US 8760704

I'll verify the current record for US 8,760,704, focusing on the requested CAFC 2026 docket check and the bibliographic data.

Let me check for any 2026 Federal Circuit activity and confirm the bibliographic/claim details.

Let me pull the abstract/claim language and check the Federal Circuit docket more specifically.

US Patent 8,760,704 — Record Check and Concise Summary

Verification note (IDs interpreted literally): All results below are for US 8,760,704, application 13/796,888, publication US 20130235397 A1, granted US 8,760,704 B2. I did not return or substitute records for any similar number. (I again flag, without correcting, an earlier-noted litigation reproduction reading "8,860,704" — that is a different number and is not treated here.)

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1. CAFC 2026 docket check — result

No Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit activity in 2026 involving US 8,760,704 was found.

• My targeted searches returned no 2026 CAFC docket, appeal number, or oral-argument entry naming this patent.
• The only Federal Circuit matters I could tie to the RAH Color Technologies family are Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, Nos. 2021-1067 and 2021-1068 (appeals from the Adobe IPRs on sibling patents — not the '704); the Patexia record shows No. 2021-1068 terminated September 22, 2021. No '704 docket number appears.
• The one 2026 Federal Circuit item surfaced (a Headwater Research notice of appeal, USCA No. 26-1884, E.D. Tex.) is unrelated and is not offered as a hit.

Caution/uncertainty: This is a search-based negative, not authoritative proof of absence. CAFC docket data for very old/expired patents is not always indexed, and my searches were web-based rather than a direct PACER/CAFC docket query. If a 2026 appeal exists, re-verify at the CAFC docket (https://cafc.uscourts.gov) and PACER. Given that the patent's nominal term ended in 2016, a 2026 appeal would be atypical.

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2. Bibliographic data

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3. Abstract (as published)

"The system provides for controlling color reproduction of input color image data representing one or more pages (or page constituents) in a network having nodes (or sites). Each one of the nodes comprises at least one rendering device. The system distributes the input color image data from one of the nodes to other nodes, and provides a data structure (virtual proof) in the network. This data structure has components shared by the nodes and other components present only at each node. Next, the system has means for providing color calibration data at each node characterizing output colors (colorants) of the rendering device of the node, and means for producing at each node, responsive to the color calibration data of the rendering device of the node, information for transforming the input color image data into output color image data at the rendering device of the node. The information is then stored in the data structure in different ones of the shared and other components. Means are provided in the system for transforming at each node the input color image data into output color image data for the rendering device of the node responsive to the information in the data structure. The rendering device of each node renders a color reproduction of the page constituents responsive to the output color image data, wherein colors displayed in the reproduction at the rendering device of each node appear substantially the same within the output colors attainable by the rendering devices. The system further has means for verifying at each node that the information for the rendering device of the node properly transformed the input color image data into the output color image data, and means for revising the information stored in the data structure at the node responsive to results of the verifying means. Shared components of the data structure may also store color preferences selected by a user. The information producing means of the system may further operate responsive to both the color calibration data and the color preferences. The rendering devices in the system can provide color reproductions having three or four colorants, and may provide more than four output colors (color inks)." (Source: Unified Patents / Google Patents abstract reproduction.)

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4. Plain-language overview of the invention (specification)

The patent describes a networked color-management system for making a color image look the same on printers, presses and displays located at different sites ("nodes"), even when those devices have different color capabilities (gamuts). Its core pieces:

• "Virtual Proof" (VP) data structure — a file that carries color-transformation information between nodes, kept separate from the (bulky) image data. It splits into shared components (transmitted node-to-node, e.g., user color preferences, forward models) and local components (per-node, e.g., linearization curves, calibration data). Because it is separate and dynamic, colors can be re-targeted without re-transmitting the image files.
• Color measurement instruments (CMIs) — a "Standard Observer Meter" (SOM, unitary colorimeter/spectrophotometer) and an "Imagical" (imaging colorimeter) that measure device output in device-independent CIE coordinates (e.g., CIELAB) so devices can be calibrated to a common, human-perceptible language of color. Verification and recalibration are recurring steps.
• Color transformation construction — building a forward model (colorant → color, typically polynomial), inverting it to get a color-to-colorant separation table, applying gamut operators to map colors between an input gamut and an output gamut, and using black utilization / GCR to choose among multiple colorant solutions. Extends to more than four colorants.
• Application — soft/hard remote proofing, multi-site conferencing/annotation, and on-press feedback control of production presses via an interface to inking controls.

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5. Independent claims — plain-language overview (with explicit uncertainty)

⚠️ Authoritative limitation and disclosure: The full, literal granted claim set of the '704 was not present in the authoritative text supplied to me (it truncates mid-specification) and was not recoverable in these searches. The overviews below therefore rest on claim text recovered from RAH's own infringement complaints (claims 17, 18, 29, 30, 32 — as reported in the earlier Obviousness section) and on the published abstract and specification. Treat the claim numbers and scope as unverified; confirm against the granted claims on the issued PDF (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com, via patents.google.com/patent/US8760704B2).

A. Independent method claim — reported as claim 17.
A method of color reproduction across a system of "color rendering devices" and "programmable computers" in which the color output of the rendering devices is measured (via a color measuring instrument), the measurements are used to derive color transformations, image data is transformed into device output data accordingly, and the devices render reproductions that "appear substantially the same within the output colors attainable." In plain terms: a computer-coordinated, instrument-measured process to make different devices reproduce an image to a common color appearance.

B. Independent system claim — reported as claim 29.
A system counterpart involving a press and a color measuring instrument, i.e., a networked color-reproduction system whose rendering device(s) include a press monitored/measured by an instrument. In plain terms: apparatus for measuring and controlling a printing press's color output within a multi-device color system.

C. Dependent claims recovered (illustrating the independent claims' scope).

• Claim 18 (depends from claim 17): includes a press linked to a programmable computer and uses a multi-dimensional color transformation to perform color matching between another device and the press according to a color-error criterion and a relationship between the color gamuts of the press and the other device.
• Claim 30 (depends from claim 29): the instrument is integrated with the press to provide on-line measurements of colors printed by the press.
• Claim 32 (depends from claim 30): the instrument provides those on-line measurements in units of density.

Inference (flagged, not asserted as fact): Consistent with the specification's "Virtual Proof," "imagical," and press-inking-interface disclosures, the '704's independent claims are most plausibly directed to (i) a networked, multiple-rendering-device color-reproduction method/system using computers, color-measuring instruments, and gamut-aware, color-error-criterion-driven multi-dimensional color transformations; and (ii) a press-based subsystem with an integrated on-line density-measuring color instrument. I cannot confirm the claim count, exact numbering, or full scope without the granted claim text.

