any litigation reference on the authoritative Google Patents record and (b) the failure of targeted queries to surface any case naming this exact patent number.
• If you need a definitive answer, the reliable next steps would be: (1) Docket Navigator / Lex Machina filtered to patent number 8,428,830; (2) Unified Patents Portal case list; (3) a PACER "party" and full-text search restricted to 8,428,830; and (4) the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board endpoint for any IPR/PGR naming the patent.

If it would help, I can attempt those specific database queries directly (Docket Alarm, CourtListener, and the Unified Patents portal) in a follow-up so you get a sourced, register-level confirmation rather than a negative search result.

I'll verify the (empty) structured record against public sources before reporting.

The first pass returned unrelated '883 patents. Let me narrow to Claas and the precise patent.

Let me run a final confirmation pass targeting trial dockets and aggregators.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 8,428,830: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured record returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings, and my independent web searches surfaced none either — no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent. Breakdown by status is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. Bottom line for a defendant: this patent has never been tested at the PTAB. It is not "hardened" — it is simply unlitigated before the Board. All 17 claims remain exactly as issued, and the entire prior-art/§ 112 landscape is unexhausted. That cuts both ways: there is no favorable estoppel or cancellation to inherit, but there is also a clean slate, no petitioner estoppel running against you, and no Patent Owner who has already been battle-tested by the Board.

No proceeding entries follow, because there are none to report. I am not inventing proceeding numbers to fill the template.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. All 17 claims are UNTESTED — none canceled, none sustained in a contested AIA trial. US 8,428,830 issued 2013-04-23 with a single independent claim (claim 1) and sixteen dependents: claims 2–11 depend from claim 1, and claims 12–17 (the combine-harvester-specific "means actuatable by an operator" claims) also depend from claim 1. There is no independent claim other than claim 1, which is tactically significant: knock out claim 1 and the entire claim set falls with it, since every other claim incorporates it. Conversely, there is no fallback independent claim to retreat to — a Patent Owner facing an IPR on claim 1 has no standalone claim to amend around.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR has been instituted on this patent, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. A defendant today may raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, any § 112 ground available in a post-grant context, and any prior-art combination, before the Board or in district court, with no "raised or reasonably could have raised" limitation. The corollary is that a defendant who files first creates estoppel against itself and its privies — sequencing matters more here than usual.

Pattern signals. None available. No repeat petitioner, no Patent Owner appeal history at the Federal Circuit for this patent, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) identified as having challenged it. The patent's US family includes EP2042019B1, DE102007046678A1 (withdrawn at the German office), and RU2482654C2 — the foreign counterparts saw prosecution activity, and the European patent was maintained, but none of that is PTAB activity and none of it is estoppel-bearing in the US.

One status flag worth verifying: the Google Patents record labels this patent "Expired - Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of 2032-02-22. "Expired - Fee Related" typically signals lapse for non-payment of maintenance fees, which would be dispositive against any assertion regardless of PTAB posture. The "expires 2032-02-22" line, however, reflects the patent-term adjustment and assumes full fee payment. These two data points are in tension, and Google Patents expressly disclaims any legal-status conclusion. Confirm the maintenance-fee record in USPTO PatentCenter before relying on either reading. If the patent has lapsed for fee non-payment, this whole analysis is academic and the answer to a demand letter is a fee-lapse screenshot, not an IPR.

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Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and want a PTAB option: the absence of any prior proceeding means you are free to file an IPR on claim 1 (and any subset of claims 2–17) with no estoppel already in place. Note the statutory bars: § 315(b) requires filing within one year of service of an infringement complaint on you, RPI, or a privy, and § 325(a)(1) creates a bar if you previously filed a civil action challenging validity.
• Strategic targeting: claim 1 is the sole independent claim. A single well-constructed ground against claim 1 is the full-value play; there is no fallback independent claim for the Patent Owner to amend into. The dependent claims 12–17 recite narrow, machine-specific operational flows (tailings/concave width, sieve opening width, cleaning-fan speed), so if claim 1 survives, expect the Patent Owner to lean hard on those specifics.
• First action item: verify legal status in USPTO PatentCenter. An "Expired - Fee Related" determination resolves the matter entirely; the PTAB question is only live if the patent is in force.
• If no PTAB activity is what you were hoping to leverage for credibility: say so plainly — the absence is itself a signal, but here inverted from the usual reading. Well-asserted commercial patents in the agricultural-equipment space (this one is assigned to Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH, a major OEM) eventually attract IPRs when they are asserted against competitors. The fact that this one has not suggests either that it has never been asserted in a campaign, or that it has already lapsed. Both are good news for a defendant, for different reasons.

Confidence and limitations: I am highly confident there are no indexed AIA proceedings on US 8,428,830 as of the ODP ingest date, and my searches found none. I cannot rule out a very recently filed petition that has not yet been indexed; a direct check of the PTAB E2E docket (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and the USPTO PatentCenter "Legal Events" tab would close that gap. I found no Federal Circuit appeal and no district court assertion of this patent; that finding is based on targeted searches only and should not be treated as an exhaustive litigation-clearance search.

I'll check the live assignment records and related sources before reconstructing the chain.

I ran targeted searches against the assignment record, forward citations, asserter directories, and litigation/PTAB sources. Here is the reconstruction. One process note up front: the Google Patents legal‑events table (mirroring USPTO assignment data) is the only assignment source I was able to retrieve in full; I could not complete a direct interactive query of the USPTO Assignment Center, so the correspondent of record field is a data gap, not a "none found." I say so explicitly rather than guessing.

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Inventors

Unusual patterns: None detected. The rubric asks specifically about all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing as a fire‑sale precursor. Here the opposite is true: both inventors executed assignments to their employer before the U.S. filing date (2008‑09‑23), and both continued appearing as Claas inventors on later Claas filings. No departure signal.

Caveat: employer attribution is an inference from the assignment instrument plus continuity of the inventors' names on later Claas filings — not from an employment record. Treat as high confidence but inferential.

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Original assignee

Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH — the entity named as assignee on both the pre‑grant publication (US 2009/0088932 A1) and the issued patent (US 8,428,830 B2), and the assignee named on the only recorded assignment.

• Primary line of business: Manufacture of self‑propelled agricultural harvesting machinery — combine harvesters, forage harvesters, balers, tractors. Claas is part of the CLAAS group (CLAAS KGaA mbH, Harsewinkel, Germany), a family‑controlled agricultural machinery group and one of the world's largest combine harvester manufacturers.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? The claimed subject matter is a control/display architecture (expected‑change display driving operator setting of working assemblies) for a combine harvester, illustrated in the patent on the Claas machine of FIG. 1. Claas is an operating OEM that builds and sells the machine class recited in claims 1 and 12–17. I have no direct evidence (product literature, manual, teardown) tying the specific predicted‑effect display of claim 1 to an identified shipped model, so I mark this unconfirmed rather than asserting it.
• Current status: Operating. Claas remains an active manufacturer; the IP Verse/opposition data I retrieved shows Claas entities actively filing and defending EPO oppositions and holding PTAB‑relevant portfolios well past 2020 (e.g., Claas‑side oppositions dated 2018–2025, 65 oppositions faced across the group). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition event surfaced.

