US 8638340

I'll search for authoritative information on US 8638340, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Now let me check for any CAFC 2026 appellate docket activity and the USPTO litigation/PTAB record for this specific patent.

Let me get the actual claim set for US 8,638,340 and check for any 2026 appellate activity involving RAH Color Technologies.

Search limitations — read first

I was able to retrieve solid bibliographic, family, and litigation data for US 8,638,340 B2, but I was not able to pull the full, verified text of the issued claim set (the Google Patents full-text I was given truncates mid‑specification at the "Step 5 / gamut descriptor" passage, before the claims). I also found no CAFC 2026 docket activity naming this patent. Details and uncertainty flags are given below rather than filled in with guesses.

1. Bibliographic data (US 8,638,340 B2)

Continuity note (important): 12/799,930 is a division of 11/216,784 (filed 2005‑08‑31, now US 7,728,845). US 10,560,676 (App. 16/048,295, filed 2018‑07‑29, "Color calibration of color image rendering devices," 18 claims, 77 drawing sheets) recites the chain: continuation of 15/368,022 (US 9,894,340) ← continuation of 14/933,781 (US 9,516,288) ← continuation of 14/161,121 (abandoned) ← division of 12/799,930, now Pat. No. 8,638,340 ← division of 11/216,784. So 8,638,340 is a mid‑chain division in the large Holub/RAH color‑management family, all tracing to the 1996 priority application.

⚠️ Term/status caveat: The "expires 2018‑07‑10 / adjusted expiration" entry is what Google Patents literally reports; I have not independently verified the PTO maintenance‑fee or terminal‑disclaimer position, so treat that status as informational only.

2. Abstract (as published)

"Color calibration of color image rendering devices, such as large color displays, which operate by either projection or emission of images, utilize internal color measurement instrument or external color measurement modules locatable on a wall or speaker. A dual use camera is provided for a portable or laptop computer, or a cellular phone, handset, personal digital assistant or other handheld device with a digital camera, in which one of the camera or a display is movable with respect to the other to enable the camera in a first mode to capture images of the display for enabling calibration of the display, and in a second mode for capturing image other than of the display. The displays may represent rendering devices for enabling virtual proofing in a network, or may be part of stand-alone systems and apparatuses for color calibration. Improved calibration is also provided for sensing and correcting for non-uniformities of rendering devices, such as color displays, printer, presses, or other color image rendering device."

3. Plain‑language overview of the disclosure

The specification (which I received in full up to the truncation point) covers several distinct strands:

a) External color measurement module for large‑screen displays. A color measuring instrument (CMI)/color measurement module can be mounted on a wall or a speaker opposite the screen (FIG. 37, 37A, 37B) — especially for home‑theatre/front‑ or rear‑projection and emissive (LCD/plasma/OLED) displays. The display's own electronics, or a separate control unit, calibrates the display and/or does virtual proofing using the module's measurements. The module may also be attachable to the display housing (FIGS. 2, 24–28, using a cowel, fiber‑optic pickup, lens system, viewing box).

b) Projection displays with internal color sensing. FIGS. 35/36: a color sensor inside the projector housing images reflected light from the screen using either the projector's own optics or separate optics.

c) Dual‑use camera on portable devices. FIGS. 39–39N: a laptop/notebook with an embedded pivotable arm mounting a camera; or a clamshell cellular handset where the display half pivots relative to the camera half; or an arm‑mounted camera on a non‑pivoting handset. Mode 1 = camera aimed at the device's own display to capture calibration images; Mode 2 = camera aimed away (e.g., video teleconferencing). A third use: aim the portable device's camera at another display or at a printer/press/copier output to calibrate or virtually proof that other device.

d) Ambient‑light/backlight control. The handset camera can measure ambient illumination; the display backlight is switched on/off per a threshold or gradient function, and/or after a timeout following last user input (FIGS. 39G, 39H).

e) Spatial non‑uniformity ("flattening") correction. FIGS. 40–43B: measure flat‑field images per color channel, find the pixel (x,y) with the lowest Imin/Imax ratio, then reduce other pixels in the other channels while preserving the desired neutral/white balance; for presses, model "ink rob" / positional dependence within a signature and apply a spatial uniformity correction table, a rendering transform, and/or a color‑to‑color′ transform (FIGS. 44–46).

f) Virtual Proof / network framework. FIGS. 1–22, 31–32: the "VP" data structure for distributing color transformation data among nodes, SOM/imagical measurement devices, polynomial forward models, gamut descriptors, and printer/press calibration (largely inherited from the incorporated patents, esp. US 6,459,425).

4. Independent claims — ⚠️ limited confidence

I could not retrieve the verbatim issued claims of 8,638,340, and I will not reconstruct them from memory. What I can ground:

• The pre‑grant publication US 2010/0289835 A1 (same application 12/799,930) shows at least claim 23 in apparatus form (per patents.justia.com/patent/20100289835): "An apparatus for making a display surface uniform in brightness and color comprising: optics capable of forming an image of said display surface; an array sensor capable of converting said image into electrical signals …" — i.e., an imaging‑sensor‑based non‑uniformity correction apparatus, consistent with the FIG. 40–43B disclosure.
• The Specification's own "Definitions"/summary passages indicate the claimed subject matter spans at least: (i) a color projection display with an internal color measuring instrument using the projector optics or separate optics; (ii) a color measurement module attachable to a wall or a speaker, with a control unit/display electronics doing calibration and/or virtual proofing; (iii) a portable device with a dual‑use camera where the camera or the display is movable relative to the other (first mode = image the display for calibration; second mode = image something else); and (iv) an apparatus/method for detecting and correcting spatial non‑uniformity of a rendering device (display, printer, or press).

Uncertainty flag: Because claim numbering and scope changed during prosecution (the issued claims are dated 2014‑01‑28, well after the 2010 publication), I cannot certify which of these are the issued independent claims, how many independent claims 8,638,340 has, or their exact wording. Anyone relying on claim scope should pull the granted claim set from USPTO PatentCenter / the printed patent (77 drawing sheets in the sibling 10,560,676 give a sense of the specification's size). Treat the above as disclosure‑level, not claim‑level, information.

