US 9417112

I'll search for the specific patent number as requested.

Note on identifier scope (important)

A bare search on "9417112" returns several different documents, and I have kept them strictly separate:

Everything below relates only to US 9,417,112 B2 (Seiko Epson). I did not auto-correct any identifier.

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Bibliographic data

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9417112/en

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Abstract (as published)

"A liquid consumption device of the present invention has a holder in which an opening section is provided in a position to face a prism of an ink cartridge, a light emitting section, and a light receiving section. The holder has a region that changes a light amount of the reflected light emitted from the light emitting section and received by the light receiving section in a position spaced apart from the opening section at a predetermined distance in a main scanning direction."

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Plain-language overview

The problem. Ink‑jet cartridges carry a prism on the bottom that lets the printer optically sense remaining ink. The optical sensor (an LED + phototransistor "photo‑interrupter") sits in the printer body, while the cartridge sits in a carriage that sweeps past it. If the carriage/sensor mounting is misaligned, the sensor samples the prism at the wrong carriage position and misreads ink level. The cited prior art (JP 2005‑22356) solved this by putting a reflective member on every ink cartridge — wasteful, because cartridges are consumables.

The invention. Move the optical reference feature off the cartridge and onto the holder (the carriage that receives the cartridges). The holder gets a region that changes the received light amount, positioned a known, fixed distance from the holder's prism opening in the main‑scanning direction. The controller sweeps the carriage, optically locates that holder feature, then computes the true prism position by offsetting from it by the known distance. Because the calibration feature lives on the reusable holder, cartridge cost drops.

Claim 1 (independent) — a liquid consumption device comprising:

• a holder to which a liquid reservoir section (cartridge) having a prism is attached, with an opening section positioned to face that prism;
• a light emitting section;
• a light receiving section that receives reflected light of the emitted light; and
• a moving section that moves the holder relative to the light emitting/light receiving sections in a main scanning direction,
• wherein the holder has a region that changes a light amount of the reflected light (emitted from the light emitting section and received by the light receiving section) at a position spaced apart from the opening section by a predetermined distance in the main scanning direction.

Claim 11 (independent, as published) — a liquid consumption device comprising:

• a holder to which a plurality of liquid reservoir sections are attached in a removable manner, each having a prism;
• a detecting section having a light emitting section and a light receiving section; and
• a moving section that moves the holder or the detecting section so that each of the plurality of prisms faces the detecting section,
• wherein the holder has a region that changes a light amount of the reflected light at a position able to face the detecting section by operation of the moving section.

Dependent/aspect coverage (from the specification's Application Examples, which track the claims): the region comprises a reflective region (e.g., a mirror reflective plate on the floor of a recessed portion, or the holder bottom surface itself) plus a non‑reflective region (light‑absorbing members, optionally inclined at 45°, or an opening/slot); the non‑reflective region may be at both ends of the reflective region (or vice versa); and the light emitting section may emit a larger light amount toward the reflective region than toward the prism so a sufficient signal is obtained when the holder bottom surface serves as the reflector. Two disclosed embodiments: (1) reflective plate + flanking non‑reflective members; (2) an opening for position detection flanked by holder bottom surface (no‑reflection period used as the position marker), with a retry loop (K = 3) if correction fails.

Note: descriptions of dependent subject matter above are drawn from the specification's Application Examples; I did not retrieve the granted claim set verbatim, so the exact wording/numbering of the granted dependent claims should be confirmed against the USPTO full‑text claims or the printed patent.

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Litigation / CAFC 2026 check — result

I searched for the specific number 9417112 against USPTO/litigation and Federal Circuit 2026 materials.

• No litigation, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding naming US 9,417,112 B2 was found. The Seiko Epson ink‑cartridge campaigns that surface in search results involve different patents (e.g., U.S. 5,158,377; 5,221,148; 6,502,917; 6,955,422; 6,550,902; 7,058,339 — Ninestar/Glory South line of cases, ITC 337‑TA‑565 and ‑946).
• No CAFC 2026 docket entry referencing this patent appeared in the search results.

Uncertainty: I could not query USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Trial and Appeal Board APIs or the CAFC docket system directly in this session; my conclusion is based on web search only. The absence of hits is evidence of no activity, not proof — a definitive freedom‑to‑operate or litigation check should be run against the USPTO PatentCenter assignment/transaction history, PACER/CM‑ECF, and the CAFC docket directly.

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Caveats

1. The bare string "9417112" is ambiguous. It maps to at least four distinct documents. Any downstream research must qualify it as US 9,417,112 B2 to avoid the WO 9417112 (Dow ethylene interpolymerization) match, which dominates generic search results.
2. Bibliographic data above is from the Google Patents record fetched 2026‑09‑24 and is internally consistent (application 13/753,016; filed 2013‑01‑29; granted 2016‑08‑16; assignee Seiko Epson). Google Patents itself flags priority date, legal status, and assignee as assumptions.
3. Granted claim text was not retrieved in full — the independent claims quoted above are from the pre‑grant publication US 2013/0320248 A1 ("Claims (11)"), which is the same application. Granted claims may have been amended during prosecution.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 9417112 across patent litigation databases.

The initial results are mostly noise (unrelated WO/GB numbers). Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Litigation Search: U.S. Patent No. 9,417,112

Bottom Line

I found no litigation specifically asserting or involving U.S. Patent No. 9,417,112 ("Liquid consumption device having holder and detecting section").

I want to be explicit and careful here: I could not identify any district court case, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal in which U.S. Patent 9,417,112 is identified as an asserted patent, an accused patent, or otherwise a subject of the proceeding. I am not prepared to report a case as involving this patent unless a source names this exact number.

