US 10139270

I'll run targeted searches for this patent number and any associated litigation.

Patent Analysis: US 10,139,270

Source of record: Google Patents full text (fetched 2026-09-24), corroborated by Justia and the CNU EDS/UPSPTO-Patent-Grants bibliographic record. I did not have direct API access to USPTO PatentCenter or CAFC dockets in this session — that limitation is flagged below.

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1. Bibliographic Data (literal)

Assignee chain (recorded legal events): Drexel University assignment (recorded 2013-01-03, inventors' signing dates 2010-09-16 to 2010-09-19); NSF confirmatory license (recorded 2015-05-15, effective 2013-03-11). Maintenance fee paid 2022-11-02 (4th year, small entity, with late-payment surcharge).

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"An asymmetric sensor having asymmetric electrodes and/or being asymmetrically anchored provides enhanced sensitivity. In example embodiments, part of the electrode on a sensor is etched or removed resulting in enhanced mass-change sensitive resonant modes. In another example embodiment, a sensor is anchored asymmetrically, also resulting in enhanced mass-change sensitive resonant modes. By asymmetrically anchoring a piezoelectric portion of a sensor, resonant bending modes of the sensor can be measured electrically without external instrumentation. Modifying the electrode of a piezoelectric cantilever enables expression of mass-change sensitive resonant modes that normally do not lend themselves to electrical measurement."

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3. Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — "asymmetric anchor" embodiment. A piezoelectric cantilever sensor that carries an immobilized receptor for an analyte. The sensor is anchored at one end asymmetrically: the anchoring on one side of the sensor is longer than the anchoring on the other side. The functional consequence recited is that the cantilever exhibits different resonant bending modes that can be measured electrically, without external instrumentation for measuring sensor oscillation.

In plain terms: you clamp one face of a PZT strip deeper into epoxy than the other face. Because one side is longer, the strip bends rather than merely stretching, and the bending shows up as a measurable change in the device's own electrical impedance (phase angle between drive voltage and current) — no laser, no optical deflection rig.

Claim 5 — "asymmetric electrode" embodiment. A piezoelectric cantilever sensor with an immobilized receptor, anchored at one end, having asymmetric electrode portions on the two sides: the first electrode portion's area on one side is larger than the second electrode portion's area on the other side. Same functional consequence: different resonant bending modes measurable electrically without external oscillation-measuring instrumentation.

In plain terms: instead of (or in addition to) asymmetric clamping, you etch away part of the nickel electrode on one face — e.g., 1 mm removed with 0.1 M FeCl₃. Differential longitudinal deformation results, again inducing measurable bending modes.

Shared claim limitation to note: both independents close with "…whereby the cantilever sensor exhibits different resonant bending modes that can be measured electrically without external instrumentation that measures sensor oscillation." This is a functional (result-oriented) limitation and is the principal claim-scope battleground. Note also that claim 5 does not itself recite an asymmetric anchor — it recites an asymmetric electrode, so the claim is agnostic to the anchoring geometry except that it be "at one end."

Dependent claims:

• 2 / 6: piezoelectric material is lead zirconate titanate (PZT).
• 3 / 7: the asymmetry (anchor length differential / electrode area differential) is adapted to cause differential longitudinal deformation → transverse vibration → charge accumulation → the bending modes become electrically measurable. (These largely restate the mechanism already implied by the "whereby" clause.)
• 4 / 8: receptor immobilized at the distal tip, at the longitudinal end opposite the anchored end. Note a drafting inconsistency to take literally, not correct: claims 4 and 8 are written as "The analyte sensor of claim 1 / claim 5" even though the antecedent claim is "A piezoelectric cantilever sensor." The antecedent basis is nonetheless readable.

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4. Supporting Disclosure Highlights

• Reported performance: density-change sensitivity ~33.9 ng/Hz (mode 1) and ~217 pg/Hz (mode 2) under full-cantilever loading; tip-restricted chemisorption of dodecanethiol improved this by an order of magnitude to 3.9 pg/Hz (mode 1) and 828 fg/Hz (mode 2).
• Asymmetric electrode result: partial Ni etch amplified Q by ~29% (one example: −88.7°/Q=45 → −87.5°/Q=58); across 9 sensors Q increased 33 ± 13%.
• Symmetric anchor control: a symmetrically anchored PZT cantilever shows phase angle near −90° across 0–100 kHz — i.e., behaves as a pure capacitor, with no electrically observable resonance (FEM eigenfrequency analysis predicts modes at 5.98, 37.25, 103.29 kHz for L=3.2 mm, but they are not electrically measurable).
• Modeling: COMSOL 3.4 plane-stress FEM; PZT-5A material constants in Table S1; experimental/FEM comparison in Table S2; analytic cantilever equation f_n = (λ_n²/2πL²)√(EI/wt·ρ_c).

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5. Prior Art Cited on the Face of the Patent

US 2005/0193823 A1 (Amano, piezoelectric cantilever pressure sensor array); US 2007/0169553 A1 (Drexel — self-exciting, self-sensing piezoelectric cantilever sensor); US 2008/0087083 A1 (Seiko Epson — acceleration sensor); US 2009/0007645 A1 (Drexel — piezoelectric microcantilevers for AFM); US 2009/0053709 A1 (Drexel — enhanced sensitivity via specific bindings); US 2009/0301196 A1 (Georgia Tech — piezoelectric/piezoresistive cantilever sensors); US 2010/0297687 A1 (Drexel — detection and measurement of mass change using an electromechanical resonator). Non-patent: PCT/US2011/043244 ISR & Written Opinion dated Nov 8, 2011; Sharma et al., Sensors and Actuators (2011) 64–70.

Forward citations: CN 112615559 A/B (Xiamen); US 11,717,202 B2 and US 12,207,925 B2 (Foothold Labs, "Mobile lab-on-a-chip diagnostic system"). A related but distinct Drexel filing also exists: US 2014/0360890 A1, "Asymmetric sensors" — not the same document as US 10,139,270.

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6. CAFC 2026 Docket Search — Negative / Uncertain Result

I found no evidence associating US 10,139,270 with any Federal Circuit docket in 2026 (or any year). A targeted search returned nothing linking this patent number to CAFC activity; the only 2026 Federal Circuit content surfaced (e.g., a Patterson Sheridan weekly summary for the week ending Feb. 13, 2026) concerned unrelated patents and parties, and the sole literal hit on the token "10139270" in the second search was an unrelated Brazilian exam-candidate registration number.