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Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments located: exactly one (plus the filing itself).

• 2008‑09‑17 to 2008‑09‑22 (executed; two signing dates, one per inventor) / recorded 2008‑10‑24 — Reel 021732/0997

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of assignors' interest)
  • Assignor: Norbert Diekhans and Lars Peter Meyer zu Helligen (each individually)
  • Assignee: Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH, Germany
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the sources retrieved. The Google Patents / USPTO legal‑events abstract reproduces the reel/frame and free‑format assignment text but not the correspondent block. The correspondent is visible on the recorded document image itself (reel 021732, frame 0997) and in the application's attorney/agent of record in PEDS/Patent Center. Flagging as an open data gap — this is the one field that would let me run the "repeat correspondent" test rigorously.
  • Context: Internal/employee invention assignment — founders' assignment to the applicant employer, standard practice, executed before the U.S. filing date. Not an acquisition, not a fire‑sale, not a transfer to an asserter.

• 2008‑09‑23 — U.S. application 12/236,195 filed by Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH (not an assignment; recorded as the originating event).

• 2009‑04‑02 — US 2009/0088932 A1 published.

• 2013‑04‑23 — US 8,428,830 B2 granted.

• Current record owner: Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH — no subsequent assignment, security agreement, merger, change of name, or release is recorded against this patent in the sources I retrieved.

Beyond the 2008 recorded assignment, the only post‑grant entries are statutory/administrative legal events, not conveyances: grant (2013‑04‑23) and status change to "Expired – Fee Related" (adjusted expiration as printed: 2032‑02‑22).

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy USPTO Assignment Search (patent number query): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search
• Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8428830/en

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8428830
    2007 : German priority DE 10 2007 046 678.3
    2008 : Inventors assign to Claas
         : US application 12/236195 filed
         : Assignment recorded reel 021732 frame 0997
    2009 : US 2009 0088932 A1 published
    2013 : US 8428830 B2 granted
    2026 : Still held by Claas Selbstfahrende

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only recorded conveyance is reel 021732/0997 (recorded 2008‑10‑24), and it moves the patent from two natural‑person employee inventors to the operating OEM applicant. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" successor appears anywhere in the chain. There is no post‑issuance LLC assignment to analyze.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither assignor nor assignee matches any entity on the comparison list (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). The chain begins and ends at Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH, a German family‑controlled manufacturer. Targeted searches pairing "8,428,830" with RPX and Unified Patents returned only generic case law about those organizations' own real‑party‑in‑interest disputes (Unified Patents, RPX v. Applications In Internet Time) — none of which names this patent.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not assessable. There is only one recorded assignment, and its correspondent field was not retrievable from the indexed sources. A single appearance could not establish "recurrence" even if I had the name, and I have no second link to compare against. This is a data gap, not a negative finding — the correspondent on reel 021732/0997 should be pulled from the document image to close it out.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One assignment in ~17 years. Zero chained LLCs, zero shared addresses, zero sub‑24‑month sequencing.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was identified (consistent with the earlier litigation section). There is therefore no pre‑suit 6‑month assignment window to test. The single assignment predates the 2013 grant by ~5 years.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Claas entity bankruptcy or Chapter 7/11 proceeding surfaced; Claas is an ongoing operating group. The only faint echo of value‑shedding is the "Expired – Fee Related" status — see the caveat below — but that is an ordinary portfolio‑pruning lapse by an operating company, not an insolvency sale.

7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer from Claas to any entity that then asserted against competitors. Claas's own adversarial activity runs in the opposite direction: the IP Verse data shows Claas filing EPO oppositions against third parties (Kuhn Gelderop 2025‑10‑29; CNH Industrial Belgium 2019‑01‑11 and 2019‑05‑07; Maschinenfabrik Kemper 2018‑03‑09). That is a practicing OEM fighting over its own market, not a patent monetization program.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent was never transferred to any defensive aggregator; it simply remained with Claas.

No NPE signal is satisfied — not one, weak or strong.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — specifically, only the original assignment, which is the outcome the rubric defines as insufficient for an NPE classification.

Justification: The entire ownership record is a single conveyance — reel 021732/0997, executed 2008‑09‑17 to 2008‑09‑22 and recorded 2008‑10‑24 — moving the invention from inventors Diekhans and Meyer zu Helligen to their employer, Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH, in a standard pre‑filing employee assignment. No shell‑entity transfer, no asserter, no cascading LLC chain, no litigation, and no defensive‑aggregator terminal exists on this record, and Claas remains an operating OEM. A patent that never leaves its original manufacturer is the textbook non‑NPE profile; I am labeling it "insufficient data" only because the rubric reserves the "operating‑company assertion" verdict for a current assignee who is suing actual competitors, and no such suit was found.

Caveats and open items (stated rather than papered over):

• Correspondent is unknown, not absent. This is the single most valuable missing field for the task as scoped. Pull reel 021732/0997 document image from the Assignment Center to complete signal 3.
• "Expired – Fee Related" vs. "adjusted expiration 2032‑02‑22" is internally inconsistent as printed, and I am not correcting it. A 2008‑09‑23 U.S. filing has a nominal 20‑year term ending 2028‑09‑23; the 2032‑02‑22 date printed on the Google Patents record cannot be reconciled from the documents in front of me (it is consistent with either a statutory term adjustment or an indexer computation artifact — I cannot tell which). Likewise, "Expired – Fee Related" before a nominal 2028 term implies a maintenance‑fee lapse, but which fee window lapsed is not determinable from the retrieved record. Per the literal‑interpretation rule, both figures are reported as printed.
• Cross‑reference flag against the prior section. The earlier-generated claim summary places "in the form of a trend of expected effects" in claim 1 and "evaluated manner" in claim 2, matching the authoritative full text supplied. The pre‑grant publication as indexed elsewhere (US 2009/0088932 A1) numbers those limitations differently (trend in claim 1, evaluated in claim 3, memory unit in claim 4). This is a publication‑vs‑grant claim‑numbering discrepancy and does not alter any ownership finding, but it matters if anyone later asserts specific claim numbers.
• No litigation, PTAB, or ITC proceeding involving US 8,428,830 was identified, consistent with the earlier litigation section. Ownership analysis is unaffected.

I'll verify the patent record and each cited reference against live sources before mapping them to the claims.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,428,830 B2 ("Agricultural working vehicle")

Verification status: I re-confirmed the patent record and retrieved full or partial text for the keystone citations (US 6,863,604; US 6,205,384; US 6,726,559; EP 1 297 733 A1; US 5,995,895; US 7,266,415) before writing. I hit my search-step limit partway through, so the remaining citations are characterized from their face-of-record titles/dates plus the authoritative full text you supplied. This is flagged per-reference and again in §H. I have not auto-corrected any patent number, date, or name.

Cross-reference: This builds on the earlier claim-mapping, litigation, PTAB, ownership, and § 103 sections and does not repeat them. Where relevant I flag the pre-grant-vs-grant claim-numbering discrepancy already noted.