5. Litigation, PTAB, and CAFC status

District court (per Google Patents litigation data and PTAB filings):

• RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Kodak — W.D.N.Y., Case No. 6:19‑cv‑06112 (the Google Patents "Critical/litigation" link for this patent). The complaint (PTAB Exhibit 2229 in IPR2019‑00628) expressly lists "United States Patent No. 8,638,340, entitled 'Color Calibration of Color Rendering Devices' (the '340 Patent)" among the patents‑in‑suit. Note the slight title variance ("Rendering" vs. "Image Rendering") in the complaint caption.
• Illinois N.D., Case No. 1:17‑cv‑05430.
• California E.D., Case No. 3:19‑cv‑00982.
• Related family cases referenced in PTAB papers: RAH Color Technologies v. Xerox (W.D.N.Y. 6:18‑cv‑06746); Electronics For Imaging v. RAH Color Technologies (E.D. Va. 1:18‑cv‑01436); RAH Color Technologies v. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen (N.D. Ill. 1:19‑cv‑00193); RAH Color Technologies v. Dalim Software (N.D. Ill. 1:19‑cv‑00275) — several consolidated into MDL No. 2874 (N.D. Cal. 3:18‑md‑02874).

PTAB: The IPR proceedings I found — IPR2019‑00628 and IPR2019‑00646 (Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, on US 7,791,761) — target the '761 patent, not 8,638,340. I found no IPR petition against 8,638,340 itself.

CAFC 2026 dockets: No 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming 8,638,340 was found. I searched for a CAFC 2026 appeal by RAH Color Technologies and for the patent number against 2026 Federal Circuit summaries; the 2026 Federal Circuit patent decisions returned (Global Tubing v. Tenaris, Magnolia Medical v. Kurin, TJTM v. Google, AGI SureTrack v. Farmers Edge, Ironburg v. Valve, Slingshot v. Canon, etc.) do not involve this patent or this patentee. Caveat: absence of search results is not proof of absence — my index coverage of CAFC 2026 dockets is not exhaustive, and a pending appeal could exist without surfacing. If you need certainty, check PACER/CM‑ECF for the Federal Circuit docketed 2026 appeals and the USPTO PTAB Patent Trial docket directly.

6. Bottom line for citation use

• Safe to cite: patent number 8,638,340 B2; title; inventor Holub; assignee RAH Color Technologies LLC; App. 12/799,930; filed 2010‑05‑05; issued 2014‑01‑28; divisional of 11/216,784; 1996 priority; abstract; and its identification as a Kodak‑case patent‑in‑suit (6:19‑cv‑06112).
• Not safe to cite without further verification: the exact issued independent claim language and count, and the current legal status/expiration date.
• Explicit negative finding: no CAFC 2026 docket activity for US 8,638,340 located.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8638340. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper on the specific cases and whether the '340 patent was asserted.

Let me confirm a few specifics about the Kodak case outcome and the MDL.

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings on file" result against public PTAB and litigation records before finalizing.

Let me check specifically whether any petition targeted the '340 patent itself, and whether a defensive aggregator was involved.

Let me do two final checks: for any petition by the district-court defendants (SEC, Kodak) and for the '340's own claim-level posture.

AIA Trial Proceedings — US 8,638,340

Source-of-record note: This section is driven by the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block, which reports zero AIA trials for this patent. I independently searched PTAB/TrialTrack-type sources and the RAH Color Technologies docket trail. My searches corroborate the null result for the '340 patent itself and are reported below, with an explicit boundary between "proceedings on the '340" (none) and "proceedings on sibling patents asserted in the same campaign" (several, context only).

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings have ever been filed against US 8,638,340 (0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials) — the patent went through the entire 2016–2021 RAH Color Technologies assertion campaign without drawing a single IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, and it is now expired and lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees (adjusted expiration 2018-07-10, status "Expired – Fee Related"); the defensive posture for a defendant today is therefore not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs" but rather "there is no PTAB estoppel roadmap, no FWD to quote, and — more importantly — no live patent to attack, so a demand letter citing the '340 is asserting an expired right."

Proceedings on US 8,638,340

None. There are no proceeding numbers to report. I will not manufacture them.

Two independent verifications support this:

1. The structured PTAB block returns no AIA trials as of the most recent USPTO Open Data Portal ingest.
2. Targeted searches for a petition against 8,638,340 surfaced only district-court uses of the number. The '340 appears as a "Patent-in-Suit" in pleadings — e.g., RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co., N.D. Ill. No. 1:17-cv-05430 (filed 2017-07-25) and RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Eastman Kodak Co., W.D.N.Y. No. 6:19-cv-06112 (filed 2019-02-08) — but never as the subject of a petition.

Confidence: high on the null result. I could not exhaustively query every PTAB docket aggregator for a possible 2016–2018-era petition that has since been expunged from public dashboards, so I state this as "no proceeding found on file," not as an absolute negative.

Related-family proceedings (CONTEXT ONLY — NOT proceedings on the '340)

I include these because a defendant's opponent in this campaign is the same patent owner, the same petitioner, and the same claim family — but none of these proceedings adjudicated any claim of US 8,638,340, and under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) none of them creates estoppel against assertion of the '340.

IPR2019-00627 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Subject patent: US 7,729,008 (not the '340)
• Filed: 2019-02-01 (Adobe filed the four-petition cluster concurrently)
• Challenged claims: 28–33 and 36–38
• Key event: Consolidated oral hearing held 2020-05-28 with IPR2019-00628, -00629 and -00646
• Final Written Decision: Petitioner failed — the panel "determine[d] that Petitioner has not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 28–33 and 36–38 of the '008 patent are unpatentable." Patent owner prevailed on every challenged claim.
• Source: Public version of the FWD (Banner & Witcoff mirror)

IPR2019-00629 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Subject patent: US 7,312,897 (not the '340)
• Filed: 2019-02-01
• Challenged claims: 32, 33 and 37, under pre-AIA § 103
• Final Written Decision: Petitioner prevailed — "we determine that Petitioner has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 32, 33, and 37 of the '897 patent are unpatentable." Claims 32, 33 and 37 canceled.
• Source: PTAB petition/FWD record, Adobe v. RAH, IPR2019-00629

IPR2019-00646 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Subject patent: US 7,791,761 (not the '340)
• Filed: 2019-02-01
• Challenged claims: 7–11, 13 and 15
• Judge panel: Eleni Mantis Mercader, Frances L. Ippolito, John A. Hudalla
• Institution decision: Instituted 2019-09-04 — § 314(a) reasonable likelihood met on at least one claim
• Final Written Decision: Not verified by me. I found the institution decision and merits briefing but did not confirm the FWD disposition; I decline to state one.
• Source: Institution Decision, Paper 34 (2019-09-04)

IPR2019-00628 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Subject patent: US 8,416,444 (not the '340)
• Filed: 2019-02-01
• Final Written Decision: Not verified by me. Institution and merits record exists; disposition not confirmed in my searches.