Caveats, stated plainly:

1. This is absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. I could not query PACER, the CAFC docket system, or Docket Navigator directly in this session.
2. The patent's face shows only routine post-grant prosecution activity (maintenance fee, 4th year, 2022). No reissue, no IPR certificate, no terminal disclaimer appears in the recorded legal events.
3. Anyone relying on a litigation-status conclusion should independently confirm against the CAFC docket and PACER/Docket Navigator as of today's date.

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7. Bottom Line

US 10,139,270 (Drexel University; Mutharasan et al.) claims two structural routes to the same functional end — asymmetric anchoring (claim 1) and asymmetric electrode area (claim 5) — on a receptor-bearing PZT cantilever, the point being that low-order bending modes become electrically self-detectable without external oscillation-measurement instrumentation. The two independents are result-limited by the "whereby … measured electrically without external instrumentation" clause, which is likely the pivot for any future validity or infringement dispute. Filing 2011-07-07, priority 2010-07-07, issued 2018-11-27, active through 2032-06-23.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10139270 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me try more targeted litigation-database searches.

Litigation Search: US Patent 10,139,270

Bottom line

Based on my searches across publicly indexed sources (Google Patents/Justia, Unified Patents-adjacent materials, PTAB/USPTO records, and general litigation indexes), I found no evidence of any litigation involving US Patent 10,139,270. I could not identify any district court case, Federal Circuit appeal, or PTAB proceeding asserting or challenging this specific patent.

I want to be explicit about the confidence level here rather than overstate it: "no results found" is not the same as "confirmed no litigation exists," because I was working from web-search-accessible sources rather than a full Docket Navigator / PACER / Lex Machina pull, and my search session was cut short before I could exhaust every query. But within what I could retrieve, nothing turned up.

What the patent is (for identification purposes, so this isn't a wrong-number match)

This is a Drexel University academic patent on piezoelectric (PZT) cantilever biosensors with asymmetric anchoring and/or asymmetric electrode areas. That profile is relevant below.

Why no litigation is plausible

• Assignee is a university, not a PAE. Drexel University is the recorded owner. Academic patents are typically enforced (if at all) through licensing arms or technology-transfer litigation, and this one shows no such activity in the indexed sources.
• No forward-citation signals of enforcement. The only "Cited By" entries on the public record are CN112615559A (a Chinese friction-nanogenerator application) and US11717202B2 (Foothold Labs, mobile lab-on-a-chip) — these are patent citations, not litigation.
• No PTAB activity surfaced. There is no IPR/PGR listed against 10,139,270 in the materials I retrieved, despite the heavy presence of PTAB data in the search results.

Caveat on search noise (why false positives are a risk here)

The string "10139270" is not unique. My searches surfaced unrelated matches for that number, including a Brazilian civil-service exam candidate registration ID and other non-patent numeric IDs. Any future search for this patent should use the anchored form "10,139,270" (with commas) or "US 10,139,270" to avoid these collisions. I did not return any of those non-patent hits as litigation, per the instruction to search for the specific patent number only.

Recommended next steps to confirm

Because I cannot definitively rule out litigation from my sources, to get a certified answer you would want to run:

1. PACER / CourtListener RECAP — search the patent number as a text term in complaints.
2. Docket Navigator and Lex Machina — patent-number-keyed litigation and PTAB modules.
3. Unified Patents litigation portal and RPX / Insight — for any NPE or defensive-aggregator activity.
4. Drexel University Technology Commercialization records — for any licensing-driven enforcement.

If a case does exist, it would most likely name Drexel University (or a Drexel licensing/tech-transfer entity) as plaintiff, or appear as a defensive IPR naming Drexel as patent owner — but I found neither.

I'll verify the structured block's negative result against live sources before writing this up.

Two targeted follow-ups: one for any trial number keyed to the application number, one for assertion/litigation activity that would predict an IPR.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings exist on US 10,139,270. The canonical structured block ("PTAB proceedings on file") reports the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my live searches independently returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM bearing this patent number, its application number 13/808,138, or its pre-grant publication US 2013/0205902 A1. There is therefore no breakdown by status to give — no active proceedings, no invalidations, no sustainments, no settlements, no institution denials, and no Federal Circuit appeals.

Defensive posture for a defendant: the patent is neither "hardened by prior IPRs" nor "defanged by canceled claims" — it is virgin territory. All eight claims, including independent claims 1 and 5, are untested. That cuts both ways: you get the first clean shot at the PTAB with no § 315(e)(2) estoppel baggage created by anyone else, but you also get no roadmap, no FWD reasoning to build on, and no leverage from an existing invalidity finding. The strongest available reading is the one already developed in the earlier section of this analysis — both independents are bounded by a functional "whereby … measured electrically without external instrumentation" clause, which is exactly the kind of limitation that invites a written-description/enablement or indefiniteness attack alongside the art-based grounds.

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Proceedings on file

None. The canonical list is empty, so the templated per-proceeding sections (type, filing date, panel, grounds, institution ruling, FWD, settlement, appeal, defensive value) have no entries. I am not populating them with invented numbers.

Verification trail (what I actually did)

False positives to disregard (search-engine noise, NOT this patent):

• IPR2018-00625 (US 9,492,392, PEO tablet claims) — unrelated patent and owner.
• IPR2020-00128 (RE45,380 E) — unrelated reissue patent; the "10139270" token appeared only inside an unrelated Brazilian CEBRASPE exam-candidate roster on the same results page.

Caveats, stated plainly

1. This is absence of evidence, not proof of absence. I could not query PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/), the USPTO PTAB Decisions database, PACER, or CourtListener programmatically in this session. Anyone relying on a litigation or AIA-status conclusion should re-verify directly at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/#/patentNumberSearch and https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%2210%2C139%2C270%22 before acting.
2. The patent's recorded legal events show only routine prosecution and maintenance (assignment 2013-01-03; NSF confirmatory license 2015-05-15; 4th-year maintenance fee with late-payment surcharge 2022-11-02). No reissue, no certificate of correction, no IPR certificate, no disclaimer appears.
3. The forward-citation trail (US 11,717,202 B2 / US 12,207,925 B2, Foothold Labs; CN 112615559 A/B, Xiamen) proves only that later patentees cited this document. Citation is not assertion, and I found no evidence these entities or anyone else has been accused of infringing US 10,139,270.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all of claims 1–8 are UNTESTED. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been confirmed. Claim 1 (asymmetric anchor) and claim 5 (asymmetric electrode area) remain in their as-issued form, with dependents 2/6 (PZT), 3/7 (differential longitudinal deformation → transverse vibration → charge accumulation), and 4/8 (tip-immobilized receptor) intact. Because there is no PTAB record, there is also no claim-construction ruling, no institution-stage narrowing, and no FWD claim-by-claim disposition to anchor a defense — every limitation is open to first-impression argument. Note the drafting quirk already flagged: claims 4 and 8 recite "The analyte sensor of claim 1/5," a mismatch in claim-type naming that a defendant may probe but that does not defeat antecedent basis.

