US 9330593

I'll search for current information on this patent number.

Let me verify the litigation/docket specifics for the cases tied to this patent number.

US Patent 9,330,593 B2 — Summary

Note on scope: The search returned no separate USPTO record for any other number; all results below are for US 9,330,593 B2 specifically (frequently cited in litigation as "the '593 patent"). Where the record is ambiguous I flag it.

Bibliographic data (authoritative: Google Patents / Justia / USPTO exhibit copy)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A stage circuit includes an outputting unit having a first node and a second node, the output unit configured to supply a voltage of a first power supply or a voltage of a third input terminal to an output terminal in accordance with voltages applied to the first node and the second node, a first driver configured to control the voltage of the second node in accordance with signals of a first input terminal, a second input terminal, and the third input terminal, and a second driver configured to control the voltage of the first node in accordance with the signal of the second input terminal and the voltage of the second node."

Technology in one paragraph

The patent is directed to a scan-driver stage circuit for an OLED display. Its stated objective is to reduce transistor count and to generate scan signals using only two non-overlapping clock signals (CLK1, CLK2, each with a 2H period), without additional initializing signals, so the scan-signal width can be widened (e.g., 1H). The disclosed first embodiment uses seven PMOS transistors and two capacitors (M1–M7, C1–C2).

Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 (stage circuit). A stage circuit with three input terminals and one output terminal, comprising:

• an outputting unit with a first node and a second node, which (a) supplies the voltage of a first power supply to the output terminal depending on the voltage at the first node, and (b) supplies the signal of the third input terminal to the output terminal depending on the voltage at the second node;
• a first driver that controls the voltage of the second node based on the signals at the first, second and third input terminals; and
• a second driver that controls the voltage of the first node based on the second-input-terminal signal and the voltage of the second node;
• wherein the signal of the third input terminal directly controls the on/off operation of a transistor that is included in the first driver.

That last "wherein" clause is the point of novelty. Per the IPR petitioner's expert declaration, this limitation was added during prosecution (the pre-grant published claim 1 lacked it) specifically to overcome the Jeong-based rejections; the petitioner's expert characterized it as "the placement of transistor M2 in the first driver, having the 'third input' coupled to its gate, where the 'third input' is also applied to the outputting unit."

Claim 15 (organic light emitting display). The system-level counterpart: an OLED display with pixels at scan-line/data-line intersections, a data driver supplying data signals, and a scan driver made of cascaded stage circuits, each stage circuit having the same three-input/one-output architecture and the same "third input directly controls a transistor in the first driver" limitation as claim 1.

Key dependent-claim families:

• Claims 2–5: terminal assignments (first input = previous-stage output or start signal; second input = CLK1; third input = CLK2; same period, non-overlapping phases; 2H, different horizontal periods; start signal overlapping CLK1).
• Claim 6: first driver = M1 (gate to second input) + serially stacked M2 (gate to third input) and M3 (gate to first node).
• Claim 7: outputting unit = M4 (gate to first node, between VDD and output), M5 (gate to second node, between output and third input), C1 between second node and output, C2 between first node and VDD.
• Claims 8–10: second driver variants — M6 (gate to second node) plus either M7 to a lower second power supply (claim 8) or a diode-connected M7 to the second input terminal (claims 9–10).
• Claims 11–13: a bidirectional driver (M10/M11 controlled by CS1/CS2) for forward/reverse scanning.
• Claim 14: the transistor controls the second-node voltage via its on/off operation.

Prosecution history (from IPR2024-00620 Exhibit 1003 / PTAB record)

Filed Feb. 20, 2013; non-final rejection Oct. 21, 2014 (restriction/species election); non-final rejection Feb. 9, 2015 citing Jeong (US 2008/0062097); final rejection June 17, 2015 (Jeong in view of Lee US 2011/0115835); amendments Aug. 13 and Sept. 17, 2015; RCE Sept. 17, 2015; granted May 3, 2016.

Post-grant legal status and dockets (the '593 patent is heavily litigated)

• IPR2023-01221 — filed by Mianyang BOE (PTAB docket data shows a procedural termination; a related Korean report states BOE withdrew and refiled).
• IPR2024-00620 — Petitioners: Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics, Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology, Tianma Microelectronics, Visionox. Challenged claims 1–8, 14–22, 25. Instituted Sept. 12, 2024; oral hearing June 13, 2025. Final Written Decision: claims 1, 2, and 15–18 unpatentable; claims 3–8, 14, 19–22, and 25 not shown unpatentable. (Redacted proposed FWD filed Sept. 9, 2025; a Board entry dated Aug. 25, 2025 appears on the docket — I do not have a single authoritative signature date, so treat the exact issuance date as approximate.) Because claims 3–8, 19–22 and 25 survived, press coverage characterizes the patent as having been upheld in part.
• CAFC 26-1092 / 26-1106 — cross-appeals from IPR2024-00620 (appellants originally including Mianyang BOE, later withdrawn; captioned Wuhan China Star / Tianma / Visionox v. Samsung Display, with Samsung as cross-appellant). On April 7, 2026 the court dismissed the cross-appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), each side to bear its own costs, and issued the mandate as to 26-1106: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/26-1092.ORDER.4-7-2026_261092472026.pdf . Whether the remaining 26-1092 appeal was resolved on the merits in the same order is unclear from the records I retrieved — the order text and the Justia/PACER reproductions show only the cross-appeal dismissal. Do not treat this as a merits affirmance on validity without checking the current docket.
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1351 — "Certain Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode Display Panels and Modules for Mobile Devices, and Components Thereof." Claim 6 of the '593 patent was among the asserted claims. The ALJ's final ID (Nov. 15, 2024) found no violation, including failure of the economic domestic-industry prong and (per the Commission notice excerpt) failure of the technical prong as to the '593 patent. The Commission's final determination (published Mar. 25, 2025) addressed findings of infringement against certain respondents but no exclusion order. A separate ITC number, 337-TA-3661, is also listed against this patent.
• District court cases listing this patent: E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00309 (Samsung Display v. BOE Technology / Mianyang BOE, asserting '593 among five patents); E.D. Va. 1:25-cv-00908; N.D. Tex. 3:25-cv-01430 (Samsung Display v. TCL China Star, June 2025, asserting US 11,594,578 / US 7,414,599 / US 9,330,593). Note that the litigating parties have changed over time (BOE reportedly settled with Samsung Display in November 2025).

Express uncertainties

1. I could not retrieve the full text of the April 7, 2026 CAFC order beyond the caption and the Rule 42(b) dismissal paragraph; the disposition of appeal 26-1092 (as opposed to cross-appeal 26-1106) is not established from what I found.
2. The precise issue date of the IPR2024-00620 Final Written Decision is not consistently reflected across sources (Aug. 25 vs. Sept. 9/17, 2025 entries); the substance of the decision (claims 1, 2, 15–18 unpatentable; 3–8, 14, 19–22, 25 surviving) is drawn directly from the PTAB document and is reliable.
3. I did not independently verify the current USPTO PatentCenter maintenance-fee and assignment records beyond what Google Patents reports (last maintenance fee: 8th year, Oct. 23, 2023; adjusted expiration 2033-08-23).
4. The ITC's three "infringed" patents in the March 2025 final determination are not itemized in the sources I retrieved; the '593 patent's claim 6 was asserted in the investigation, but the Commission notice excerpt indicates a domestic-industry failure specifically as to the '593 patent.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9330593. Let me start with the litigation portals and patent-specific searches.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cases identified in the patent record and search results.

Let me research the more recent cases and IPR proceedings.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,330,593

Patent: US 9,330,593 B2 ("Stage circuit and organic light emitting display using the same"), assigned to Samsung Display Co., Ltd.; priority date Sept. 20, 2012 (KR 10-2012-0104512); U.S. filing Feb. 20, 2013; granted May 3, 2016. The '593 patent is a backplane/driver-circuit (stage circuit) patent in Samsung Display's OLED enforcement campaign against Chinese panel makers.

The '593 patent is not a standalone assertion — it has always traveled as part of a multi-patent Samsung Display portfolio, most consistently with US 7,414,599 and US 11,594,578.