Appeals: I found no evidence of a Federal Circuit appeal from any of these four FWDs, and I did not confirm one. The underlying MDL was resolved by stipulation instead — In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, N.D. Cal. No. 3:18-md-02874, joint stipulation of dismissal entered 2021-09-27.

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '340. Every claim of US 8,638,340 is UNTESTED at the PTAB — none canceled, none sustained, none construed by the Board. There is no FWD to quote and no institution decision to cite. This is materially different from the sibling patents: the '897's claims 32/33/37 are dead, while the '008's claims 28–33/36–38 survived a full trial. A defendant cannot borrow either result for the '340.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR was ever instituted on the '340, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a blank slate. No petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground against the '340 in district court. There is no IPR record to mine for admissions, no narrowing amendment, and no prosecution-disclaimer event traceable to a PTAB filing. The prior art that Adobe deployed against the '008, '444, '897 and '761 patents (the Stewart/Tajika, Stone/Tajika, Giorgianni/Tajika, ICC v.3.0, and Scott-Taggart combinations briefed in the consolidated record) was never applied to the '340 by any petitioner — whether it maps onto the '340's claims is an open technical question I have not evaluated.

Pattern signals. The same petitioner (Adobe) filed four IPRs on one day against four related patents and skipped the '340 entirely — even though the '340 was simultaneously in suit against Samsung and Kodak in the same broad campaign. Possible explanations (my inference, not documented in any source I found): the '340's claims were never asserted against Adobe in the N.D. Cal. case; the '340's 1996 priority date made art-selection harder; and/or the '340 was already approaching expiry. No defensive aggregator appears in the chain — I found no Unified Patents or RPX-filed petition touching any RAH patent. The patent owner's portfolio of roughly 35 patents generated only this one four-petition cluster in five-plus years of assertions, which is a low PTAB-engagement rate for a campaign this size.

Recommended next steps

• Check whether you have a live patent at all. US 8,638,340 shows "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2018-07-10. Damages for pre-expiration infringement would need to have been filed within the § 286 six-year lookback from a timely complaint; post-expiration conduct is simply not infringing. Before briefing invalidity, brief expiry. Verify the maintenance-fee lapse directly in USPTO Patent Center and confirm the adjusted expiration and any petition to revive.
• If the demand letter cites specific claims of the '340, there is no PTAB disposition to rebut them with. Do not represent that the '340 has been invalidated — it has not. The sibling '897 cancellation (claims 32/33/37) is a different patent and citing it as a victory over the '340 would be a misstatement.
• No trial-stage milestones exist to track. No institution deadline, no oral hearing date, no § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD deadline. Nothing is pending. Any statement to the contrary would be fabricated.
• Confirm the null result yourself before relying on it. Run the patent number through PTAB E2E / USPTO Patent Center and the Board's public search at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ to confirm zero AIA trials, and check the assignment record (RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC merger recorded 2013-05-14) to identify the correct current owner for any notice purpose.

Contradiction flagged: The task template presupposes there may be proceedings to rank "most-impactful first." The authoritative structured block for this patent says none exist, and my web verification agrees. If you hold an internal docket showing a proceeding number for the '340, it is not in the ODP data or in any public source I could reach — surface it and I will re-run this section.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 8638340 using targeted searches.

Let me dig for the specific assignment reel/frame records and correspondent details.

Let me try to locate the specific USPTO assignment reel/frame records and correspondent of record.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8,638,340 B2

Verification starting point: USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 8,638,340) · Google Patents legal events

Important caveat up front: I was able to retrieve the substance of the chain-of-title from Google Patents legal events, PTAB filings, and district-court complaints, but I was not able to retrieve the USPTO reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record for the records below. Those fields are flagged as gaps rather than reconstructed. Nothing in this report is an invented assignment.

Inventors

• Richard A. Holub — sole named inventor. Residence of record: Rochester, NY (at filing); later Alexandria, VA.

Employer at time of filing (2010-05-05): self-employed. Per Holub's own declaration and complaint background, he was not employed by an operating company at filing; he was the founder/sole member of RAH Color Technologies LLC (formed 2005) and had earlier founded Imagicolor Corporation (1998). His prior corporate employers were SuperMac Technologies (Principal Engineer, ~1993–94), Agfa / Compugraphics (device-independent color group, ~1990–93), and Eikonix Corp. — which was acquired by Eastman Kodak in 1985 (Holub joined Eikonix in 1983). Source: Holub deposition, Adobe v. RAH Color Technologies (IPR2019-00628, Ex. 1053); Holub declaration, IPR2019-00646, Ex. 2121 ¶1.

Unusual pattern — the opposite of the classic fire-sale tell. There is no "inventors depart within 12 months of filing" signal here. The single inventor never left the asset: he is simultaneously the inventor, the sole member/owner of the assignee, and the person who signed the infringement complaints. The ownership never migrated to a third party at all. That is the defining structural fact of this portfolio.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: RAH Color Tech LLC (rendered elsewhere in the family as RAH Color Technologies LLC), Alexandria, Virginia (family members filed earlier while the entity was Rochester, NY).

Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No. The commercialization vehicle was a different entity: Imagicolor Corporation, formed 1998 specifically to commercialize Holub's 1994–96 prototype. Per RAH's own complaints, "investment did not materialize and Imagicolor was eventually dissolved." US 6,043,909 (the 1996 priority member of this family) issued to Imagicolor Corporation, which no longer exists.

Primary line of business: patent licensing / monetization. RAH's complaints state it was "formed [in 2005] as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program." Holub declares he is "the sole member of RAH Color Technologies LLC" and that the company holds 35 patents (IPR2019-00646, Ex. 2121 ¶¶1, 3).

Current status: operating as a licensing-and-assertion entity (not dissolved, not bankrupted). The patent itself, however, is Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2018-07-10) per Google Patents legal status.

Assignment timeline

Chronology is reconstructible; reel/frame and correspondent are not, and I mark them explicitly rather than guess.

• 1996-02-26 / recorded n/a — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: original application filing (US 08/606,883) — listed on Google Patents as an external-priority link to US 6,043,909 A
  • Assignor: Richard A. Holub (inventor)
  • Assignee: Imagicolor Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: founder's original commercialization entity; predecessor in the priority chain, not an assignment of the '340 itself.

• 1998-08-25 / recorded n/a — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: continuation filing (US 09/139,498 → US 6,459,425 B1)
  • Assignor: Richard A. Holub
  • Assignee: Richard A. Holub (individually)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal family continuation; priority link for the '340.

• 2010-05-05 — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: filing of application 12/799,930 by the inventor with RAH Color Tech LLC as assignee of record (cover page field (73))
  • Assignor: Richard A. Holub
  • Assignee: RAH Color Technologies LLC / RAH Color Tech LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: transfer of the inventor's rights into his own licensing LLC at filing.

