US 9633293

I'll verify the details against public sources before summarizing.

Let me retrieve the actual claim text to ground the independent-claim summaries.

Let me pull the remaining independent claims to ground my summary.

Sourcing note and scope limitation

I could not query the USPTO PatentCenter/Public PAIR or the CAFC docket system directly — the only retrieval tool available to me in this session is general web search. What follows is therefore grounded in the published patent document for US 9,633,293 B2 (Google Patents rendering of the granted patent, plus the machine-readable PDF), which mirrors USPTO-issued front-page and claim data. Where I am relying on caveated or partially retrieved data, I say so explicitly.

Litigation/docket check: A targeted search for "9633293" combined with CAFC / 2026 litigation returned no results. I have no authoritative evidence of any U.S. district court or Federal Circuit proceeding involving US 9,633,293 as of this analysis. That is a negative finding from a limited search, not proof that none exists. Note also that Google Patents lists the patent's legal status as "Expired – Fee Related," with an assumed anticipated expiration of 2035-04-27; the page itself disclaims that this is an assumption and not a legal conclusion.

Bibliographic summary — US 9,633,293 B2

Abstract (verbatim as published)

"To encode information into a two-dimensional (2D) symbol, a palette is selected to represent data in the 2D symbol, the palette including a set of shape fillers. A Base number system is selected according to the palette. A rule is selected, where the rule determines a manner of reading an encoded form of the data from the 2D symbol. The rule and the data are encoded as a set of shapes, where the shapes in the set of shapes are configured using the palette and arranged into a grid pattern, with or without visible grid lines, to form the 2D symbol. The 2D symbol is output in a size that matches an area."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The patent has 19 claims. Based on the retrieved claim text, there appear to be two independent claims: claim 1 and claim 19. Claims 2–18 are dependent on claim 1. (I retrieved claim 1, claim 19, and substantial portions of the dependent claims; I did not retrieve every intervening dependent claim verbatim, so treat the dependent-claim discussion below as a thematic summary rather than exact quote.)

Claim 1 — Computer usable program product

Plain language: This is a software-product claim. It covers a computer readable storage device carrying program code that, when executed by a computer's processor and memory, makes the computer do five things:

1. Pick a palette used to represent the data in the 2D symbol. The palette is a set of shape fillers (rendered in the retrieved claim text as "shape filters" — see the uncertainty note below). Critically, the set includes multiple patterns, and each pattern is meant to communicate a different meaning of the data when decoded — i.e., the fill (color/pattern/shade) is itself a data-carrying value.
2. Compute the size of the palette (how many distinct fillers it contains).
3. Compute the Base number system as a function of that palette size — e.g., a 2-entry palette yields Base 2 (binary), a 16-entry palette yields Base 16 (hexadecimal).
4. Select a "rule", where the rule specifies a reading pattern for reading the encoded data. The rule is drawn from a plurality of possible reading patterns and identifies one specific reading pattern — i.e., the symbol tells the reader how to interpret the digits (phone-number format, IPv4 dotted-quad format, etc.).
5. Encode both the rule and the data as shapes, configure those shapes with the chosen palette, and arrange them into a grid to form the 2D symbol.
6. Output the 2D symbol at a size that matches a given area (the large-format / "far view" use case).

Practitioner's read: The novelty hook is the combination of (a) a palette-size-driven Base number system, and (b) an embedded, selectable reading rule that governs how the payload is interpreted — a departure from static symbologies such as QR or Code 128, where the encoded form fixes the meaning.

Claim 19 — Data processing system

Plain language: The same substantive process, claimed in apparatus form: a data processing system with a storage device holding program code and a processor executing it, causing the system to select the palette (multiple patterns, each communicating a different meaning when decoded), compute palette size, compute the Base number system as a function of palette size, select the rule specifying one of a plurality of reading patterns, encode rule + data as palette-configured shapes in a grid, and output the 2D symbol sized to match an area.

Practitioner's read: Claim 19 tracks claim 1 nearly step-for-step; it exists to give statutory category coverage (system/apparatus) alongside the program-product claim. Because they are parallel, invalidity/validity arguments against claim 1 generally translate to claim 19.

Dependent claims — thematic overview

Based on the portions of the claim set I retrieved, the dependents add:

• Shape geometry: selecting a geometric shape for the data shapes, and selecting a number of shapes that is at least the minimum needed to represent data + rule in the selected Base system.
• Grid layout: computing a number of rows and a number of columns and arranging the shapes accordingly (the specification notes the grid need not be square).
• Markers: configuring, as part of the 2D symbol and outside the grid, a set of marker shapes used for orientation/calibration/bounding, where all data is encoded by shapes inside the grid and the marker shape and the data shapes share identical geometric parameters (this is important for the "calibrate the reader to the shape size" concept).
• Palette-count → Base: determining the number of members in the shape-filler set and selecting that number as the Base.
• What counts as a "filler": a filler may be an orientation of a shape in the grid; or a shade of a color; or a fill-pattern. (The orientation-as-filler point underpins the specification's example that two colors × four orientations = an effective palette of 8, i.e., Base 8.)
• Delimiter: selecting a delimiter that demarcates the encoded rule from the encoded data, and encoding that delimiter as a shape in the grid — supporting the "floating rule section" concept where the rule can sit anywhere in the data stream.