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A. The threshold point on § 102 vs. § 103

The task asks which claim(s) each citation "potentially anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102." I have to be blunt about a structural problem with that framing, because it changes the answer:

Claim 1 is the only independent claim. Under pre-AIA § 102 (this patent's filing is 2008-09-23, so pre-AIA governs), a dependent claim is anticipated only if the reference discloses every limitation of claim 1 plus the dependent claim's added limitation. So there can be no § 102 anticipation of claims 2–17 unless some single reference also anticipates claim 1.

No cited reference anticipates claim 1, because claim 1's final clause requires the display "in the form of a trend of expected effects" — a prediction shown before the effect is sensed. Every one of the twelve citations operates on recorded/actual work results, stored parameter sets, or operator-satisfaction input. The applicant expressly distinguished EP 1 297 733 A1 on exactly this point (sensor lag). Accordingly:

• § 102 status of the whole set: no anticipation of any claim. The citations are § 103 (obviousness) references, and the examiner's use of them was as such.
• Below I nonetheless identify, for each reference, the claim(s) it most closely reads on and where a § 102 argument would be attempted, with an explicit "anticipation viable? no" tag. Where a single reference nearly meets a dependent limitation on its own (e.g., US 6,726,559's "relative importance" vs. claim 11), I say so — but it still fails for want of claim 1.

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B. The citation set as printed on US 8,428,830

Two overlapping tables appear on the record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8428830/en):

• "Citations" table — 11 entries (this is the examiner-cited set carried into the front page).
• "Patent Citations" table — 12 entries, identical except it adds US 6,863,604 B2.

I analyze the 12-entry set (superset). Separately, the record lists 8 "Family Cites Families" references, addressed briefly in §D.

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C. Reference-by-reference analysis

C1. US 5,712,782 A

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 5,712,782, Method of optimizing utilization of a group of agricultural machine — Claas KGaA.
• Priority / publication: priority 1995-04-15; granted/published 1998-01-27.
• Statutory category: pre-AIA § 102(b) (issued >1 yr before 2007-09-27).
• Brief description: Optimization of utilization across a group of agricultural machines (fleet-level operating-parameter optimization). Not a display/trend-prediction reference.
• Claims it could be urged against: structurally, only claim 1's "plurality of working assemblies … control unit … memory unit" environment. Anticipation viable? No — no expected-change display, no trend. § 103 weight only, and weak.
• Verification: title/date from the record table; I did not retrieve full text.

C2. US 5,995,895 A

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 5,995,895, Control of vehicular systems in response to anticipated conditions predicted using predetermined geo-referenced maps — Case Corporation.
• Priority / publication: priority 1997-07-15; granted 1999-11-30.
• Statutory category: § 102(b).
• Brief description: A control circuit that predicts an anticipated condition and generates a control signal based on it; it then compares an actual condition to an earlier-predicted condition and uses the comparison to calibrate further predictions. Discloses crop-processor settings including concave clearance, sieve openings, and cleaning-fan speed.
• Claims it most closely reads on: this is the strongest single reference for the predict-before-you-act concept behind claim 1 and for claim 4 (self-correcting/expanding data), and it recites the very actuators of claims 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (concave clearance, sieve openings, cleaning-fan speed).
• Anticipation viable? No for any claim — it is a vehicular control system keyed to geo-referenced maps; it does not disclose an operator-influenced setting-parameter change being answered by a displayed expected-change trend, nor the "display unit" element. § 103 weight: high.

C3. US 6,205,384 B1

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 6,205,384 B1, System for setting operating parameters of a harvesting machine — Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / publication: priority 1998-01-07; granted 2001-03-20. Inventor: Diekhans, Norbert (the same inventor as US 8,428,830).
• Statutory category: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Stores base configuration sets of machine parameters on a CAN-linked storage means (EPROM/EEPROM/chip card), selectable by external harvesting condition and target standard (Z₁ = minimum losses; Z₂ = high throughput; Z₃ = compromise), and displayed on a monitor with a prompt ("Soll die Erntemaschine mit diesen Maschinenparametern eingestellt werden?"). The table is expandable beyond the base sets; multiple optimum sets can be stored for the same condition/standard.
• Claims it most closely reads on: supplies the memory unit storing "setting parameters … along with their influence on the function and/or working result" (claim 3), the expandable store of deviating settings (claim 4), the "selection" by target standard/working result (claim 10), and the monitor/display element. It also displays stored settings that would produce a better result (claim 9).
• Anticipation viable? No — the display shows stored/retrieved parameter sets, not an expected change in function/working result responsive to the operator's own setting input. § 103 weight: very high (same assignee, same inventor).

C4. EP 1 297 733 A1

• Full citation / title: EP 1 297 733 A1, Method and device for determining the adjustment of a harvester — CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / filing / publication: priority 2001-09-27 (DE 101 47 733.3 / DE10147733); EP filing 2002-09-10; published 2003-04-02; granted 2008-02-13 (B1), amended B2 2011-08-24; lapsed. Inventor: Behnke, Willi.
• Statutory category: § 102(a)/(b).
• Brief description: The reference the applicant expressly distinguished in the specification of US 8,428,830. It teaches varying one setting parameter while holding conditions constant, recording a first stable work result, varying to a second setting, recording a second stable work result, comparing the two, and selecting the better setting. Requires a near-constant crop throughput and a time delay for the stable result.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the store-and-compare core of claim 3 ("setting parameters … along with their influence on the … working result … compared with current setting parameters"), and the record/select logic underlying claim 9. Its device includes a display/monitor of settings and results (see supporting text).
• Anticipation viable? No — and affirmatively addressed in prosecution. The very limitation the applicant added, "in the form of a trend of expected effects," was added to escape this reference. This is therefore the most relevant citation but the weakest § 102 candidate, because the applicant already carried the day over it.

C5. US 6,863,604 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 6,863,604 B2, Method and apparatus for determining optimal adjustments of work units in an agricultural harvesting machine — Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / filing / publication: priority 2001-09-27 (DE 101 47 733.3); U.S. filed 2002-09-26 (Appl. 10/255,870); granted 2005-03-08. Inventor: Behnke, Willi.
• Statutory category: § 102(b).
• Brief description: U.S. counterpart of EP 1 297 733 A1 (same inventor, same DE priority). Claims a method of adjusting a set parameter to a first setting, recording a first stable work result, adjusting to a second setting, recording a second stable work result, comparing, and selecting; and, in claim 25, recording settings/work-results in electronic memory and displaying them on a user interface with upper/lower tolerance limits. Dependent claims 16–19 expressly name the threshing concave / concave width, threshing cylinder speed, cleaning sieve / mesh size, and cleaning fan speed as the work units — the exact actuators of claims 12–17 of US 8,428,830. In re US 6,726,559 it is cited, and it is itself cited by later Claas cases.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the memory-compare-display architecture underpinning claim 3; the displayed tolerance limits support the "evaluated manner" of claim 2; and its claims 16–19 map the work-unit/setting-parameter pairs recited in claims 12–17.
• Anticipation viable? No — like EP 1 297 733 it is directed to recorded, stable (actual) work results after a time delay, not to a predicted expected change. § 103 weight: very high; the principal reference.
• Verification: full text retrieved from USPTO/Google/Justia mirrors; claim 25 and claims 16–19 quoted from the printed patent.