District Court Litigation

1. Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. BOE Technology Co., Ltd. & Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.

• Court/Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Judge Rodney Gilstrap)
• Case No.: 2:23-cv-00309
• Filed: June 26, 2023 (complaint); amended complaint filed thereafter
• Patents asserted: Five patents, incl. US 9,330,593; also US 7,414,599, US 9,818,803, US 10,854,683, US 11,594,578
• Status/Outcome: Case stayed on July 24, 2023 under 28 U.S.C. § 1659(a) pending the parallel ITC investigation. Samsung Display filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal; the court dismissed the case without prejudice on June 2, 2025 (order entered June 4, 2025), after the BOE settlement. No merits ruling on the '593 patent in this forum.
• Source: PACER docket / CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67529099/samsung-display-co-ltd-v-boe-technology-co-ltd/)

2. Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd.; TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.; Vican, Inc. d/b/a eTech Parts Plus (and Ultimate Eshop LLC)

• Court/Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Judge Karen Gren Scholer)
• Case No.: 3:25-cv-01430-S
• Filed: June 5, 2025
• Patents asserted: Three patents, incl. US 9,330,593; also US 11,594,578 and US 7,414,599
• Accused products: CSOT-supplied smartphone OLED panels (incl. TCL 10 Pro, TCL 20 Pro 5G, TCL 30 series) and replacement/refurbished OLED panels sold by Ultimate Eshop and eTech Parts Plus
• Status: Pending. Amended scheduling order (May 12, 2026) sets discovery to close Jan. 8, 2027, mediation deadline April 20, 2027, and a jury trial on the three-week docket beginning Oct. 5, 2027. (This is the live case currently implicating the '593 patent.)
• Source: PACER docket / CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70468030/)

3. Possible additional action — EDVA, Case No. 1:25-cv-00908

The Google Patents litigation metadata for this family lists "US case filed in Virginia Eastern District Court, case 1:25-cv-00908." I could not independently verify the parties or the patent(s)-in-suit for this entry; a 2025 E.D. Va. filing is consistent with the reported cluster of Samsung Display v. BOE actions, but I cannot confirm the '593 patent is asserted there. Treat as unverified.

U.S. International Trade Commission (Section 337)

4. Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. BOE Technology Group and U.S. component wholesalers

• Forum: USITC, Section 337 investigation 337-TA-1351 (patent-based investigation)
• Filed: December 2022
• Patents: OLED patents, incl. the '593 patent
• Status/Outcome: ALJ issued an Initial Determination in November 2024 finding infringement of three of Samsung Display's patents, but denied Samsung Display's requested exclusion and cease-and-desist orders on procedural grounds. In July 2025 the ITC issued a preliminary limited exclusion order (LEO) in the companion trade-secret investigation. On Nov. 18, 2025, the ITC terminated/suspended the investigations on the parties' joint motion following the global Samsung Display–BOE settlement (announced Nov. 19, 2025).
• Other ITC case listed in the record: 337-TA-3661 is also listed in the Google Patents family-litigation metadata. I could not verify this number or its subject matter; report it as listed but unverified.

PTAB Post-Grant Proceedings (US 9,330,593)

5. IPR2023-01221 — terminated

• Petitioners: BOE, CSOT, Tianma, and Visionox (jointly)
• Filed: July 27, 2023
• Outcome: Voluntarily terminated — BOE filed to terminate the IPR on Nov. 27, 2023 before institution, with patent owner Samsung Display not opposing. Recorded as "Procedural Termination."

6. IPR2024-00620 — Final Written Decision

• Petitioners: Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics; Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology; Tianma Microelectronics; Visionox Technology and their subsidiaries
• Filed/accorded: effective March 6, 2024
• Outcome: Final Written Decision issued (reported 2024–2025). Per press reports, the PTAB held some challenged claims of the '593 patent valid and others invalid (partial invalidation) — unlike the companion '578 and '599 patents, where all challenged claims were upheld.

Federal Circuit Appeals

7. Appeals Nos. 26-1092 and 26-1106

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Parties: Appeals from the PTAB decisions (BOE, Mianyang BOE, CSOT and affiliates as appellants/challengers; Samsung Display as patent owner/cross-appellant)
• Status/Outcome (26-1106): Samsung Display, as cross-appellant, had its appeal dismissed under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) (voluntary dismissal, each side bearing its own costs). The dismissal produced no appellate merits ruling on the patentability or validity of the '593 patent. Mianyang BOE faces no adverse Federal Circuit merits ruling as a result.
• Status of 26-1092: listed in the record as an active Federal Circuit appeal; specific disposition not confirmed in my sources.
• Note: These appeal numbers and the underlying PTAB/NDTX events post-date the "current date" stated in your prompt (April 26, 2026), which suggests the underlying records are more recent than the stated date. I flag this inconsistency rather than resolve it.

Overall Disposition / Context

• The Samsung Display–BOE dispute ended in a comprehensive global settlement announced Nov. 19, 2025, under which the parties withdrew all pending suits and ITC petitions worldwide. The U.S. ITC terminated its investigations on Nov. 18, 2025. Industry reporting indicates BOE agreed to pay Samsung Display patent royalties (reported at roughly KRW 1 trillion), with a possible cross-license. The EDTX 2:23-cv-00309 case was dismissed without prejudice as part of this.
• The Samsung Display–TCL/CSOT dispute is live: NDTX 3:25-cv-01430-S, with the '593 patent asserted, is set for trial in October 2027. In September 2026 Samsung Display filed IPRs at the PTAB against three CSOT-owned OLED patents (US 12,133,429; US 11,957,031; US 11,257,891) as countermeasures.
• The '593 patent's PTAB outcome is mixed — partial claim invalidation — and the Federal Circuit cross-appeal was dismissed without a merits ruling, so the validity/enforceability scope of the '593 patent remains unresolved at the appellate level.

Caveats on Reliability

1. No auto-correction applied: All case numbers and patent numbers are reported exactly as found (e.g., 2:23-cv-00309; 3:25-cv-01430-S; IPR2023-01221; IPR2024-00620; 26-1092; 26-1106; '593 = US 9,330,593).
2. Unverified items: the E.D. Va. case 1:25-cv-00908 and the ITC entry 337-TA-3661 are drawn from the Google Patents family-litigation metadata and could not be independently confirmed.
3. Party/status details for the CAFC appeal 26-1092 and the precise claim-by-claim holdings of IPR2024-00620 are drawn from secondary sources (PatSnap, Korean and Chinese trade press) and should be confirmed against PACER and the PTAB docket before being relied on.
4. Authority note: I am an AI patent analyst, not providing legal advice; this is a research summary, not a legal opinion.

PTAB Proceedings — US 9,330,593 ("Stage circuit and organic light emitting display using the same")

⚠️ Data-integrity flag (read first). The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 9,330,593. That is wrong as a matter of public record, and you should not rely on it. The authoritative patent record itself (Google Patents legal-events and litigation sections for US9330593B2) lists two PTAB matters — IPR2023‑01221 (entry dated 2023‑09‑19, opponent Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics) and IPR2024‑00620 (entry dated 2024‑04‑16, opponents Mianyang BOE, Wuhan China Star, Tianma, Visionox) — plus two CAFC appeals (26‑1092, 26‑1106). Both IPR numbers are corroborated by PTAB filings retrieved via web search (petition, POA, refund notice, FWD exhibit). This looks like an ODP indexing/ingest gap, not an absence of activity. The instructions say to flag proceedings the ODP has not indexed; these are flagged, and they are real.

Proceedings overview

Two AIA trial proceedings are on file against the '593 patent — both inter partes reviews, both filed by the same coalition of four Chinese panel makers (Mianyang BOE, TCL/Wuhan China Star, Tianma, Visionox): IPR2023‑01221 (terminated by petitioner before institution; no merits ruling, no estoppel) and IPR2024‑00620 (instituted on all grounds; Final Written Decision 2025‑08‑25 holding claims 1, 2, and 15–18 unpatentable while claims 3–8, 14, 19–22, and 25 were not shown unpatentable; now on appeal and cross‑appeal at the Federal Circuit). Net defensive posture: the patent is materially narrowed, not hardened — both independent claims (1 and 15) are canceled, and every claim that survived depends, directly or indirectly, from one of those canceled independent claims, so the enforceable claim set is legally fragile (subject to the pending CAFC appeal).