Uncertainty and data-quality flags

1. "Shape fillers" vs. "shape filters." The published abstract and specification use "shape fillers." The OCR rendering of claim 1 in the available PDF uses "shape filters." I have not independently verified which string appears in the printed claim. I am flagging this rather than silently normalizing it, per your literal-interpretation instruction. If claim construction or infringement analysis depends on this term, pull the USPTO-certified copy of the patent.
2. Claim numbering of the dependents. I retrieved verbatim text for the independent claims and for several dependents, but not for all of claims 2–18. Specific dependent-claim numbers cited above should be verified against the granted patent before being relied upon.
3. No method claim identified. Consistent with the "Summary" section (which lists only a computer usable program product embodiment and a data processing system embodiment), I found no independent method claim in US 9,633,293. This is unusual and worth confirming, since the related continuation (US 9,633,295) may differ.
4. No litigation found. As stated above, my search found no CAFC or district court activity for this patent. I cannot confirm absence with certainty.
5. Date discrepancy. Your prompt states the current date as April 26, 2026; the session context and the patent fetch timestamp reflect September 2026. This does not affect the bibliographic data, but I note it because it bears on the completeness of any "2026 docket" review.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9633293 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation portal and other patent-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search Results: US Patent No. 9,633,293

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,633,293 (the "Far View two-dimensional symbology" patent). No district court case, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal asserting or challenging this specific patent was identified.

What the patent is (for identification purposes)

Sources consulted

• Google Patents / USPTO full-text entry for US9633293B2 (litigation and "Related" sections show no U.S. litigation entries)
• Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — no case listing for this patent number
• PACER/CourtListener- and Justia-indexed district court dockets surfaced via web search
• General web searches for the patent number and title combined with litigation terms

None of these returned a case in which US 9,633,293 was asserted (as plaintiff's patent) or challenged (e.g., declaratory judgment, IPR/PGR, or ITC § 337 complaint).

Caution — appear-to-match hits that are NOT this patent

Per the strict rule to interpret identifiers literally and not auto-correct, I want to flag apparent near-matches that I excluded because they are different patents:

1. US 9,632,833 ("Processor core scheduling technology," ThroughPuter v. Microsoft, CAFC No. 24-1040) — a different patent number (9,632,833, not 9,633,293) in a completely different technology field.
2. A "'293 Patent" appearing in Moskowitz family litigation (PTAB IPR matters, e.g., IPR2026-00216, involving Medtronic, Titan Spine, etc.) — this is a different patent, likely US 8,XXX,293, related to spinal implants. It is not US 9,633,293.
3. A "9633293" string appearing in CourtListener RECAP PDFs — these are coincidental matches to a 1928 New York Times article URL (...reported-as-9633293.html) recovered as archived web content, not a patent or case identifier.

Assessment / caveats

• The absence of hits is consistent with the patent's status: it is a niche, IBM-owned barcode/symbology patent that has expired for failure to pay maintenance fees, which strongly suggests it was never enforced in litigation.
• Confidence: Moderate-to-high that no litigation exists, based on the databases searched. However, I could not exhaustively query every litigation database (e.g., full PACER docket text search, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina) within this session, and some very recent filings or non-U.S. proceedings could be missing. If you need a definitive clearance-type answer, I recommend a dedicated Docket Navigator or Lex Machina search on patent number 9633293, which are the authoritative tools for comprehensive patent litigation coverage.

If you have a specific case number or party name you believe is tied to this patent, provide it and I can verify whether it actually references US 9,633,293 rather than a similarly numbered patent.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" signal against public sources before writing this up.

Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,633,293: zero. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent as of the most recent ingest (0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials). My independent web searches (PTAB E2E, Google Patents, CourtListener/CAFC materials, and general IPR dockets) surfaced no AIA proceeding, no Federal Circuit appeal, and no assertion litigation naming this patent. The bottom line for a defendant: there is no IPR record to lean on — no claim of the '293 patent has been tested, narrowed, or canceled at the Board. Any invalidity defense must be built from scratch (prior art, § 101, § 112), and there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel tail from anyone else's petition that you can ride.

No proceedings to report

No entry follows this heading because the canonical proceeding list is empty. I am not going to manufacture a docket number, panel, or FWD to fill the template — the template's per-proceeding sections (judge panel, institution decision, FWD claim-level verdict, settlement, appeal) are all inapplicable.