• 2013-05-14 / recorded 2013-05-14 — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: MERGER (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: RAH Color Technologies LLC
  • Assignee: RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot be flagged as a repeat correspondent, because the field was not obtainable from the sources accessed.
  • Context: internal reorg / entity merger only. Consistent with the family's change of record address from Rochester, NY (e.g., US 8,279,236, filed 2011) to Alexandria, VA (e.g., US 8,917,394, filed 2013). No change of beneficial owner — Holub remains the sole member throughout.

• 2014-01-28 — issuance. No post-issuance transfer recorded on or after grant other than the link above. Google Patents lists Original Assignee = Current Assignee = RAH Color Tech LLC.

Finding: the chain is a single-entity chain — inventor → his own LLC → renamed/merged LLC of the same beneficial owner. There is no third-party transfer, no securitization, no security agreement, no release, no asserter acquisition. The only recorded event after filing is the 2013 name/merger normalization.

Data gap to close before relying on this in litigation: the reel/frame and correspondent on the 2013-05-14 merger record, and the recording of the inventor→RAHCT assignment at filing. Pull these directly from Assignment Center; if the 2013 record names a single repeat attorney also appearing across the RAHCT family recordings, that would upgrade signal 3 below from unclear to present.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8638340
    1996 : Priority application filed by Holub
    1998 : Imagicolor Corporation formed
         : Continuation filed by Holub
    2005 : RAH Color Technologies LLC formed
    2010 : Application 12 799 930 filed
         : Rights held by RAH Color Tech LLC
    2013 : Merger into RAH Color Technologies LLC
    2014 : Patent issues as US 8638340
    2017 : Suits filed against R R Donnelley
         : and Quad Graphics and Ricoh
    2019 : 340 patent asserted in WDNY action

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (with a nuance).
The patent sits in a licensing-only LLC with no products: RAHCT's own complaints state it was formed "as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program," its office of record is 7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, Virginia 22307 (a residential-style address, not a commercial facility), and Holub is its sole member. The 2013-05-14 MERGER moved the asset from "RAH Color Technologies LLC" to "RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC." Nuance: this is not an operating-company-to-shell transfer — it is the inventor's own vehicle from the outset. Still a licensing-only, single-member entity with no commerce.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
RAH Color Technologies LLC is a repeat patent plaintiff and current assignee throughout. Recorded assertion activity on this docket family includes N.D. Ill. 1:17-cv-05430, E.D. Cal. 3:19-cv-00982, and W.D.N.Y. 6:19-cv-06112 (the last, filed 2019-02-08, names the '340 patent among the Patents-in-Suit). RAHCT also sued R.R. Donnelley (N.D. Ill. 1:17-cv-00894), Quad/Graphics, Ricoh, and X-Rite, and is the Patent Owner in Adobe's IPR2019-00627/00628/00629. The entity is profiled as an active litigant on RPX Insight (e.g., litigation document 13228848; 12841124). It does not appear on the classic "Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi-LAN" lists — it is an inventor-owned, single-plaintiff assertion entity rather than a mass-portfolio aggregator. Signal nonetheless present.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR.
I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for any recording in this chain. No inference is drawn from this. If Assignment Center shows the same attorney/firm on the 2010 filing assignment and the 2013 merger, that would be a reportable recurrence; absent the data, this remains unclear.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Only one post-filing recording surfaced (2013-05-14, same-beneficial-owner merger). There is no chain of successive LLC-to-LLC assignments under 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT for this patent.
The only transfer (2013-05-14) predates the first assertion of the '340 (W.D.N.Y. 6:19-cv-06112, filed 2019-02-08) by roughly 5.7 years. No assignment was timed to the suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
Imagicolor Corporation was "eventually dissolved" after investment failed, per RAH's own complaints — a voluntary wind-down, not a Chapter 7/11 estate sale. No bankruptcy docket or asset-sale assignment involving these patents was located.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Classic privateering requires an operating company (Kodak, Nortel, etc.) transferring to an NPE that asserts on its behalf. Here there is no operating-company parent — RAHCT is the inventor's own entity and the inventor asserts personally through it.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. RAHCT both owns and asserts; there is no neutralizing assignment. (Unified Patents and Adobe/Ricoh IPRs are challenges to RAHCT, not acquisitions from it.)

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent strong signals drive this: (i) the asserted patent has never left the inventor's own licensing-only, single-member LLC, whose complaints and declaration (IPR2019-00646, Ex. 2121 ¶1) establish that it was formed in 2005 purely "as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program," holds no shipping product (the commercialization entity Imagicolor Corporation was dissolved), and maintains only a residential office address at 7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA; and (ii) the assignee is a documented repeat patent plaintiff whose recorded assertions include W.D.N.Y. 6:19-cv-06112 (filed 2019-02-08, naming the '340 patent), N.D. Ill. 1:17-cv-05430, and E.D. Cal. 3:19-cv-00982, plus suits against Ricoh, Quad/Graphics, R.R. Donnelley, and X-Rite and multiple Adobe-led IPRs.

Note that this is an inventor-owned NPE, not a third-party-acquired shell — the "fire-sale / cascading-transfer / privateering" signals are genuinely absent, and I have not invented them. The unexplained element is the 2013-05-14 MERGER record's reel/frame and correspondent, which should be pulled directly from Assignment Center (patent 8,638,340) to complete the record.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 8638340. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me get the complete citations list from the patent documents.

Let me retrieve the complete examiner-cited patent references list.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8638340 B2

1. Record verification (USPTO identifiers kept literal)

I searched specifically for 8638340 and excluded near-numbers. Note that several search hits for the string "8638340" are unrelated documents (e.g., a Brazilian municipal procurement notice, a chemistry supplementary file, an ABC News URL) — none of those are the patent and I have disregarded them.

2. Important limitation on this analysis — please read before using it

I was not able to retrieve the complete examiner-cited reference list for US 8,638,340 within this session. Google Patents' front-matter ("Patent Citations"/"References Cited") section and the FreePatentsOnline "US Patent References" table are both paginated/JavaScript-rendered; my retrievals returned only the first ~30 entries of the patent-reference table and did not return the foreign/EP/WO patent documents or the second half of the U.S. list. I also could not retrieve the granted claim set of US 8,638,340 (the full text supplied to me ends inside the description, at the gamut-descriptor discussion; it contains no claims).