What the searches actually returned

1. False-positive identifier matches (NOT the patent at issue)

Searches for the string "9417112" returned unrelated documents that merely share the digits:

• WO 9417112 A2/A3 — "Ethylene interpolymerizations" (The Dow Chemical Company), a 1994 PCT publication. Completely different technology.
• GB 9417112 D0 — "Coated substrate and process for its formation" (a 1994 UK application number).
• GB priority number 9417112 cited in Swedish/Czech patent bulletins.

Per my operating rule, I interpret identifiers literally and do not auto-correct them — so I am flagging these as distinct from U.S. 9,417,112 and not conflating them with the patent in question.

2. Epson ink-cartridge litigation (real cases, but different patents)

The searches surfaced extensive, genuine Seiko Epson ink-cartridge enforcement activity — but none of these sources name U.S. 9,417,112. The patents asserted in those matters were, e.g., U.S. 8,794,749 ("the '749 patent"), U.S. 8,454,116 ("the '116 patent"), U.S. 6,955,422 ("the '422 patent"), and the patents in ITC Inv. Nos. 337-TA-946 and 337-TA-565. For example:

• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-946 ("Certain Ink Cartridges and Components Thereof") — asserted the '749 and '116 patents, among others (Commission Opinion, May 26, 2016).
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1452 ("Certain Ink Cartridges and Components Thereof II") — instituted June 17, 2025, 90 FR 25644, asserting U.S. 8,764,172, 9,370,934, 11,535,038, 12,240,248, and 12,240,249. (Again, not the '112 patent.)
• Seiko Epson Corp. v. Burkwitz Solutions, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-10133 (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 22, 2024) — asserted the '749 and '116 patents.
• Numerous Epson district court actions (D. Or., C.D. Cal., E.D.N.Y., D. Nev., S.D. Fla., etc.) asserting the '422, '749, '116, and '917 patents.

These are not cases involving U.S. 9,417,112, and I am not reporting them as such.

Important caveats on this conclusion

• Not exhaustive. My access in this session was limited to general web search results; I was not able to query PACER, the CAFC docket, Docket Alarm, or the Unified Patents litigation portal directly. A negative finding from these searches is not proof that no case exists.
• Recommendation for confirmation. To verify authoritatively, check:
  • Google Patents litigation tab for US9417112 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US9417112/en
  • Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
  • PACER / Docket Alarm for "9,417,112"
  • USITC EDIS (https://edis.usitc.gov) for any Section 337 investigation naming the '112 patent
  • PTAB (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) for any IPR/PGR/CBM involving the '112 patent

Patent background (for context)

U.S. 9,417,112 B2, assigned to Seiko Epson Corporation, issued August 16, 2016, from Application No. 13/753,016 (filed Jan. 29, 2013), claiming priority to May 30, 2012 (JP). Legal status: Active, adjusted expiration 2033-11-04. Inventors: Junpei Yoshida, Yuichi Nishihara, Takayuki Yazawa, Hidetoshi Yokoyama. It is a printer/ink-cartridge remaining-ink optical detection patent (prism-based detection with a holder-mounted reflective plate for position correction). Given the active status and Epson's demonstrated willingness to enforce its ink-cartridge portfolio, it is plausible this patent has been asserted in Epson's campaign against aftermarket ink cartridge sellers — but I found no source naming it, so I decline to assert that as fact.

Conclusion: No litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent No. 9,417,112 is confirmed by the sources reviewed. If such litigation exists, it did not appear in these searches and should be verified against the primary docket sources listed above.

I'll start by verifying the structured data against live sources.

Let me run more targeted searches to be thorough.

Let me do a final set of confirmation searches, including on litigation that might have spawned an IPR.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns 0 IPRs, 0 PGRs, and 0 CBMs against US 9,417,112, and my web searches surfaced no PTAB proceeding that the ODP has not yet indexed. The bottom-line defensive posture: the patent is untested at the PTAB, not hardened and not broken. No claim of the '112 patent has been canceled, and no petitioner has ever forced Seiko Epson to defend it in an AIA trial. That is a neutral-to-weak signal for a defendant: you would be the first challenger, which means no § 315(e)(2) estoppel works against you and no FWD pinpoints vulnerable claims — but also no road map and no proven kill shot.

No proceedings to report

There are no proceeding entries to render in the per-proceeding format. In place of that section, here is what the searches did and did not turn up, so you can see the negative was actually checked:

• A search on the patent number plus "IPR"/"PTAB"/"petition" returns no PTAB docket entries. The apparent "9417112" matches are false positives from a number collision: WO 9417112 A2 is a 1994 Dow Chemical ethylene-polymerization PCT publication (priority to US 08/010,958, filed 1993-01-29), unrelated to this patent. Petitions citing "the '941 patent" in PTAB papers refer to different patents entirely (e.g., US 7,636,146 in BOE v. 138 East, IPR2025-01396; US 7,116,710 in the Caltech v. Broadcom/Apple line).
• Seiko Epson's ink-cartridge enforcement campaign is real and well documented — ITC Investigation 337-TA-460 (2006, General Exclusion Order), and the later district court wave asserting US 6,502,917 and US 8,794,749 against aftermarket and remanufactured cartridge sellers (D. Or., E.D.N.Y., S.D. Fla., C.D. Cal., D. Nev. complaints catalogued in the 2018–2019 filings). US 9,417,112 does not appear on any of those complaints. Epson's asserted cartridge patents are the older '917/'902/'749/'053/'397 family, not this 2012-priority liquid-consumption-device patent.
• I could not confirm any PTAB proceeding for this patent via PTAB E2E, CourtListener, or CAFC dockets in the searches run. I am reporting that as "no proceeding found," not as a verified absence of every possible filing — the ODP structured block is the canonical source here, and it agrees.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because no AIA trial has ever been instituted, all claims of US 9,417,112 remain as issued. Zero claims are canceled, zero were amended by a motion to amend, and the entire claim set is UNTESTED at the PTAB. The application-claim set that issued in this family runs to a liquid consumption device with a holder, an opening section facing the cartridge prism, a light-emitting/light-receiving pair, and — the point of novelty over JP 2005-22356 — a region on the holder, spaced a predetermined distance from the opening section in the main scanning direction, that changes the received light amount, per Application Examples 1–10 (reflective region + non-reflective region; reflective region in a recessed portion; inclined non-reflective surfaces; reflective region at both ends of the non-reflective region and vice versa; opening region as the non-reflective region; holder bottom surface as the reflective region; and higher light output toward the reflective region than toward the prism). Every one of those limitations is a live, un-adjudicated claim term.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone. Any defendant asserting invalidity today can raise § 102/§ 103 grounds in district court and file an IPR on the same or different art without self-inflicted estoppel — the classic "one-bite" tradeoff has not been triggered because nobody has taken the bite. That is the single most valuable fact in this report: you have a clean slate, and you should decide your IPR strategy before, not after, serving invalidity contentions, because filing an IPR and losing (or even settling after institution) forfeits grounds you reasonably could have raised. Note also § 315(b): if you or a privy have been served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '112 patent more than one year ago, your IPR window is already closed — confirm service dates first.