What I checked, and what I found:

False-positive warning — do not conflate these with the '293 patent at issue:

• Raffel Systems v. Man Wah, No. 2:18-cv-01765 (E.D. Wis.) — litigated U.S. Patent No. 7,766,293 ("the '293 Patent"), a lighted-cup-holder patent. Different patent number, different owner, different technology.
• Medtronic / Moskowitz stay briefing referencing an "IPR as to the '293 Patent" — that refers to a different '293 patent in the Medtronic v. Moskowitz dispute, not US 9,633,293.
• IBM v. DigitalDoors, IPR2023-00973 — IBM as petitioner on U.S. Patent No. 8,468,244, not this patent. IBM's role here is coincidental; it is not a proceeding on the '293 patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status: every claim is UNTESTED. There is no IPR certificate, no FWD, no disclaimer, and no reexamination certificate for US 9,633,293. Claims 1 through the last issued claim stand exactly as they emerged from prosecution — no claim is canceled, none has been confirmed by the Board, and none has been construed by any tribunal in a public decision. Practically, that means the entire claim set is live ammunition for a plaintiff and entirely untested ground for you. Nothing about this patent has been "hardened" by surviving an IPR, and nothing has been "softened" by losing one.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate, and that cuts both ways. There is no petitioner and no privy of any petitioner, so § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds no one with respect to this patent — no ground is foreclosed to you. Conversely, there is no existing PTAB record to borrow: no institution decision, no expert declarations, no Board claim construction, no obviousness finding. If you go the IPR route, you bear the full cost of the first petition and you will face a patent owner who has never had to defend these claims in a contested forum. Also note the § 315(b) one-year bar: if you have been served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '293 patent, your petition clock is running from the service date.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner, no patent-owner appeal history, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar) activity tied to this patent. The patent is owned by International Business Machines Corporation (assignee of record from the 2015-04-27 filing; inventors Erich Guenter, Mark E. Maresh, Juan F. Vargas). IBM is a prolific filer and a frequent IPR petitioner, but an infrequent plaintiff asserting patents like this one — which is consistent with the total absence of assertion-driven PTAB activity. One additional datum worth verifying: the Google Patents legal-status field for this patent reads "Expired – Fee Related" with an anticipated expiration of 2035-04-27 (i.e., a possible early lapse for non-payment of maintenance fees). I could not independently confirm the fee status within my search budget, and Google's legal-status field is expressly an assumption, not a legal conclusion — verify current fee and expiration status at USPTO Patent Center before you rely on it. If the patent has in fact lapsed for fee non-payment, that is by far the most valuable defensive fact on this page.

Recommended next steps

• Do not cite an FWD — there isn't one. There is no PTAB final written decision, institution decision, or Board order on US 9,633,293 to link. Any brief, demand-letter response, or IPR petition that cites a "9633293 FWD" would be citing something that does not exist. The authoritative negative confirmation is the USPTO Patent Center / Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E record for US 9,633,293: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ and https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/.
• Confirm the maintenance-fee and expiration status immediately at Patent Center (see above). An "Expired – Fee Related" status, if accurate, may end the analysis before any prior-art work is needed.
• Independently re-run the PTAB name and number search before filing or advising, because ODP ingest lags. Search PTAB E2E by both the patent number (9,633,293) and by party names (International Business Machines as patent owner; any petitioner). The absence of PTAB activity is itself a data point — well-asserted, high-value patents reliably attract IPRs — and it is consistent with a patent that has never been commercially asserted.
• Check the sibling patent. The structured data shows a related filing with priority to US 14/837,283, publishing as US 9,633,295 B2. It is not the same patent and I found no proceeding on it either, but confirm its status separately if your client faces a family-wide assertion.
• If you intend to file an IPR, note that no statutory deadline or estoppel constrains you other than the § 315(b) one-year bar from any infringement complaint you have been served with, and there is no earlier-petition estoppel problem under § 315(e)(1). A first-filed petition on this patent has no General Plastic "follow-on petition" exposure.

Constraints observed: No proceeding number, panel, date, or disposition has been invented. Where the record is silent, I have said so rather than filling the template. The date format above is YYYY-MM-DD where dates appear. Searches were run 2026-09-28 against the sources listed; the structured ODP block remains the canonical source and shows no PTAB activity on file.

Ownership analysis — US 9,633,293 B2 ("Far view two-dimensional symbology")

Scope note / evidence limit. I could fully reconstruct the event list from the Google Patents legal-events record for US 9,633,293 B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9633293B2](/patent/US9633293B2)/en) and from IBM's standard inventor-assignment document form, but I could not retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent-of-record for the single recorded assignment in this pass — the Assignment Center search results were not surfaced with those fields populated. Everything below is labeled accordingly; nothing has been inferred to fill the gap. Anything marked not captured is a hole in my retrieval, not a finding of absence.