Estoppel landscape: clean. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is petitioner-specific, and with no petitioner there is no estoppel running against anyone. A defendant filing today faces no bar from prior proceedings and can raise any pre-AIA § 102 or § 103 ground the art supports, plus § 112 challenges. Timing point worth flagging for a defendant weighing parallel district-court and PTAB tracks: because this is a pre-AIA case (application filed 2011-07-07, before the 2013-03-16 AIA cutover), §§ 102(e) and 103(a) prior art — including the inventor's own pre-2013 Drexel filings listed as cited references — are usable in ways that AIA-era § 102(a)(2) analysis would treat differently. The PGR window closed on 2019-08-27 (issue date + 9 months), and CBM is unavailable both substantively and because the CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16. IPR is the only live AIA vehicle.

Pattern signals: none of the usual markers. No repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar entity anywhere in the chain — the only recorded third-party interest is the National Science Foundation's confirmatory license, which gives the government certain march-in/rights and is not a litigation participant). No PTAB appeals, so no Federal Circuit activity and none of the resulting claim-narrowing that an adverse CAFC affirmance can produce. The likely reason for the total absence of AIA activity is transactional rather than substantive: the patents that attract IPRs are the ones being asserted in district court or at the ITC, and this patent appears to be licensing-stage technology (Drexel's tech-transfer listing contacts a licensing manager) rather than asserted technology. Given its active status to 2032-06-23, that could change — a first assertion would be the event most likely to trigger the first IPR.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing an assertion right now (no proceedings exist):

• Treat this as a blank slate. There is no FWD to cite and no canceled claim to hide behind. Your invalidity case must be built from scratch — start from the seven cited references on the face of the patent (chief among them Drexel's own US 2007/0169553 A1, self-exciting self-sensing piezoelectric cantilever sensor, and US 2010/0297687 A1, detection and measurement of mass change using an electromechanical resonator) plus the Sharma et al. 2011 Sensors and Actuators publication on asymmetric-anchor PZT cantilevers, which is cited on the face and is date-critical (2011, priority year).
• The "whereby" functional clause in both independents is the pivot. It is result-oriented ("measured electrically without external instrumentation that measures sensor oscillation"), so expect a § 112(a) written-description argument that the claim recites a result without confining structure — and a § 112(b) argument about whether the phrase has objective boundaries. Pair that with a § 103 theory that asymmetric clamping or asymmetric electrode area on a cantilever was known (see the cited Amano, Seiko Epson, and Georgia Tech references).
• Check whether your product even reaches the anchor/electrode asymmetry limitations. Claim 5 recites asymmetry only in electrode area and says nothing about anchoring beyond "anchored at one end" — so a device with symmetric electrodes is outside claim 5 regardless of anchor geometry. Map before you litigate.
• No § 315(b) one-year clock is running from a prior proceeding, but the usual § 315(b) bar applies from service of a complaint on you, and § 315(a)(1) bars an IPR if you previously filed a DJ action of invalidity.

If you are considering filing the first IPR:

• Budget to the statutory clock: § 314(b) institution decision within 6 months of the petition, and the § 316(a)(11) FWD one year from institution (extendable up to 6 months for good cause). Model the district-court stay motion accordingly.
• Because you would be the first petitioner, you will create the § 315(e)(2) estoppel that binds you and your privies after an FWD — so put every ground you reasonably could raise into the petition. There is no second bite.

Verify independently before relying on this section. Absence of PTAB activity is a strong default here, but it is a default: re-query PTAB E2E by patent number and CourtListener by patent number and by "Drexel University"; if you find a proceeding the ODP ingest missed, the per-proceeding template above should be filled in from the FWD at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions and any CAFC opinion at https://www.courtlistener.com.

I'll verify the assignment record against authoritative sources before writing the sections.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 10,139,270 ("Asymmetric sensor", Drexel University)

Source-access caveat up front (read before relying on reel/frame data). In this session I could not directly load the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) or the legacy assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — both are script-driven interfaces and the search tool returned no rendered assignment pages for this patent number. Every reel/frame, execution date, and conveyance type below is taken from the Google Patents legal-events table, which mirrors the USPTO assignment record, plus the patent front matter. Correspondent-of-record data (the attorney/agent who filed each recording) was not obtainable in this session. That gap specifically blocks signal #3 below and is flagged rather than filled with inference. Anyone acting on this should confirm against the Assignment Center directly: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

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Inventors

Execution dates on the assignment instrument: inventors signed between 2010-09-16 and 2010-09-19 — i.e., roughly two months after the 2010-07-07 provisional (61/362,233) and well before national-stage entry.

Pattern notes.

• Not present — mass inventor exodus. Mutharasan remained Drexel faculty well past filing (Drexel CoE Distinguished Service Award 2017; Drexel Mutharasan Lab news page). The three junior co-inventors were almost certainly degree/postdoc appointees who moved on, but no dated departure record is available in the sources I could reach, so I do not assert a 12-month exodus. This is not a fire-sale precursor pattern.
• All four are single-institution inventors on a single-institution assignment — no split inventorship across competing corporate employers, which is the usual precursor to a title dispute.
• Note the intentional mis-spelling tolerance rule: the number is rendered "10139270" in the request and US 10,139,270 B2 on the face; the CNU/EDS record renders it as "10139,270." Same document.

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Original assignee

Drexel University — a private, non-profit research university, Philadelphia, PA. Assignee on both the issued patent and the pre-grant publication; still the current assignee per the Google Patents record (no change of assignee on the face).

• Does Drexel ship a product embodying the claims? No. Drexel is an academic institution; it does not manufacture or sell the claimed cantilever sensors. The claims are practiced only experimentally (the patent's own working examples were benchtop/flow-cell experiments) or by licensees.
• Primary line of business: higher education and sponsored research. The relevant commercialization vehicle is Drexel's technology-transfer function, which licensed the underlying PEMC (piezoelectric-excited millimeter-sized cantilever) platform to Leversense, LLC (Newtown Square, PA) — documented by NIH SBIR award 1R43GM083595-01 ("Femtogram Biomarker Serum Analyzer", FY2008, $126,341), which states Leversense "has recently licensed the piezoelectric-excited millimeter-sized cantilever (PEMC) sensor technology from Drexel University," and by a Drexel Drexelink newsletter notice (Apr–May 2011) confirming the license.
• Current status: operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or receivership. The patent's legal events show only routine maintenance activity (4th-year fee paid 2022-11-02, small entity, with late-payment surcharge).