Consequently:

• I cannot truthfully state "for each reference cited in US 8,638,340" — I can only address the ~30 entries I actually recovered.
• I cannot assign specific anticipating claim numbers with confidence, because I do not have the granted claim text. Where the task asks "which claim(s) it potentially anticipates," I flag this and give claim categories instead.

I would rather state this explicitly than fabricate citations or claim mappings.

Also flagging a contradiction with the prior section: the "Litigation summary" you supplied is a placeholder — it contains only process narration ("I'll research…", "Let me dig deeper…") and no substantive findings. There is therefore nothing in it to build on, and I have not treated it as evidence.

3. The decisive legal gate: the effective priority date

US 8,638,340 is a continuation descending from US 08/606,883 (filed 1996-02-26). Therefore:

• If the granted claims are supported by the 1996 disclosure, the critical date for §102(a)/(b)/(e) is 1996-02-26 (or one year earlier for §102(b) if the claim is not supported until later).
• Under that premise, none of the examiner-cited U.S. patent references recovered below can anticipate under §102 — every one of them has a filing/publication date in 2003–2011, i.e., years after the 1996 priority date.
• They would be citable only as (i) background, (ii) family/related-application references cited for double-patenting or related-disclosure purposes, or (iii) §102/§103 art if the claims at issue are held not entitled to the 1996 date (e.g., the portable-device "dual-use camera," flat-panel, and projector subject matter).

This is exactly the dispute that drove the RAH Color Technologies litigation, so the priority question is not academic.

4. Recovered examiner-cited U.S. patent references (partial list)

All entries below post-date the 1996-02-26 priority date and therefore are not §102 prior art if that priority date controls. "Family" marks Holub's own continuation-chain patents (parent/grandparent/siblings), which are not prior art against their own continuation.

(The list was truncated at US 6,603,879 in the retrieved source; the remaining U.S. entries and all foreign patent documents were not recovered.)

5. Recovered non-patent references ("Other References")

These are applicant/record references. Those with pre-1996 dates are the only items on the face of the record that could even theoretically be §102(a)/(b) art against 1996-priority claims:

• A. Hardy & F. Wurzburg, Jr., "Color Correction in Color Printing," JOSA vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 300-307, Apr. 1948.
• H. E. J. Neugebauer, "The Colorimetric Effect of the Selection of Printing Inks and Photographic Filters…," TAGA Proceedings, pp. 15-29, 1956.
• I. Pobboravsky, "A Proposed Engineering Approach to Color Reproduction," TAGA Proceedings, pp. 127-165, Jun. 11–13, 1962.
• R. H. Gallagher, Finite Element Analysis: Fundamentals, Prentice-Hall, Ch. 8, pp. 228-241, 1975.
• W. K. Pratt, Digital Image Processing, Wiley, Ch. 19, pp. 551-559, 1978.
• CIE, "Colorimetry," 2nd Ed., Publication CIE 15.2, pp. 19-23, 27-32, 1986.
• J. Gordon, R. Holub & R. Poe, "On the Rendition of Unprintable Colors," TAGA Proceedings, pp. 1-10, 1987.
• R. Holub, W. Kearsley & C. Pearson, "Color Systems Calibration for Graphic Arts: I. Input Devices," J. Imaging Technology vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 47-52, Apr. 1988.
• Same authors, "…II. Output Devices," same journal, pp. 53-60, Apr. 1988.
• R. Holub & W. Kearsley, "Color to colorant conversions in a colorimetric separation system," SPIE vol. 1184, pp. 24-35, Dec. 1989.
• J. Greivenkamp, "Color dependent optical prefilter for the suppression of aliasing artifacts," Applied Optics vol. 29, No. 5, pp. 676-684, Feb. 10, 1990.
• C. Sodergard, I. Ylakoski & H. Vanhala, "A General Teleproofing System," TAGA Conference, Rochester NY, pp. 88-99, May 1991.
• "TIFF 6.0" Final, Aldus Corp., pp. 13-16, Jun. 3, 1992.
• R. H. Johnson & D. W. Wichern, Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis, 3rd Ed., Ch. 8, pp. 356-395, 1992.
• "MCT Metric Color Tag Specification—Draft," Rev. 1.1d, EfiColor/Electronics for Imaging, pp. 1-30, Mar. 22, 1993.
• J. Gordon & R. Holub, "On the Use of Linear Transformations for Scanner Calibration," Color Research and Application vol. 18, No. 13, pp. 218-219, Jun. 1993.
• Kuusisto, Y. Xiaohan & K. Sandstrom, "On-line Control of the Colour Print Quality Guided by the Digital Page Description," 22nd Int'l Conf. of Printing Research Institutes, Munich, 1993.
• "International Color Consortium Profile Format," Version 3.01, May 8, 1995.

Several of the pre-1996 items are by the inventor himself (Holub 1988, 1989, 1993) and are therefore more likely §102(b) "own work" / background than anticipating art, but they are on the record.

6. What can and cannot be said about anticipation of specific claims

Because I do not have the granted claims of US 8,638,340, I will not invent claim numbers. What the specification and pre-grant publication US 2010/0289835 A1 indicate the claims cover (see the claim set printed for the '835 publication, claims 23–28, and the abstract) are at least these families:

1. Spatial non-uniformity / flat-field correction — imaging sensor measuring flat-field images per color channel; computing Imin/Imax; spatial correction function(s) applied to the display (claim language in the '835 publication claims 23–28, e.g. "apparatus for making a display surface uniform in brightness and color," "method of calibrating a color rendering device").
2. Internal color measurement instrument in a projection display (FIGS. 35–36), and external color-measurement module mountable on wall/speaker (FIGS. 37, 37A, 37B).
3. Dual-use camera in a portable/handheld device — camera movable relative to display; first mode images the display for calibration; second mode images something else.
4. Autofocus/alignment of the sensor with a reference image on screen (FIG. 38).
5. Press/production spatial color correction within a signature (FIGS. 44–46).

Mapped against recovered references, and only under the assumption that a given claim loses the 1996 priority date:

• Claims to projector-camera color calibration / sensor viewing the projected image — most relevant recovered art is US 6,618,076 B2 (Sukthankar et al., Sep. 2003) and US 2004/0150835 A1 (Frick et al., Aug. 2004). On their face they describe calibrating a projector using a camera/colorimeter; they potentially anticipate such claims only if those claims are not entitled to 1996.
• Claims to display white-balance/gamma and per-region uniformity — US 6,611,249 B2 (Evanicky et al.) and US 7,161,558 B2 (Eidem et al.).
• Claims to portable-device camera capture of the display / backlight control from ambient light — US 2004/0196252 A1 (Kim); also possibly US 7,057,639 (Spoonhower) and US 2005/0151042 (Watson) for the movable-camera/mount aspect.
• Claims to gamut mapping / color transformation construction — US 6,704,442 (Haikin) and US 6,867,883 (Cholewo).
• Claim language about a colorimeter/spectral measurement instrument — US 6,784,995 (Merle).
• Claims that are purely the networked virtual-proofing / color-transformation architecture — the pre-1996 NPL (Hardy & Wurzburg 1948; Neugebauer 1956; Pobboravsky 1962; CIE 15.2 1986; Holub/Kearsley/Pearson 1988; ICC Profile Format 1995) is the relevant background, but none of it appears to disclose networked multi-site proofing as claimed.