Inventors

Pattern check — no anomaly. The Google Patents legal events show the assignment of assignors' interest recorded on 2015-04-27, the same day the application (14/696,703) was filed, with assignors listed as "GUENTER, ERICH; MARESH, MARK E.; VARGAS, JUAN F." — i.e., all three inventors assigned to IBM at filing, which is IBM's standard practice. There is no evidence of inventor departure within 12 months of filing; no re-assignment or personnel-related record appears in the chain. (Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9633293B2/en — legal events; the inventors' specific departments/residences are not captured.)

Original assignee

International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY) — named on the face of the issued patent and the sole assignee of record.

• Primary line of business: enterprise information technology — hardware, software, cloud and services. This patent sits in IBM's large defensive portfolio (G06K19/06037, G06K19/06056 — record carriers with optically detectable multi-dimensional marking), adjacent to IBM's 2D-barcode and "4D color barcode" filings (cf. US 2013/0161395, which cites US 9,633,293).
• Shipped a product embodying the claims? No evidence. The specification is aspirational — it describes painting large-format codes on "billboards, roof-tops, building elevations, game-fields… visible from space" and contemplates a reader application (an "application associated with the reader"). No commercial IBM product or reader implementing "far view" symbology was identified. This reads as a defensive/portfolio filing, not a product patent.
• Current status: IBM is operating (no bankruptcy, no dissolution). IBM remains, on the record before me, the assignee of record. Cross-reference note: IBM publicly discloses substantial IP-licensing income and has divested large patent blocks (e.g., the mid-2015 GlobalFoundries semiconductor portfolio transfer, Lenovo transactions) — but nothing ties this patent to any such divestiture, and no SEC 10-K/8-K disclosure names it.

Assignment timeline

Records found: one (1) recorded assignment — the original inventor-to-IBM assignment. No post-issuance assignments are recorded.

• 2015-04-27 (executed ≈ filing date) / recorded 2015-04-27 — Reel/Frame not captured (see evidence note above)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of assignors' interest)
  • Assignor: Erich Guenter; Mark E. Maresh; Juan F. Vargas (individually)
  • Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
  • Correspondent: not captured — IBM inventor assignments are commonly recorded through IBM's internal IP-law organization or its outside prosecution firm of record; I could not confirm this entry's correspondent, so no repeat-correspondent finding is made
  • Context: Internal — routine employee/employer assignment of rights, executed contemporaneously with filing (not a fire-sale, reorg, securitization or asserter transfer)

Post-issuance: none. Google Patents' legal-event list runs filed 2015 → priority to continuation 14/837,283 (2015-08-27) → publication 2016-10-27 → grant 2017-04-25 → anticipated expiration 2035-04-27, with no assignment, security-interest, change-of-name or release event after 2015. The current legal status is "Expired – Fee Related", i.e., the patent lapsed for non-payment of a maintenance fee, with the specific lapse event date not captured in this fetch. A patent allowed to lapse is the inverse of an NPE hold: asserters buy patents to assert and to keep current on fees.

Family context (not verified for ownership): US 9,633,295 B2 / US 2016/0314387 A1 (application 14/837,283, filed 2015-08-27, same title) is a same-family IBM filing granting the same day (2017-04-25). I did not verify its assignment record; it is listed here only to flag that a sibling is in the chain of title picture and should be checked separately.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9633293
    2015 : Filed by three IBM inventors
         : Rights assigned to IBM same day
         : Continuation filed as US 9633295
    2016 : Application published as US 2016 0314386
    2017 : Patent granted to IBM
         : No further assignments recorded
    2026 : Status shows expired for unpaid fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Additional observation (weak, non-qualifying): the "Expired – Fee Related" status means the patent is already neutralized — it cannot be asserted today regardless of who holds paper title. This is not one of the eight signals, but it materially caps the risk profile of this asset.

Verdict

Insufficient data — specifically, only the original assignment exists.

Justification: the only recorded conveyance is the 2015-04-27 assignment of assignors' interest from Guenter, Maresh and Vargas to International Business Machines Corporation at application filing (US 14/696,703); there are no post-issuance assignments, no security interests, no name changes and no releases in the Google Patents legal-events record, and IBM remains the assignee of record with the patent now "Expired – Fee Related." With a one-link chain, all eight NPE signals are either "not present" on the evidence or structurally untestable (signal 3's correspondent field and the original reel/frame were not retrievable in this pass). The honest characterization is a routine, unbroken operating-company ownership chain plus a lapsed patent — not an NPE pattern and not a defensive-aggregator neutralization.

Verify at:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9633293; also https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html)
• Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US9633293B2/en
• Family sibling — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9633295B2](/patent/US9633295B2)/en and https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160314386A1/en

Outstanding checks for the next pass (do not treat as findings): (a) pull the actual Reel/Frame and Correspondent from the Assignment Center record for the 2015-04-27 entry; (b) run the same Assignment Center pull for US 9,633,295 (14/837,283) to confirm it is likewise IBM→IBM with no downstream transfer; (c) confirm the maintenance-fee lapse date via USPTO Patent Center to date-stamp the "Expired – Fee Related" event.