Important scoping point (avoid conflation). Leversense, LLC appears as a co-assignee on sibling Drexel patents — e.g. US 7,892,759 ("Enhanced sensitivity of a cantilever sensor via specific bindings", assignees Drexel University and Leversense, LLC) and US 8,236,508 ("Detecting and measuring live pathogens..."). It does not appear anywhere in the assignment chain of US 10,139,270. The Leversense license covers the broader PEMC family; this particular patent's title stayed with Drexel. Do not report Leversense as an assignee of this patent without a record — there isn't one.

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Assignment timeline

Two recorded instruments. Neither is a title transfer away from Drexel; one is an inventor→university assignment, the other is a license, not an assignment.

• 2010-09-16 to 2010-09-19 (executed) / recorded 2013-01-03 — Reel 029560 / Frame 0349

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Mutharasan, Rajakkannu; Johnson, Blake N.; Lakshmanan, Ramji; and others (Sharma, Harsh)
  • Assignee: Drexel University (Pennsylvania)
  • Correspondent: not available in this session — see the source-access caveat. I will not guess a firm from the patent's prosecution attorney, because prosecution counsel and assignment-recording counsel are frequently different, and the whole point of this field is precision.
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment executed as a condition of university employment/IP policy; recorded late — 2013-01-03, i.e. contemporaneously with national-stage entry and the 2013-08-15 pre-grant publication of US 2013/0205902 A1, not at execution in 2010. Late recording of an inventor assignment is routine for university cases and is not by itself a title-integrity red flag.

• Effective 2013-03-11 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-15 — Reel 035705 / Frame 0124

  • Conveyance: Confirmatory License (government-interest instrument, not an assignment of title)
  • Assignor: Drexel University
  • Assignee: National Science Foundation (Virginia)
  • Correspondent: not available in this session.
  • Context: Statutory confirmation of the U.S. Government's rights under the Bayh–Dole Act arising from NSF grant CBET-0828987 (recited in the patent's GOVERNMENT RIGHTS section). This is a vesting/confirmation of a pre-existing march-in/license interest; it transfers no ownership interest to NSF and does not break the Drexel chain.

Post-grant legal events (not assignments): 2018-11-07 patent-grant status; 2022-07-18 maintenance-fee reminder; 2022-11-02 late-payment surcharge and 4th-year maintenance fee paid (small entity). No reissue, no IPR certificate, no change of name, no security agreement, no release.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10139270
    2010 : Provisional filed July 7
         : Inventors assign rights to Drexel
    2011 : PCT and US national stage filed
    2013 : Drexel assignment recorded reel 029560
         : NSF license effective March 11
    2015 : NSF confirmatory license recorded
    2018 : Patent issued November 27
    2022 : Maintenance fee paid year 4

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
No licensing-only LLC appears anywhere in the chain. Reel 029560/0349 runs inventors → Drexel University (a 1891-chartered non-profit university with a verifiable operating identity and address), and nothing moves from Drexel to an "IP / Holdings / Ventures"-suffixed vehicle. Reel 035705/0124 is a government license, not a shell transfer. No single-member Delaware/Texas LLC, no registered-agent service address, no licensing-only entity in this patent's record.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
Neither recorded assignee — Drexel University or the National Science Foundation — appears on any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Leversense, LLC is not in this patent's chain (see scoping point above), and even if it were, Leversense as of the surfaced record is a Drexel spinout that licensed technology and sought NIH SBIR funding to build a benchtop/point-of-care analyzer — i.e., a would-be operating company, not a list-recognized assertion vehicle. That is a factual distinction based on the SBIR award record, not a naming inference.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT ASSESSABLE.
The USPTO Assignment Center's correspondent-of-record field was not retrievable in this session, so I cannot name the attorney/firm on either reel, let alone test for recurrence across reels or across this site's other tracked patents. Stating the negative honestly: I have no correspondent evidence either way. Note for the record that this signal has low prior here — with only two instruments on a single-institution chain, and one of them a government license filed by the university, recurrence would be structurally unlikely. Verify at the Assignment Center before treating this as resolved.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Two recorded events total, spanning 2013 and 2015, and only one is a conveyance of an interest. There is no chain of LLCs, no shared correspondent address to compare, no sub-24-month cascade. A two-instrument chain ending at the original assignee is the opposite of the cascade signature.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (and no litigation found).
No assignment event is proximately dated to any infringement suit; the last instrument (2015-05-15) predates issuance (2018-11-27) by three and a half years and predates today by over a decade. The prior analysis in this docket found no evidence tying US 10,139,270 to any Federal Circuit or district-court action, and that finding stands — with the same caveat: absence of evidence, not evidence of absence, since PACER/Docket Navigator/CAFC docket were not directly queried.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
Drexel University has not filed Chapter 7/11; no trustee sale, no §363 sale order, no assignment-in-bankruptcy event appears. Compare the Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid pattern — none of those markers are here.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR (do not over-read).
There is a real Drexel→spinout licensing relationship in the wider PEMC family (Leversense, LLC; NIH SBIR R43GM083595-01, FY2008; Drexel Drexelink Apr–May 2011 notice). But privateering requires the operating company to hand a patent to an NPE that then asserts against the operating company's competitors — and (a) US 10,139,270 was not assigned to Leversense per any record I could reach, and (b) no assertion activity by Leversense on this patent was surfaced. So the licensing fact is real, the privateering conclusion is not supported for this patent. Flagged as unclear rather than asserted.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized by acquisition into a defensive pool; it remains held by the university.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — the record contains only the original assignment plus a government confirmatory license, which is precisely the fact pattern the rubric assigns to this bucket.

Justification. The complete recorded chain is two instruments: inventors → Drexel University, executed 2010-09-16/19 and recorded 2013-01-03 at Reel 029560/Frame 0349 (a standard, if late-recorded, university employment assignment), and Drexel → National Science Foundation under Bayh–Dole, effective 2013-03-11 and recorded 2015-05-15 at Reel 035705/Frame 0124 (a license, not a title transfer, confirming NSF rights from grant CBET-0828987). There is no post-issuance assignment, no LLC, no asserter, no cascade, no bankruptcy, and no pre-suit transfer — so zero strong NPE signals and zero weak ones with evidentiary support. The chain terminating at the original academic assignee is itself the substantive finding: Drexel University remains the owner of record, subject to the NSF license interest, and the patent is best characterized as an unmonetized university asset rather than an assertion vehicle. The correspondent-of-record field could not be retrieved in this session, which specifically leaves signal #3 unconfirmed; confirm both reel/frame entries at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html before relying on any prosecution-counsel or repeat-filer inference.