Under the 1996 priority date — which is the premise stated on the face of US 8,638,340 — I find no reference among those recovered that anticipates any claim under 35 U.S.C. §102. Every recovered U.S. patent reference post-dates the priority date, and the pre-1996 non-patent literature is largely the inventor's own published work plus foundational color-science texts.

7. Recommended next steps to complete this task properly

To produce the per-reference §102 mapping you asked for, the following are needed and were not obtainable here:

1. The granted claims of US 8,638,340 (USPTO Patent Public Search / Patent Center, or the granted-PDF front pages).
2. The complete "References Cited" front page, including foreign patent documents (JP/EP/WO) and the remainder of the U.S. list after US 6,603,879 (obtainable from the USPTO Patent Full-Text image, or Espacenet's "Cited documents" for publication US 2010/0289835 A1).
3. The file history (USPTO Patent Center for application 12/799,930), to see which references the examiner actually applied and under which statutory subsection — this is the only reliable way to know which references the examiner treated as §102 art versus mere background.
4. A priority/claim-support analysis for each granted claim, to determine whether it is entitled to 1996-02-26 or only 2010-05-05. This changes the answer from "no §102 art" to "numerous post-2003 references become available," and is the pivotal question.

If you can supply the granted claims and the full front-page citation list, I can complete the reference-by-reference §102 table with specific claim numbers.

I'll research the prior art cited on the face of US 8,638,340 to ground the obviousness analysis, since the full text provided does not include the "References Cited" list.

Let me pull the face-of-patent references cited for US 8,638,340 and the sibling listing on Justia.

Obviousness Analysis of US 8,638,340 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Grounding note / scope caveat. As flagged in the Patent-summary section above, the full text I have truncates before the claims, so I still cannot certify the issued claim language or independent-claim count of the '340 patent. This § 103 analysis is therefore run at the disclosure/embodiment level, mapping the four claim families identified earlier — (1) display-side color measurement (internal CMI and wall/speaker module), (2) the dual-use camera on a portable device, (3) spatial non-uniformity ("flattening") correction, and (4) the Virtual Proof / polynomial-model network framework — against the prior-art record. Any invalidity opinion must be re-run against the granted claims pulled from USPTO PatentCenter. Where a limitation's scope is uncertain I say so.

I. The "Prior Art section" of this page — what it actually gives us

The Google Patents record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8638340/en) supplies three prior-art data points:

• Prior art keywords: color, rendering, spatial, calibration, gamut.
• Prior art date: 1996‑02‑26 (the claimed earliest priority).
• Cited/incorporated art identified in the specification body itself: U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,043,909, 6,157,735, 6,459,425, 6,750,992 (all Holub — family members, not prior art) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,437 to Van Aken et al. (the only true third-party patent expressly cited for the sensor/self-calibration architecture).

Because the '340 front page "References Cited" list did not render in my retrievals, I supplement with the sibling patent's face list (US 10,560,676, same specification — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/2d/d4/1e/b9c5add1fafbb3/US10560676.pdf) and the references surfaced in the family's prosecution and the PTAB record. I flag which of these I can cite with confidence and which are general-knowledge art.

II. Threshold issues that dominate any § 103 attack

A. Effective filing date — and the priority trap

The specification claims the February 26, 1996 benefit date through 08/606,883 → US 6,043,909, and 12/799,930 is a division of 11/216,784 (filed 2005‑08‑31, now US 7,728,845). Under pre‑AIA § 102/§ 103 (the patent is governed by the pre‑AIA statute; its application was filed 2010 but claims a 1996 date through a chain unaffected by the AIA's first‑inventor‑to‑file transition for this family):

• Claims fully supported by the 1996 disclosure get the 1996‑02‑26 date. Prior art must then predate ~1996 (or 1995 for § 102(b)).
• Claims reading on subject matter arguably added in the 2005 or 2010 applications — most conspicuously the smartphone/handset "dual-use camera" pivoting body, the ambient-light/backlight gradient control, and parts of the laptop arm-mounted camera — cannot ride the 1996 date unless the 1996 disclosure provides § 112 support. This is the single most productive invalidity vector, because it opens up 1996–2005/2010 art (camera phones, webcams, video teleconferencing, ambient-light sensors).

This is a genuine priority dispute that I cannot resolve from the text I hold (the 1996 parent's disclosure is not in my file). It must be resolved by comparing the "dual use camera" claim language against 08/606,883's specification.

B. The Holub family is not prior art

6,043,909 / 6,157,735 / 6,459,425 / 6,750,992 share the 1996 priority and the same inventor. They are not § 102(a)/(b) art (the '909's filing is the same 1996‑02‑26; the '425 was filed in 1998, after the '340 priority — no § 102(e) date), and in any event § 103(c) common ownership/assignment would disqualify them. The repeated appearance of the Holub patents in the "Referenced Cited" lists of other patents (e.g., Justia listings for US 9,224,074 and US 9,204,016, https://patents.justia.com/patent/[9224074](/patent/9224074)) is not a basis for invalidating the '340 patent. Important negative finding: the family's own prolific disclosure cannot be used against it.

C. Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA as of the relevant date would have: (i) a working knowledge of colorimetry (CIE XYZ/CIELAB, spectral vs. tristimulus measurement), (ii) experience building closed-loop color control for printers/presses (linearization LUTs, polynomial/Neugebauer colorant-mixing models, gamut mapping), (iii) familiarity with video-display engineering and calibration, and (iv) routine software skills (device profiles, LUTs, matrix transforms, interpolation). This is the "color management engineer" profile the PTAB record itself uses in the Adobe IPRs (e.g., IPR2019‑00646, institution decision at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/).

III. The prior-art landscape

General-knowledge art I will invoke but flag as unverified-by-citation: CCD/imaging flat-field and shading correction (measuring a uniform field and normalizing per-pixel gain — textbook image-sensor practice well before 1996); laptop webcams for video teleconferencing (commercial by the mid‑1990s); PC-driven monitor colorimeter calibration (mid‑1990s); and ambient-light sensors controlling display backlight on portable devices. I state these as background knowledge rather than pin them to a number I have not verified.