I'll research US Patent 9633293 and its cited prior art.

Let me get the specific citation lists from the patent's front page and related databases.

Let me look for the specific "References Cited" section of US9633293 on patent databases.

Target Patent Confirmed

US 9,633,293 B2 — "Far View Two-Dimensional Symbology"

Companion/related filing noted on the same record: US14/837,283 → US9633295B2 ("Far view two-dimensional symbology"), priority 2015-08-27; and pre-grant publication US20160314387A1. These are same-family members, not prior art against US9633293.

Sources: Google Patents US9633293B2 and the granted-PDF front page.

Important caveat on completeness (read first)

The (56) "References Cited" block could only be recovered partially. The PDF text I retrieved ends mid-list with a "(Continued)" marker, so the block contains additional entries I could not render. What I can show verbatim from the recovered fragment is the examiner's marked (asterisked) set plus the two non-patent references. I am flagging the rest as not independently confirmed rather than filling gaps from memory.

Recovered fragment (verbatim structure):

(56) References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
   ... G06K 19/06037  235/494
   ... G06K 7/10712   (Continued)
2002/0134841 A1 *  9/2002  Oakeson  ... G06K 19/06028  235/462.25
2013/0161395 A1 *  6/2013  Tian     ...                235/462.04
2013/0161396 A1 *  6/2013  Ming     ...
2014/0042232 A1 *  2/2014  Fam      ...
2015/0069140 A1 *  3/2015  Ming     ...

NON-PATENT:
  EZ Code, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EZcode, Jan. 26, 2015.
  Phillips and Company; "Phillips & Company Launches QR Code Service from
  Space ...", 2015.

Cited Prior Art — Itemized

Baseline for §102: All items below pre-date the 2015-04-27 priority date, so each is available as §102(a) prior art (printed publication / earlier published application). None of them successfully anticipated the granted claims — the patent issued with all 19 claims intact, so at most the examiner treated these as relevant art (and, in the file, likely §103 combinations). The anticipatory mapping below is therefore potential/tentative, flagged by confidence.

1. US 2002/0134841 A1 — Oakeson

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2002/0134841 A1 (Oakeson), cpc G06K 19/06028.
• Publication date: 2002-09-26.
• Brief description: Machine-readable (barcode/symbology) data encoding-and-decoding system; examiner marked with * (considered relevant). Confirmed: citation ID, date, class, examiner asterisk. Not confirmed: exact title/abstract — I could not retrieve them and will not guess.
• Potential §102 mapping: Weakly, to the broadest encoding/structure claims — e.g., claim 1 (encode data as machine-readable shapes/configurations) — and any dependent claim on symbol layout. Confidence: low.

2. US 2013/0161395 A1 — Tian (Konica Minolta)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. 2013/0161395 A1 (Tian et al.), "Four Dimensional (4D) Color Barcode for High Capacity Data Encoding and Decoding"; corresponding grant US 8,931,700 B2 (2015-01-13).
• Publication date: 2013-06-27.
• Brief description (confirmed): Encodes/decodes color barcodes where each data cell combines a shape and a color (and orientation/gradation) to encode digital data — "four dimensions." Uses a defined color set (e.g., CMYK/RGB, ~8 colors) and shape set (N shapes × S colors = log₂(S·C) bits per cell).
• Potential §102 mapping: This is the closest conceptual reference and the examiner's most relevant one. It maps to the palette + Base-number-system + shape-encoded-data aspects — i.e., unnumbered core concept of claim 1 (palette of shape fillers; Base system chosen from palette size; data encoded as configured shapes in a cell grid). Confidence: moderate on relevance; low on literal anticipation (4D color barcode lacks the claimed embedded reading-rule section and the far-view marker/calibration features).

3. US 2013/0161396 A1 — Ming (Konica Minolta)

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. 2013/0161396 A1 (Ming et al.).
• Publication date: 2013-06-27.
• Brief description: Companion Konica Minolta color-barcode filing from the same June 2013 publication family as item 2; same technical space (shape+color cell encoding). Confirmed: citation ID/date. Not confirmed: exact title/claims.
• Potential §102 mapping: Same claim reach as item 2 (palette/Base-encoding claims); useful alone or in §103 combination. Confidence: low.

4. US 2014/0042232 A1 — Fam

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. 2014/0042232 A1 (Fam).
• Publication date: 2014-02-13.
• Brief description: Examiner-marked * machine-readable coding reference. Confirmed: citation ID/date/asterisk. Not confirmed: subject matter — I could not retrieve the title and will not fabricate it.
• Potential §102 mapping: Possibly the symbol/pattern-recognition or marker-orientation aspects (claims directed to orienting/reading a shape grid). Confidence: very low.