I'll research the prior-art citations on the face of US 10,139,270, using USPTO/Google Patents sources.

Now let me research the remaining cited references on the face of the patent.

Prior-Art Analysis for US 10,139,270 — Cited References

0. Scope, method, and statutory framework

Search target (as literally specified): US patent number 10139270 (rendered by the issuing office as US 10,139,270 B2, "Asymmetric sensor," Drexel University).

What I did: I pulled the citation lists from the patent's own face (Google Patents full text, corroborated by Justia and the CNU/USPTO-patent-grants record) and then researched each cited reference individually via Google Patents, Justia, Espacenet, and patentimages (PDF facsimiles of the published applications/grants).

Statutory framework — important: Application 13/808,138 was filed July 7, 2011, with a priority date of July 7, 2010. Both dates predate March 16, 2013, so the pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs (i.e., § 102(a), (b), (e), and (g); not AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2)). All "anticipation" analysis below is therefore expressed in pre-AIA terms. I flag below where a reference is more naturally a § 102(e) (earlier-filed, later-published) reference than a § 102(a)/(b) printed-publication reference.

Bottom line up front: The patent issued over all seven cited U.S. references, and the face of the document shows the examiner's consideration. On the merits, none of the cited references appears to disclose every element of independent claim 1 or independent claim 5 in a single reference — specifically, none is shown to disclose (i) the anchor-length asymmetry of claim 1 or (ii) the differential electrode-area asymmetry of claim 5, each combined with the receptor-bearing piezoelectric cantilever and the "whereby … measured electrically without external instrumentation" functional limitation. The cited art is therefore best characterized as § 103 obviousness material and as § 102 support for the dependent claims' individual elements, not as clean § 102 anticipation of the independents. I state below, for each reference, exactly which claims it touches and how.

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1. The seven U.S. patent citations on the face of US 10,139,270

The Google Patents citation table flags references as "cited by examiner" (*) or "cited by third party" (†). As listed on the face, the flags are: US 2005/0193823 *, US 2007/0169553 (unflagged), US 2008/0087083 (unflagged), US 2009/0007645 (unflagged), US 2009/0053709 (unflagged), US 2009/0301196 *, US 2010/0297687 *. I reproduce these flags as they literally appear and take no position on their legal significance.

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1.1 US 2005/0193823 A1 — "Piezoelectric cantilever pressure sensor array"

Brief description. An array of piezoelectric cantilevers for pressure/fingerprint sensing. Each sensor has an "elongate piezoelectric cantilever mounted at one end on the substrate and extending over a cavity," with a first electrode, a piezoelectric element, and a second electrode, plus an elastic (non-piezoelectric) element; the disclosure expressly calls this layered stack an "asymmetrical piezoelectric bimorph." PZT is named as a suitable piezoelectric material.

§ 102 claim relevance.

• Claims 1 and 5 (preambles only): teaches a piezoelectric cantilever anchored at one end — this reaches the structural preamble of both independents.
• Claim 2 / claim 6: names PZT as the piezoelectric material.
• No anticipation: the reference is a pressure/fingerprint sensor, not a receptor-bearing analyte sensor; it discloses no immobilized receptor (defeating claims 1 and 5 and defeating claims 4/8), no anchor-length asymmetry (claim 1), and no differential electrode-area asymmetry (claim 5). Critically, the term "asymmetrical" in Amano refers to the piezoelectric-vs-elastic layer stack, not to anchor length or electrode area — this is a trap in the reference and should not be conflated with the claimed asymmetry. It therefore cannot anticipate any of claims 1–8.

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1.2 US 2007/0169553 A1 — "Self-exciting, self-sensing piezoelectric cantilever sensor"

Brief description. A piezoelectric cantilever sensor with a piezoelectric layer and a non-piezoelectric layer (partially attached, providing an overhang, or spanning two bases). The sensor is self-exciting and self-sensing: the same PZT film actuates and senses, and resonance is detected as a sharp change in electrical impedance / phase angle between the excitation voltage and the resulting current. Analyte detection is by resonance-frequency shift; antibody/receptor immobilization on the sensor surface is described.

§ 102 claim relevance.

• Claims 1 and 5 (preambles): discloses a piezoelectric cantilever sensor; discloses the electrical self-sensing mechanism that underlies the "measured electrically without external instrumentation" clause.
• Claims 2 and 6: PZT is the disclosed piezoelectric material.
• Claims 4 and 8: receptor/antibody immobilization is disclosed, including at a tip region.
• No anticipation: this is the closest "concept" art (same assignee, same self-excitation/self-sensing principle), but it is a composite PZT + non-piezoelectric-layer device and — critically — the anchoring is taught as symmetric (a single base with the layers coextensively clamped, or two bases). The reference does not disclose anchoring one side of the sensor longer than the other (claim 1), and it does not disclose differential electrode area on the two sides (claim 5). It therefore cannot anticipate claims 1 or 5. (Note the irony, developed in the instant specification itself: the Drexel composite PZT-glass device of this reference was said to carry parasitic mass, which the instant patent claims to eliminate — so this reference affirmatively points away from the claimed bare-PZT asymmetric design, which further undercuts any § 103 combination.)

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1.3 US 2008/0087083 A1 — "Acceleration Sensor"

Brief description — limited confidence. This is a Seiko Epson acceleration sensor application. I was unable to retrieve the full text of this reference within this session (my search budget was reached before I could pull the document). Based on the title, assignee, and CPC context, it is a MEMS/piezoelectric or capacitive acceleration-sensing cantilever/beam device. I therefore flag this reference as incompletely assessed and do not assert element-by-element content.

§ 102 claim relevance (provisional). On the information available, the reference is directed to acceleration sensing, not to receptor/analyte detection, and there is no indication it discloses anchor-length asymmetry or differential electrode areas as claimed. It is not expected to anticipate any of claims 1–8, but this conclusion rests on incomplete data and should be re-verified against the full document.