C6. US 6,726,559 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 6,726,559 B2, Harvester with control system considering operator feedback — Deere & Company.
• Priority / filing / publication: priority (U.S.) 2002-05-14 (Appl. 10/144,960); granted 2004-04-27; pre-grant publ. US 2003/0216158 A1; 17 claims. Inventor: Bischoff, Lutz.
• Statutory category: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Uses operator-satisfaction feedback (satisfied/dissatisfied levels) as an input to control actuators. Critically: "The controller considers the operator input and uses known influences, trends and/or relationships between the quality parameters of the harvesting process and necessary alterations to the actuator operating parameters. The influence, impact or trend of alterations to the parameters upon the quality parameters is known in the art and used by the controller." Also: the operator "can define a relative importance of these parameters," and the control "does not rely only on sensors … It would even be possible to dispense with some or all of the sensors."
• Claims it most closely reads on: it is the single closest textual match to claim 1's "trend of expected effects" — the word "trend" is express prior-art language — and to claim 11's "weighted manner" ("relative importance"), plus the evaluated satisfied/dissatisfied dichotomy of claim 2 and the algorithm/model of claim 5.
• Anticipation viable? No, narrowly — it predicts trends internally for control purposes; it does not disclose the claim-1 element of a display unit configured to depict the expected change. This is the one reference where a § 102 argument against claim 1 would even be arguable, and it still fails on the "depicted in said display unit" limitation. § 103 weight: very high; it supplies the distinguishing limitation.
• Verification: specification language quoted verbatim from the Google Patents full text; bibliographic data confirmed via the USPTO Official Gazette record.

C7. US 7,266,415 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 7,266,415 B2, Method of and apparatus for operating working machines — CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / publication: priority 2003-08-08; granted 2007-09-04.
• Statutory category: § 102(b)/§ 102(e) (filed 2003, before 2007-09-27).
• Brief description: A natural-language-operating control generator with a control editor and "when-then" controls that, for the inexperienced operator, outputs the operational parameter to be changed and the value region of that parameter; outputs indicated visually and/or acoustically; the generated controls are exchangeable between machines and can be located centrally and accessed by many machines.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the operator-support/displayed-adjustment concept and the central/remote selection aspect mentioned in claim 10's "selection … made externally" disclosure (spec language), plus remotely-transferred "controls."
• Anticipation viable? No — it outputs a parameter to change and its value range, i.e., a recommendation, not a depicted expected change/trend of effects responsive to operator influence. § 103 weight: moderate.
• Verification: representative text retrieved from FreePatentsOnline; dates from the record table.

C8. US 7,366,233 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 7,366,233 B2, Method and apparatus for ascertaining the quantity of a crop harvested in a combine — Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / publication: priority 2003-09-19; granted 2008-04-22.
• Statutory category: § 102(e) (filed 2003) / § 102(b).
• Brief description: Crop-quantity (yield) measurement/ascertainment in a combine — i.e., a sensor/measurement reference, providing the "crop-quantity" and "yield" measurement substrate the patent's own spec relies on.
• Claims it most closely reads on: only peripheral elements — the "working assembly"/measuring-system backdrop. Anticipation viable? No. § 103 weight: low (background).
• Verification: title/date from record; full text not retrieved.

C9. US 7,337,023 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 7,337,023 B2, Scalable functionality windows in a display unit — Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / publication: priority 2004-09-30; granted 2008-02-26.
• Statutory category: § 102(e) (filed 2004) / § 102(b).
• Brief description: A display/HMI reference from the same assignee. Discloses a display unit showing machine/crop parameters in functionality windows, with background-color change, threshold-driven automatic opening/closing/zooming of windows, and grouping/selection of windows.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the display-unit environment and the display-refinement dependents — claim 6 (windows/symbols), claim 7 (differing color/size), claim 8 (transient display on threshold), and claim 10 (selection of which items to display).
• Anticipation viable? No — it is a windowing/HMI disclosure; it shows parameter values, not a predicted trend of effects of a setting change. § 103 weight: moderate–high for claims 6–8 and 10.
• Verification: title/date from record; full text not retrieved (characterization based on title and the record's description of the window/color/threshold features as used in the earlier section).

C10. US 7,415,340 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 7,415,340 B2, Method of and device for operating working machines — Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / publication: priority 2003-07-02; granted 2008-08-19.
• Statutory category: § 102(e) (filed 2003) / § 102(b).
• Brief description: Operating-method/device for working machines in the same Claas "operator-support" line of development as US 7,266,415; concerned with assisting the operator in adjusting operating parameters.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the operator-assistance environment; possibly the "evaluated" presentation of claim 2.
• Anticipation viable? No. § 103 weight: moderate (same-family context).
• Verification: title/date from record; full text not retrieved.

C11. US 7,540,129 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 7,540,129 B2, Adjustment assembly for a harvesting machine — Deere & Company.
• Priority / publication: priority 2004-08-07; granted 2009-06-02.
• Statutory category: pre-AIA § 102(e) (U.S. filing in 2004/2005 — before the 2007-09-27 priority — is the operative date, notwithstanding the 2009 grant date).
• Brief description: A hardware adjustment assembly for a harvesting machine (mechanical/actuator-side), not a display or prediction reference.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the "working assemblies" and "setting parameters" environment only. Anticipation viable? No. § 103 weight: low.
• Verification: title/date from record; full text not retrieved. Note the § 102(e) date logic is my characterization and worth confirming against the application's actual U.S. filing date.

C12. US 7,630,809 B2

• Full citation / title: U.S. Patent No. 7,630,809 B2, Method for controlling a harvesting machine — Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH.
• Priority / publication: priority 2005-06-06; granted 2009-12-08.
• Statutory category: pre-AIA § 102(e) (filed 2005/2006, before 2007-09-27).
• Brief description: Harvester control method; per the record it recognizes that "even inexperienced operators learn relatively quickly whether, when and to what extent the varied control parameter affects the operating result" — i.e., it frames the same operator-difficulty problem the patent addresses.
• Claims it most closely reads on: the "operator adjusts a setting parameter and learns its effect" loop underlying claims 1/12–17. Anticipation viable? No — it uses the observed (post-hoc) learn-loop, not a pre-emptive displayed prediction. § 103 weight: moderate (motivation/context).
• Verification: title/date from record; the quoted phrase is as it appears in the record/disclosure; full text not independently retrieved.

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D. Family-citation references (8) — brief

These appear in the record's "Family Cites Families" table (i.e., art cited against sibling family members), not the examiner's "Patent Citations" list, and are secondary:

None of these is a § 102 reference against claim 1; the most relevant to the dependent species claims are DE 198 07 145 C2 (cleaning-device auto-adjustment) and US 6,681,551 B1 (programmable function control).

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E. Summary table — citation → claims most closely read → § 102 viable?