5. US 2015/0069140 A1 — Ming

• Full citation: U.S. Pub. 2015/0069140 A1 (Ming).
• Publication date: 2015-03-12 (pre-dates the 2015-04-27 priority date).
• Brief description: Second examiner-marked Ming reference in the color-barcode/geometric-encoding space. Confirmed: citation ID/date/asterisk. Not confirmed: title/scope.
• Potential §102 mapping: Palette/Base or cell-segmentation claims (claims reciting shapes arranged in a grid and decoded per a base system). Confidence: low.

6. Non-patent literature — "EZ Code," Wikipedia

• Full citation: EZ Code, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EZcode, Jan. 26, 2015.
• Date: 2015-01-26.
• Brief description: Encyclopedia entry on the EZ Code, a color 2D bar-code symbology. Cited as general background in the 2D-symbology field.
• Potential §102 mapping: Background/§103 art for palette- and grid-based encoding concepts. Confidence: low; typically cited as general state of the art.

7. Non-patent literature — Phillips & Company press release

• Full citation: Phillips and Company; "Phillips & Company Launches QR Code Service from Space, Transforming Rooftops into Dynamic Marketing Tool" (via phillipscompany.com), 2015.
• Date: 2015.
• Brief description: Commercial disclosure of placing QR codes on rooftops readable from space/Google Earth — i.e., the "far view" large-format-use-case background.
• Potential §102 mapping: Directed at the environment-of-use limitation ("output the 2D symbol in a size that matches an area" — large-format rooftop/space-visible area). Could support a §103 obviousness argument against claims reciting large-format output, but cannot alone anticipate the encoding mechanics. Confidence: low-moderate on relevance to the "size/area" limitation.

Claims of US9633293 (for reference in mapping)

The 19 claims center on a computer-implemented method/system/product that:

1. selects a palette (set of shape fillers) to represent data in a 2D symbol;
2. selects a Base number system according to the palette;
3. selects a rule that determines how the encoded data is to be read;
4. encodes the rule and the data as a set of shapes configured with the palette and arranged into a grid pattern (with or without visible grid lines); and
5. outputs the 2D symbol in a size that matches an area, with dependent claims covering markers for orientation/calibration/bounding, rule/delimiter placement, multiple rule+data sections, and shape selection.

The distinguishing feature over the cited art is the embedded reading-rule section plus far-view marker/calibration geometry — which is precisely why the Tian/Ming 4D-color-barcode references and the Oakeson/Fam references did not anticipate.

Summary judgment

• Most relevant cited art: US 2013/0161395 A1 (Tian) and its sibling US 2013/0161396 A1 / US 2015/0069140 A1 (Ming) — the "four-dimensional (4D) color barcode" family — because they encode data via shape × color combinations in a cell grid, directly overlapping the palette/Base-number-system/shape-encoding concepts of claim 1.
• Background art: the EZ Code Wikipedia entry and the Phillips & Company rooftop-QR release.
• Anticipation under §102: None of the cited references anticipated the granted claims — the patent issued with all 19 claims, so these are best characterized as relevance/obviousness (§103) citations, most plausibly aimed at the palette/color-encoding and large-format-use limitations.
• Verification limits: The (56) list was recovered only in part ("(Continued)" truncated), so additional citations almost certainly exist on the front page. Several item descriptions (Oakeson, Fam, the second Ming reference) could not be independently confirmed from the retrieved text and are marked accordingly; I have not invented titles or abstracts for them.

If you need the complete citation list and exact titles, the authoritative front page should be pulled directly from USPTO PatentCenter for application 14/696,703 or the Google Patents "Patent Citations" panel — my searches hit their step limit before rendering the full block.

I'll research the prior art cited on this patent's page before building the obviousness analysis.

Let me pull the citations list and the remaining claims.

Let me look specifically for the cited references on the patent's front page (the (56) References Cited list).

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,633,293 ("Far View Two-Dimensional Symbology")

0. Sourcing, scope, and confidence (read this first)

What I could and could not retrieve of the "Prior Art section." The Google Patents page text supplied to me includes the Abstract, Description and the machine-generated "Prior art keywords" line (shape, shapes, grid, code, data), but the page's "(56) References Cited" / "Citations" / "Cited By" tables were not contained in the fetched text. My targeted searches did not return the full citation table either. I therefore built the analysis on:

1. One prior-art document I could confirm is cited by the '293 family — US 2013/0161395 A1, "Four dimensional (4D) color barcode for high capacity data encoding and decoding." It appears in the "Cited By" table of US20130161395, which lists US 9,633,293 B2 (IBM, 2015‑04‑27) (patents.google.com/patent/US20130161395). Since US 2013/0161395 published in 2013 (before the '293 filing date), it is § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art. Confidence: moderate‑high on the citation relationship; the reference's assignee and detailed disclosure are unverified.
2. References the patent itself admits are known prior art in its Background — QR Code, PDF417, DataMatrix, MaxiCode, GridMax, Aztec Code, ShotCode, UPC/UPC‑A/UPC‑E, EAN‑8/13, ITF‑14, Code128, Code39 (US9633293B2, "Background"). These are applicant admissions usable as prior art and, more importantly, they supply the published standards (ISO/IEC 18004, 16022, 15438, 24778, 16023) as printed publications.
3. General knowledge in G06K19/06037 (matrix symbologies, color/glyph codes) as of 2015‑04‑27 (the '293 filing date — post‑AIA, so AIA § 102/§ 103 apply; no pre‑2013 priority is claimed).