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1.4 US 2009/0007645 A1 — "Piezoelectric microcantilevers and uses in atomic force microscopy"

Brief description. Piezoelectric microcantilevers (PZT, PMN-PT, and lead-free variants) with a piezoelectric layer and a non-piezoelectric layer, capable of self-actuation and detection, for static-contact and dynamic non-contact atomic force microscopy in solution. Discloses insulation layers (e.g., parylene C, MPTS) enabling in-liquid operation and receptor immobilization on the tip (antibody, scFv, etc.).

§ 102 claim relevance.

• Claims 2 and 6: PZT is expressly disclosed.
• Claims 4 and 8: tip-mounted receptor immobilization is disclosed (claims 14 of that publication).
• No anticipation: it is a composite microcantilever for AFM, not an asymmetrically anchored or asymmetrically electroded analyte cantilever. No anchor-length asymmetry and no differential electrode-area asymmetry are disclosed. It cannot anticipate claims 1 or 5 and is at most element-level art for the dependent claims.

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1.5 US 2009/0053709 A1 — "Enhanced sensitivity of a cantilever sensor via specific bindings"

Brief description. A method of detecting minute analyte amounts by sequential/multiple specific bindings on a mass-sensing sensor (antibody → analyte → secondary antibody ladder, DNA hybridization, polymerase extension). The sensor can be a piezoelectric cantilever sensor comprising a piezoelectric layer, a non-piezoelectric layer that is not coextensive, at least one base portion, and electrodes operatively associated with the piezoelectric layer (see its claim 23), and the specification describes resonance-frequency and phase-angle measurement on PEMC sensors.

§ 102 claim relevance.

• Claims 4 and 8: a receptor (antibody) immobilized on the sensor surface and at the tip is squarely disclosed.
• Claims 1 and 5 (preambles): a receptor-bearing piezoelectric cantilever sensor that senses mass by resonance frequency is disclosed.
• No anticipation: this is a method reference; it discloses symmetric anchoring of the composite layer stack and no anchor-length asymmetry (claim 1) and no differential electrode-area asymmetry (claim 5). It cannot anticipate the apparatus claims. (Note also the two patent claims here are method claims, reinforcing that it is not an apparatus anticipation.)

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1.6 US 2009/0301196 A1 — "Piezoelectric and piezoresistive cantilever sensors"

Brief description — limited confidence. A Georgia Tech application directed to cantilever sensors using piezoelectric and/or piezoresistive transduction. I was unable to retrieve the full text within this session (search budget exhausted); my description rests on the title and classification context, so I flag it as incompletely assessed and do not assert element-by-element content.

§ 102 claim relevance (provisional). It is general cantilever-transduction art (piezoelectric/piezoresistive readout) and may be relevant to the claim 2/6 material recitation and to the general concept of electrical self-readout, but nothing in the title or available metadata suggests anchor-length asymmetry or differential electrode areas. It is not expected to anticipate any of claims 1–8; re-verify against the full document.

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1.7 US 2010/0297687 A1 — "Detection and measurement of mass change using an electromechanical resonator"

Brief description — limited confidence. A Drexel application on detecting/measuring mass change using an electromechanical resonator (consistent with the PEMC line of Drexel work). I was unable to retrieve the full text within this session; the description rests on the title and the Drexel portfolio context, and I flag it as incompletely assessed.

§ 102 claim relevance (provisional). Because it is a Drexel PEMC-family filing, it is likely relevant to the claim 1/5 preambles and to claims 4/8 (mass-sensing resonator with receptor). No available indication of anchor-length asymmetry or differential electrode-area asymmetry. It is not expected to anticipate claims 1 or 5; re-verify against the full document. Note that its § 102(e) date (2009-05-19) is the relevant one for prior-art purposes, and it is a different Drexel disclosure from US 2007/0169553.

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2. Non-patent literature cited on the face of the patent

(a) PCT/US2011/043244 — International Search Report and Written Opinion dated Nov. 8, 2011.
Full citation: International Patent Application No. PCT/US2011/043244, ISR & Written Opinion dated 2008-11-08 as printed on the face (the face literally recites "dated Nov. 8, 2011"). This is the search report for the instant application itself and is not prior art — it is the examiner's/ISA's own work product and is listed only as a prosecution artifact.

(b) Sharma et al., "Piezoelectric Cantilever Sensors With Asymmetric Anchor Exhibit Picogram Sensitivity in Liquids," Sensors and Actuators, 2011, pp. 64–70.
Full citation: Sharma, H. et al., Sensors and Actuators (2011), pp. 64–70. Cited as "cited by applicant." This is the inventors' own publication describing the very asymmetric-anchor invention claimed here. Its exact publication date is the pivotal fact for § 102: to be prior art under pre-AIA § 102(b) it must have published more than one year before the 2011-07-07 filing (i.e., before 2010-07-07); if it published between 2010-07-07 and 2011-07-07 it is within the § 102(b) grace period and is not § 102(b) art. I could not pin down the precise publication/online-first date within this session and therefore flag this as unresolved. Practically, because the instant claims cover the same subject matter as this paper, the reference is more a § 103/§ 102(b) risk to be dated precisely than an anticipation candidate to be assumed.

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3. What the cited art does not contain (the anticipation gap)

For clarity, the following table summarizes the decisive missing-element analysis for the two independents. "—" means not disclosed by that reference.

Because § 102 anticipation requires all elements of a claim in a single reference, and no single cited reference supplies the claimed asymmetry, no cited reference anticipates claim 1 or claim 5. The dependent claims (2/6 PZT; 4/8 tip receptor) are individually met by several references (notably US 2007/0169553, US 2009/0007645, and US 2009/0053709), but those references also disclose the very elements the independents lack, and thus cannot anticipate the dependent claims either unless the parent independent is first anticipated — which it is not.

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4. Other references to keep in view (not on the § 102 face)

• US 2014/0360890 A1, "Asymmetric sensors" (Drexel). This is a later, separate Drexel filing (filed 2013-06-11) and is not prior art to US 10,139,270; it appears in the corpus only as a "Similar Document." Do not treat it as a § 102 reference.
• Forward citations: CN 112615559 A/B (Xiamen, friction power generation) and US 11,717,202 B2 / US 12,207,925 B2 (Foothold Labs, "Mobile lab-on-a-chip diagnostic system"). These are later documents that cite US 10,139,270 and are irrelevant to its own § 102 analysis.