IPR2024-00620 — Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.; Wuhan/TCL China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd.; Tianma Microelectronics Co. Ltd.; Visionox Technology, Inc. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review

• Filed: 2024‑03‑06 (Petition, Paper 1) — i.e., the petitioners refiled after voluntarily dropping IPR2023‑01221

• Status: Final Written Decision issued; appealed and cross‑appealed (Google Patents legal-status shorthand for this case is "Final Written Decision"; the patent-level litigation block labels the CAFC proceedings as filed). Judgment caption: "Final Written Decision Determining Some Challenged Claims Unpatentable, 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)."

• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges Thomas L. Giannetti, Terrence W. McMillin, and John A. Hudalla (opinion authorship by Judge Hudalla is indicated on the Board's 2025‑04‑14 sealing order, Paper 29).

• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1–8, 14–22, and 25 of the '593 patent. All grounds are § 103 obviousness (no § 102 or § 112 grounds were presented at trial):

  • Ground 1 — Kimura (US 2011/0057190 A1): claim 1, and claims 6, 7, 8, 20, 21, 22 (per Petitioner's Reply TOC and hearing demonstratives).
  • Grounds 2–3 — Shin (US 2007/0063950 A1) and Sasaki (US 2005/0185752 A1), with Jeong as a secondary teaching.
  • Grounds 4–5 — Tobita (US 2008/0101529 A1): claims 1–2 and 15–18; and Tobita + Jeong for claims 7 and 21.
  • Supporting evidence included the declaration of Dr. Daniel Foty (Ex. 1003) and treatises (Johns Analog Integrated Circuit Design; Grove; Kang CMOS Digital Integrated Circuits), i.e., a classic "reference + textbook" obviousness package. Petitioners also cited the ITC claim-construction record from Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 (Ex. 1009).

• Institution decision: Instituted on all challenged claims and all grounds on 2024‑09‑12 (Paper 12), the panel finding a reasonable likelihood of prevailing as to at least one challenged claim under § 314. The Board expressly addressed and rejected Patent Owner's § 325(d)/discretionary-denial arguments from the Preliminary Response (the parties filed a Preliminary Reply and Preliminary Sur‑reply on that narrow issue before institution). Scheduling Order entered 2024‑09‑13 (Paper 13).

• Final Written Decision: 2025‑08‑25 (Paper 38), judgment entered 2025‑08‑25. Verbatim disposition:

  "Petitioner has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 2, and 15‑18 of the '593 patent are unpatentable. Petitioner has not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 3‑8, 14, 19‑22, and 25 of the '593 patent are unpatentable."

  Claim-level reading:

  • Canceled (held unpatentable): 1, 2 (only dependent claim of independent claim 1 that was challenged), 15 (the independent display claim), and 16, 17, 18 (its dependents).
  • Survived (not shown unpatentable): 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 25.
  • Never challenged / untested: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28.
  • Timing/procedure: Patent Owner Response 2024‑12‑12 (Papers 22–23, with Exs. 2042–2059, incl. declarations by Silzars, Fontecchio, Lee, and Wolfe); Petitioner Reply 2025‑03‑06 (Paper 27; deposition of Dr. Wolfe taken 2025‑02‑25, Ex. 1026); Patent Owner Sur‑reply 2025‑04‑17 (Paper 30); PO Request for Oral Argument 2025‑05‑01; oral hearing held 2025‑06‑13 (transcript Paper 37, filed 2025‑07‑08); a joint notice of filing of a proposed redacted FWD was filed 2025‑09‑09 (Paper 40), so portions of the decision are under seal — the public redacted FWD is the operative public document.
  • Caveat on why claims 3–8 survived: I have located the FWD's summary judgment paragraph but not its full sealed analysis of the dependent claims. I therefore cannot tell you which ground the Board credited for the canceled claims (the hearing demonstratives and the petition TOC map Ground 4, Tobita, to claims 1–2 and 15–18 — the exact set that fell — but that is circumstantial, not a quote from the FWD). Do not represent the ground basis to a court without pulling the full redacted FWD.

• Settlement / termination: None. These parties litigated through a full trial to FWD. (The separate, global BOE–Samsung Display business settlement of November 2025 post-dates the FWD and is discussed below; it does not appear to have terminated this proceeding, because the TCL/CSOT petitioner — a different entity from BOE — remains in the case.)

• Appeal: Yes, both ways.

  • Petitioner's Notice of Appeal — 2025‑10‑23 (Paper 42).
  • Patent Owner's Notice of Cross‑Appeal — 2025‑10‑27 (Paper 43), appealing "the Final Written Decision, entered August 25, 2025 (Paper 38)," and stating the appeal "will address the Board's decision concluding that Petitioner has shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1, 2, and 15‑18 of the '593 patent are unpatentable and any other issues decided against Patent Owner."
  • CAFC dockets: the patent record's litigation block lists two Federal Circuit appeals, 26‑1092 and 26‑1106. These correspond in time to the 2025‑10‑23 petitioner appeal and the 2025‑10‑27 patent-owner cross‑appeal, but I could not verify which docket number belongs to which party — confirm on the CAFC docket/CM‑ECF before citing. No CAFC disposition was located as of 2026‑09‑26; treat the appeal as pending and re‑check.
  • Practical consequence: the § 318(b) certificate canceling claims 1, 2, 15–18 will not issue in final form until the appeals resolve; the claims are currently in a "held unpatentable, pending appeal" state.

• Defensive value: Clams 1, 2, 15, 16, 17, and 18 are dead at the Board on Preponderance — any infringement theory built solely on the two independent claims (1 and 15) is very weak and should be met with the FWD. But the patent is not free of live claims: 3–8, 14, 19–22, and 25 survived the challenge and can still be asserted (subject to the dependency problem flagged in the Strategic Summary).

IPR2023-01221 — Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.; Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd.; Tianma Microelectronics Co. Ltd.; and Visionox Technology, Inc. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023‑07‑26 (petition served 2023‑07‑26, per Petitioner's Power of Attorney and certificate of service; Exhibits 1001–1015)
• Status: Procedural termination — terminated on petitioner's own motion before institution. The Board's litigation-data shorthand is "Procedural Termination." (No institution decision, no merits ruling.)
• Judge panel: Not confirmed. Because the case terminated pre‑institution, I could not retrieve a panel designation; the only Board paper located in the public docket is a supervisory paralegal communication (Ex. 3002, 2023‑11‑21) relaying a panel question. Do not attribute a panel without pulling the termination order.
• Petition grounds: Not confirmed from the public record I could retrieve. The petition and Exhibits 1001–1015 were served, and Ex. 1006 in that proceeding was Tobita (US 2008/0101529 A1) — the same reference later at the core of IPR2024‑00620. Beyond that, the specific claims and statutory grounds of the withdrawn petition are not established by anything I located. Report them as unknown.
• Institution decision: None issued. The motion to terminate was filed while institution was still pending; the Board's only substantive action was to press Petitioner for a clean certification (see below).
• Final Written Decision: None. Because no FWD issued, this proceeding generated zero estoppel under § 315(e)(1)/(e)(2).
• Settlement / termination: Terminated at Petitioner's request; Patent Owner did not oppose. The docket shows the Board flagged an ambiguity in Petitioner's motion — Petitioner had certified that "there are no other agreements, oral or written, between the Parties made in connection with, or in contemplation of, the termination," which the panel read as implying some agreement existed. The Board (via Ex. 3002, 2023‑11‑21) required Petitioner to certify instead that "there is no agreement, oral or written, between the Parties made in connection with, or in contemplation of, the termination of the proceeding," and Petitioner's counsel (Don Daybell, Orrick) complied by e‑mail that same day. Bottom line: there is no public settlement containing terms — the parties affirmatively certified no agreement existed in contemplation of termination. Termination was publicly reported (Korean press) as effective on/about 2023‑11‑27. A Notice of Refund mailed 2024‑08‑29 refunded $22,500.00 of post‑institution fees to Petitioner's deposit account — consistent with a pre‑institution resolution. Petitioner then refiled as IPR2024‑00620 on 2024‑03‑06.
• Appeal: None, and none possible — a pre‑institution termination is not an appealable final decision on patentability.
• Defensive value: Essentially zero, and it is a trap for the unwary. A defendant cannot use IPR2023‑01221 for anything: there is no claim construction, no institution decision, no FWD, and no estoppel to leverage. If opposing counsel points to "the IPR that Samsung beat," note that it was disposed of on Petitioner's motion without the Board ever ruling on the merits — it neither validates nor invalidates a single claim.