Pattern signals. There is no repeat-petitioner pattern, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar) in the chain, and no PTAB appeal history for this patent. The patent's prosecution history and family (US 2013/0320248 A1, US 9,086,312, US 9,199,476, US 2015/0251434) show Seiko Epson filing a dense cluster of optically-detected ink-remaining patents with overlapping disclosure — which cuts both ways: it gives you a rich pool of sibling specifications and earlier Seiko Epson publications (e.g., US 2013/0222445 A1, JP-A-2013-99890, JP H08-114488) that are self-evidentially available as prior art, and it makes the '112 patent's own claim scope harder to distinguish from Epson's own earlier filings.

Recommended next steps

• Treat the absence of PTAB activity as a strategic opening, not a comfort. Well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs; the '112 patent has been in force since 2016-08-16 with an adjusted expiration of 2033-11-04 and has never been challenged. If you have received a demand letter citing the '112 patent, the patent owner is likely banking on the cost of a first challenge rather than on proven claim strength.
• Run the § 315(b) clock before anything else. Pull the service date on any complaint asserting the '112 patent. If you are within one year, a petition is still available; if not, you are limited to district court invalidity and ex parte reexamination.
• Mine the family for prior art first. The closest references will likely be Seiko Epson's own earlier liquid-consumption filings (US 2013/0222445 A1; US 9,086,312; JP-A-2013-99890; JP H08-114488), which disclose calibration/reflection-portion position correction in the carriage — compare those against independent claim 1's "region … spaced apart from the opening section at a predetermined distance in the main scanning direction" limitation. That limitation is the stated point of distinction over JP 2005-22356, so it is where the invalidity case lives or dies.
• If you file, file once and file well. With no prior FWD to lean on, your petition has to independently establish that the holder-side reflective/non-reflective region was known or obvious, using the applicant's own admitted state of the art. Consider a focused petition on the independent claim rather than a shotgun challenge across all Application Examples.
• Link targets for diligence. USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ — USPTO Patent Center for the file history of US 13/753,016: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ — CourtListener for any CAFC docket that might later attach: https://www.courtlistener.com/. If a proceeding against the '112 patent surfaces later, re-run this analysis against the ODP block rather than relying on this report.

Confidence note. I am highly confident that the ODP structured block (the canonical source provided to me) shows no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and my searches corroborated that. I cannot rule out a very recently filed petition that neither the ODP ingest nor my searches captured — if you need certainty, verify directly against PTAB E2E before you rely on this in a filing or a privilege-protected opinion.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9,417,112, starting with the USPTO assignment data and cross-referencing public sources.

The searches are returning identifier noise. Let me try more targeted queries for the assignment record specifics and Epson's IP holding structure.

Let me look for the INPADOC legal-status record, which captures the assignment reel/frame for US patents.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis: U.S. Patent No. 9,417,112

Important sourcing caveat up front. In this session I had no direct API/interactive access to the USPTO Patent Assignment Search (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov). I worked from indexed records (Google Patents Legal Events, Espacenet/INPADOC-style legal-status listings, and general web search). The searches for this patent's assignment identifier (reel/frame) were dominated by false-positive hits on the string "9417112" (e.g., WO 9417112 A2, GB 9417112 D0). I could retrieve the existence and substance of the assignment but not its reel/frame number or its correspondent of record. Those fields are marked "not retrieved" below rather than guessed. Where a field is unknown, I say so.

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Inventors

Basis for the employer inference. The single recorded assignment in this chain (recorded 2013-06-03, per Google Patents Legal Events — see Assignment timeline) runs from these four natural-person inventors to Seiko Epson Corporation. An inventor-to-corporate-assignee transfer of the entire interest is the standard hallmark of an employment/obligation-to-assign relationship. I did not independently confirm each inventor's employment status or title through primary corporate records, so "Seiko Epson Corporation (inferred)" is the honest characterization.

Unusual-pattern check — departure / fire-sale precursor. The prompt flags the pattern where all inventors leave the original assignee within ~12 months of filing, which can precede a portfolio sale. I found no evidence of inventor departures, and the observable facts cut against it: the inventors assigned to Epson (not away from it), Epson remained the sole recorded owner across the 2013-06-03 recording and the 2016-08-16 issuance, and no subsequent assignment out of Epson appears in the record. Signal: not present. I cannot rule out individual departures (no primary HR/employment data reviewed), but there is no portfolio-transfer consequence visible.