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F. Most relevant prior art (ranked)

1. US 6,726,559 B2 (Deere, Bischoff, 2004-04-27) — the single most relevant reference because it contains the express prior-art word "trend" and the "known influences, trends and/or relationships" teaching, plus "relative importance" (claim 11) and satisfied/dissatisfied levels (claim 2). It is the reference that supplies claim 1's distinguishing limitation.
2. US 6,863,604 B2 (Claas, Behnke, 2005-03-08) / EP 1 297 733 A1 (2003-04-02) — the store-settings-with-their-work-result and display/compare architecture (claim 3, and the work-unit pairings of claims 12–17). Same U.S. and EP family.
3. US 6,205,384 B1 (Claas, Diekhans, 2001-03-20) — the configurable, expandable parameter database with monitor display (claims 3, 4, 9, 10); same inventor as the patent.
4. US 5,995,895 A (Case, 1999-11-30) — predictive control ahead of observation, self-calibrating (claim 4), and expressly naming concave clearance / sieve openings / cleaning-fan speed (claims 12–17).
5. US 7,337,023 B2 (Claas, 2008-02-26) — display refinements (claims 6–8, 10).

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G. Bottom line on § 102

• No reference on the face of US 8,428,830 anticipates any of claims 1–17 under § 102. Claim 1's "trend of expected effects" clause, added to overcome EP 1 297 733 A1, is a prediction-display limitation that none of the twelve citations discloses in a display unit responsive to the operator's setting influence.
• The closest single reference is US 6,726,559, which uses the exact term "trend" but does so internally for control and does not recite the claimed display element; its anticipation case is weak and would likely fail.
• The twelve citations are best characterized as § 103 art. The strongest combination remains US 6,863,604 + US 6,205,384 + US 6,726,559 (with US 5,995,895 and US 7,337,023 as secondary), consistent with the earlier § 103 section — which I do not repeat here.

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H. Confidence and limitations (stated, not papered over)

• Verified full text: US 6,863,604, US 6,205,384, US 6,726,559, EP 1 297 733 A1, US 5,995,895 (record table), US 7,266,415.
• Not independently retrieved (characterized from title/date and the record): US 5,712,782, US 7,366,233, US 7,337,023, US 7,415,340, US 7,540,129, US 7,630,809, and all eight family citations. My conclusions do not depend on these; the § 102 and ranking conclusions rest on the verified references.
• My search step limit cut off before I could confirm the remaining full texts and the § 102(e) U.S. filing dates of US 7,540,129 and US 7,630,809; the "(e)" designations above are reasoned from priority dates and should be confirmed against their actual U.S. filing dates.
• Pre-AIA governs (filed 2008-09-23), which is why I used § 102(a)/(b) and pre-AIA § 102(e) rather than AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2). Cross-reference the earlier § 103 section, which used the same framework.
• Claim-numbering discrepancy: the earlier sections note that pre-grant publication US 2009/0088932 A1 numbers the limitations differently than the granted patent. My per-claim mappings above use the granted claim numbers (claim 1 independent; 2–11 and 12–17 dependent), per the authoritative full text.
• Printed-numeral inconsistencies in the specification (e.g., "upper sieve 11 / lower sieve 12"; "upper and lower-sieve loss measuring devices 12, 26") are preserved as printed and affect § 112 support for the species claims, not the § 102 citations.
• Status caveat: the record shows US 8,428,830 as "Expired – Fee Related" yet also lists an adjusted expiration of 2032-02-22. If the fee lapse is confirmed in USPTO PatentCenter, the § 102/§ 103 analysis is academic. The tension between those two data points was flagged earlier and I do not resolve it here.

I'll ground a few key points with live verification before building the § 103 analysis on top of the prior-art section already generated.

Excellent — the searches surfaced a critical admission in the patent's own European family member. Let me verify that reference and hunt for its US counterpart.

Two more verifications — the US counterpart of EP 0 586 999 and the EP publication date.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,428,830 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on how this section relates to the prior work. The Prior Art section above established the 12-reference citation record and concluded that "no cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–17" and that "where the real invalidity risk lies is § 103." This section accepts those findings but materially expands the universe of art: my live searches this session surfaced a reference that is not on the face of US 8,428,830 and not discussed in its US specification, yet which the patent's own European family member expressly identifies as the closest prior art to claim 1's core concept. That reference changes the § 103 picture substantially, and I flag it as a correction/expansion of the prior section's ranking rather than a contradiction of it (the prior section's ranking was expressly limited to the documents of record).

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1. Governing law

US 8,428,830 was filed 2008-09-23 with a 2007-09-27 DE priority date. It is therefore governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), under which a claim is obvious if "the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art."

The controlling framework is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) — scope and content of the prior art, differences between the prior art and the claims, level of ordinary skill, and secondary considerations — as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), which governs here because KSR issued before this patent granted (2013-04-23) and its reasoning applies:

• No teaching, suggestion, or motivation requirement. "[I]t can be important to identify a reason that would have prompted a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field to combine the elements in the way the claimed new invention does" — but the reason may be "the mere known effect of the combination," a "design need or market pressure," or "common sense" (KSR, 550 U.S. at 418–21).
• Predictable variation. "When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it… If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability" (id. at 417).
• "Obvious to try." Where there are "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions," § 103 bars the claim (id. at 421).
• Combination of known elements. "A combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results" (id. at 416).
• Improvement of a prior-art device. "[A] patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known… But a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" (id.).

Anticipation vs. obviousness posture. Anticipation of apparatus claim 1 requires a single reference disclosing every element arranged as claimed. Given the residual ambiguity in the single reference I discuss in § 4 (turn on whether its graphical user interface depicts a predicted rather than a measured effect), I frame that reference primarily as § 103 art with a colorable § 102 argument to be resolved only on inspection of its drawing sheets.

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2. The person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

The POSITA as of 2007-09-27 is a controls/software engineer with a mechanical-agricultural engineering background — a B.S. in agricultural, mechanical, or electrical engineering plus 2–3 years' experience with self-propelled harvester control systems, or equivalent. The record supports this level:

• The art is replete with OEM in-house engineers of exactly this profile. US 6,205,384 (Claas) names Norbert Diekhans — the same inventor as the patent under review — as sole inventor; US 6,726,559 names Lutz Bischoff (Deere). The POSITA is the inventor's peer, which matters for § 103: this is a small, highly concentrated field with a handful of players (Claas, Deere, CNH, Case) who routinely cite one another, and the same engineers appear repeatedly across the citation record.
• The subject matter — operator displays, parameter-setting memory, sensor feedback, and neural-network/hybrid control — is a predictable, well-developed engineering domain, not an unpredictable one (contrast In re Fisher / biotech-type non-obviousness). This weighs heavily in favor of obviousness.
• Critically, the field is per se combinable: the claimed invention is a control/display architecture, and both the display element and the control element were independently mature.

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3. The claimed invention as a whole

The essence of claim 1, reduced to its functional core, is: a known harvester with a known control unit, a known memory, and a known display, wherein the display shows a predicted ("expected") change in function/working result as a trend driven by the operator's own parameter input.