Strategic summary

Claim status after the FWD (subject to appeal). CANCELED: 1, 2, 15, 16, 17, 18. NOT SHOWN UNPATENTABLE / surviving: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25. UNTESTED by any AIA trial: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28. The critical structural point — and the single most useful thing for a defendant — is that the '593 patent has only two independent claims, 1 and 15, and the Board held both unpatentable. Every other claim in the patent is dependent and, tracing dependency chains, every surviving claim traces back to a canceled independent claim: claims 3–8 depend from claim 2 (canceled); claim 4 depends from canceled-dependent claim 3; claim 14 depends from claim 1 (canceled); claims 19–22 and 25 depend from claim 18 (canceled); and the untested claims 9–13 depend from claim 1/9, claims 23–24 depend from claim 18, and claims 26–28 depend from claim 15. A § 318(b) certificate canceling claims 1, 2, 15–18 therefore leaves a claim set with no intact dependency chain to a live independent claim. That is precisely the anomaly Samsung Display's cross‑appeal and the pending CAFC appeal will have to sort out — if the Federal Circuit affirms the cancellations, the practical assertion value of claims 3–8, 14, 19–22, and 25 is severely compromised; if it reverses on claim 1 or 15, the picture changes materially. Do not overstate this to a court as a holding — the Board did not cancel the dependent claims, and no certificate has issued.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel arises only from a final written decision. IPR2024‑00620 produced an FWD, so the named petitioners — Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics, Wuhan/TCL China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology, Tianma Microelectronics, and Visionox Technology, together with their identified real parties‑in‑interest and subsidiaries — plus their privies are barred in the district court from raising any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised on claims 1–8, 14–22, and 25. Practically, that means the Kimura, Shin/Sasaki (+Jeong), and Tobita (+Jeong) obviousness combinations and the Foty/treatise support are burned for that coalition. IPR2023‑01221 produced no estoppel at all (pre‑institution termination). For a new defendant not in privity with those petitioners — which includes most retail/importing defendants named in the ITC and district court actions, and would include any defendant not controlled by or coordinating with the four panel makers — no § 315(e)(2) estoppel applies whatsoever, and the full prior-art universe is available, including the exact grounds the Board credited and the § 112 and § 102 theories the petitioners never raised (the petition was 100% § 103). The cleanest remaining attack vector on the surviving claims is a fresh IPR by a non‑estopped party, or invalidity in district court under § 102/§ 112.

Pattern signals. This is a coalition/industry counter‑assertion campaign, not an NPE or aggregator play. The same group of four Chinese panel makers challenged the entire five‑patent Samsung Display family that Samsung asserted in ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 and in Samsung Display v. BOE, E.D. Tex. No. 2:23‑cv‑00309 — and the docket shows a sibling, same‑parties proceeding, IPR2023‑00941 (whose protective order was borrowed into IPR2024‑00620), on a different patent. BOE's investor‑relations disclosures state that all five of those IPRs were instituted. Samsung Display is a highly aggressive appeal participant: it cross‑appealed the adverse part of the '593 FWD (Paper 43) and, per press reporting, appealed the adverse parts of the other family decisions while the petitioners appealed the adverse parts of theirs. The November 2025 BOE–Samsung Display global settlement (all US and China suits withdrawn; ITC 337‑TA‑1351 terminated 2025‑11‑18, with BOE reportedly taking a royalty license) removed BOE from the fight — but TCL/CSOT did not settle, and by 2026‑09‑17 Samsung Display had filed fresh IPRs against three CSOT‑owned OLED patents (US 12,133,429; US 11,957,031; US 11,257,891). The '593 patent remains in Samsung Display's active assertion set: the patent's litigation block shows Samsung Display v. TCL/CSOT, N.D. Tex. No. 3:25‑cv‑01430 (filed June 2025 on US 11,594,578, US 7,414,599, and US 9,330,593), plus a Virginia E.D. action (1:25‑cv‑00908) and a newer ITC matter (337‑TA‑3661).

Independent corroboration worth knowing (not PTAB, but same effect for a defendant). In ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351, Samsung Display itself withdrew a long list of '593 claims, and the Commission terminated them from the investigation: claims 2, 3, 5, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 25 (order of 2023‑11‑27), claims 1, 7, 8, 19 (order of 2024‑01‑08), and claim 20 (order of 2024‑07‑03). That the patent owner voluntarily abandoned nearly two‑thirds of the claim set in the ITC months before the Board canceled claims 1, 2, and 15–18 is powerful corroboration of the narrowing trend — but keep the two records separate; ITC withdrawal is not invalidation.

Recommended next steps

• If you are being asserted against on claims 1, 2, 15, 16, 17, or 18 — lead with the FWD. Quote the disposition verbatim: "Petitioner has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 2, and 15‑18 of the '593 patent are unpatentable." Pull the public redacted FWD at Paper 38 / Ex. 1030 (Docket Alarm mirror: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00620/Mianyang_BOE_Optoelectronics_Technology_Co._Ltd._v._Samsung_Display_Co._Ltd/docs/09-09-2025-Petitioner/Exhibit-1030-Ex_1030_Proposed_Redacted_FWD.pdf) and the USPTO‑hosted original via PTAB E2E/PTACTS search on IPR2024‑00620 (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/). Confirm whether the § 318(b) certificate has issued yet (it should not have, given the pending appeals) and whether the redactions have been lifted.
• If you are being asserted against on claims 3–8, 14, 19–22, or 25 — these claims are alive but dangling: each depends, directly or indirectly, from independent claim 1 or 15, which the Board held unpatentable. Brief the cancelled‑parent/dependency defect and the corresponding ITC withdrawals. Note that these claims are not protected by the petitioners' estoppel against you if you are not a privy, so a new IPR on these claims — using art the Board did not reach, or § 102/§ 112 theories never raised — remains fully available. Watch for whether the Federal Circuit's disposition on claims 1 and 15 moots or revives them.
• Track the appeals. CAFC Nos. 26‑1092 and 26‑1106 are pending (filed from the 2025‑10‑23 petitioner notice of appeal and the 2025‑10‑27 patent‑owner cross‑appeal). Verify docket-to-party mapping and current status at the Federal Circuit / CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%229%2C330%2C593%22) before citing a docket number. The Federal Circuit's ruling on claims 1 and 15 is the single event that will determine whether this patent is a real assertion vehicle or effectively a dead letter.
• Watch the ITC/docket interplay. Samsung Display is asserting '593 (with US 11,594,578 and US 7,414,599) against TCL/CSOT in N.D. Tex. and has run a parallel ITC track. The BOE settlement (November 2025) has no estoppel or preclusive effect on non‑party defendants, and no terms are public — treat any "Samsung won, so '593 is bulletproof" narrative as unsupported by the FWD, which canceled both independent claims.
• Do not cite IPR2023‑01221 for anything. It was terminated on Petitioner's uncontested motion before institution, with an express no‑side‑agreement certification; there is no institution decision, no claim construction, no FWD, and no estoppel.

I'll start by verifying the assignment records and litigation context through web sources before building the timeline.

Let me verify whether any post-issuance assignments exist and check the assignment record details.

I have strong confirmation of the chain and litigation context. Let me make one targeted attempt at the assignment correspondent field, which the user flagged as the key tell.