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Seiko Epson Corporation (Tokyo, Japan; historically 3-5 Owa 3-chome, Suwa-shi, Nagano). Recorded as assignee on US 9,417,112; also the "Current Assignee" in Google Patents.
• Primary line of business: Operating manufacturer of inkjet printers, printing heads and ink cartridges, projectors/displays, semiconductor and sensing devices, and timepieces (Seiko). The patent itself claims the liquid consumption device — i.e., the printer body, holder, and optical detecting section — so the claims read on Epson's own printer hardware, not on a discrete component Epson only licenses.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, on the face of the specification. The claimed subject matter is a printing device having a holder, an opening section facing the cartridge prism, a light emitter/receiver, and a carriage motor moving the holder — Epson's core inkjet-printer architecture. This is the "operating company ships the product" fact pattern.
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded, not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. No Chapter 7/11 filing or asset sale involving Epson surfaced. No re-assignment away from Epson appears in the record.
• Portfolio posture (for context, not proof of assertion on this patent): Epson is a demonstrated, active enforcer of its ink-cartridge/ink-supply patent portfolio (e.g., ITC Inv. Nos. 337-TA-946 and 337-TA-1452; numerous district-court actions and asserted patents such as U.S. 8,794,749 and 8,454,116). Per the previously generated litigation summary, no source names US 9,417,112 itself as an asserted patent, and I have no basis to assert it was.

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Assignment timeline

The record I could verify contains exactly one assignment event for US 9,417,112. There is no post-issuance transfer, no security interest, no merger, and no change-of-name recorded.

• Executed: not stated in the retrieved record / Recorded 2013-06-03 — Reel not retrieved / not retrieved (reel/frame not surfaced in indexed sources; verify at USPTO Assignment Center)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of assignors' interest)
  • Assignor: Yoshida, Junpei; Nishihara, Yuichi; Yazawa, Takayuki; Yokoyama, Hidetoshi (natural persons)
  • Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Tokyo, JP)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. (Because only one link exists in this chain, the "repeat correspondent" tell cannot be evaluated — see NPE signals #3.)
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment. Executed in connection with the Jan. 29, 2013 filing of App. 13/753,016; it is the initial vesting of title in the operating company, not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Note on what this means. This patent's chain is a single-hop, title-vesting assignment and nothing more. Per the governing instruction, a patent with "only the original assignment" is itself a finding: Seiko Epson Corporation still owns US 9,417,112. The Google Patents Legal Events for this patent list only the 2013-06-03 ASSIGNMENT entry (to Seiko Epson) alongside the ordinary grant/publication/fee events — no second assignment.

Verification links (I could not query these directly; treat as the authoritative next step):

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Assignment Search (patent index): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents (Legal Events / litigation tabs): https://patents.google.com/patent/US9417112/en

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9417112
    2012 : JP priority application filed May 30
    2013 : US application filed Jan 29 by four inventors
         : Inventors assign interest to Seiko Epson
         : Assignment recorded Jun 3
    2016 : Patent issued Aug 16 to Seiko Epson

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only assignment in the chain moves the entire interest from four natural persons to Seiko Epson Corporation, an operating manufacturer. No assignee anywhere in the chain carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix, and no registered-agent address, single-member-LLC, or Delaware/Texas shell appears. (Recorded 2013-06-03; no later link.)
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. The current and sole assignee is Seiko Epson, an operating company. There is no Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, or Spangenberg-entity link anywhere in the record.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present / Unclear (unassessable). With a single assignment event, recurrence cannot exist by definition, and I could not retrieve even that one correspondent. This signal requires repetition and therefore cannot fire here.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One assignment, zero chained LLCs, no shared correspondent addresses to compare, over the entire 2013–2016 window and beyond.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present / Unclear. The lone assignment (recorded 2013-06-03) is an inventor→employer title-vesting step, ~3 years before issuance and long before any hypothetical assertion. Per the litigation summary, no infringement suit naming this patent was located, so no transfer can be shown to be litigation-timed. If a suit exists, the relevant test would still fail on timing because the only transfer predates issuance.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Epson bankruptcy, Chapter 7/11, or patent auction (Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid-style) appears in the record; Epson is a going concern.
7. Privateering — Not present. No assignment to a third-party NPE, litigation funder, or assertion vehicle. The patent remains with the operating inventor-employer.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The inverse signal (neutralized patent) does not apply.

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Verdict

Insufficient data (per the rubric's "only the original assignment" branch) — which here is a substantively clean result: this is an intact operating-company patent with no NPE footprint.

Justification. The entire recorded chain consists of one event — the 2013-06-03 assignment of the four inventors' interest to Seiko Epson Corporation (Google Patents Legal Events for US 9,417,112). There is no second assignment, no LLC intermediary, no security interest, no known asserter, and no defensive-aggregator terminus; Seiko Epson — an operating printer manufacturer whose products embody the claimed "liquid consumption device" — remains the owner of record. Because I could not retrieve the reel/frame or correspondent, and because only the original assignment exists, the chain offers nothing to score as an NPE signal, so the rubric maps it to Insufficient data rather than "NPE" of any confidence level.

Residual uncertainty / recommended verification. (a) I could not confirm the reel/frame or correspondent of record for the 2013-06-03 assignment — these should be pulled from https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ to close the file, particularly the correspondent, which is the one field I could not evaluate. (b) I could not query PACER/EDIS/PTAB directly; the absence of litigation naming the '112 patent is a negative search result, not proof, and should be re-checked against the Google Patents litigation tab and the Unified Patents litigation portal. Neither gap changes the ownership picture: nothing in the record shows this patent leaving Seiko Epson.

I'll search the USPTO and patent databases for US 9,417,112 and its cited references.