IV. Family-by-family § 103 analysis

Family 1 — Internal CMI in a projection display (FIGS. 35–36) and the wall/speaker measurement module (FIGS. 37–37B)

What must be shown: a color sensor inside a projection-display housing that images reflected light off the screen, using either the projector's own optics or separate optics, and/or a module mountable on a wall/speaker feeding a control unit that calibrates the display.

Combination: Van Aken US 5,319,437 + Holub/Kearsley (SPIE 1184, 1989) and Holub/Kearsley/Pearson (1988) + the display-calibration art of record + ordinary mechanical skill.

• Van Aken supplies the non-contact, self-calibrating colorimeter that the specification itself adopts as the "SOM." The spec even concedes the pre-existing art: "One such type of arrangement is suited to a projection display as described … at column 16, lines 31‑35, of U.S. Pat. No. 6,043,909. Such sensors were located near the source of projected light and were as close as possible to the line of sight." That is an admission that locating a sensor at the light source of a projection display was already known — the very placement the '340 patent claims to improve.
• Holub/Kearsley supplies the calibration transforms (linearization LUT + 3×3 matrix) needed to convert sensor readings into corrected drive values.

Motivation (KSR rationales (A), (C), (F)): combining a known colorimeter with a known projection display to yield the predictable result of closed-loop display calibration is the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). The market incentive to keep home-theater/front-projection color accurate is a classic design incentive.

Weakest link for the patentee: mounting the module on a wall or speaker rather than the screen bezel is a mere location choice with no asserted unexpected result — vulnerable under In re Harza / KSR "predictable variation," unless the patent can show a colorimetric or geometric advantage attributable to that placement. The spec suggests exactly such an argument (occlusion of the viewing area, avoiding intrusion), but at this stage it reads as a design tradeoff, not a patentable difference.

Confidence: Moderate that this family is obvious over Van Aken + the inventor's own published calibration work + ordinary skill. The novelty, if any, is narrow and mechanical.

Family 2 — Dual-use camera on a portable device (FIGS. 39–39N)

What must be shown: one of {camera, display} movable relative to the other; Mode 1 = camera images the device's own display for calibration; Mode 2 = camera images something else (e.g., user for teleconferencing); plus a "third use" of imaging another display/printer/press.

Predicate — priority: As noted in § II.A, this is likely the family most exposed to a priority challenge. If the pivoting-camera/handset embodiments are not § 112-supported in the 1996 disclosure, their effective date slides to 2005‑08‑31 (parent 11/216,784) or 2010‑05‑05, which unlocks a decade of camera-phone, webcam, and teleconferencing art.

Combination (if the 1996 priority does NOT hold):

1. Commercial laptop webcam / video-teleconferencing art (mid‑1990s) + PC-driven display-colorimeter calibration (mid‑1990s) + ordinary mechanical/software skill.
   • Webcam art supplies a camera on a laptop for capturing the user (Mode 2) and establishes the pivot/gimbal mount (cameras on hinged arms were commonplace).
   • Monitor-calibration art supplies "aim a calibrated camera at the screen, capture an image, derive a correction."
   • Motivation (KSR (A), (D)): "applying a known technique [(camera-based screen capture/calibration)] to a known device [(a laptop with a camera)] ready for improvement to yield a predictable result." The two uses of a single camera are the paradigmatic "simple substitution"/dual-use case — the device need only be re-aimed. There is a strong efficiency motivation (avoid a second camera).
2. For the "third use" (imaging another device): camera-based printer/press measurement (Xerox 5,748,221; Falk US 5,760,913; Bhattachariya US 5,809,213) + the portable computer, combined because a general-purpose calibrated camera is a known substitute for a dedicated colorimeter. KSR "simple substitution of one known element for another."
3. For the handset form factor: handset-with-camera art + the clamshell hinge (ubiquitous in flip phones) → pivoting the display half relative to the camera half is a predictable mechanical variation.

Counter-argument the patentee would press (and that has traction): If the 1996 priority does hold, then camera-equipped cellular handsets did not exist in 1996 in any commercially meaningful way, and the "dual-use camera on a handheld telephone" limitation would not have been obvious — the POSITA's 1996 toolbox (laptops, camcorders) does not straightforwardly suggest a wireless handset camera. The litigation history shows RAH has defended exactly this family (the asserted patents in the MDL are the pre‑1996-priority ones; the '340 patent's Kodak case is at W.D.N.Y. 6:19‑cv‑06112, Ex. 2229 at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00628/.../Exhibit-2229...).

Confidence: Low-to-moderate, and entirely dependent on the priority determination. This is where the obviousness case is most contestable.

Family 3 — Spatial non-uniformity ("flattening") correction (FIGS. 40–43B; press version FIGS. 44–46)

What must be shown: measure flat-field images per color channel with an imaging sensor; find the pixel with the lowest I_min/I_max ratio; reduce other pixels/channels while preserving neutral/white balance; apply a spatial-uniformity correction table and/or rendering transform and/or color-to-color′ transform; extend to press "ink rob."

Combination (this family is the most vulnerable):

1. Imaging colorimeter (Van Aken '437 colorimetry + conventional CCD) + flat-field/shading correction (textbook imaging practice) + the "preserve neutral balance" constraint.
   • Flat-field correction — measure a uniform field, compute per-pixel gain I_min/I_max, multiply — is standard image-sensor calibration and substantially the "detecting" step. The '340 specification concedes the flattening concept is "second-order": "Imagical may acquire data needed to flatten the screen… However, both of these factors are second-order effects."
   • Motivation (KSR (C), (F)): using a known technique (flat-fielding) on a known device (a display/press) to improve it in the same way it improves any imager.
2. For the printer/press variant: Rolleston US 5,594,557 ("Color Printer Calibration Correcting for Local Printer Non-Linearities") plus Xerox on-line colorimetry art (5,748,221; 5,963,244; 5,884,118; 6,344,902) plus the general printer-calibration table art (4,275,413 Sakamoto; 4,500,919 Schreiber; 5,481,380 Bestmann; 5,499,568 Wan).
   • Rolleston teaches correcting local (positional) non-linearities — i.e., the concept of positional dependence of a printer's response, which is the core of the press "ink rob"/signature-position claims.
   • The Xerox/on-line art supplies measuring sheets with an in-line spectrophotometer and closing the loop into the inking controls.
   • Motivation (KSR (A), (D)): combining positional calibration (Rolleston) with on-line measurement (Xerox) to correct "ink rob" within a signature is the predictable application of two known techniques to their known purposes. The only arguably new wrinkles — the specific I_min/I_max ratio metric and the "preserve neutral balance" constraint — are mathematical/optimization choices that a POSITA would arrive at by routine experimentation and that are themselves foreshadowed by Neugebauer/Hardy colorant-mixing and gamut-mapping literature.