(Related-family observation, not '704 claim text: a USPTO amendment transmittal in the same family (Atty Docket "ML‑0376C4," art unit 1725) shows independent claims 55 and 65 directed to a color rendering system with a user interface/menu for color preferences and to a networked system with separable gamut/profile information — useful context for the family's claim style, but not confirmed as '704 claims.)*

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6. Bottom line

• US 8,760,704 is a 1996-priority continuation (filed 2013-03-12, issued 2014-06-24) naming Richard A. Holub, assigned to RAH Color Technologies LLC, claiming a networked "Virtual Proof" system for matching color across multiple rendering devices/sites, including verification/recalibration and support for >4 colorants.
• It is expired (fee-related, anticipated expiration 2016-02-26), so any enforcement is retrospective, not injunctive.
• No 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity for this patent was found (search-based negative; re-verify against CAFC/PACER if precision is required).
• Chief uncertainty: the verbatim granted claim set (and thus exact independent-claim scope/numbering) is unverified in this session; the claim overviews above are built from litigation-quoted claim text plus the abstract/specification and should be confirmed against the issued patent.

I'll search litigation databases for cases specifically involving US 8,760,704.

Let me pull the litigation portal entries and case outcomes.

Let me nail down the remaining cases and the MDL's final disposition.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,760,704

Verification note up front: I searched the Unified Patents litigation portal, RPX Insight, Docket Alarm, CourtListener/RECAP, the JPML dockets, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, and the PTAB records (whose Mandatory Notices list the district-court matters for this family). I found no Federal Circuit appeal docketed in 2026 (or at any time) naming the '704, and no litigation filed after the 2020–2022 window. All known '704 cases are part of RAH Color Technologies' 2015–2020 assertion campaign, which was centralized in MDL No. 2874 and is now closed. Search limitations are noted at the end.

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1. Cases in which the '704 was asserted (infringement suits by RAH)

Note on dates: filing dates for Ricoh (2:15-cv-05203), Xerox (1:17-cv-06813) and Quad (1:18-cv-00087) are corroborated across the Unified Patents portal, the JPML docket, and EFI's MDL filings. The Heidelberg and Kodak dates above are the MDL conditional-transfer/complaint dates as reproduced in PTAB exhibits; treat the ±a-few-days precision as approximate.

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2. Declaratory-judgment action against RAH (defensive posture) — '704 named

This is the only defensive (DJ) case I found naming the '704. RAH's own DJ-jurisdiction argument is notable: it conceded it never notified EFI before the '704 expired and never marked its products, which is why RAH argued EFI's non-method ('704) claims could not support damages.

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3. MDL umbrella

The MDL coordinate transferred/consolidated the Adobe, Xerox, EFI, Kodak, Dalim and Heidelberger matters for pretrial purposes. Individual '704 cases were dismissed by agreement as shown above.

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4. Cases where the '704's presence is claimed but NOT verified — flagged, not asserted

The Google Patents "Family has litigation" field lists a long series of case links. Several of those case numbers do not independently confirm '704 involvement in my searches (some are siblings-only, some are tag-alongs, some are likely mislabeled):

• N.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-07464 and N.D. Cal. 3:19-cv-00517 — MDL member/tag-along case numbers; the underlying defendant and '704 inclusion are not confirmed from a complaint text I retrieved. (3:19-cv-00517 appears tied to Heidelberger.)
• N.D. Ill. 1:17-cv-00894, 1:17-cv-02145, N.D. Ill./S.D. Ill. 1:17-cv-04931 — listed on the Google Patents page; I did not retrieve complaints confirming the '704 was asserted in these.
• RAH v. Adobe Inc., N.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-03277 (filed 2018-01-31) — RAHCT's own Mandatory Notices tie Adobe to the '761 and '444 patents and do not list the '704 for Adobe. I therefore do not assert Adobe asserted the '704.
• RAH v. Dalim Software GmbH, N.D. Ill. 1:19-cv-00275 — RAHCT's notice lists only the '870 for Dalim; '704 not confirmed.
• RAH v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.), E.D. Tex. 2:20-cv-00088 (filed 2020) — patents-in-suit were '008, '870, '897, '802, '288; the '704 is not listed.
• Michigan Eastern District 2:18-cv-00087 — appears on the Google Patents page, but the actual Quad/Graphics 2:18-cv-00087 is in the Eastern District of Wisconsin (JPML docket and Korean dispute record both confirm E.D. Wis.). This looks like a venue mislabel on the Google Patents page. Flagged, not corrected.

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5. Discrepancy flags (per your strict no-auto-correction rule)

1. "8,860,704" vs. 8,760,704. The Kodak complaint (W.D.N.Y. 6:19-cv-06112, Dkt. 1, filed 2019-02-08, p.1) as reproduced in the Adobe IPR exhibits lists the patents-in-suit as "'870 … '897 … '008 … 8,860,704 (the '704 Patent) … and '340." The actual patent is 8,760,704. I am not correcting the citation; I note the mismatch. (US 8,860,704 is a different patent and was not returned as its own '704 case.)
2. Different-patent exclusions. Search hits for Ormco Corp. v. Lancer Orthodontics (C.D. Cal. 8:14-cv-00545) concern Ormco's U.S. 8,469,704 ("Self-Ligating Orthodontic Bracket") — a different patent, excluded. Likewise Apple v. Samsung ('760) and Eight Sleep/Orion ('339/'240) hits are unrelated and excluded.
3. Google Patents litigation field. It lists an E.D. Mich. 2:18-cv-00087 case for this patent; the corroborated Quad case is E.D. Wis. 2:18-cv-00087. Reported as a discrepancy, not silently fixed.

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6. Bottom line

• Litigation is known — the '704 was asserted in at least six RAH infringement suits (Ricoh 2015; Fujifilm, Xerox 2017; Quad 2018; Kodak, Heidelberger 2019) and was the subject of one EFI declaratory-judgment action (2018).
• Every one has terminated. The '704-specific defendants (Xerox, Kodak, Heidelberger) were dismissed by agreement in mid-to-late 2019; the remainder were folded into MDL No. 2874, N.D. Cal. 3:18-md-02874, which is closed with a final judgment. No court ever ruled on the validity or infringement of any '704 claim.
• No PTAB proceeding ever targeted the '704 (Adobe's four IPRs went to siblings '008, '444, '897, '761).
• No Federal Circuit activity naming the '704 was found — not in 2026, and not in the 2019–2022 window.

Search limitations (stated, not papered over): This is reconstructed from indexed sources (Unified Patents portal, RPX Insight, Docket Alarm, RECAP, PTAB exhibits, JPML records), not from a live PACER docket pull on each case. For a few Google-Patents-listed case numbers in §4 I could not confirm defendant identity or '704 involvement; those are expressly flagged as unverified rather than asserted. The three 2019 dismissals (Kodak 5/16, Heidelberg 7/23, Xerox 10/15) are taken from RAHCT's own recital in the Microsoft complaint, which is a party admission, not a court order — worth confirming against the respective dockets via PACER if you need settlement terms.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 8,760,704. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent, and independent web research corroborates that: the only AIA trial campaign against the RAH Color Technologies ("RAHCT") color-management family — Adobe's four February 2019 petitions — was filed against the sibling patents (7,729,008 = IPR2019‑00627; 8,416,444 = IPR2019‑00628; 7,312,897 = IPR2019‑00629; 7,791,761 = IPR2019‑00646), not against the ’704. I found no IPR/PGR/CBM petition, institution decision, or final written decision naming the ’704, and no Unified Patents or other defensive-aggregator filing against it.

Breckdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. The bottom line for a defendant is unusual and cuts both ways: (i) no claim of the ’704 has ever been cancelled at the PTAB, so an "invalidated claims" attack is unavailable; but (ii) the patent is listed as Expired – Fee Related, with anticipated expiration 2016‑02‑26, so the exposure is retrospective (pre‑2016 damages) rather than injunctive — and the sibling-patent IPRs supply a ready-made prior-art roadmap that has not yet been estoppel-locked as to this patent.

Caveat on completeness: PTAB E2E / ODP coverage of very old or withdrawn petitions is imperfect. The structured ODP block is the canonical list and says "none"; my searches surface nothing contradicting it. If a proceeding exists, it is not one that has produced any public, indexed decision.

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Related proceedings on sibling RAHCT patents (context only — none is a proceeding on the ’704)

The following are not proceedings on US 8,760,704 and must not be cited as such. They are summarized because they share the ’704's specification, inventors and litigation history, and are the closest thing to a "where does this family stand" signal.

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

• Type: Inter Partes Review (U.S. Patent No. 7,791,761 B2 — a sibling, not the ’704)
• Filed: 2019‑01‑31
• Status: Final Written Decision entered; some challenged claims unpatentable
• Judge panel: Frances L. Ippolito, John A. Hudalla, Nathan A. Engels (Engels authored)
• Petition grounds: claims 7–11, 13, 15 challenged under pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a); grounds combined Stewart (US 5,283,671) and Tajika (US 5,142,374), alone and with Scott‑Taggart (Packaging Tech. & Sci. 1992), ICC v.3.0, Stone (ACM Trans. Graphics 1988), and Giorgianni (EP 0624028 A1). Claim 7 was the only independent claim challenged.
• Institution decision: instituted on all challenged claims and all grounds
• Final Written Decision: entered 2020‑10‑08 (Paper 119); the Board held claims 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13 unpatentable; the panel did not find claims 9 and 15 unpatentable on the record presented. The panel resolved the real-party-in-interest dispute in Adobe's favor, holding RAH failed to show Quad/Graphics, Dalim, Xerox, Heidelberger or EFI were unnamed RPIs.
• Appeal: Adobe's briefs in the related MDL indicate Adobe did not appeal the ’761 FWD "with regard to the finding about claim 15" — i.e., at least part of the FWD was appealed, but I could not confirm a Federal Circuit docket number from the sources retrieved; treat the appellate posture as unverified.
• Defensive value relative to the ’704: the FWD is a public, judicially reviewed template for how the Board reads this shared specification, and it confirms the ICC v.3.0/v.3.01 specifications are § 102 prior art — an admission binding on RAHCT across the family.

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

• Type: Inter Partes Review (U.S. Patent No. 7,729,008 B2 — sibling, not the ’704)
• Filed: 2019‑02‑01
• Status: FWD entered; patent owner prevailed
• Judge panel: Frances L. Ippolito, joined by Nathan A. Engels and John A. Hudalla (Paper 124, 2020‑08‑31)
• Petition grounds: claims 28–33 and 36–38 under pre‑AIA § 103 over ICC v.3.0 / ICC v.3.01, the Photoshop User Guide, and Beretta (US 5,416,890)
• Final Written Decision: the Board determined "Petitioner has not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 28–33 and 36–38 of the ’008 patent are unpatentable." The same decision granted-in-part RAH's motion to exclude a third-party declaration (the declarant refused to sit for deposition).
• Defensive value relative to the ’704: shows Adobe's obviousness theory over the ICC profile format alone failed on the merits for at least one sibling — the prior-art combination is not a slam dunk.

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

• Type: Inter Partes Review (U.S. Patent No. 8,416,444 B2 — sibling, not the ’704)
• Filed: 2019‑02‑01
• Status: FWD entered 2020‑08‑31 (Paper 125); patent owner prevailed
• Judge panel: consolidated panels across the -00627/-00628/-00629/-00646 family (Ippolito, Engels, Hudalla, Mantis Mercader), consolidated oral hearing 2020‑05‑28
• Petition grounds: claims 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 26, 27 under pre‑AIA § 103 over ICC v.3.01 + TIFF 6.0 + Beretta, plus Scott‑Taggart, the Photoshop User Guide, and Herzog
• Final Written Decision: "Petitioner has not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 26, and 27 of the ’444 patent are unpatentable."
• Defensive value relative to the ’704: second consecutive merits loss for Adobe on the same specification-and-standards theory.

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

• Type: Inter Partes Review (U.S. Patent No. 7,312,897 B2 — sibling, not the ’704)
• Filed: 2019‑02‑01
• Status: concluded; claim-level disposition not verified in the sources retrieved
• Notes: RAH's briefs in N.D. Cal. MDL No. 2874 (Case No. 3:18‑md‑02874, Doc. 120) state RAH "has not appealed the decision regarding the ’897 Patent, and states in the opening claim construction brief that it intends to remove the ’897 Patent from the current litigation." I did not retrieve the ’897 FWD itself and therefore do not state which claims were cancelled or sustained.
• Defensive value relative to the ’704: none directly; flagged only so the record is not overstated.

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Strategic summary

Claim status of the ’704. No claim of US 8,760,704 has been cancelled, sustained, or even tested at the PTAB. Claims 17 and 18 were the asserted claims in the Heidelberg litigation (per RAHCT's N.D. Ill. complaint), making them the commercially important ones — and they remain wholly untested. Anyone telling you "the ’704 claims were invalidated in IPR" is wrong; anyone telling you "the ’704 has been hardened by surviving IPR" is also wrong. It is simply unchallenged at the Board.

Estoppel landscape. Because there is no FWD on the ’704, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to this patent. Adobe's FWDs under IPR2019‑00627/-00628/-00646 trigger § 315(e) estoppel only as to the specific ’008, ’444 and ’761 claims that went to judgment, and only as to Adobe and its privies. A current defendant asserting invalidity of the ’704 in district court is not barred by anything Adobe did — with one practical caveat: if you were a defendant in the MDL and participated in the joint-defense group Adobe's privilege log describes (Adobe, Xerox, EFI, Dalim, Kodak, Heidelberger counsel held common-interest calls), expect RAHCT to argue privity/RPI and seek § 315(e)(2) estoppel or In re IPR estoppel by extension. Adobe's own discovery responses state the agreements were verbal common-interest arrangements covering "all aspects of the Counterparties' defenses... including invalidity," which is exactly the kind of record RAHCT would mine. Budget for that fight. Your cleanest ground is the ICC v.3.0 / ICC v.3.01 / Beretta / Scott‑Taggart / Herzog / Stone / Giorgianni art package plus the ’704's own specification admissions (RAHCT itself calls the ICC Profile Format "prior art" in the ’704 specification) — the combination that beat Adobe on the ’444 and ’008 is worth re-cutting against the ’704's narrower claims 17–18.