I found the key citation list. Let me now verify each cited reference's details and content.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,417,112 B2

Building on the previously generated background sections. Below I focus only on the references cited on/against this patent and their potential §102 relevance.

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1. Confirming the target document

I searched specifically for 9,417,112 (not similar numbers). The record retrieved is consistent across sources:

Prior-art keywords listed by Google Patents: light, section, holder, prism, reflective.

⚠️ Flagged inconsistency: The Justia rendering states "The entire disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-122792 filed Oct. 29, 2013 is expressly incorporated by reference." The priority date is May 30, 2012, and a JP application numbered 2012-122792 would ordinarily be a 2012 filing — so the "Oct. 29, 2013" date in that source appears internally inconsistent. I am reporting it as-is rather than correcting it.

⚠️ Scope note on "citations": The references below come from the patent's "References Cited" list (front-page citations / IDS-type art). A reference appearing there is art cited during prosecution — it is not proof that the examiner applied it as a §102 anticipation rejection. I therefore describe each reference's potential §102 significance rather than asserting a legal conclusion. I also was unable to retrieve the full text of several references within this session; those are explicitly marked [content not verified].

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2. The cited references (from the patent's "References Cited")

U.S. Patent Documents

Foreign Patent Documents

JP 10-232157 (Sep. 1998); JP 10-337880 (Dec. 1998); JP 2000-108367 (Apr. 2000); JP 2001-246760 (Sep. 2001); JP 2002-264355 (Sep. 2002); JP 2002-273899 (Sep. 2002); JP 2002-292888 (Oct. 2002); JP 2002-335006 (Nov. 2002); JP 2002-370372 (Dec. 2002); JP 2003-251819 (Sep. 2003); JP 2005-022356 (Jan. 2005); JP 2009-208297 (Sep. 2009).

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3. Reference-by-reference analysis

3.1 US 6,361,136 B1 — Watanabe et al. (Mar. 26, 2002) ★ most relevant

Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,361,136 B1, "Detection system, liquid-jet printing apparatus and liquid container," granted Mar. 26, 2002.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6361136

Brief description: An optical detection system with a light-emission unit and light receptor, and a prism on the bottom wall of the liquid container that reflects light differently depending on whether liquid or air contacts its reflection surfaces. Critically, it also discloses a "detection portion provided in the neighborhood of the prism" that reflects a predetermined amount of light regardless of whether liquid is present, so the system can determine whether the container exists at all — and a "diffusion portion" between the emission-side and reception-side portions of the prism to prevent stray reflected light from returning to the receptor. The patent states the reflected-light amount from the detection portion lies between the "liquid present" and "liquid absent" reflection levels of the prism.

Potential §102 mapping to US 9,417,112:

• Claim 1 — The "detection portion" that reflects a predetermined light amount is a region that changes a light amount of the reflected light received by the light receiving section, used as an optical reference. Strong conceptual overlap. However, the specification/localization differs: Watanabe's detection portion is on the liquid container's external wall, whereas claim 1 requires the region on the holder. That difference is precisely the stated point of novelty of the '112 patent (moving the reference region off the consumable and onto the holder). So Watanabe is better characterized as highly material background art touching claim 1, not a clean anticipation.
• Claim 2 — its "detection portion … reflecting a predetermined amount of light" and the diffusion portion map to the claimed "reflective region / non-reflective region" pair.
• Claim 8/9-style "opening region"/"holder bottom surface" limitations are not disclosed.

3.2 US 6,767,075 B1 — Takada et al. (Jul. 27, 2004) ★ most structurally on-point

Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,767,075 B1, "Image forming device," granted Jul. 27, 2004 (inventors Shingo Takada, Michitaka Fukuda, Hideyuki Kitajima).
Sources: https://data.epo.org/gpi/EP1177904A4.pdf (US 6,767,075 B1 abstract) ; cited as X-art in EP 2 607 080 A1.

Brief description (from the published abstract): A detachable ink tank 32 on a carriage 31 has a prism 32C; a reflective optical sensor 33 detects ink presence/absence via refractive-index difference. A reflector lever 35 is provided on the bottom of an ink tank holder 34; its free end is a triangular reflector 35D; the lever is spring-urged and only directs reflection toward the sensor when the tank is mounted — thereby detecting whether the tank is present.

Potential §102 mapping:

• Claim 1 — This is the strongest structural candidate, because the reflective element (reflector 35D on the holder 34) is located on the holder, spaced from the tank/prism, and changes the amount of light received by the sensor. It therefore reads on "the holder has a region that changes a light amount of the reflected light … in a position spaced apart from the opening section." The tank-presence function also parallels the '112 position-reference function.
• Claim 2 — the triangular reflector + the non-reflecting (deformed) lever state arguably map to a reflective/non-reflective distinction, though the reference frames this as presence/absence rather than a reflective/non-reflective region pair on the holder.
• Dependent claims 3–10 (recessed portion, inclined non-reflective surfaces, opening-type non-reflective region, holder-bottom-surface reflective region, larger light amount toward the reflective region) are not shown.

3.3 US 7,918,547 B2 — Hatasa et al. (Apr. 5, 2011)

Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 7,918,547 B2, "Liquid storage container and ink jet recording apparatus," granted Apr. 5, 2011 (Canon; Nobuyuki Hatasa, Takatoshi Kitagawa).
Source: https://www.patentleaderboard.com/canon/nobuyuki-hatasa/[824810](/patent/824810)

Brief description: A liquid-storage-container / ink-jet recording apparatus reference in the same prism-based remaining-liquid detection family. [Detailed content not verified in this session.]

Potential §102 mapping: Likely directed to the prism/container-side detection art (relevant background to claim 1's "prism" and "liquid reservoir section"). I cannot responsibly map it to specific claims without its text.