US 9330593 — Ownership Reconstruction

Patent: US 9,330,593 B2 — "Stage circuit and organic light emitting display using the same"
Appl. No.: 13/771,385 · Filed: 2013-02-20 · Issued: 2016-05-03 · Adjusted expiration: 2033-08-23
Family: EP2713360B1, JP6163316B2, KR101962432B1, CN103680397B, TWI611391B

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — the "inventor exodus" tell is NOT present. Jang did not leave. In IPR2024-00620 he executed a declaration on 2024-12-10 stating: "I am a Principal Engineer at Samsung Display Co., Ltd. … I have been employed with SDC for around 18 years and am a member of SDC's Mobile Display Business Division." That is a 12-year post-filing tenure with the original assignee — the inverse of the pre-fire-sale departure pattern. He remains SDC's declarant of record defending this patent at the PTAB.

One artifact worth flagging so it is not misread: the printed patent's field (71) reads "Applicant: Hwan-Soo Jang, Yongin (KR)" and aggregators such as PatentGuru list the A1 publication's assignee as "JANG, Hwan-Soo." This is the AIA inventor-as-applicant field on the pre-assignment application, not evidence of inventor ownership. Field (73) on the granted patent reads SAMSUNG DISPLAY CO., LTD., and the assignment below executed 12 days before the US filing cures it.

Original assignee

SAMSUNG DISPLAY CO., LTD., Yongin, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea (field (73); assignment reel 029838/0140).

• Primary line of business: volume manufacturer of OLED (and LCD) display panels; the largest OLED panel supplier globally and a Samsung Electronics affiliate.
• Product embodying the claims: Yes. The claimed subject matter is the scan-driver stage circuit (a 7-transistor / 2-capacitor shift-register stage driven by two non-overlapping clocks) that sits on the gate-driver-on-array of an AMOLED panel. This is production silicon shipped in SDC's own panels, not a paper asset — SDC has litigated it against competitor panels for three years.
• Current status: Operating. No insolvency, no assignment out, no change of name, no security interest recorded. Maintenance fees paid at 4th year (2019-10-28) and 8th year (2023-10-23).

Assignment timeline

There is exactly one recorded assignment in the entire chain, and it is the original inventor-to-employer conveyance. No post-issuance assignment of any kind (assignment, security agreement, merger, change of name, license, release) is recorded against US 9,330,593.

• 2013-02-08 (executed) / recorded 2013-02-20 — Reel 029838/0140
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST"
  • Assignor: JANG, Hwan-Soo
  • Assignee: SAMSUNG DISPLAY CO., LTD. (Korea, Republic of)
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in any source I could retrieve. Google Patents' legal-events view for this reel/frame displays only the assignor, assignee, reel/frame and free-format text — the correspondent field is not surfaced there, my targeted queries for reel 029838 returned no hits, and the USPTO Assignment Center record body was not retrievable from the indexed pages. I will not guess a name. The only firm I can verify on this patent is Lee & Morse, P.C., listed at field (74) as prosecution counsel (attorney/agent of record) — that is a different field from the assignment correspondent, and a single prosecution appearance is not the recurrence signal described in the brief. Not flagged.
  • Context: Routine employee-to-employer assignment of a priority-backed application, executed 12 days before the US filing and 8 days after the KR priority (2012-09-20). Nothing about it is a transfer to a third party.

What is not in the record, and why that matters: the chain terminates at the original assignee and has done so for 13 years. There is no LLC link, no security interest, no securitization, and no re-recorded name change. Under the brief's rule, this is itself the finding — the original operating assignee still owns the patent outright.

(Source of record: USPTO Assignment Center / Patent Assignment Search, searchable by patent number at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html; mirrored in Google Patents legal events.)

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9330593
    2012 : KR priority filed by Samsung Display
    2013 : US application filed Feb 20
         : Jang assigns rights to Samsung Display
    2016 : Patent issues May 3
    2019 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid
    2022 : SDC files ITC action against BOE
    2023 : BOE files IPR against the patent
         : SDC sues BOE in E Texas
    2024 : BOE plus Tianma and Visionox file IPR
    2025 : SDC sues BOE and TCL in district court
         : Claims upheld at PTAB

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Adversary-side detail (relevant context, not a signal): IPR2023-01221 was filed against this patent with petitioner Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (filed 2023-07-26, procedurally terminated), and IPR2024-00620 was filed by BOE + Wuhan China Star + Tianma Microelectronics + Visionox (effective 2024-03-06, Final Written Decision). Reporting on the FWD indicates claim 6 survived and certain other claims were held unpatentable — i.e., a mixed outcome. Appeals to the Federal Circuit are docketed at 26-1092 and 26-1106. Google Patents additionally lists an ITC docket 337-TA-3661 in the litigation panel; I am reproducing that identifier literally as displayed and am not vouching for it, since the well-documented BOE investigation is 337-TA-1351.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

Justification: The entire recorded chain is a single inventor-to-employer assignment, reel 029838/0140 (executed 2013-02-08, recorded 2013-02-20), leaving Samsung Display Co., Ltd. as the continuous record owner for the patent's full life with no post-issuance transfer of any type. SDC is an operating OLED panel manufacturer whose own gate-driver stages practice the claims, and it has asserted the patent in its own name against genuine competitors — ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1351 against BOE and 17 importers (Dec 2022), district court actions against BOE, TCL/China Star, Tianma and Visionox (2:23-cv-00309, 3:25-cv-01430, 1:25-cv-00908), with the patent surviving PTAB challenge in part. Not one of the eight NPE signals registers, and the inventor's 2024-12-10 IPR declaration confirming ~18 years of continuous employment at SDC affirmatively rules out the departure/fire-sale pattern.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 9330593): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Patent Assignment Search (mirror): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events (shows reel 029838/0140): https://patents.google.com/patent/US9330593/en
• Unified Patents litigation/PTAB portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2024-00620

Confidence note: High on the ownership conclusion — the absence of recorded post-issuance assignments is corroborated across Google Patents legal events, the family/also-published tables, and the litigation record, all of which are consistent with SDC as sole owner. The one field I could not verify is the assignment correspondent for reel 029838/0140; I have marked it unavailable rather than infer it.

I'll research the specific prior-art citations for US 9,330,593 and gather details on each reference.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,330,593 B2

Patent under analysis: US 9,330,593 B2 — "Stage circuit and organic light emitting display using the same"
Inventor: Hwan‑Soo Jang • Assignee: Samsung Display Co., Ltd.
App. no. 13/771,385 • Filed Feb. 20, 2013 • Priority KR 10‑2012‑0104512 (Sep. 20, 2012) • Granted May 3, 2016
Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9330593/en (face-of-patent citation lists). Reference texts below were verified against Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, PatentImages (USPTO full-text PDFs), and the IPR2024‑00620 exhibits (Docket Alarm / PTAB).

Important framing before the claim mapping

You asked which claim(s) each citation "potentially anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102." Two clarifications are needed so the analysis is not misleading:

1. No cited reference anticipates any claim of the '593 patent standing alone. On the record of this patent, every face-of-patent citation was applied by the Examiner in § 103(a) obviousness combinations, not as a § 102 anticipation. Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation, including the claim 1/claim 15 "wherein" clause ("the signal of the third input terminal directly controls an on/off operation of a transistor … included in the first driver"). That clause was added by amendment during prosecution and is the point of novelty; no single cited reference discloses it. I therefore report, per reference, (a) the claims that reference was actually mapped to in the § 103 combination, and (b) my assessment of whether it could be argued as a § 102 reference for any claim on its own.
2. The file-history combination architecture (from IPR2024‑00620 Ex. 1002, the prosecution-history exhibit) is:

• Ground: claims 1–3, 5, 7, 8, 14–18, 20, 21, 27, 28 rejected over Jeong (US 2008/0062097) in view of Lee (US 2011/0115835).
• claim 4 further in view of Chung (US 2011/0227884).
• claims 6 and 19 further in view of Kim (US 2012/0062525).
• Later, during an Aug. 21, 2015 Examiner interview, US 8,553,026 was "newly found" and applied.

This is cross-referenceable with the earlier summary section; I do not repeat it except where needed for the claim mapping.