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5. Caveats and confidence

1. Incomplete retrievals. I could not retrieve full text for US 2008/0087083 (Seiko Epson), US 2009/0301196 (Georgia Tech), or US 2010/0297687 (Drexel) within this session. Their descriptions and § 102 conclusions above are marked provisional and must be re-verified against the documents before being relied upon.
2. Source limitation. I did not have direct USPTO PatentCenter / PAIR access in this session; I relied on Google Patents, Justia, Espacenet, and PDF facsimiles. Dates and assignees are taken literally from those records.
3. The Sharma et al. publication date is the single most consequential open question for § 102(b), and I could not resolve it — treat it as unresolved rather than assumed.
4. Statutory framework. Because both the filing (2011-07-07) and priority (2010-07-07) dates precede March 16, 2013, pre-AIA § 102 applies; do not analyze these references under AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2).
5. Nothing in this analysis is a legal conclusion of validity, infringement, or patentability; it is a technical element-mapping grounded in the cited documents as retrieved.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,139,270 B2 ("Asymmetric sensor")

35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre-AIA, with KSR applied)

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0. Threshold: which § 103 applies, and which art is available

Governing statute. The application is the national stage of PCT/US2011/043244, filed July 7, 2011, claiming benefit of provisional 61/362,233 filed July 7, 2010. Both dates precede March 16, 2013, so the pre-AIA version of § 102/§ 103 governs. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) nonetheless supplies the controlling obviousness framework (TSM expanded to any rational motivation, predictable variations, design incentives).

The critical date for § 102(b). One year before filing = July 7, 2010. Anything published before that date is unqualified § 102(b) art usable in a § 103 combination, and — importantly — cannot be disqualified by common ownership under pre-AIA § 103(c).

Availability of the cited references on the face of the patent:

Non-patent literature on the face is not usable prior art:

• Sharma et al., Sensors and Actuators (2011), 64–70 — "Piezoelectric Cantilever Sensors With Asymmetric Anchor Exhibit Picogram Sensitivity in Liquids." This is the inventors' own corresponding paper (Sharma is a named inventor). Published in 2011, it post-dates both the July 7, 2010 priority date and the July 7, 2011 filing, and is not "by another." It fails both pre-AIA § 102(a) and § 102(b). It is on the face as inventor background, not as art. (If its actual publication date were earlier than the priority date, this conclusion would flip and it would be devastating art — worth independent verification.)
• PCT/US2011/043244 ISR & Written Opinion dated Nov 8, 2011. Post-dates the filing date; it is an applicant/ISA document, not prior art.

⚠️ Limitation of this analysis: I have the bibliographic record and titles of the cited references as they appear on the patent's face, not their full texts. The content mapping below is drawn from the titles/dates and from what these Drexel-family documents are known to disclose; each mapping should be verified against the actual reference before being relied on.

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1. Claim construction — what must be taught or suggested

Both independents share a three-element structural core plus a functional "whereby" clause:

1. A piezoelectric cantilever sensor anchored at one end;
2. A receptor immobilized thereon to which an analyte binds;
3. An asymmetry: claim 1 = anchor length on one side > other side; claim 5 = electrode area on one side > other side;
4. "whereby the cantilever sensor exhibits different resonant bending modes that can be measured electrically without external instrumentation that measures sensor oscillation."

Element (4) is a result-oriented/inherent-property recitation. Under In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1997), and In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252 (CCPA 1977), reciting a result that necessarily flows from the recited structure does not patentably distinguish. So the whole § 103 fight reduces to elements (2) and (3), with (4) supplied by any reference teaching self-sensing electrical readout.

Key observation for § 103: claim 5 recites only an asymmetric electrode — it is agnostic to anchor symmetry. Claims 3/7 and 4/8 merely recite the inherent mechanism ("differential longitudinal deformation → transverse vibration → charge accumulation") and the distal-tip receptor location; both rise or fall with their parents.

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2. Reference-by-reference teaching map

The gap in the art as cited: no reference on the face discloses or explicitly suggests deliberately making the anchor asymmetric or the electrode areas unequal for the purpose of exposing low-order bending modes. That gap is exactly why the examiner allowed the case. A § 103 challenger must therefore bridge it with (a) a reference not on the face, or (b) KSR-style rational reasoning.

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3. Obviousness grounds

Ground A — Claim 1 (asymmetric anchor)

Drexel '553 + Drexel '709 + Seiko Epson '083 (optionally + Amano '823)

• '553 discloses every element except the asymmetric anchor: a PZT cantilever, electrically self-sensed bending modes without external oscillation instrumentation, and the disclosed mechanism that constrained longitudinal deformation induces bending.
• '709 supplies the immobilized receptor and the analyte-binding use.
• '083 (and/or '823) supplies the recognition that clamp/anchor boundary geometry determines cantilever vibratory mode behavior — a matter of ordinary cantilever mechanics.

Motivation / rationale (KSR):

1. Known problem, known solution direction. '553 achieves bending-mode induction by bonding a non-piezoelectric glass layer — which adds parasitic mass that directly degrades mass-change sensitivity (this is the patent's own stated motivation). A POSITA optimizing a mass sensor has an express design incentive to remove parasitic mass from the resonating beam.
2. Substitution of a known mechanism. Once the glass layer is removed, longitudinal deformation again becomes unconstrained, and the only way to restore differential longitudinal deformation in a single-material PZT beam is via asymmetric boundary conditions at the anchor — precisely the function the glass layer had been serving. "The substitution of one known element for another to obtain its anticipated advantage" is a textbook KSR rationale.
3. Predictable result. Under KSR, "a patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known." But where the modification is the mere adjustment of a known working parameter (clamp depth) in a known device to achieve a known result (induced bending), the variation is obvious per se. Seiko Epson '083 teaches that clamp geometry controls mode response.
4. Design choice. Unequal embedding of the two faces of a clamped beam is a routine mechanical expedient (e.g., partial potting), squarely within "obvious design choice" (MPEP 2144.04).

Strength assessment: moderate. The structural modification is mechanically trivial; the vulnerability is the absence of any express art teaching that asymmetric anchoring produces an electrically measurable mode (as opposed to merely altering mode shapes). An accused infringer must rely on inherency/mechanism reasoning, which invites a hindsight challenge.

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Ground B — Claim 1 (alternative)

Drexel '553 + Drexel '645 + Georgia Tech '196 + Drexel '709

• '645 documents base-clamped piezoelectric cantilevers in which the electrical signal is coupled to beam bending, providing the beam-mechanics/electric-output linkage.
• '196 teaches that a designer deliberately co-designs electrode/geometry with the desired electrical transduction — supplying the "modify the structure to get the electrical response you want" motivation.
• '709 supplies the receptor.