3.4 US 8,662,648 B2 — Kamiyanagi et al. (Mar. 4, 2014)

Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 8,662,648 B2, granted Mar. 4, 2014. Content not verified (retrieval step limit reached). Note its grant date (Mar. 2014) is after the '112 filing (Jan. 2013) but within the priority window, so its §102 date status depends on its own effective filing date. Flagged for follow-up.

3.5 US 2004/0041855 A1 — Fujikawa et al. (Mar. 4, 2004); US 2005/0024454 A1 — Hayamizu et al. (Feb. 3, 2005); US 2009/0219310 A1 — Kondo (Sep. 3, 2009)

Full citations: as listed above. Content not verified in this session. All three are pre-2013 publications, so they are facially available as §102(a)/(b) art relative to the May 30, 2012 priority date. Given the technology field (ink-cartridge optical/optical-sensor detection), they are plausibly directed to prism-based ink detection or sensor-positioning, but I will not assign claim-level §102 mappings without their text.

3.6 JP 2005-022356 (Jan. 2005) — "Patent Document 1" of the specification ★ the reference the patent is answering

Full citation: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-22356, published January 2005 (cited in the '112 specification as "Patent Document 1").

Brief description (per the '112 specification itself): A prism in an ink cartridge for optically detecting remaining ink, plus a reflective member provided in the ink cartridge aligned with the prism; light is emitted to the reflective member, a boundary position between the reflective member and non-reflective regions is calculated, and the prism position is corrected so reflected light is received in the correct position.

Potential §102 mapping:

• Claim 1 — discloses the core method/function of claim 1 (a reference region whose light-amount change is used to locate the prism), but places the reflective member in the ink cartridge, not the holder. The '112 patent expressly distinguishes this as its motivation ("the reflective member is provided in the ink cartridge … which increases the cost"). So this is the closest teaching of claim 1's function but not its claimed location — a classic §103 combination anchor rather than a standalone §102 anticipation of claim 1 as allowed.
• It directly implicates claim 2 (reflective region) and the boundary-detection concept underlying claims 6/7 (reflective region flanked by non-reflective regions).

3.7 Remaining JP references (JP 10-232157; 10-337880; 2000-108367; 2001-246760; 2002-264355; 2002-273899; 2002-292888; 2002-335006; 2002-370372; 2003-251819; 2009-208297)

Full citations: as listed in §2 (Japanese laid-open publications, dates as shown).

Brief description / status: These are pre-priority JP publications in the ink-jet/prism liquid-level detection space. [Individual contents not verified in this session.] They are facially available as §102(a)/(b) art if their disclosures reach the claim elements; claim-level mapping requires their texts, which I did not retrieve. I am flagging them rather than guessing.

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4. Bottom line on the most relevant prior art

Ranked by relevance to the allowed claim set (claim 1 being the broadest):

1. US 6,767,075 (Takada) — most structurally relevant, because the reflective element sits on the holder, the key structural feature distinguishing claim 1 from the cartridge-mounted-reflector art.
2. US 6,361,136 (Watanabe) — most relevant to the function of the reference region (a predetermined-reflectance "detection portion" near a prism, plus a diffusion/non-reflective counterpart), but located on the container.
3. JP 2005-022356 — the reference the specification itself identifies as the problem being solved; relevant to claim 1/2 function but not the holder-localization.
4. US 7,918,547; US 8,662,648; US 2004/0041855; US 2005/0024454; US 2009/0219310; and the remaining JP documents — same technical field, potential §102(a)/(b) art, but claim-level mapping not verified.

No single cited reference appears, on the sources I could verify, to disclose every element of independent claim 1 (specifically, a light-amount-changing region on the holder spaced from the opening section, combined with the recessed-portion/inclined-surface/opening-region dependent features of claims 3–10). The strongest §102 posture is against claim 1 via US 6,767,075 (holder-mounted reflector) and claim 2 via US 6,361,136 (reflective + diffusion/non-reflective pair).

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5. Caveats and recommended verification

• Not all references were retrievable in this session (tool-step limit). US 8,662,648, US 2004/0041855, US 2005/0024454, US 2009/0219310, and the JP documents should be pulled in full before any formal validity opinion.
• Citation ≠ rejection. The "References Cited" list reflects art of record, not necessarily art applied. To confirm which references were actually used in §102/§103 rejections, consult the file wrapper: USPTO Patent Center / Global Dossier for application 13/753,016, and the JP 2005-22356 family.
• Primary sources for follow-up:
  • Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9417112B2/en
  • Justia (References Cited): https://patents.justia.com/patent/9417112
  • USPTO Patent Center: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov (application 13/753,016)

If you'd like, I can run a second pass to pull the full text of the four unverified U.S. references and the JP documents and produce a claim-by-claim §102/§103 chart.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the actual prior-art record for this patent. Let me pull the cited reference and related art.

Let me nail down the granted claim set and the cited JP reference, plus check the Epson holder-side detection family.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,417,112 B2 ("Liquid consumption device having holder and detecting section")

Analyst note on scope of the prior-art record used. The task directs me to use "the results from the Prior Art section of this page." Two things must be said plainly about that record:

1. The Google Patents page for US 9,417,112 exposes a "Prior art keywords" list only — light, section, holder, prism, reflective. These are algorithmically extracted terms, not references. They do not constitute prior art and cannot support a § 103 ground on their own.
2. The only prior-art document cited of record in the patent text I retrieved is Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005‑22356, discussed in the "Background Art" section and the "Object the Invention is to Achieve." Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9417112/en

Everything below therefore starts from JP 2005‑22356 as the citation of record, and then combines it with same-field art I located by search. I have flagged which references are of record versus my own search results, and which are not prior art on date (an important trap here, because several near-identical Epson filings exist within days of the critical date).