Table 1 — The twelve face-of-patent "Patent Citations" (Google Patents, "Patent Citations (12)")

(*) = "Cited by examiner" per the Google Patents star convention. Note: #5 (KR '320) and #6 (US '884) are the same Chung family (KR priority 10‑2010‑0023401); #9 (US '131) and #12 (KR '020) are the same Jang family.

Detailed analysis — core stage-circuit references

1. US 2008/0062097 A1 — Jeong, Seon‑I (the primary reference)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0062097 A1, "Shift register and organic light emitting display using the same," pub. Mar. 13, 2008. Priority: KR 10‑2006‑0088092 (Sep. 12, 2006). Family grant: US 7,786,972 B2 (Aug. 31, 2010). URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080062097
• Description: A shift register whose stages each have first/second/third output nodes (N1/N2/output) and input lines for three clock signals (CLK1–CLK3) plus a start pulse/previous-stage input. The stage uses a "voltage level controller" (M4, M5, M6) plus an output section (M1 gated to N1 between VDD and output; M2 gated to N2 between output and CLK3), with a first capacitor C1 between N2 and the output and a second capacitor C2 between VDD and N1. Fundamentally the same topology as the '593 first embodiment, but with three clocks rather than two.
• Claim mapping (§ 103, actual use): mapped by the Examiner to claims 1–3, 5, 7, 8, 14–18, 20, 21, 27, 28 as the primary reference, combined with Lee. Specifically:
• claims 2/16 (first input = previous stage/start pulse; second input = CLK2; third input = CLK3);
• claim 3 (non-overlapping clock phases);
• claim 5/27 (start signal overlaps second input clock);
• claim 7/21 (fourth transistor M1 between VDD and output gated to N1; fifth transistor M2 between output and third input gated to N2; C1; C2);
• claim 8/22 (sixth transistor to second input gated to N2; seventh transistor to VSS gated to second input);
• claim 15/16 (CLK3 used as the scan signal);
• claims 17/18 (odd/even stage clock assignments).
• § 102 assessment: Jeong discloses nearly the entire structure of dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 16–18, 21, 22. It does not disclose the added claim 1/15 clause (third-input signal directly gating a transistor in the first driver) — the Examiner expressly conceded this (Ex. 1002: "Jeong does not expressly disclose wherein the signal of the third input terminal is directly coupled to a gate electrode of at least one transistor"). So Jeong cannot anticipate claims 1 or 15, and the "anticipation" of the dependent claims is subsumed because they depend from claim 1. Treat Jeong as the strongest § 103 primary reference, not a § 102 anticipatory reference.

2. US 2010/0171689 A1 — Jeong, SeonI (the second Jeong)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2010/0171689 A1, "Shift register and organic light emitting display device using the same," pub. Jul. 8, 2010. Priority: KR 10‑2009‑0000739 (Jan. 6, 2009). URL: https://www.patentsencyclopedia.com/app/20100171689
• Description: A five-transistor/two-capacitor stage (M1–M5, C1–C2) driven by three sequentially phase-delayed clocks (CLK1–CLK3). M1 between VGH and output node Nout, gated to N1; M2 between Nout and third input line (CLK3), gated to N2; M3 between VGH and N1 gated to the input terminal (start pulse/previous stage); M4 between N1 and VGL gated to the first clock line; M5 between the input terminal and N2 gated to the second clock line; C1 between N2 and Nout; C2 between VGH and N1. Aimed at minimizing leakage current through N2.
• Claim mapping: highly relevant to claims 6, 7, 8, 20, 21, 22 (the M1–M5/C1/C2 architecture). Its M4/M5 arrangement is close to the '593 first-driver/second-driver split, though it uses three clocks and lacks the third-input-gated transistor in the first driver.
• § 102 assessment: No anticipation of claim 1 or 15 (same missing clause; and its first driver does not include a third-input-gated transistor). Strong § 103 secondary/primary reference for the dependent structural claims. (Note the two Jeong publications are different disclosures — do not treat them as one reference; the '097 Jeon uses three clock terminals with a voltage-level controller, and the '689 Jeon uses a five-transistor stage. Both were before the '593 priority date and are § 102(a)/102(b)-eligible art.)

3. US 2012/0062525 A1 — Kim, Dong‑Hwi (the "Kim" reference)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2012/0062525 A1, "Scan driver and organic light emitting display using the same," pub. Mar. 15, 2012. Priority: KR (filed) Sep. 14, 2010. Family grant US 9,099,040 B2 (Aug. 4, 2015). URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120062525A1
• Description: A scan driver able to generate scan signals and emission-control signals together. Each stage has a first signal-processing unit (main/sub input → first/second output signals), a second signal-processing unit (scan signal output), and a third signal-processing unit (emission-control output). Notably its second signal-processing unit includes two serially stacked transistors — a first transistor (driving power → third node, gate at first node) and a second transistor (third node → clock input, gate at second node) — plus a capacitor between the second node and the third node.
• Claim mapping (§ 103, actual use): mapped to claims 6 and 19 — the fact pattern "a second transistor and a third transistor serially positioned between the second node and the first power supply … gate of the second transistor coupled to the third input terminal, gate of the third transistor coupled to the first node." The Examiner combined Jeong + Lee + Kim for this stacked-transistor limitation.
• § 102 assessment: Kim alone does not disclose the '593 stage as a whole; it is an obviousness-teaching reference for the stacked pair (claim 6/19). No anticipation of any '593 claim.

4. US 8,553,026 B2 — Samsung Display ("Scan driver and driving method thereof") — the late-found reference

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 8,553,026 B2, "Scan driver and driving method thereof," granted Oct. 8, 2013; priority Jan. 14, 2011; pre-grant pub. US 2012/0182283 A1 (Jul. 19, 2012). Assignee: Samsung Display Co., Ltd. URL: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8553026.html
• Description: A scan driver of cascaded stages each with a sequential driver and a concurrent (simultaneous-emission) driver; per-stage transistors (first through ninth) with first/second/third clock terminals, a control terminal, and a capacitor between output and first node. Concerned with driving scan signals both sequentially and concurrently (e.g., for black/impulse driving).
• Claim mapping (§ 103, actual use): Found by the Examiner during the Aug. 21, 2015 interview ("U.S. Patent No. 8,553,026 (which was newly found) teaches the claims"), and the Examiner then "suggested additional limitations to claims 1 and 14" to overcome it — which is precisely how the claim 1/15 "third input directly controls a transistor in the first driver" clause entered the case. It is the reference that drove the winning amendment.
• § 102 assessment: No anticipation of claim 1 or 15 as issued (it is a three-clock architecture with a different stage topology and no third-input-gated transistor in a "first driver" as claimed). Its significance is procedural: it is the reason the novelty clause was added.

Detailed analysis — clock-timing and peripheral references

5. US 2011/0227884 A1 — Chung, Kyung‑Hoon (the "Chung" reference)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0227884 A1, "Scan driver and organic light emitting display using the scan driver," pub. Sep. 22, 2011. Priority: KR 10‑2010‑0023401 (Mar. 16, 2010). (Korean counterpart: KR 10‑2011‑0104320 A, pub. Sep. 22, 2011.) URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110227884A1
• Description: A scan driver of stages each receiving clock signals phase-delayed by two or more horizontal cycles and outputting scan signals with pulse widths ≥ 2H, with scan signals overlapping by ≥ 1H.
• Claim mapping (§ 103, actual use): mapped to claim 4 — "the first clock signal and the second clock signal have a period equal to two horizontal periods 2H and are supplied in different horizontal periods as low signals." The Examiner cited Chung's Fig. 5/¶[0036] for 2H periods.
• § 102 assessment: Does not disclose the '593 stage; § 103 timing-teaching reference only. No anticipation.