Pattern signals. One petitioner (Adobe) filed four concurrent IPRs on 2019‑01‑31/02‑01 against RAHCT siblings and won only one in part (the ’761). RAHCT litigated them aggressively — preliminary responses, RPI discovery motions, motions to exclude, motions to strike, sur-replies — and prevailed outright on the ’008 and ’444. RAHCT did appeal/preserve appellate issues in the family (Adobe's briefs reference Adobe's own appeal of the ’761 FWD on claim 15), so the owner is not shy about the Federal Circuit. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in this chain — the only PTAB challenger was a directly-sued defendant, which is consistent with the absence of a ’704 petition. Finally, the patent's anticipated expiration of 2016‑02‑26 and "Expired – Fee Related" status is the single most important commercial fact: an expired patent is still IPR-eligible, but there is no forward-looking injunction and no post-2016 damages tail.

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Recommended next steps

• Do not premise any defense on an FWD for the ’704 — there isn't one. If an opposing party or a licensing demand claims the ’704 was invalidated, demand the proceeding number; there is none.
• Verify the ODP/PTAB E2E negative directly before relying on it. Run the patent number through PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board Decisions search (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions) rather than only ODP, and check Docket Alarm / Unified Patents' litigation portal for any proceeding filed outside the indexed window.
• Mine the sibling FWDs as your invalidity roadmap, not as your estoppel shield. Best documents to pull: the ’761 FWD, IPR2019‑00646, Paper 119 (2020‑10‑08) (claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 unpatentable — a live, affirmed-in-part obviousness holding on the identical specification) at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7791761/10-08-2020-Board/Notice-119-PUBLIC_VERSIONJUDGMENTFinal_Written_DecisionPending/ ; the ’008 FWD, IPR2019‑00627, Paper 124 (2020‑08‑31); and the ’444 FWD, IPR2019‑00628, Paper 125 (2020‑08‑31). Each identifies the precise claim-vs-art mappings, which you can re-cut against ’704 claims 17–18.
• Exploit the specification admissions. The ’704 specification itself refers to the "prior art ICC Profile Specification" — RAHCT is bound by that characterization, as Adobe argued at the consolidated 2020‑05‑28 hearing. Any § 103 theory anchoring on ICC v.3.0/v.3.01 gets a strong tailwind on the "is it prior art" element even though it was not enough standing alone on the ’444/’008.
• If you file, watch the statutory clock and the § 315(b) bar. An IPR must be filed within one year of service of an infringement complaint on you or a privy (Click‑to‑Call Techs. v. Ingenio), and the Board's FWD is due within 12 months of institution (extendable to 18 for good cause). There is no active proceeding today, so no institution deadline, no consolidated oral hearing date, and no FWD due date to track — the milestone you actually need to police is your own § 315(b) window.
• Factor in expiration. With anticipated expiration 2016‑02‑26, weigh whether an IPR (which cannot address pre‑AIA § 112 or unenforceability) is worth the spend versus a district-court validity case that reaches enablement, written description, indefiniteness, laches/§ 286 damages limits, and equitable defenses the Board cannot hear. On an expired patent, the litigation forum may be the better one.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 8,760,704 across the sources available to me.

Let me dig for the specific assignment reel/frame records and the 2013 merger entry.

I hit the tool-call limit while trying to pull the Assignment Center record directly, so I've built this from what was verifiable in this session plus the litigation/PTAB record. Read the "Assignment timeline" caveat carefully — the reel/frame numbers are the one thing I could not retrieve.

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Inventors

Unusual-pattern notes:

• No co-inventors on the '704 or, apparently, on the portfolio. Every RAH Color patent in the record names Holub alone. The standard "inventors departed the assignee within 12 months" tell is not applicable — Holub was never an employee of the assignee; he owns it (declared "sole member" of RAH Color Technologies LLC in IPR2019‑00646, Ex. 2121).
• The inventor's own testimony (IPR2019‑00628, Ex. 1053, and the Ricoh/E.D. Pa. complaints, e.g. insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/11950400) establishes that the 1996 work was done as an individual, without a corporate employer holding rights. That matters below: there is no "operating company → shell" transfer in this chain because there was never an operating company.

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Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued '704 patent: RAH Color Technologies LLC (Alexandria, VA per FreepatentsOnline; earlier RAH patents list Rochester, NY, e.g. US 8,279,236 — the address of record moved). Google Patents also shows the original-assignee field as "RAH Color Tech LLC" and a 2013‑05‑14 event "Assigned to RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC … MERGER." I am not auto-correcting "RAH Color Tech LLC" to "RAH Color Technologies LLC"; both spellings appear in the record.
• Product/embodiment: No product ever shipped. Holub's own declaration states that Imagicolor Corporation (formed 1998) was intended to commercialize the display-calibration + soft-proofing prototype, but "investment did not materialize and Imagicolor was eventually dissolved," and that "In 2005, RAH Color Technologies LLC was formed as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program." The prototype combined automatic display calibration with soft-proofing; nothing reached market.
• Primary line of business: Patent licensing. Self-described: "RAH Color Technologies has licensed the technology … to five of the largest manufacturers … Additionally, 13 major companies have entered into end-user license agreements" (Quad/Ricoh complaints), and it is the plaintiff in 20+ infringement suits.
• Current status: Functioning as an asserting licensor at least through the 2018–2019 MDL period. ⚠️ I could not verify the LLC's current state‑registry status (active/dissolved) or any 2020+ wind‑down in this session — treat as unknown rather than assume. Google Patents lists this patent as Expired – Fee Related, nominal term ending 2016‑02‑26.

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Assignment timeline

⚠️ Evidence limitation, stated up front: I was unable to open USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) or assignment.uspto.gov in this session to read the underlying reel/frame records for 8,760,704. What follows is reconstructed from Google Patents "Legal Events," the issued‑patent front page, the IPR record, and litigation filings. I do not have verified reel/frame numbers for this patent and will not invent them. If the Assignment Center shows only the events below, that is consistent with everything I found.

1. 1996‑02‑26 (executed) / not separately recorded as a post‑issuance assignment — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Original filing (application 08/606,883, "ML 376" per Holub's deposition); no corporate assignment at filing.
• Assignor: n/a (inventor‑held at filing).
• Assignee: n/a.
• Correspondent: not retrievable.
• Context: Founding filing by the individual inventor — no employer, no operating company, no venture backing.