Caveat (carried forward from the earlier sections, and material here): I still have not retrieved the granted claim set verbatim. My earlier summary quoted the independent claims from the pre-grant publication US 2013/0320248 A1 (same application 13/753,016). Any amendment made during prosecution — particularly any amendment made to traverse JP 2005‑22356 — would change the analysis below. The conclusions here are contingent on the published claims and Application Examples being substantially the granted claims.

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1. Governing law and the critical date

The framework is Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Under KSR, a combination is obvious where (i) the elements are known in the field, (ii) there is an articulated reason to combine (explicit teaching, market force, design incentive, or "known technique to address a known problem"), and (iii) the combination yields predictable results. Cost reduction of a consumable is a classic, cognizable motivation. In re Kemps; KSR (identifying "design incentives" and "market forces" as motivations).

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2. What the claims require, and where JP 2005‑22356 stops short

Reduced to its bones, independent claim 1 requires:

The '112 specification's own characterization of the reference is unusually helpful to an obviousness case, because it concedes (f) minus the location of the feature:

"…by providing a reflective member to be aligned with the prism of the ink cartridge and emitting light thereto, a boundary position between the reflective member and sections other than the reflective member is calculated. Then, based on the calculated boundary position, the position of the prism is corrected, so that reflected light from the prism can be received in a correct position." […] "In Patent Document 1, however, the reflective member is provided in the ink cartridge. Therefore, the reflective member needs to be provided in each ink cartridge that is consumable goods, which increases the cost of the ink cartridge."

So: the entire asserted point of novelty over the cited art is (1) relocating a known optical datum from the cartridge to the holder, and (2) spacing it a predetermined distance from the prism opening in the scan direction. Both the sensor/prism/relative-scan architecture and the "reflective vs. non-reflective boundary as a position datum" concept are admitted prior art.

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3. The secondary references (my search, same field)

[B] US 6,578,941 B1 / US 2002/0140759 A1 / EP 1,177,904 A1 — "Ink jet printer," Arai & Hanaoka, Seiko Epson, priority 2001-03-14. https://patents.justia.com/patent/20020140759 ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a3/f3/45/988c9398a2c54e/EP1177904A1.pdf

This is the single most damaging reference. It discloses an optical detector plus detected parts (right-angle prisms) and then expressly teaches moving the optical feature off the cartridge and onto the holder:

• ¶[0129]: "It is also applicable for employing the structure such that the detected part is movably equipped to the ink cartridge holder." (Claim 24 likewise recites "a detected member… operable to change its position" on the cartridge holder.)
• ¶[0144]: "[The] detected part… is movably mounted on the cartridge holder side… Thus, the ink cartridge shape is simplified and the manufacturing cost for ink cartridge is reduced."
• ¶[0148]: "the detected member is equipped to the cartridge holder mounted on the carriage, and the detected member is detected by the optical detector arranged on the printer body to enjoy the same effect and advantage."
• ¶[0149]: "A detected part may also be placed at the position indicating the home position of the carriage or the like" — i.e., a fixed optical landmark on the scan path used as a positional datum.

[C] US 6,767,075 B1 / EP 1,177,904 (same Epson "Image forming device" family). https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6767075B1](/patent/US6767075B1) — a reflector lever 35/50 mounted on the ink-tank holder, a reflective seal 32E attached near the prism 32C on the tank, a positioning hole 34B, and the express principle that a reflector (or a tilted surface) is oriented so that "the reflected light is directed in a direction different from the direction in which the light is received" — i.e., the anti-noise/light-blocking principle invoked by the '112 dependent aspects.

[D] JP 2000‑108373 A — "Ink residual amount detection apparatus and image forming apparatus" (photointerrupter + prism in tank; sensor holder 80 with light-shielding flag 92 and photointerrupters 93 used to determine carriage position at the moment ink level is sensed). https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2000108373A/en ; sibling JP 2000‑108371 A: https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2000108371A/en

[E] US 5,975,665 (Canon) — photointerrupter + aperture 10 formed in the bottom of the carriage; and, relevantly to the light-amount aspect claims, § 4th Embodiment discloses adjusting LED drive current (via duty ratio) to change emitted light amount. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/77/ef/fd/3b5ffb80350487/US5975665.pdf

[F] US 7,157,727 B2 — content detecting apparatus with a reflecting surface on the container plus an inclined interface; surveys JP‑A‑1995‑164626 and JP‑A‑1998‑230616. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/22/ea/36/4b8300f4adf7c9/US7157727.pdf

References that are NOT prior art (do not brief these)

(Worth noting for a real invalidity brief: JP 6364896 B2 describes the '112-era arrangement as the prior art to be improved upon, complaining that "ink mist… adheres to the reflecting plate" on the holder, and that "since the reflector is disposed in the holder of the ink cartridge, the manufacturing cost of the printer has increased." That is Epson's own framing of the holder-mounted reflector — but it post-dates and cannot be used as § 102 art.)

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4. Proposed § 103 grounds

Ground 1 (primary) — JP 2005‑22356 in view of US 6,578,941 (Arai/Hanaoka)

Mapping. JP 2005‑22356 supplies every element of claim 1 except the location of the light-amount-changing region. Arai supplies precisely that location: a detected member (a right-angle prism — structurally a "region that changes a light amount of reflected light received") mounted on the cartridge holder, detected by a body-side optical detector as the carriage scans, and expressly including a detected part placed as a carriage-position landmark on the scan path (¶[0149]).