Two things must be said about this core, both of which are fatal to non-obviousness arguments:

(a) The problem itself was known and admitted. The 8,428,830 specification (Background) identifies the precise problem and its cause with unusual clarity:

"The disadvantage of the known method is that, due to the time delay between the particular start of the harvesting operation and the sensor-supported registration of the working result that is attained, a great deal of time is required to optimize the setting parameters."

Under KSR, "the improvement is the identification of a source of a known problem in a prior art device" — but identifying the source does not itself confer patentability when the solution is the predictable one. Here the patent solves sensor lag by displaying the prediction instead of waiting for the measurement. That is the most natural, predictable engineering response available.

(b) The specification concedes the underlying cause-and-effect relationships are known. The disclosure itself recites the machine physics as common knowledge:

"When… the operator determines or reads in the display that the quantity of tailings is very high, he will reduce, e.g., the concave width… in order to obtain a more aggressive threshing process and, therefore, to increase the quantity of threshed-out crop grains… If the concave width is set too small, this necessarily results in an increase in the quantity of damaged grain."

That admission is directly destructive to claims 12–17, which do no more than wrap those conceded relationships in the claim-1 display.

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4. The critical reference the record omitted: EP 0 586 999 (Deere) and its US/AU counterparts

This is the single most important finding of this section.

What the reference is

Why this reference is devastating — the patent's own family says so

The European counterpart of the patent under review, EP 2 042 019 B1, states in its background (paragraph [0004], German original, my translation):

*"From EP 0 586 999 A1 a combine harvester according to the preamble of claim 1 is known. Therein a control system for a combine harvester is described which, using a neural network for setting the individual working assemblies, monitors and controls these. The control system comprises a display unit on which changes in working results of a working assembly as a consequence of the change of a working parameter are displayed."*

Read that against claim 1: "an expected change in a function and/or a working result of individual working assemblies … is depicted in said display unit in a manner that depends on how an operator influences individual setting parameters." The patentee's own foreign prosecution characterized the prior art as disclosing exactly that element. The only disadvantage the patentee pleaded was that neural networks are "complex to implement and expensive" ([0004]: "mit Blick auf ihre Komplexität in der Umsetzung aufwendig und kostenintensiv"). That is a cost/complexity objection, not a technical teaching away — and a cost objection is the paradigm of a non-patentable improvement under KSR.

Two independent third-party corroborations of the same characterization exist in the record:

• DE 10 2014 216 593 A1 (Deere, published 2016-02-25), paragraph [0009]: "Die Bedienerassistenzsysteme nach EP 2 042 019 A2 und EP 0 586 999 A2 überlassen es dem Bediener, unterschiedliche Einstellungen des Betriebsparameters einzugeben und zeigen eine erwartete Tendenz bzw. ein zu erwartendes Ergebnis an." — "The operator assistance systems according to EP 2 042 019 A2 and EP 0 586 999 A2 leave it to the operator to input different settings of the operating parameter and display an expected trend or an expected result." A Deere engineer thus placed EP 0 586 999 and the patent's own EP family member in the same box: both display an "expected trend."
• US 6,726,559's background (US 2003/0216158 A1, [0006]) describes the same EP 0 586 999 system: "The controller comprises an operator interface allowing the operator to input the relative importance of a number of criteria, as grain loss, completeness of threshing, grain damage and dockage. According to the operator-defined relative importance of the criteria and to sensor inputs, the neural network determines the adjustment of the combine working parameters."

The procedural kicker

EP 0 586 999's AU family member (AU 658 066 B2) is listed in the "Family Cites Families" block of the US 8,428,830 record — i.e., it was in the priority application's family IDS. Yet the reference does not appear in the "Patent Citations (12)" list on the US face, and US 5,586,033 does not appear there either. The most on-point document in the entire field appears to have never been before the US examiner. For a challenger, this is dispositive of any § 325(d) "already considered by the Office" defense — there is nothing to defer to.

Element-by-element mapping of EP 0 586 999 / US 5,586,033 to claim 1

Conclusion on claim 1: EP 0 586 999 / US 5,586,033 is at minimum the strongest § 103 reference on claim 1 and is a serious § 102 candidate. The only element requiring inspection of the drawing sheets is whether FIGs. 4a–4c depict a trend/expected-effect visualization rather than bare setpoint output.

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5. Ground-by-ground § 103 combinations and the motivation to combine

Below, each Ground states (i) the combination, (ii) the claims targeted, (iii) the specific KSR-recognized motivation, and (iv) the rebuttal the patent owner will attempt.

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GROUND 1 — The core claim-1 ground

Combination: EP 0 586 999 A2 (or its US counterpart US 5,586,033) alone, or alternatively in view of US 6,205,384 B1 (Claas/Diekhans).

Targets: Claim 1 (and, with Ground 1A, claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Why the combination is motivated (multiple independent KSR rationales):

1. Simple substitution of a known element for a known element performing the same function. The 8,428,830 patent explicitly presents the memory-lookup (claim 3) and the stored-algorithm (claim 5) implementations as alternatives. EP 0 586 999's neural network is "at least one algorithm … that calculates an expected change" (claim 5 verbatim). US 6,205,384 supplies the lookup-table variant. Swapping a trained NN for a stored parameter/result table is a routine design choice with a known tradeoff (cost/complexity vs. adaptability) — precisely the tradeoff the patentee itself pleaded.
2. "Obvious to try" over a finite set. Given a known display of parameter-change effects, the POSITA had a finite, identified, predictable menu of ways to generate the displayed effect: (a) trained NN (EP 0 586 999), (b) stored lookup/characteristic curves (US 5,712,782, US 6,205,384), (c) rule-based natural-language generator (US 7,266,415), (d) known trend relations (US 6,726,559). KSR at 421.
3. Design need / market pressure. The patent's own background supplies it verbatim: the prior art "requires a great deal of skill on the part of the operator and also takes a great deal of time"; the stated object is "even an untrained operator may optimize the setting parameters … rapidly and reliably." Eliminating sensor latency by displaying the prediction is the direct, predictable answer.
4. Predictable result. A display that shows a predicted consequence rather than a measured one yields no more than the expected benefit (faster operator response). No unexpected result is asserted anywhere in the specification.

Patent-owner rebuttal (and why it fails):

• "EP 0 586 999 uses a neural network; we claim the display, not the network." — The patent's EP family member itself located the novelty over EP 0 586 999's display ([0004] → [0006]), and pleaded only NN cost. The patentee is bound by its own characterization of the art's disclosure.
• "The reference does not show a 'trend.'" — DE 10 2014 216 593 A1 [0009] states that EP 0 586 999 A2 "zeigt eine erwartete Tendenz." Even if the term "trend" is not literally used in 1994, § 103 does not require verbatim disclosure; the patentee's addition of "trend of expected effects" is a characterization of the same predictive display, not a new structure.

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GROUND 1A — Pictograms, evaluation, temporal display, algorithm storage

Combination: EP 0 586 999 / US 5,586,033 + US 7,337,023 B2 (Claas, "Scalable functionality windows in a display unit," filed 2004-09-30 → § 102(e) art) + US 6,726,559 B2 (Deere/Bischoff).

Targets: claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 8.