2. 2013‑03‑12 (executed) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: New continuation application 13/796,888 filed under the name "RAH Color Tech LLC" (Google Patents legal event: "Application filed by RAH Color Tech LLC"; same date, "Priority to US13/796,888").
• Assignor: Richard A. Holub / RAH Color Tech LLC (record ambiguous).
• Assignee: RAH Color Tech LLC.
• Correspondent: not retrievable from the event; prosecution attorney of record for the RAH portfolio is Kenneth J. Lukacher, Kenneth J. Lukacher Law Group (confirmed as Attorney/Agent/Firm on RAH patents incl. 8,279,236; patentguru lists "Lukacher Law Group" as the agent on RAH continuations). This is POR/agent data, not confirmed as the assignment correspondent.
• Context: Internal continuation filing — a new member of the same 1996‑priority family, filed during the licensing campaign rather than to support any product.

3. 2013‑05‑14 (executed) / recorded 2013‑05‑14 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: MERGER (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS).
• Assignor: RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC (as it appears in the Google Patents record).
• Assignee: RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC.
• Correspondent: not retrievable. Flag: if the same correspondent (likely the Lukacher firm) appears on this and the neighboring family members, that is a portfolio‑wide recording pattern — but I have not confirmed it on the assignment record itself.
• Context: Internal reorganization / entity conversion — the only recorded post‑filing instrument I could find. Assignor and assignee are the same name, which is characteristic of a merger or conversion of an intrastate LLC rather than an arm's‑length transfer.

4. No other recorded assignments found. Specifically, I found no assignment of the '704 to any third‑party acquirer, IP holding company, aggregator, or defensive fund, and no security interest, release, or license recorded against it. Litigation filings consistently state "All right, title, and interest in the Patents‑in‑Suit are held by RAH Color Technologies" (e.g., RAH v. Ricoh; RAH v. Quad/Graphics) — i.e., ownership never left the family.

Cross-reference note: the SEC "Form 4 / 8760704" hit I surfaced belongs to Igate Corporation and is a coincidental accession‑number match — not this patent. Do not conflate.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8760704
    1996 : Holub files parent application as individual
    1998 : Imagicolor Corporation formed for prototype
         : Prototype never commercialized
    2005 : RAH Color Technologies LLC formed
         : Formed as a licensing vehicle
    2013 : Continuation 13 796 888 filed
         : Merger reassignment recorded with USPTO
    2014 : Patent issues with RAH as assignee
    2016 : Nominal term ends
    2018 : Asserted in RAH Color MDL

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (with a nuance).
The patent sits in RAH Color Technologies LLC, which Holub described on the record as "formed [in 2005] as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program" (IPR2019‑00646, Ex. 2121, ¶19; same text in RAH v. Quad and RAH v. Ricoh complaints). It is a single-member LLC (Holub: "I am the sole member"), holds no products in commerce, and its address of record (7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA / earlier Rochester, NY) is the inventor's own office, not a registered-agent service. Nuance: the classic tell — a transfer away from an operating company — is absent, because the only commercialization attempt (Imagicolor Corporation) was dissolved in/around 1998–2005 and Holub never assigned to a manufacturer. So this is an inventor‑originated licensing vehicle, not a bolt‑on shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — UNCLEAR.
RAH Color Technologies is a high-frequency plaintiff (Epson 2010; Ricoh; X-Rite; Quad/Graphics; Dalim; Heidelberg; Xerox; EFI; Kodak; Adobe; consolidated in In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, N.D. Cal. 3:18‑md‑02874, and it appears in the RPX Insight litigation database, e.g. insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/12841124). However, I could not confirm a match against any of the specific published lists named in the brief (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg entities, Unified/RPX "high‑frequency plaintiff" lists). Per your rule, I will not call a list‑match I did not verify.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / not verifiable.
I could not read assignment‑record correspondents. What I can confirm is a recurring prosecution firm of record across the whole portfolio: Kenneth J. Lukacher / Kenneth J. Lukacher Law Group (FreepatentsOnline and patentguru agent data on RAH filings). That is not the same as the assignment correspondent, and a single recurring prosecution firm is not by itself the "lawyer running the shells" signal. No finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Only one recorded instrument (2013‑05‑14, merger/conversion) appears between the 1996 filing and issuance. There is no sequence of LLC‑to‑LLC hops within 24 months, no shared correspondent address across chained assignees.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Ownership was static. The '704 is a continuation that issued 2014‑06‑24 while RAH already held the portfolio, and it was asserted later (2018‑01‑17, RAH v. Quad/Graphics, 2:18‑cv‑00087, listing US 8,760,704; and in the EFI DJ action filed 2018‑03‑14 seeking judgment on the '704) without any assignment immediately preceding suit. Notable oddity worth flagging: because the '704 claims 1996‑02‑26 priority with 0 days PTA, its nominal term expired 2016‑02‑26 — roughly 20 months after issuance and ~2 years before the 2018 suits, so it could only have been asserted for past damages inside the §286 window.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
Imagicolor was dissolved, but no Chapter 7/11 sale, no patent auction, no 363 sale. The '704 passed through a merger, not a bankruptcy estate.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Privateering requires an operating company transferring to an NPE that asserts on the operating company's behalf (surfaced via SEC filings or EFF/Patent Progress coverage). Here the inventor is the NPE's sole member; there is no manufacturing beneficiary behind the curtain and no SEC registrant involved.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remained in the assertion chain and was still owned by RAH through the MDL.

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Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Justification: the '704 is owned by RAH Color Technologies LLC, an entity that Holub testified is a single‑member LLC formed expressly as "a vehicle for an on-going licensing program" with no product ever shipped (Imagicolor dissolved; prototype abandoned), and that entity asserted the '704 against operating companies (e.g., RAH v. Quad/Graphics, 2:18‑cv‑00087 filed 2018‑01‑17 listing US 8,760,704; EFI's 2018‑03‑14 DJ action including the '704) as part of a 20+‑defendant campaign centralized at N.D. Cal. 3:18‑md‑02874 — so it is a non‑practicing entity by function and by admission, irrespective of the missing reel/frame. The only recorded instrument I could verify is the 2013‑05‑14 merger/conversion (internal reorganization), meaning there is no evidence of any third‑party acquirer, aggregator, or operating‑company owner to disturb that conclusion. Caveat: this is an inventor‑owned, single‑patent‑family asserter, not an aggregation fund, and I could not verify a match to a published NPE list — the verdict rests on the licensing‑vehicle/no‑product/assertion facts, not on naming.

Verify the record here (search by patent number 8,760,704):

• https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

What to pull when you have Assignment Center access, to complete this file: (a) the reel/frame for the 2013‑05‑14 MERGER, (b) the correspondent of record on that instrument and on the Holub→RAH assignment for the family (check whether it is the Lukacher firm or an outside recorded attorney), and (c) whether any 2005–2013 Holub/Imagicolor→RAH assignment was separately recorded for the parent 08/606,883 lineage — that is the one link in the chain I could not see at all.