6. US 2011/0115835 A1 — Lee, Wook (the "Lee" reference)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0115835 A1, "Pixel circuit and organic light‑emitting diode display using the pixel circuit," pub. May 19, 2011. Priority: KR 10‑2009‑0111537 (Nov. 18, 2009). Assignee: Samsung Mobile Display Co., Ltd. URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110115835A1
• Description: A pixel circuit (not a scan-driver stage), for OLED displays, using PMOS transistors and an ACL/emission scheme; it uses a scan signal from a scan line to turn on a switching transistor that applies a data signal to a node, with a diode-connected compensation transistor.
• Claim mapping (§ 103, actual use): The Examiner combined Lee with Jeong for two purposes: (i) to supply the teaching that a stage's output scan signal is used to turn on a pixel's switching transistor (used to complete the "outputting unit"/OLED-display context of claims 14/15 and the claim‑1 "wherein" clause via Lee's M2), and (ii) generally to complete the OLED-display structural elements.
• § 102 assessment: No anticipation — Lee discloses a pixel, not a scan-driver stage circuit; it supplies no part of the '593 stage architecture. It is a secondary § 103 reference.

7. US 2012/0013588 A1 — Samsung Mobile Display

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2012/0013588 A1, "Display, Scan Driving Apparatus for the Display, and Driving Method Thereof," pub. Jan. 19, 2012. Priority: Jul. 19, 2010. Assignee: Samsung Mobile Display Co., Ltd. (Examiner-cited.)
• Description / mapping: A scan-driving apparatus for a display. I was not able to retrieve the detailed disclosure or the Examiner's specific mapping for this reference. Treat its specific claim relevance as unverified; from its title and field it is a § 103 secondary reference in the general scan-driver art. No anticipation of claim 1/15.

8. US 2009/0262051 A1 — Kim, Se‑Ho

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2009/0262051 A1, "Organic light emitting display device," pub. Oct. 22, 2009. Priority: Apr. 18, 2008. (Examiner-cited.)
• Description / mapping: An OLED display-device disclosure. I was not able to retrieve the specific disclosure passages or the Examiner's exact claim mapping; treat it as a general OLED-display § 103 secondary reference. No anticipation of claim 1/15.

9. US 2013/0002630 A1 — Lee, Hae‑Yeon

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0002630 A1, "Scan driver and organic light emitting display using the same," pub. Jan. 3, 2013. Priority: Jun. 30, 2011. (Examiner-cited.) URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130002630A1
• Description / mapping: A scan driver and OLED display. Detailed disclosure/mapping not retrieved; by field it is a § 103 secondary scan-driver reference. No anticipation of claim 1/15.

10. US 2012/0327131 A1 — Jang, Hwan‑Soo (the inventor's own earlier work)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2012/0327131 A1, "Stage circuit and emission driver using the same," pub. Dec. 27, 2012. Priority: Jun. 22, 2011. Inventor: Hwan‑Soo Jang (same inventor as the '593 patent). Korean counterpart: KR 10‑2013‑0000020 A (pub. Jan. 2, 2013).
• Relevance: This is the inventor's own earlier application family (Samsung Display), i.e., a § 102(a)/102(b)/102(e)-type reference depending on the effective date analysis, and it is also relevant to the "similar document" landscape (cf. US 9,183,781; US 8,728,765). It is a stage-circuit/emission-driver disclosure by the same inventor, so it is a potential § 102 or § 103 reference against the '593 claims to the extent it discloses the claimed stage topology; however, because it is commonly owned/inventor-related, § 103(c)/common-ownership considerations (pre-AIA) may apply. I did not retrieve its detailed circuit mapping, so I flag its § 102 potential as unconfirmed.

Family-cited (foreign search-report) references — "Family Cites Families (8)"

These appear as the Korean/Japanese family search-report citations rather than as direct U.S. face-of-patent citations. They are cited art in the family but not the U.S. Examiner's citations:

I have not independently retrieved the substance of most of these foreign references; the two most likely to matter for § 102/§ 103 are KR 10‑1790705 (bidirectional scan driver → claims 11–13, 26–28) and KR 10‑0796137 (the Korean counterpart of Jeong '097). Treat the rest as background art of unverified specificity.

Prior art asserted in IPR, not on the face of the patent

Two additional references were asserted by the IPR2024‑00620 petitioners and are not among the '593 patent's face-of-patent citations (per Ex. 1003, the petitioners' expert declaration, at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00620/Mianyang_BOE_Optoelectronics_Technology_Co._Ltd/docs/03-06-2024-Petitioner/Exhibit-1003-Ex_1003.pdf):

• US 2011/0057190 A1 — Kimura ("semiconductor device" / display device; published Mar. 10, 2011). Asserted as § 102(b) prior art; relied on for a flip‑flop/shift‑register circuit (Figs. 27C, 34).
• US 2007/0063950 A1 — Shin ("scan driving circuit for a current-programming-type OLED display"; published Mar. 22, 2007). Asserted as § 102(b) prior art.

Both are outside the face-of-patent citation set and, per the same exhibit, "were not considered during prosecution." These are the references the IPR panel actually weighed; as recorded earlier in this analysis, the IPR2024‑00620 Final Written Decision found claims 1, 2, and 15–18 unpatentable while claims 3–8, 14, 19–22, and 25 survived. (Per the earlier summary, the exact FWD signature date is inconsistent across sources; verify the current docket before relying on it. The CAFC cross-appeal 26‑1106 was dismissed Apr. 7, 2026 under FRAP 42(b), and 26‑1092's merits disposition is not established from what was retrieved.)

Bottom line

1. No face-of-patent citation anticipates claim 1 or claim 15 under § 102. All twelve face citations were applied in § 103(a) combinations. The reason is structural and legal: the issued independent claims require that "the signal of the third input terminal directly controls an on/off operation of a transistor … included in the first driver," a limitation the Examiner repeatedly found was not expressly disclosed by the primary reference (Jeong) and which was added by amendment to overcome US 8,553,026.
2. The single most material reference is US 2008/0062097 A1 (Jeong) — it supplies the stage architecture (output transistors, first/second nodes, C1/C2, clock/start-pulse terminals, odd/even clock assignment, start-signal overlap) mapped to claims 1–3, 5, 7, 8, 14–18, 20, 21, 27, 28. Its § 102 reach, however, stops short of the issued independent claims; it is a § 103 primary reference, not an anticipatory one.
3. US 2010/0171689 A1 (SeonI Jeong) and US 2011/0115835 A1 (Lee) are the key secondary structural references; US 2012/0062525 A1 (Kim) supplies the serial stacked-transistor teaching for claims 6 and 19; US 2011/0227884 A1 (Chung) supplies the 2H clock teaching for claim 4; US 8,553,026 is the late-found reference that forced the narrowing amendment.
4. Unverified items (explicitly flagged): I could not retrieve the specific disclosures or Examiner mappings for US 2009/0262051 A1 (Kim Se‑Ho), US 2012/0013588 A1, and US 2013/0002630 A1 (Lee Hae‑Yeon), nor for the eight family-cited KR/JP references (except their bibliographic data). I also could not retrieve the detailed circuit mapping of the inventor's own US 2012/0327131 A1. Their § 102/§ 103 potential is therefore stated conservatively; each is at most a § 103 secondary reference on the record I found, and none shows the claim 1/15 novelty clause.
5. If the objective is the "most relevant prior art" for the '593 patent overall, the strongest art is the Jeong family plus the § 103 add-ons above, and — outside the face-of-patent list — Kimura (US 2011/0057190) and Shin (US 2007/0063950), which the PTAB actually relied on to invalidate claims 1, 2, and 15–18.

I'll research the prior-art references listed on this patent's page so the obviousness analysis is grounded in their actual disclosures.

I have the key IPR and prosecution record. Let me pull the contents of the IPR references (Kimura, Shin, Sasaki, Tobita) that were not on the patent's face.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 9,330,593 B2 ("the '593 patent")

Builds on the previously generated bibliographic, claim, prosecution, and docket sections; those are not repeated. Sources: the "Citations," "Patent Citations," and "Family Cites Families" lists on the patent page, plus the prosecution record (Ex. 1002) and the IPR2024-00620 papers (Ex. 1003, Ex. 2059, Petitioner's Reply) retrieved below.

1. Analytical premises

POSITA. A person of ordinary skill here is a circuit designer with a B.S. in EE (or equivalent) and roughly 2–5 years in AMOLED/display driver IC design — i.e., comfortable with pMOS/nMOS TFT shift-register stages, two-phase clocking, node-leakage management, and cascade/bi-directional scan architectures. This is the level assumed by both the examiner and the IPR expert (Foty) — the two sides disputed the application of the art, not the skill level.

