Prior Art for Digital Camera-related Patents Infringement Litigation

When search for patent and non-patent literature documents for an infringement of patent lawsuit, the first patent database should be considered is Japan patent database. There are about 10,000 patent applications filed annually at JPO that contains Japanese synonym of "digital camera" since 2004 (please refer to How to Search Japanese Patents for Digital Cameras.)

If Japanese synonyms of "electronic camera" or "electronic still camera" or "digital still camera" etc. are included in the searches, number of Japanese patent documents containing these key word strings are few times of that for Japanese synonym of "digital camera". Japan is the leading country in digital camera development since 80s' and is also the leading country in intellectual property protection in this field, as can be seen from the number of patents filed.

In search for patent documents for a digital camera with a unique parameter setting feature, a combination of full text search and class search is preferred. For example, Japanese key word strings "諸元+ 仕様+ パラメータ" can be used as the first set of search terms, and "エレクトロニック・イメージング+ 電子画像 +デジタルカメラ+ デジカメ +デジタル画像+ デジタルイメージング+ 電子スチルビデオカメラ +電子スチルカメラ +電子カメラ" can be used as the second search term. As for classes to be used, we suggest to cover a wide, such as using (H04N5/ +G06F3/+ G06T1/ +G09G5/ +G11B5/ +G11C7/).

With the suggested 2 search term sets and the classes mentioned above, 500 - 1000 hits may be generated if the search range is limited to prior to 1996, or 1,000 - 2,500 hits may be produced if the search period is expanded to prior to 2010. 1,000 - 2,500 hits are too big to be screened and reviewed, therefore, another set of key word strings should be used to remove search noise.

Recommended Japanese patent database to be used in digital camera search includes NRI and Patolis.

Tips and case studies of searching Japan patents relating to digital cameras:
How to Search Japanese Patents for Digital Cameras
Search Japan patents for Digital Cameras with unique parameter setting function
Search Japan patents for Digital Cameras with image rotation during display