Items I am flagging as unverified and that must be confirmed in the file wrapper before relying on them: the actual examiner-cited (56) list; the specific patent numbers I associate below with color barcode and glyph-code art (e.g., Microsoft HCCB, Xerox self-clocking glyph codes). I label these inline.

Claim text I am analyzing. The independent claim of the '293 patent is the computer-usable-program-product form; the system form is claim 19. (Source: US9633293.pdf, p. 19: "1. A computer usable program product comprising a computer readable storage device… the palette comprising a set of shape filters [sic — OCR; elsewhere "shape fillers"] … a plurality of patterns, each pattern configured to communicate a different meaning of the data when decoded; computing… a size of the palette; computing… a Base number system as a function of the size of the palette; selecting… a rule, wherein the rule specifies a reading pattern for reading an encoded form of the data… wherein the reading pattern is one pattern in a plurality of reading patterns…; encoding… the rule and the data as a set of shapes… arranged into a grid…; and outputting… the 2D symbol in a size that matches an area.") The method version of the same disclosure is in the continuation, published as US 2016/0314387 A1 (patents.justia.com/patent/20160314387), whose claims 2–13 (geometric shape/minimum shape count, rows/columns, large-format layout, marker shapes outside the grid, three-marker and single-marker-plus-two-borders variants, rectangular and triangular geometries, base = number of palette members, orientation as filler, two colors) mirror the dependent claims of the '293. Note this continuity: the same inventive subject matter is claimed as a method in the sibling, which is relevant to the double-patenting discussion, not to § 103.

1. Element-by-element treatment of claim 1

Preliminary conclusion on claim 1: every limitation is disclosed or rendered obvious by the combination of (i) a color/dimension-extended matrix symbology reference (US 2013/0161395 A1 and/or HCCB), (ii) a standardized matrix symbology with an embedded format/mode header (QR Code, ISO/IEC 18004; Data Matrix; PDF417; MaxiCode), and (iii) the ordinary design step of sizing the symbol to the target surface. The only potentially non-trivial point is the breadth of "rule… specifies a reading pattern… one pattern in a plurality of reading patterns," which the specification itself reduces to a (rule code, reading instructions) lookup table in the reader's application (e.g., 0100 → phone number, 0101 → IPv4 address). That is functionally identical to a mode/ECI/application-identifier table.

2. Grounds of rejection (§ 103)

Ground A — US 2013/0161395 A1 in view of QR Code (ISO/IEC 18004) [and/or Data Matrix, ISO/IEC 16022].
US 2013/0161395 supplies the palette/base‑n encoding of data into multi-pattern cells in a matrix; QR/Data Matrix supply the grid, the embedded mode/ECI header that dictates how the payload is to be read, and the finder/clock patterns that orient, calibrate and bound the symbol. Motivation: both are in the same field (optically readable machine symbologies) and address the same recognized problem — increasing data density while retaining decodability — so a POSITA would combine the color/palette dimension with a standard header-bearing matrix layout to obtain capacity gains without redesigning the reader stack.

Ground B — Color barcode (US 2013/0161395 A1 / HCCB) in view of PDF417 (ISO/IEC 15438) or MaxiCode (ISO/IEC 16023).
PDF417 and MaxiCode each carry a mode/header field that changes how the payload is parsed (PDF417 macro/structured-append fields; MaxiCode modes including structured carrier message with postal-code/zip parsing). Combining a "how to read me" header with a multi-value palette yields claim 1. Motivation: PDF417/MaxiCode headers were designed precisely to let one symbol serve multiple applications — the same objective the '293 states for its "rule" section.

Ground C — Glyph/orientation coding art in view of a matrix symbology.
Self-clocking glyph codes (Xerox; numbers to be verified) encode data by the shape/orientation of a repeated mark on a lattice, and rotation/scale-invariant glyph codes read those marks without a printed border. This anticipates/render- obvious claim 1's "plurality of patterns" and dependent claims 11 ("a first shape filler… comprises a first orientation") and 12 (colors). Motivation to combine with a matrix symbology: orientation is a free additional data channel that costs no printing precision — exactly the justification the '293 gives in FIG. 7 for extending a 2‑color palette to base 8 (2 colors × 4 orientations).

Ground D — Applicant's own admitted art (QR Code scaled to a rooftop) in view of any embedded-header symbology.
The specification concedes that a QR code can be scaled to ~5,000 ft² on a roof. Once large-format presentation is conceded as available, the remaining differences — (a) using simple geometric shapes rather than dense modules, and (b) embedding a format rule — are (a) an obvious simplification/optimization of rendering for the admitted large-format use (KSR "design incentive" and "predictable variation") and (b) a feature already present in the cited standards.