The pivot limitation. Every § 103 ground rises or falls on claim 1's final clause (and its claim 15 twin): "the signal of the third input terminal directly controls an on/off operation of a transistor, the transistor included in the first driver." Per the prosecution record, the pre-grant published claim 1 lacked this clause; it was added (Sept. 17, 2015 amendment, in response to the examiner's suggestion following discovery of US 8,553,026) and it is the only real point of novelty relative to the Jeong family. Everything else — the first node / second node split, the outputting unit, the two drivers — was already in the Jeong references.

2. What the cited art actually discloses

3. The combinations

(A) Primary ground — Jeong + Kimura: renders claims 1, 2, 15–18 obvious.
This is the ground the Board actually adopted in IPR2024-00620 (FWD: claims 1, 2, 15–18 unpatentable). US 2011/0057190 A1 ("Kimura," Ex. 1004) discloses a shift register (Fig. 34) built from Fig. 27C flip-flops having wiring 212 as a first input terminal (previous-stage output GOUT or start signal GSP), wiring 113 as a second input terminal (IN2/GCK2), wiring 112 as a third input terminal (IN1/GCK1), and wiring 211 as the output terminal, with transistor 203 coupling the third-input signal to the output when the second node (node 13) turns it on — and the stage output being used as the display scan signal. That supplies every element of claims 1/15, including the "wherein" clause (a third-input-gated transistor inside the driving/control portion), plus claim 2's terminal assignments and claims 16–18's clock alternation.

Motivation. Trivially strong: same field (display scan drivers), same function (cascaded stage producing a scan pulse), and a POSITA seeking Jeong's compact two-node stage with more robust control of the second node would look to an adjacent flip-flop design that uses the very clock already routed into the stage to actively drive the node — avoiding the floating/leakage problem both Jeong '689 and the '593 specification identify. No change in principle of operation, no unpredictable result.

(B) Jeong + Chung: renders claims 3 and 4 obvious.
Claim 3 (same period, non-overlapping phases) and claim 4 (2H period, different horizontal periods, low-active). Jeong's three clocks are already sequential phase-delayed signals of equal period; Chung discloses the specific 2H/non-overlap relationship and, critically, supplies the reason — widen the scan pulse at high resolution/refresh. KSR "obvious to try / design choice with a recognized benefit": a POSITA would set the two clocks fed to Jeong's stage to a 2H period in different horizontal periods to obtain a 1H-wide scan pulse. This is the combination the examiner actually used at the claim-4 rejection stage.

(C) Jeong + Kim: renders claims 6 and 20 obvious (first-driver structure: first transistor between the first input and the second node with gate on the second input; second and third transistors serially stacked between the second node and the first supply, gates on the third input and the first node respectively).
Kim supplies the stacked-transistor pull-up to the second node gated by a clock, plus the cross-coupled node-to-gate couplings. Jeong '097 supplies the first input/second input gating. Combination rationale: both are Samsung OLED scan-driver stages addressing the same node-stability problem; using a third-input-gated transistor in the pull-up stack of the second node is a predictable substitution that adds an active, clocked path to hold the second node at the off-state supply.

(D) Jeong '097 + Jeong '689 (as alternative primary): renders claims 7 and 21 obvious (M4 VDD‑output/gate N1; M5 output‑third input/gate N2; C1 N2‑output; C2 N1‑VDD).
These two Jeong references, read together, disclose the exact outputting-unit topology, including the bootstrapping capacitor between the second node and the output. Same inventor/assignee family, same problem (compact shift-register stage; reduce dead space; minimize leakage at the second node), and the two references are expressly directed to simplifying that stage — a POSITA would combine them as mere species of the same design.

(E) Second-driver variants — claims 8, 9–10, 22–24.
Claim 8 (sixth transistor N1↔second input, gate on second node; seventh transistor N1↔lower supply VSS, gate on second input) is essentially Jeong '689's M5/M4 pair plus Jeong '097's clock-gated reset transistor. Claim 9's diode-connected seventh transistor between the first node and the second input terminal is a modification of the same node-pull-down function; the '593 specification itself presents it as an equivalent-behavior alternative ("when a low voltage is supplied to the second input terminal, the voltage of the first node is reduced"), which cuts against non-obviousness. Note: the Board's FWD did not hold claims 8 or 22 unpatentable — but on the grounds presented (Kimura alone; Kimura-based), not because the Jeong-family art fails.

(F) Bi-directional driver — claims 11–13, 26–28.
KR 101790705 B1 (Samsung Display, bi-directional scan driver) and US 2012/0327131 A1 (Jang — same inventor) are family/face art on forward/reverse scanning via control signals. Adding a pair of pass transistors (control-signal-gated) at the input of the first driver is a conventional, well-motivated modification for reversibility. (These claims were not challenged in IPR2024-00620, so there is no adjudicated result.)

(G) Alternative IPR grounds — Shin + Sasaki (Grounds 2–3) and Tobita (Grounds 4–5).
Petitioners also asserted US 2007/0063950 A1 (Shin) with US 2005/0185752 A1 (Sasaki), and separately US 2008/0101529 A1 (Tobita) alone and Tobita + Jeong. The Patent Owner attacked these on "improper application of Sasaki" and "Tobita lacks element [1‑B]/[15‑E]," and the Board ultimately rested on Ground 1 (Kimura). These grounds are therefore secondary and I cannot verify their element mappings from the retrieved excerpts.

4. Motivation-to-combine summary (KSR factors)

• Same field of endeavor / analogous art: every reference is a scan-driver or shift-register stage for a matrix display, mostly by Samsung, Samsung Mobile Display, or Semiconductor Energy Laboratory — the direct source of the '593 patent's own technology.
• Same articulated problem: reduce transistor/clock count, avoid extra initializing signals so the scan pulse can be widened, and stabilize the second node against leakage. Jeong '689 and the '593 specification state the leakage concern in nearly identical terms.
• Predictable result / reasonable expectation of success: all references use the same VDD/VSS and pMOS/nMOS convention and cascaded stage topology; substituting or adding a third-input-gated transistor changes no principle of operation.
• Teaching, suggestion, or motivation: Chung [0008] supplies the express reason to move to 2H non-overlapping clocks; Kim supplies the stacked output-clocked pull-up for the second node.

5. Objective indicia

Patent Owner submitted secondary-considerations evidence (Wolfe declaration; industry praise, copying, and a Galaxy S22 Ultra AMOLED tear-down by Fontecchio, Ex. 2043). Petitioners argued these were inapposite. The Board's FWD nonetheless held claims 1, 2, and 15–18 unpatentable — i.e., the objective-indicia showing did not carry the broad independent claims.

6. Bottom line per claim

Critical caveat: "Not shown unpatentable" is not a holding of validity. The surviving claims survived the particular grounds and claim set (1–8, 14–22, 25) that were petitioned; claims 9–13 and 23–24 were never challenged, and Chung/Kim/Jeong '689 were not the primary grounds on which the Board ruled.

7. Discrepancies and verification limits (flagged)

1. Chung identifier conflict. The '593 front page prints "2011/0277884 A1," while the Examiner's own rejection language (quoted in Ex. 1002) cites "U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0227884 to Chung." Both IDs are reproduced literally; I did not resolve which is the true publication number.
2. Two "Kimura" references appear in IPR2024-00620: Ex. 1004 = US 2011/0057190 A1 and Ex. 1013 = US 2003/0132931 A1, both labeled "Kimura." Ground 1 uses the former.
3. Two "Lee" references: US 2011/0115835 (prosecution, Samsung Mobile Display) and US 2007/0139348 (IPR Ex. 1015). I could not retrieve the Lee office-action mapping, so Lee's specific contribution is inferred, not verified.
4. Petitioner caption inconsistency: the Reply caption names "TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.," whereas the Google Patents/PTAB listing names "Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology." Reproduced as found.
5. I did not obtain the full text of Shin, Sasaki, or Tobita, so § 3(G) is reported as asserted grounds rather than independently verified mappings.