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GROUND 2 — The lookup-table/database claims

Combination: US 6,205,384 B1 (Claas/Diekhans) + EP 0 586 999 A2 / US 5,586,033 (or + US 7,337,023).

Targets: claims 3 and 4.

• Claim 3 — "a large number of setting parameters … stored in a recallable manner … along with their influence on the function and/or working result … compared with current setting parameters influenced by an operator." US 6,205,384 discloses a configuration table (FIG. 3) of machine parameters — blower speed, sieve widths, drum speed — indexed by external harvesting conditions and a target standard, recallable from EPROM/EEPROM/chip card. That is the storage side of claim 3 in haec verba. What US 6,205,384 lacks is the expected-change display — supplied by EP 0 586 999.
• Claim 4 — "setting parameters … that deviate … are stored … in a recallable manner." US 6,205,384 discloses that the table can be expanded by further configuration sets and that the operator may store "his optimum setting."
• Motivation: Both references are Claas/Deere harvester control systems addressing the identical problem (matching machine settings to harvest conditions), a classic KSR "same field, same problem, known techniques" combination. Further, the '830 claim 3 is a dependent claim adding only a data source, and the patent's own claim 5 offers the algorithm as an express alternative — demonstrating that the patentee regarded memory-table and algorithm implementations as interchangeable.
• ⚠️ Note for the patent owner: US 6,205,384 shares inventor Norbert Diekhans with the patent. That does not remove it as § 102(a)/(b)/(e) art and does not immunize the combination; if anything, it establishes that the same engineer had already implemented the storage half five years before filing.

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GROUND 3 — The "record-and-compare" reference combined with predictive-display art

Combination: EP 1 297 733 A1 / US 6,863,604 B2 (Claas/Behnke) + US 6,726,559 B2 (Deere/Bischoff), optionally + US 7,337,023 B2.

Targets: claims 1, 2, 5, 6.

The prior section correctly identified US 6,726,559 as "the closest single reference on the merits of claim 1's predictive idea," because its specification recites that the controller:

"uses known influences, trends and/or relationships between the quality parameters of the harvesting process and necessary alterations to the actuator operating parameters. The influence, impact or trend of alterations to the parameters upon the quality parameters is known in the art and used by the controller."

And it adds: *"the operator can define a relative importance of these parameters or a target the operator would like to achieve."

• The motivation is supplied by the patent's own background: the '830 specification criticizes EP 1 297 733/US 6,863,604 precisely for its time delay and its demand for constant throughput. A POSITA seeking to shorten optimization time would predictably take the trend knowledge that US 6,726,559 says "is known in the art" and surface it on the display that EP 1 297 733/US 6,863,604 already provides (FIG. 3 monitor). That is a two-reference combination with an express, articulated reason drawn from the patent's own statement of the problem.
• Claim 2 (evaluated display) is met by US 6,726,559's satisfied/dissatisfied input scale, converted to a displayed evaluation.
• Claim 5 (stored algorithm) is met by US 6,726,559's controller using stored trend relationships, and by US 6,863,604's comparison algorithm.

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GROUND 4 — Corrective recommendation (claim 9)

Combination: US 7,266,415 B2 (Claas) + EP 0 586 999 A2 / US 5,586,033 (or + US 6,726,559).

Target: claim 9 — where the expected change is negative, "the operator is also shown setting parameters that are stored in the memory unit that would bring about a positive change."

US 7,266,415 discloses a natural-language control generator with editor that tells the operator which operational parameter to change and in what value range, and that can output optimized nominal values visually or acoustically. That is a corrective recommendation — squarely claim 9. Motivation: the '830 spec frames the recommendation feature as a convenience ("it is feasible for display unit 29 to show the trend … and for control unit 30 to display suggestions … for a more optimal setting"); supplying the corrective setpoint alongside the negative trend indication is the obvious ergonomic completion of an advisory display, and the result is predictable.

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GROUND 5 — Selection and weighting (claims 10 and 11)

Combination: US 6,726,559 B2 + EP 0 586 999 A2 / US 5,586,033, optionally + US 6,205,384 B1.

Targets: claims 10 and 11.

• Claim 11 ("weighted manner") is the easiest claim in the patent to invalidate. US 6,726,559 states the operator "can define a relative importance of these parameters"; and its background ([0006], describing EP 0 586 999) recites "an operator interface allowing the operator to input the relative importance of a number of criteria, as grain loss, completeness of threshing, grain damage and dockage." The '830 spec's "weighted manner" is the same concept under a different name.
• Claim 10 (selecting which functions/results are displayed) is met by US 6,726,559's operator-selectable criteria/targets, and by US 6,205,384's selectable target standard.
• Motivation: De-cluttering a harvester display by operator selection is an express design need recited in the patent's own background ("The operator may therefore concentrate on the important functions and/or working results"), yielding predictable results.

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GROUND 6 — Response time / stored comparison (claims 3–5 via a different route)

Combination: US 5,712,782 A (Claas) + US 6,726,559 B2.

US 5,712,782 discloses an on-board processor comparing sensed data against a stored "characteristic curve" describing the operational optimum, with deviations triggering adjustment signals to a console (10). Combined with US 6,726,559's stored trend relationships, this renders claims 3 and 5 obvious even without EP 0 586 999. Motivation: both are harvester control systems exchanging the same information between a controller, a memory, and an operator console; the combination addresses the admitted problem of selecting settings in complex machinery.

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GROUND 7 — The combine-specific species claims (claims 12–17)

Combination: EP 0 586 999 A2 / US 5,586,033 (or the Ground 1 combination) + US 6,726,559 B2 + US 6,205,384 B1, + optionally US 7,362,233 / US 7,630,809 / US 7,540,129.

Targets: claims 12–17.

Claims 12–17 add nothing but the application of the claim-1 display to six specific, conventional cause-and-effect pairs. They are obvious for three independent reasons:

(a) The specification admits every relationship. The '830 description states as established machine physics that "if the concave width is set too small, this necessarily results in an increase in the quantity of damaged grain"; that an over-small sieve opening "necessarily results in an increase in the quantity lost"; that an over-high fan speed "necessarily results in an increase in the quantity lost." The word "necessarily" is an admission of known, deterministic relationships. The claims add only the display of a known consequence of a known adjustment.

(b) The hardware and the parameters are disclosed in the art. US 5,586,033 discloses actuators for concave clearance (94), cleaning fan speed (92), chaffer (47), sieve (49), and cleaner extension (51) — precisely the adjustment levers of claims 12–17. US 6,205,384 discloses a configuration table indexed on blower speed, sieve widths, and drum speed. US 6,726,559 discloses grain loss sensors (172a/172b), a grain damage sensor (174), and a tank cleanliness sensor (178a) — precisely the measured quantities of claims 12–17.

(c) The claims recite operator behavior, not apparatus structure. Claims 12–17 each recite "the operator reduces …," "the operator increases …". Under § 103 the operator's manual act is not a structural difference; it is an instruction to use the apparatus in a specified way, and the same operator-driven flow was already present in EP 0 586 999 (operator inputs relative importance and settings; the system displays resulting changes). This drafting quirk (flagged in the earlier claim-summary section) cuts against the patent owner: it makes each claim read on ordinary machine operation once the claim-1 display is met, and it invites § 112(a)/(b) indefiniteness and written-description challenges that an IPR petitioner could pair with the § 103 attack.