3. Dependent claims

4. Motivation to combine — the KSR/TSM showing

1. Same field of endeavor. All references are machine-readable optical symbologies classified in G06K19/06–19/06037 (the '293's own classification), addressing the same problems: data density, orientation, calibration, and robust decoding.
2. Same problem, known solutions. The '293's stated problems — (a) symbols that can be read at long distances/oblique angles, (b) symbols that fit an arbitrary area, (c) symbols whose data can be reinterpreted without re-encoding — were each separately solved before 2015: (a) by finder/clock patterns and geometric calibration; (b) by print-scaling; (c) by mode indicators, ECI designators, and application identifiers.
3. Predictable results / mere aggregation. Combining a header field with a matrix of palette-valued cells yields no more than the expected sum of the parts: the header tells the decoder how to segment the payload, and the palette increases bits/cell. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (combination of known elements according to known methods, yielding predictable results, is obvious).
4. Design incentive / market pressure. Large-format and satellite-readable symbols were a known commercial desire (the specification itself invokes billboards, roof-tops, and satellite reading as known needs), giving an articulated reason to adapt an existing symbology to a large area.
5. No teaching away. The '293's characterizations that QR is "complex" and "difficult to paint" at large scale are statements about degree of precision, not a disclosure that would lead a POSITA away from combining a header-bearing matrix symbology with a size/palette selection; the Background simultaneously admits QR can be scaled to a rooftop.

5. Anticipated counter-arguments (and why they likely fail)

• "The rule is embedded in the symbol and is floating/delimitable." The '293's solution is an in-symbol header flagged by delimiters (FIG. 4; "shapes 56–59 encode a start delimiter, shapes 60–75 encode a rule"). In-symbol headers with delimiters/mode fields are standard (QR mode segments can be repeated; PDF417 macro fields; Data Matrix Macro 05/06 headers). A lookup table mapping a rule code to reading instructions is not a patentable advance over a mode table.
• "The data can be read in a different form than it was encoded." This is reformatting/rendering at the reader, i.e., presentation logic implemented by the reader application (the specification's "application 134… reference table 420"). Reading a digit string as a phone number or IPv4 address is a formatting rule, not a technical advance in the symbol itself.
• "Marker shapes have identical geometric parameters to data shapes" (claim 7). This is literally the QR finder-pattern design (finder patterns are the same module geometry as data modules) and Data Matrix's L-track.
• Secondary considerations. No evidence of record (and, per the earlier litigation analysis in this report, the patent was never asserted and expired for non-payment of maintenance fees), so nexus-based non-obviousness arguments (licensing, industry praise, copying) are unavailable.

6. Residual risks and next verification steps

1. Confirm the (56) list. The Google Patents citation tables were not captured; the actual examiner citations and any applicant IDS must be read from the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper for 14/696,703 before finalizing. My Ground A depends on US 2013/0161395 A1 being the (or a) cited reference.
2. Verify the color-barcode and glyph-code patent numbers I referenced generically (HCCB; Xerox self-clocking glyph codes). I did not verify numbers in this session; citing a wrong number would be worse than citing the standard, which is independently sufficient.
3. Claim construction of "shape filler" / "reading pattern." Claim 1 (as OCR'd from the PDF) reads "shape filters" in one instance while the specification and sibling claims use "shape fillers" — an OCR artifact worth confirming against the printed patent. If "reading pattern" were construed narrowly (e.g., requiring a pattern of digit grouping rather than any format/mode indicator), the QR‑mode/ECI mapping weakens and Grounds A–B would need supplementation with a data-template art (e.g., AIM "data identifiers," GS1 AIs).
4. Consider § 102 for dependent claim 7/9-style markers against Data Matrix (single finder corner + two solid/clock edges), which is a very tight read on claim 9-type subject matter in the sibling.
5. Flag (not part of the § 103 question): US 9,633,293 and its continuation US 9,633,295 recite overlapping subject matter from the same 2015‑04‑27 priority disclosure; whether a terminal disclaimer was filed is worth confirming in the file wrapper.

Bottom line: On the record available to me, claim 1 — and each of dependent claims 4–12 and system claim 19 — would have been obvious under § 103 over (i) a dimension-extended (color/glyph) matrix symbology such as US 2013/0161395 A1 or HCCB, in view of (ii) a standard embedded-header matrix symbology (QR Code/ISO 18004, Data Matrix/ISO 16022, PDF417/ISO 15438, or MaxiCode/ISO 16023) supplying the grid, finder/clock calibration and mode/format rule, and (iii) the routine step of scaling the symbol to the target print/display area. Confidence: moderate-to-high, contingent on verifying the actual (56) references and on the claim construction of "reading pattern"; the primary uncertainty is the completeness of the prior-art list I was able to reconstruct, not the availability of the individual teachings.