Counter-argument: The specification ties the metric to specific apparatus (FIGS. 42, 43A‑43B) and to a "preserve white balance" rationale that the references may not expressly state; if a claim recites that constraint as a structural/functional element with a demonstrated benefit, the patentee has an argument. But once the 1996 date is assumed, Rolleston-type art and flat-fielding are squarely in the field.

Confidence: Moderate-to-high that at least broad claims to spatial uniformity correction are obvious; the press variant is the strongest.

Family 4 — Virtual Proof network framework / polynomial forward model / gamut descriptor (FIGS. 1–22, 31–32; Steps 1–9 of FIG. 5)

What must be shown: the VP data structure; polynomial forward model fitted by least squares (SVD); forward-model table over the CMYK hypercube; prototype gamut descriptor in hue-angle/lightness/chroma; interpolation-based transforms; the object-class device profile architecture.

Combination:

• Neugebauer US 2,790,844 + Neugebauer 1956 + Hardy & Wurzburg 1948 + Pobboravsky 1962 → colorant-mixture forward modeling.
• Stone et al. 1988 → gamut description + interpolation tables.
• Holub, Kearsley & Pearson 1988 (I & II); Holub & Kearsley SPIE 1989 → matrix transforms, linearization, color-to-colorant conversion.
• ICC Profile 3.0 (1994)/3.01 (1995); Murch 1993; Maeda 1993; Apple Advanced Color Imaging 1995; Gentile SPIE 1913 (1993) → device profiles, device-independent color workflow, object-oriented CMS.
• Sodergard "General Teleproofing System" 1991 + Takehara wireless LAN 1992 → distributed/remote proofing over a network.
• Johnson & Wichern (1992), ch. 8 (expressly cited in the spec for the statistical fitting) → the least-squares/SVD fitting and PCA reduction steps are textbook statistics.

Motivation (KSR (A), (B), (E)): This family is largely an assembly of known color-science and networking components, each used for its established function (colorant modeling, gamut mapping, profiling, network distribution). The specification itself cites the fitting and gamut techniques to the literature, which is itself an implicit admission that the building blocks are known; the asserted invention is their orchestration. That is a classic KSR "predictable combination" scenario, and to the extent a claim recites an optimization step (e.g., "recursive factorization," "PCA to reduce polynomial terms"), that is an "obvious to try" optimization with a predictable result.

Note the direct PTAB evidence that these building blocks were considered combinable prior art: Adobe's grounds in IPR2019‑00627/‑00628/‑00629/‑00646 combined Tajika (Canon) + Stewart, and Tajika + Stewart + Scott‑Taggart, and Tajika + ICC v3.0, and Tajika + Stone, and Tajika + Giorgianni, against the related '761, '444, '897, and '008 patents (institution decisions at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/... and the Final Written Decision in IPR2019‑00627 at https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PTAB-IPR2019-00627-124.pdf). The Board ultimately found for the patent owner on the '008 claims (failure of proof), which is a caution: the same art that the Board credited as combinable failed on the specific claim limitations. A '340 invalidity theory built on Tajika+Stewart+Giorgianni must therefore map every limitation precisely; the RAH response papers argue hard that the "exchangeable neutral colorant" and "expressible" limitations are not taught (RAH response excerpt at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/.../artifacts...).

Confidence: Moderate for the generic framework/transform claims; low for any claim reciting a specific neutral/auxiliary colorant interrelationship, on which the patentee has already survived an instituted IPR.

V. What the § 103 attack should look like (summary of combinations)

VI. Secondary considerations (objective indicia)

The record shows licensing activity and commercial adoption of the RAH portfolio. The PTAB/Adobe papers debate whether that licensing is probative: Petitioner's expert (Poynton) argued there is no nexus because many licenses recited "avoid litigation costs," covered many patents, and were small relative to litigation cost (see Ex. 1071 at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00628/.../Exhibit-1071...). That testimony is persuasive against a strong secondary-considerations showing, though RAH would argue the sheer breadth of the portfolio's adoption indicates industry recognition. For the '340 patent specifically, no commercial-success or copying evidence tied to the '340 claims has surfaced.

Caveat: I have not verified whether the 6:19‑cv‑06112 Kodak case produced any validity ruling, settlement, or license relevant to the '340 patent, and I found no IPR against the '340 patent itself (the Adobe IPRs target '444, '761, '897, and '008, not '340).

VII. Bottom line

1. The strongest § 103 position is against the display-calibration (Family 1) and spatial-uniformity/press (Family 3) claims, because the '340 specification itself admits (a) the sensor-at-light-source placement was known (col. citation to US 6,043,909), (b) flattening is "second-order," and (c) the colorant-modeling/gamut machinery is drawn from cited literature. These admissions convert the claims into predictable combinations of Van Aken US 5,319,437 + Rolleston US 5,594,557 + the Xerox on-line colorimetry family + ordinary skill.
2. The mobile "dual-use camera" claims are the swing factor. They are either (i) obvious over 1996–2005 webcam/teleconferencing + monitor-calibration + camera-based printer-measurement art if their priority fails, or (ii) likely non-obvious if the 1996 date holds, because handset cameras were not in the POSITA's 1996 toolkit. Resolving the priority question is therefore prerequisite to any opinion.
3. The Virtual Proof / polynomial-model framework claims are moderately exposed as an assembly of known building blocks (Neugebauer, Hardy & Wurzburg, Stone 1988, Holub/Kearsley 1988‑89, ICC 3.0, Sodergard, Takehara, Johnson & Wichern), but the PTAB's failure-of-proof rulings on the related '761/'444/'897/'008 patents (Adobe IPRs) counsel caution: combinability was accepted, but limitation-by-limitation proof failed on the neutral-colorant claims. Any petition against '340 should avoid the neutral-colorant theory and focus on the display/press/SOM families.

Explicit uncertainty flags:

• I could not retrieve the issued claims of 8,638,340; this analysis is disclosure-level.
• I could not retrieve the '340 front-page "References Cited" list; the reference set above is assembled from the specification text, the sibling US 10,560,676 face list, and the family's PTAB record. References marked "general knowledge" are not citation-verified.
• I did not verify the legal status/expiration of the '340 patent beyond Google Patents' literal "Expired – Fee Related; expires 2018‑07‑10" entry, nor any 2026 CAFC activity (none found).