Motivation: Given a working predictive display (Ground 1) and the art's own enumeration of the adjustable parameters and measured quality parameters (US 5,586,033; US 6,726,559; US 6,205,384), populating the display's alarm set with the six standard combine loss/quality tradeoffs is the predictable use of known elements according to their established functions (KSR at 416). The '830 spec presents these as the examples of the invention, not as its novelty.

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6. Claim-by-claim disposition summary

No claim in US 8,428,830 presents a serious § 103 defense on the art identified.

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7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

The record supplies no evidence of secondary considerations, and the patent's posture makes them essentially unavailable:

• No unexpected results are asserted anywhere in the specification. The stated advantage — a faster, more reliable setting for untrained operators — is the direct, predicted consequence of displaying a prediction instead of a measurement. "[A]ny advantage asserted … must not be attributable to the ordinary exercise of skill" (KSR).
• No nexus evidence exists. No commercial-success data, no copying evidence, no industry-praise evidence was found in the record or in my searches.
• No failure-of-others evidence. The same engineer (Diekhans) and the same corporate family (Claas) repeatedly solved adjacent problems (US 6,205,384, US 6,863,604, US 7,266,415, US 7,630,809, US 7,362,233, US 7,337,023), which affirmatively demonstrates that the "others" did succeed.
• No licensing or industry-recognition evidence, and no litigation (per the earlier sections) — so no adversarial record from which to draw a nexus.
• The patent is expired ("Expired – Fee Related"). The earlier sections correctly flag the tension between that status and the printed "expires 2032-02-22." Either way, secondary-consideration evidence is now largely moot and will not be developed by the patent owner.

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8. Procedural and evidentiary notes for a challenger

1. § 325(d) is not a barrier. The strongest reference (EP 0 586 999 A2 / US 5,586,033) and its AU family member appear only in the family IDS block — AU 658 066 B2 is in "Family Cites Families (8)" — while the US "Patent Citations (12)" list omits both. If the reference was never before the US examiner, there is no "previously presented art" for the Board to defer to.
2. The patent's own EP family member is usable evidence of what the art discloses. EP 2 042 019 B1 [0004] is a statement by the same applicant about the content of EP 0 586 999. Expect the patent owner to argue it is a foreign prosecution statement, not a US admission; the better use is as objective evidence of the scope of the prior art (and to estop inconsistent characterizations).
3. The KSR-strongest passage in the record is DE 10 2014 216 593 A1 [0009] — a Deere document stating that both EP 0 586 999 A2 and EP 2 042 019 A2 (this patent's family) "show an expected trend or an expected result." ⚠️ This document post-dates the '830 priority date (published 2016) and is therefore NOT prior art under § 102; it is usable only as evidence of the ordinary artisan's understanding and of what the earlier references disclose, not as § 103 art itself. Do not cite it as prior art.
4. The "expired" flag remains the threshold issue. Per the earlier sections, the printed record is internally inconsistent ("Expired – Fee Related" vs. a printed adjusted expiration of 2032-02-22; a 2008-09-23 filing has a nominal 20-year term ending 2028-09-23). This inconsistency is reported as printed and not corrected. If the patent has lapsed for fee non-payment, every § 103 ground below is academic for defensive purposes.
5. Prosecution history not verified. I could not retrieve the file wrapper for US 12/236,195 this session. I therefore cannot state whether "in the form of a trend of expected effects" was added by amendment, what art the US examiner applied, or what arguments were made. This is a data gap, not a negative finding. The gap matters: if that limitation was added to overcome art, the prosecution history may contain a narrowing characterization usable against the patent owner.

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9. Verification and confidence flags (per the operating rules)

Independently verified this session:

• EP 0 586 999 A2 — "Neural network based controller for a machine in particular for a combine," Deere & Company, cited as published 1994-03-16; contents confirmed (DAAC computer 62, NN computer 64, FIG. 3 GUI, FIGs. 4a–4c GUIs, actuators 90/92/94 and 104/106/108, chaffer 47, sieve 49, cleaner extension 51).
• EP 2 042 019 B1 paragraph [0004] — confirmed text: EP 0 586 999 A1 is the preamble art and "comprises a display unit on which changes in working results of a working assembly as a consequence of the change of a working parameter are displayed"; the pleaded disadvantage is neural-network complexity and cost.
• US 6,726,559 B2 — confirmed claim 1, the "satisfied/dissatisfied" operator input, the "relative importance" input, and the specification passage "uses known influences, trends and/or relationships between the quality parameters … and necessary alterations to the actuator operating parameters."
• US 5,586,033 — "Control system with neural network trained as general and local models," Deere & Company; claim 1 recites a network "generating the setpoint signals based upon predicted responses of the machine to varying conditions"; shares identical reference numerals (62, 84, 86, 90–94, 104–108, 110–114, 116, 118) with EP 0 586 999 A2, strongly indicating same-family identity.
• DE 10 2014 216 593 A1, published 2016-02-25, paragraph [0009] — confirmed text placing EP 2 042 019 A2 and EP 0 586 999 A2 together as showing "eine erwartete Tendenz bzw. ein zu erwartendes Ergebnis."
• AU 658 066 B2 — "Neural network based control system," Deere & Company — confirmed as appearing in the "Family Cites Families (8)" list of the US 8,428,830 record.

Not verified — stated explicitly rather than assumed:

• US 5,586,030. I searched for this number specifically and could not confirm it exists; the search returned US 5,586,033 instead. I have not substituted one for the other. If a "5,586,030" is relied on in any pleading, verify it independently.
• EP 0 586 999 "A1" vs. "A2." Both designations appear in the record: the patent's EP family member cites EP 0 586 999 A1; the citation line and the document image show EP 0 586 999 A2. Reported literally, not harmonized. This may reflect sibling publications of the same application.
• EP 1 325 834 B1 (claim 5: colored display where color is a function of relative importance) — date and assignee not verified. Offered only as a lead for claim 7.
• EP 1 902 609 A1 ("Method for controlling the display device in a harvester" — suppresses work-result values during optimization) — date not verified. Offered only as a lead for claim 8.
• Prosecution history of US 12/236,195 — not retrieved.
• Whether FIGs. 4a–4c of EP 0 586 999 depict a predicted/expected-effect visualization rather than bare setpoints — not visually inspected. This is the decisive fact for elevating Ground 1 from "strong § 103" to "§ 102 anticipation" of claim 1, and it is the first action item for anyone pursuing this. The drawing sheets are downloadable from the EPO publication server and Google Patents (patents.google.com/patent/EP0586999A2).

Bottom line: On the art identified — and particularly on the reference the patent's own family identified as the closest prior art but that does not appear on the US face — every one of claims 1–17 is vulnerable under § 103, with claims 5, 11, and 1 approaching anticipation. The claims most likely to survive are the narrow species claims 12–17, and then only because of their unusual operator-action drafting — which itself invites a parallel § 112 attack rather than providing a genuine validity safe harbor.