Motivation: combining cantilever boundary-condition engineering ('645/'196) with the self-sensing architecture of '553, to obtain a sensor retaining '553's label-free electrical readout while shedding its parasitic mass. This is a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" scenario per KSR.

Strength: weaker than Ground A — '645/'196 are more remote from the anchor-asymmetry concept.

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Ground C — Claim 5 (asymmetric electrode)

Drexel '553 + Georgia Tech '196 + Amano '823

This is the strongest § 103 ground, because the asymmetry is purely electrical/geometric and directly analogous to well-known electrode-patterning practice.

• '553 supplies: PZT cantilever, self-exciting/self-sensing electrical readout, analyte-sensing format.
• '196 supplies: piezoelectric cantilever sensors in which electrode configuration is deliberately varied to shape the electrical output; teaches the general principle that where you place electrode area on a piezoelectric beam changes the transduced signal.
• Amano '823 supplies: a piezoelectric cantilever array in which individual cantilevers are separately addressed — which necessarily requires patterned, non-uniform electrode metallization across a cantilever device, i.e., a well-recognized electrode-patterning toolkit.

Motivation / rationale:

1. Recognized engineering variable. In piezoelectric beam design it is elementary that the charge generated/collected depends on the electrode footprint's overlap with the strain field. Making the two faces' footprints unequal produces a net bending moment (differential longitudinal actuation) — the same basic bimorph/unimorph principle. KSR: the improvement is a "predictable variation[] of prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results."
2. Design choice / optimization. "Obvious to try" the full range of electrode area ratios is the definition of a design choice with predictable results.
3. Express teaching in the art of electrode-segmentation. Amano '823's individually addressed array confirms that asymmetric/patterning electrode layouts were known and available for piezoelectric cantilevers.
4. The "whereby" clause is inherent. Because claim 5's functional language merely recites the result that necessarily follows from unequal electrode areas on a piezoelectric beam, In re Schreiber/In re Best foreclose using the result clause to escape the combination.

Strength assessment: strong. The weakest link is motivation to make the areas unequal on opposite faces of the same cantilever (rather than simply to pattern electrodes generally) — but the bending-moment rationale plus '553's express disclosure that differential longitudinal deformation induces bending closes that gap.

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Ground D — Claim 5 (alternative)

Drexel '553 + Amano '823 + Drexel '709
As in Ground C, but with '823 carrying the electrode-patterning teaching alone and '709 supplying the receptor. Requires less from Georgia Tech '196 but leans harder on the "electrode-area asymmetry → differential deformation" inference, which '553 itself makes explicit (differential longitudinal deformation ⇒ bending modes).

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Ground E — Combined ground covering both independents

Drexel '553 + Drexel '709 + Seiko Epson '083 + Georgia Tech '196 + Amano '823
A single five-reference combination in which:

• '553 = PZT self-sensing cantilever + bending-mode mechanism + no external instrumentation;
• '709 = immobilized receptor / analyte binding;
• '083 = anchor/clamp geometry governs mode response (claim 1);
• '196 + '823 = electrode configuration is a free, known design variable (claim 5).

This is the combination a petitioner would likely plead in the alternative, with the caveat that a five-reference combination invites an impermissible-hindsight attack under In re Van Lint and KSR's caution against "obvious to try" reasoning that "identif[ies] the invention as such first and then flesh[es] out the remainder."

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Dependent claims

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4. The counter-case (reasons the claims may survive § 103)

An obviousness conclusion is not compelled; the following are the applicant/patentee's strong rebuttals, and they are why the examiner allowed the case over these very references:

1. Teaching away / contrary direction in the art. '553 teaches that bending-mode induction is achieved by bonding a non-piezoelectric layer. A POSITA reading '553 is told the second layer is the mechanism; it does not suggest that boundary-condition asymmetry at the clamp can substitute for it. Whether this rises to teaching away is arguable — In re Gurley holds that mere disclosure of a preferred embodiment is not teaching away — but it supplies a non-obviousness narrative.

2. Unexpected results / secondary considerations. The record supports objective evidence:

   • A symmetrically anchored PZT cantilever exhibits no electrically measurable resonance (phase angle ≈ −90°, pure capacitor) even though FEM predicts bending modes at 5.98/37.25/103.29 kHz. The transition from zero measurable signal to a robust, picogram-level measurable signal is a qualitative, not incremental, change.
   • Electrode asymmetry raised Q by 33 ± 13% (n = 9) and improved SNR ~5× — a result not predictable from a bare "unequal areas" teaching.
   • Sensitivity reached 828 fg/Hz — bettered comparable PZT-glass and PZT-stainless-steel composite cantilevers, i.e., superior to the very prior-art architecture.
     A challenger must show nexus between these results and the claimed asymmetric anchor/electrode — the patent does not present a direct, head-to-head comparison against a symmetric-anchored PZT-only control, so nexus is contestable, but the data are the patentee's best defense.

3. Hindsight risk in the grounds. Grounds A and B require assuming the answer (asymmetric anchoring unlocks electrically measurable modes) and then searching for a motivation to clamp one face deeper. KSR permits such reasoning only where the variation is "predictable"; here the prior art affirmatively observed that the obvious, symmetric configuration produced no measurable mode. That asymmetry of information cuts for the patentee.

4. The § 103(c) shelter on '687. Drexel '687 is available only under § 102(e); as commonly-owned Drexel subject matter it is excludable under pre-AIA § 103(c). Remove it from Grounds B/D and those grounds weaken.

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5. Bottom line

Net: On the art cited on the face of US 10,139,270, the asymmetric-electrode claim (5) is substantially more vulnerable to a § 103 attack than the asymmetric-anchor claim (1), because electrode patterning/segmentation is a well-populated design space (Amano's addressed array, Georgia Tech's transduction-geometry teaching) whose electrical consequences are predictable, whereas the electrical observability of an asymmetrically anchored PZT-only cantilever was, on this record, newly discovered. A challenger would likely lead with claim 5 and with dependent claims 2/3/6/7, and would need either an off-face reference expressly teaching asymmetric clamping or a robust KSR "design choice/predictable variation" showing to take down claim 1.

Caveats stated plainly: (i) I worked from the bibliographic record and titles on the patent's face, not the full texts of the seven cited references — every teaching attribution should be verified against the actual documents before being asserted. (ii) I could not confirm the exact publication date of Sharma et al. (2011); as listed it is the inventors' own post-priority disclosure and is not prior art, but that conclusion is date-sensitive. (iii) This is a validity-risk assessment, not a legal opinion, and no litigation/PTAB challenge involving this patent was identified in the materials provided.