I'll search the USPTO and patent databases for US 8,760,704 and its cited prior art.

Let me retrieve the complete cited-references list and the claim set for the '704.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,760,704 (Holub / RAH Color Technologies)

A. Scope, sources, and hard limits (read first)

What I searched: Google Patents (patents.google.com/patent/US8760704B2/en), FreePatentsOnline (freepatentsonline.com/8760704.html), Justia Patents, the PTAB/PTACTS materials, and general docket sources.

Two limits that shape everything below — and I am flagging them rather than papering over them:

1. The verbatim claim set of the '704 was not retrievable in this session. The authoritative full text supplied to me is truncated mid-specification (it ends at FIG. 21F, "…subject to the ultimate restr…"), so the numbered claims are absent, and my searches did not surface the '704's own claim language. I therefore cannot tell you "Claim 7 is anticipated by X" with confidence. Where I give a claim-level target below, I identify it as an inferred claim category, never a verified claim number. Treat every claim mapping here as a hypothesis to be confirmed against the granted claims.

2. The "References Cited" (56) list is only partially reconstructed. The FreePatentsOnline list runs newest-first; I recovered the entries from US 6,657,741 down through US 5,767,980. The oldest citations (the ones that actually matter for §102 — see §B) fell below the truncation point and were not recovered. Anything I did not personally retrieve, I say so.

Discrepancy flags (not auto-corrected):

• A PTAB-exhibit reproduction of the Kodak complaint in the RAH Color MDL lists the patent-in-suit as "8,860,704 (the '704 Patent)." This patent is 8,760,704. I am not correcting it; I note the mismatch, which is likely a complaint/OCR error.
• The NPL list on the sibling '357/'288 patents prints Berns "CRT Colorimetry, Part II" as "Oct. 1983," which is almost certainly a typo for 1993 (Part I is correctly dated Oct. 1993). Not corrected.

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B. The controlling legal framework — this is the crux

Before any per-reference table, the threshold question is which §102 subsection can even apply, because the '704 is a continuation with a 1996-02-26 earliest priority date:

• US 13/796,888 was filed 2013-03-12 — four days before the AIA first-to-file cutoff of 2013-03-16. On its face, the '704 is therefore governed by pre-AIA §102/§103 (first-to-invent), assuming no claim was ever added with a post-3/16/2013 effective filing date. Pre-AIA §102 is the operative law.
• If the claims are supported by the 1996 parent (08/606,883), the critical date is 1996-02-26. Under pre-AIA §102(a)/(b)/(e), any reference with an effective date after 1996-02-26 is not anticipatory prior art.

Consequence that dominates this whole exercise: nearly every entry in the recovered (56) list issued between 1998 and 2003 — i.e., two to seven years after the priority date. Those references cannot anticipate a claim entitled to the 1996 date under §102(a)/(b). They remain worth listing because they are the cited art, and because they can become §102 art only if a given claim loses its 1996 priority, or as §102(e) art if the reference's underlying U.S. filing date predates 2/26/1996 (a factual check I could not complete for each reference — see the column). This is the single most important point for a validity/anticipation analysis of this patent, and it is easy to miss if one simply runs down the (56) list.

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C. Table 1 — U.S. patent references cited on the '704 (recovered portion of the (56) list)

Source: FreePatentsOnline, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8760704.html. Dates are issue dates as listed. §102 column = my assessment under pre-AIA §102 with a 1996-02-26 critical date.

Not recovered from the (56) list (fell below the truncation): the oldest citations, which — because they are the only ones capable of §102(a)/(b) anticipation of 1996-priority claims — are the ones a complete analysis must recover from the issued patent's front page.

On the three "Holub" entries (6,459,425 / 6,157,735 / 6,043,909): these are the inventor's own earlier applications in the same 1996 family. They are not §102 prior art against the '704 (an applicant's own work in the same family is not "by another"). Their real significance is (i) obviousness-type double patenting, and (ii) the fact that the '704's disclosure and claims are presumptively co-extensive with theirs — which is why the priority date holds and why the post-1996 citations above fail as §102 art.

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D. Table 2 — Prior-art patents discussed in the '704 specification (the true §102 candidates)

These are named in the '704's own background sections and predate 1996-02-26, so they are the references capable of §102(a)/(b) anticipation of 1996-priority claims. I have their issue dates from the specification's description, but not verified filing dates or verbatim claim text in this session.

Also named in the background (as prior systems, not shown as (56) patents): Kipphan et al. (press color-bar spectral colorimetry with ink-preset correction), Sodergard et al. (frame-grabbing on a moving web for color/registration/defect control), Garini / SpectraCube (spectral imaging), Eouzan et al. (CRT projection-display control), Bonino et al. (harmonizing device outputs via photometric V/L matching). Of these, Kipphan and Sodergard are the most relevant to the "on-press image-area color measurement/control" claims; the spec expressly says the invention improves on each (spectral precision for Sodergard; image-area reading and self-check for Kipphan), so they anticipate only broad claims, not claims reciting the distinguishing features.

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E. Table 3 — Cited non-patent literature (NPL)

Recovered from the "Other References" of the sibling RAH patents (US 8,537,357 / 9,516,288, via patents.justia.com). NPL is often the strongest §102/§103 art here because much of it is pre-1996.

(Later items appearing in the same "Other References" lists — Wallace 2005, GretagMacbeth Eye-One 2003–2005, Koldenhof 2003 — post-date the priority date and are not §102 art here.)

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F. Which is "the most relevant prior art"?

Ranked by actual §102 exposure to a claim set entitled to the 1996-02-26 date:

1. Vanhala et al., "A General Teleproofing System" (1991) — the closest pre-1996 disclosure of the patent's central premise (proofing between remote sites). Best §102 candidate for the broadest system/method claims.
2. Cowan (1983) and the Berns CRT-colorimetry papers (1993) + the Radius manuals (1995) — collectively the strongest art against the video-display soft-proofing / display-calibration claim families.
3. US 5,272,518 (Vincent, 1993) and US 5,319,437 (Van Aken, 1994) — instrument-side anticipation; limited by the spec's express distinguishing features (self-check/verification, dual-beam).
4. US 5,107,332 (Chan, 1992) / US 5,185,673 (Sobol, 1993) — closed-loop printer calibration; limited because both are scanner-based desktop systems, which the claims (if they require instrument-calibrated, network-distributed transformation data) avoid.
5. Holub/Kearsley/Pearson I & II (1988) and Gordon & Holub (1993) — the applicant's own foundational calibration publications; strong §103 art on the forward-model/transform claims.
6. The 1998–2003 (56) references (Tables 1) — not §102(a)/(b) art at all if the 1996 priority holds; relevant only as §102(e) art (verify filing dates) or if a claim loses priority.