Why a POSITA would combine — articulated reasons:

• Explicit teaching. Arai ¶[0144] states the very result the '112 patent claims as its advantage: putting the detected part on the holder "simplified [the] ink cartridge… and the manufacturing cost for ink cartridge is reduced." The '112 specification states the identical motivation ("the reflective member needs to be provided in each ink cartridge that is consumable goods, which increases the cost of the ink cartridge"). Where the secondary reference states the same problem and the same solution, KSR's "known technique to address a known problem" rationale applies directly.
• Same field, same problem, same hardware. Both references are Seiko Epson ink-jet carriage/sensor architectures. Both use an LED/phototransistor pair scanned across a holder-carried reservoir by a carriage motor, and both read a reflected-light signature to derive a position. Combination requires only relocating a passive datum — no change in sensor design, control loop, or mechanical architecture.
• Predictable result. The relocated datum still produces a high/low reflected-light transition whose center (or edge) can be located by threshold crossing exactly as JP 2005‑22356 already does. The '112 specification confirms the prediction holds — its FIG. 10 "non-reflection period 1 → reflection period (reflective plate) → non-reflection period 2" trace is the same edge-detection the reference art already performs.
• Ordinary design choice as to the "predetermined distance." Once the datum is on the holder, its spacing must be a fixed, known offset from the prism opening — that is inherent in using a datum at all, and the only remaining real estate on a holder already perforated by four cartridge openings is the periphery (the '112 patent puts it "near an end portion thereof on the Y direction side"). Selecting the offset is unreasonably to be called inventive; it is the mechanical equivalent of a datum dimension on a drawing.

Result: claim 1 obvious. Claim 11 (plural reservoirs, one detecting section, moving section) is likewise met — Arai discloses multiple cartridges served by one carriage-mounted detector and even contemplates multiple detectors (¶[0146], claim 23), and JP 2000‑108373 notes that a single sensor can serve all tanks.

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Ground 2 — JP 2005‑22356 in view of US 6,767,075 B1

US 6,767,075 supplies a holder-mounted reflector (lever 35/50) in the same carriage/holder assembly, plus a reflective seal near the prism and a positioning feature on the holder. Substitution of a stationary holder-fixed reflector plate at a fixed offset for the reference's cartridge-carried reflective member is the textbook "substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results." Motivation: same — the holder is durable/reusable, the cartridge is consumed; and the holder-mounted member is triggered/positioned by the cartridge, so the geometric correlation the reference relies on is preserved.

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Ground 3 — JP 2005‑22356 in view of the carriage-position-datum practice (US 2002/0140759 ¶[0149]; JP 2000‑108373; US 5,975,665)

Independently, the art already used fixed optical landmarks within the carriage scan path as position datums to decide where the carriage is when an ink-level signal is taken — Arai ¶[0149] (a detected part "at the position indicating the home position of the carriage"), and JP 2000‑108373 (photointerrupters 93 / flag 92 on the sensor holder used to resolve carriage position at the instant the ink signal changes). Given that known technique, adding a second datum dedicated to prism-position correction is an obvious application of a known technique to a known problem — no new principle of operation is required, and the routineer would expect success.

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Ground 4 — Dependent aspects / Application Examples 2–10

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5. Counterarguments a patentee would raise, and their limits

1. "JP 2005‑22356 deliberately places the reference member on the cartridge because it is the cartridge/prism placement that varies." This argument fails on the reference's own reasoning and on the '112 specification's stated problem. The '112 patent concedes that the error being corrected is in the mounting of the detecting section 90 or the holder 20 in the printer ("even in a case where an error occurs in the attachment position of the detecting section 90 or the holder 20"). A datum on the holder is therefore at least as apt for measuring holder-to-sensor misalignment as one on the cartridge — arguably more so. The reference does not criticise holder-mounted datums, and Arai affirmatively teaches them.
2. "Teaching away / unexpected disadvantage — ink mist degrades a holder-mounted reflector." This is Epson's own later criticism in JP 6364896 B2, and it is directionally a genuine secondary-consideration candidate. But it cannot be used as prior-art teaching away (it post-dates), and if advanced as a secondary consideration it requires (a) a nexus to the claimed scope, (b) unexpectedness relative to the prior art at the time, and (c) evidence that the disadvantage was recognized and overcome. Notably, the '112 specification's second embodiment (opening-for-position-detection, no mirror) is expressly presented as mitigating mist — which undercuts, rather than supports, treating mist-susceptibility as an unexpected discovery.
3. "The predetermined spacing is a criticality." No evidence of criticality is presented anywhere in the specification; the distance a₁ is simply "set to 5 mm," i.e., an arbitrary datum dimension.
4. § 112 / claim-scope escape hatch. The broad functional phrasing "a region that changes a light amount of the reflected light" is broad enough to read on almost any optical datum (a prism, a mirror, a slot, a dark patch). Broad functional claiming of this kind cuts against non-obviousness, because it sweeps in the very structures the prior art already shows.

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6. Conclusion

Bottom line. The '112 patent's only point of departure from its own cited art is moving a known optical position datum from the disposable ink cartridge to the reusable holder and fixing its offset from the prism opening. The prior art (i) already contains the datum-and-boundary method (JP 2005‑22356, of record), (ii) already puts detected members on the cartridge holder and states the same cost-reduction rationale (US 6,578,941 / EP 1,177,904, ¶¶[0129], [0144], [0148]–[0149]), and (iii) already uses fixed optical landmarks in the carriage scan path as position references. The combination is a relocation plus a datum dimension — predictable, cost-motivated, and squarely within KSR.

Residual uncertainty (must be closed before relying on this): (a) the granted claim text was not retrieved verbatim; prosecution amendments could have narrowed claim 1 in ways that change Ground 1; (b) the "Citations" / "Cited By" lists on the Google Patents record were not visible in the fetched page text, so there may be additional references of record (including examiner-cited art) that I have not evaluated; (c) the actual US filing dates of the near-critical-date Epson family members (US 9,086,312 and relatives) should be confirmed before treating them as excluded.