Most likely to actually anticipate under §102: Vanhala 1991 (broad remote-proofing claims) and the pre-1996 display-calibration literature (Cowan 1983 / Berns 1993 / Radius 1995), against display claims. Everything 1998-or-later in Table 1 is presumptively non-anticipatory for a 1996-priority claim.

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G. Bottom line and what I could not do

• The (56) "References Cited" are dominated by post-priority (1998–2003) patents that cannot anticipate claims entitled to the 1996-02-26 priority date under pre-AIA §102(a)/(b). A validity analysis that treats that list as §102 art would be wrong on the law for this patent.
• The genuine §102 candidates are the pre-1996 items: the specification-named patents (Vincent '518, Chan '332, Sobol '673, Van Aken '437) and the pre-1996 NPL (Vanhala 1991, Cowan 1983, Berns 1993, Radius 1995, Holub 1988).
• Three (56) entries (6,459,425; 6,157,735; 6,043,909) are the inventor's own same-family work and are not §102 art.
• What I could not do: (1) quote or number the '704's actual claims — the truncated text and my searches did not yield them, so every "claim" target above is an inferred category, not a verified claim number; and (2) recover the oldest entries of the (56) list (those below US 5,767,980) or the per-reference filing dates needed to resolve §102(e). To finish this properly, pull the granted claims and the front-page "(56) References Cited" from the issued PDF (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com, via patents.google.com/patent/US8760704B2/en) and confirm each cited patent's U.S. filing date against the 1996-02-26 critical date.

Discrepancy flags restated (not corrected): the "8,860,704" vs. 8,760,704 complaint text, and the "Oct. 1983" vs. 1993 date on Berns Part II.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior-art references cited on the patent page and try, once more, to retrieve the '704's literal claim text.

Let me try to retrieve the '704's own claim set directly.

Obviousness Analysis of U.S. Pat. No. 8,760,704 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on the record used. Two limitations from the earlier section carry forward and still bind this analysis:

1. The complete literal claim set of the '704 was not in the authoritative text supplied to me (the Google Patents page truncates mid-specification). However, this session's search did recover verbatim text of several '704 claims as quoted in RAH Color's own infringement complaints (claims 18, 29, 30, 32 and the claim-17 dependency chain) plus the full claim sets of sibling family members ('735, '909, '761, '444). I use those below and flag exactly where I am inferring rather than quoting.
2. Discrepancy flagged, not auto-corrected: one reproduced complaint text reading "8,860,704" was noted previously; I still do not correct it. The authoritative patent number here is 8,760,704.

All analysis below uses the prior art of record enumerated on the patent page itself (the "Definitions"/background section, the IDS reproduced in the file history, and the "Prior art keywords" field), because the task directs me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page."

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1. The claims to be analyzed

From the litigation documents, the asserted '704 claims are a method claim (17) with dependents and a system claim (29) with dependents:

Inference (flagged): Because 18/29/30/32 are all apparatus/on-line-measurement-flavored, the '704's independent claims are most plausibly directed to (i) a networked, multiple-rendering-device color reproduction method/system using programmable computers, color measuring instruments, and multi-dimensional color transformations that match color according to a color-error criterion and a gamut relationship; and (ii) a press subsystem with an integrated color measuring instrument giving on-line, density-unit measurements. This is consistent with the specification's "Virtual Proof," "imagical," and "inking control interface" disclosures. I cannot confirm numbering/scope beyond this.

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2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) as of Feb. 26, 1996

A POSITA would be a graphic-arts color engineer or color scientist with a bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, or imaging science and 3–5 years' experience in color measurement, color management, and printing/press control, or equivalent. Critically, the same individual(s) were publishing in TAGA, SPIE, and Journal of Imaging Technology during 1993–1995 (Holub, Kearsley, Gordon, Sodergard, Schwartz), so the literature and patents below are exactly the art the POSITA would consult.

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3. The prior art of record (from the page)

All of these are §102 prior art relative to the Feb. 26, 1996 filing; the 1995 items (Sodergard TAGA, ICC 3.01, imagexpo, Garini, Hoyt, Shnitser) are at minimum §102(a)/§102(e) art that is combinable under pre-AIA §103(a).

Claim-construction overlay (for context): in the parallel N.D. Cal. action, the court construed "sites" ('870/'444), "appear substantially the same" ('870), and "interactive conference" ('444), noting "None of the PTAB decisions construed any of these claim terms." That order did not construe '704 terms, so no judicial gloss on '704 claim language was available. (Case 3:18-cv-03277-SI, Doc. 120, Jan. 22, 2021.)

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4. Level of ordinary skill applied to the claim elements

I map each material '704 element to the art of record:

Each row is a known, separately available element. That is the classic §103 posture.

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5. Combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination A — "On-line press color control" (attacks claims 29, 30, 32, and 18)

Primary: Kipphan '721 + Sodergard '93 + Vincent '518 (+ optionally Chan '332).

• Kipphan '721 teaches a press; a spectral colorimeter; measurement in CIELAB vs. aim values; conversion of color error to ink-density corrections; and delivery of those corrections to press inking controls.
• Sodergard '93 teaches the very thing Kipphan lacks — on-line capture of the image area of a moving web with a CCD camera — expressly for color control.
• Vincent '518 teaches the portable spectral colorimeter usable for network-wide calibration, so the measuring instrument is not bound to one press.
• Chan '332 / Sobol '673 teach the closed-loop "print a form → measure → correct → re-render" recalibration loop.

Motivation (articulated in the references themselves): Kipphan expressly identifies its own deficiency — it "does not read image area of the printed page," so "important information regarding color deviations within the image area … is lost." A POSITA seeking higher-quality press color control would naturally look to Sodergard's image-area capture to supply that lost information and to Kipphan's own density-error loop as the control law. Vincent supplies the instrument and, expressly, the network-consistency purpose. The combination yields a press linked to a computer, an instrument integrated with the press, on-line measurements, and density-unit output — i.e., claims 29/30/32, with only predictable engineering integration remaining.

Combination B — "Networked, gamut-aware multi-device color matching" (attacks claims 17, 18 and the independent system claim)

Primary: Vincent '518 + Bonino '257 + Gordon et al. '87 + ICC Profile Format 3.01 (+ Neugebauer '844).

• Vincent '518 supplies the cross-network color consistency objective and a network-connected colorimeter — and expressly leaves the implementation open ("does not discuss how distributed calibration would be implemented").
• Bonino '257 supplies harmonizing the output of multiple color devices to a common achievable maximum, i.e., a gamut relationship across devices.
• Gordon et al. '87 supplies explicit gamut operators — functions mapping input-gamut colors to output-gamut correspondents — i.e., the claimed "relationship between the color gamuts."
• ICC 3.01 supplies a device-independent, shareable profile data structure for shipping those transforms between machines.
• Neugebauer '844 / Schreiber '919 supply device-independent capture and cross-media soft proof.

Motivation: These references are addressed to a single, common problem — appearing the same across devices and media — and were published within a three-year window, evidencing that the field was converging on exactly this solution. Filling Vincent's expressly identified implementation gap with Bonino's harmonization, Gordon's gamut operators, and the ICC's portable profiles is the predictable use of known techniques for their known purposes (KSR Int'l v. Teleflex). Vincednt's own "system-wide calibration" language makes it a natural lead reference for a network of rendering devices.

Combination C — "Building the multi-dimensional transformation" (attacks the transformation limitations in every independent claim)

Primary: Pobboravsky '62 + Schwartz et al. '85 + Gallagher '75 (+ Holub & Kearsley '89; Rose '816 for alternatives).

• Pobboravsky '62 teaches polynomial (regression) forward models from colorant amounts to CIE color — the '704's "forward model" step.
• Schwartz et al. '85 teach iteratively inverting that model by gradient search — the '704's "inverting the forward model table to provide a prototype transformation table" step.
• Gallagher '75 teaches interpolation for rapid evaluation of color transformations — the '704's FMT/interpolation-table expedient.
• Holub & Kearsley '89 and Rose '816 supply the application to presses and the neural-net alternative.

Motivation: The '704 itself concedes these are "generic polynomials," "a formalism from finite element analysis," and "prior art by Holub and Rose." When an applicant's own specification characterizes an element as conventional, that is close to a concession of obviousness for that element. Combining them is a matter of design choice among a finite set of known modeling techniques with predictable results.

Combination D — "Virtual Proof" data structure (attacks the shared/local, separable-transform limitations)

Primary: ICC Profile Format 3.01 + MCT Spec '93 + Sodergard/Vanhala teleproofing '91 + imagexpo '94–95.

• ICC 3.01 teaches a portable device-profile format with device-independent data, and — critically — teaches that profiles embedded with image data generate large network transfers whenever profiles are updated.
• The '704's alleged advance is precisely to separate transformation information from image data and split it into shared vs. local components.

Motivation: The ICC document states the problem (update-driven large transfers) that the '704 solution solves. Under KSR, "a need or problem known in the field … and addressed by the patent can provide a reason for combining." Sodergard's teleproofing shows the remote-display setting; imagexpo shows remote annotation — both expressly acknowledging that "extant tools do not enable remote handling of color-critical aspects of proofing," i.e., stating the gap the '704 fills. Combining the ICC's profile format with the segregation idea is the predictable structural improvement, not an inventive leap.

Combination E — "Verification and recalibration" (attacks the verifying/revising limitations)

Primary: Kipphan '721 + Vincent '518 + Sobol '673 + Chan '332.

• Kipphan expressly states its colorimeter "is not capable of calibration self-check," making operator override "necessary."
• Vincent expressly has "no provision for self-checking" and "no provision for verification."
• Sobol/Chan provide the closed-loop recalibration machinery.

Motivation: Where two primary references each disclose the absence of a capability and state why it is a problem, the improvement is not merely obvious but invited — an express "suggestion" to modify. Adding form-rendering/measurement/revision from Sobol and Chan yields the '704's "rendering verification forms … comparing statistically … and revising" limitations.

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6. Why a POSITA would have combined (KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, contemporaneous. Vincent ('93), Kipphan ('93), Sodergard ('93/'95), Eouzan ('94), Bonino ('94) and the ICC ('95) all address consistent color across devices/sites/media within a 30-month window — evidence of a known problem with identified solutions, which is sufficient motivation under KSR.
2. References state their own deficiencies. Kipphan (no image-area reading; no self-check), Vincent (no verification; distributed calibration unexplained), ICC (embedding causes large transfers), imagexpo (no color-critical remote proofing). A POSITA reading these is being told what to add and why.
3. Predictable results of known elements. Each element (spectral colorimeter; gamut operator; polynomial forward model; linked-list black solutions; ICC-style profile) was individually known; their combination yields no more than the expected sum of their known functions.
4. Finite set of identified solutions. Gamut handling, model inversion, and profile formats each had a small, well-known menu of options; selecting among them is "obvious to try."
5. Market/commercial pressure. Distributed and remote production, wasted press make-ready, and the desire to "reduce the level of skill required of the human operator(s)" (stated in the '704 background) supply a concrete commercial driver.

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7. Anticipated counterarguments and their weaknesses

• "Secondary considerations / nexus." RAH Color's extensive licensing and the multi-district enforcement campaign could be argued as commercial success, but any nexus to the '704's specific claim limitations (press-integrated on-line measurement in density units; sharesd/local transform segregation) must be shown — the asserted products use standard ICC workflows and commercial spectrophotometers, which themselves originate in the cited art and weakens the nexus.
• "Teaching away." Kipphan's operator-override practice is a disclosure of a limitation, not a teaching away from automating it; Bonino is photometric rather than colorimetric, but the '704 background criticizes Bonino only for lack of colorimetric characterization — a gap a POSITA would close with Vincent's spectral instrument, not avoid.
• "Non-analogous art." All references are in the graphic-arts color reproduction field; this defense fails.
• "The combination changes the principle of operation." It does not: each reference retains its own function (measure, harmonize, invert, ship profiles), consistent with KSR.

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8. Conclusion

Under § 103 with the Feb. 26, 1996 priority date, the '704's claims — as recovered (17, 18, 29, 30, 32) and as inferred for the independent claims — appear obvious over at least three independent, mutually reinforcing combinations:

• Kipphan '721 + Sodergard '93 + Vincent '518 (+ Chan/Sobol) for the press / on-line / density subject matter (claims 29, 30, 32, 18);
• Vincent '518 + Bonino '257 + Gordon '87 + ICC 3.01 (+ Neugebauer '844) for networked, multi-device, gamut-aware color matching (claims 17, 18 and the independent system claim);
• Pobboravsky '62 + Schwartz '85 + Gallagher '75 (+ Holub & Kearsley '89, Rose '816) for the multi-dimensional transformation/model-inversion limitations.

In each case the references are analogous art, contemporaneous, addressed to the same problem, and — in several instances — self-identify the very gap the '704 claims fill, supplying express motivation to combine. That is a strong prima facie §103 case.

Residual uncertainty (stated per the no-fabrication rule):

• I could not retrieve the '704's full, literal claim set (all 42 claims); the analysis of independent claims 17 and 29 rests on recovered dependent-claim text plus inference. A claim-by-claim chart should be built from the granted claims (col. "The invention claimed is…").
• I found no PTAB/IPR obviousness adjudication on the '704 itself — the Adobe IPRs (IPR2019-00627/-00628/-00629, -00646) targeted siblings '008/'761/'444. The '704's validity was litigated in the district courts/MDL, but I did not retrieve a merits ruling on §103 for this patent.
• I found no verifiable 2026 CAFC activity for this patent; that remains a search limitation, not proof of absence.