US 10288497

I'll verify the patent record against authoritative sources before summarizing.

Now let me check for any litigation or CAFC docket activity concerning this patent.

Verification note on scope

I ran targeted searches for the literal string 10288497 (and the formatted form "10,288,497"). Results returned the patent itself plus its pre‑grant publication US 20160341609A1 (same application, pre‑grant) and its sibling/CIP US 10,288,572 B2. I did not locate any Federal Circuit (CAFC) docket entry, district court case, or PTAB proceeding naming US 10,288,497. I could not query PACER/CAFC's docket system directly, so treat the "no litigation found" conclusion as no evidence located rather than an affirmative clearance — see the uncertainty section at the end.

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Bibliographic record

Priority chain (as stated in the patent): the application claims priority to provisional 62/200,535 (filed Aug. 3, 2015) and is a continuation‑in‑part of 14/539,241 (filed Nov. 12, 2014, issued as US 9,739,670 B2, "Adaptive Heat Flow Calorimeter"), which claims priority to provisional 62/035,738 (filed Aug. 11, 2014). The 2014‑08‑11 priority date in the record flows from that earliest provisional. A later CIP, 15/669,522, issued as US 10,288,572 B2.

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Abstract (verbatim)

Apparatus and methods are provided for providing flexible and repairable testing capabilities, including destructive testing, for systems that generate or absorb heat such as energy storage systems. One embodiment can include a temperature bath structure adapted to contain and maintain a fluid bath at a predetermined temperature, an outer containment structure adapted to insert into the temperature bath structure, heat sinks, thermal sensor assemblies, and an internal containment structure where the thermal sensor assemblies, heat sinks removeably attach to different sections of the inner containment structure so as to measure heat flow into or out of the inner containment structure's different sections, and a test cell enclosure which is adapted to contain forces and output from destructive testing of samples. Embodiments of the invention enable rapid insertion/removal of samples as well as replacement of sections of the system including thermal sensor assemblies as well as enabling separate thermal measurements associated with different sections of a sample under test.

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What the patent is actually about (one paragraph)

This is a Navy heat‑flow ("isothermal") calorimeter that has been re‑engineered so it can also survive and instrument a destructive event (overcharge, venting, burn, detonation) inside a sealed pressure vessel. A fluid bath holds a constant temperature; a fluid‑tight outer containment structure sits in the bath; inside it are removable heat sinks, thermopile‑based thermal sensor assemblies (one per face), and a segmented inner containment structure whose walls are thermally isolated from one another by gaskets/barriers. A sealed test cell enclosure (the "bomb") holds the sample, and its lid carries pressure‑sealed feedthroughs for instrumentation wires, a pressure sensor, thermocouples, an electrical source wire for deliberate overcharge, and an exhaust port. Because each wall's thermal path is isolated, the system can report heat flow per face rather than only a lumped total; because the assemblies are bolted together with non‑thermally‑conductive fasteners and quick‑disconnect wiring, individual thermopiles can be swapped out rather than scrapping a large sub‑assembly.

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Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — the apparatus

A testing system combining five cooperating structures:

1. Temperature bath — a calibration bath containing a thermally conductive fluid that can absorb or donate heat.
2. Outer containment structure — fits inside the bath and sits immersed in the fluid; made of heat‑conductive material; has side/top/bottom sections with at least one removable for access; keeps the fluid out of its interior.
3. Heat sinks — each heat sink's first side faces the outer containment structure and is thermally coupled along paths that run out laterally (orthogonally) from a vertical axis through the structure's center, passing through thermally conductive bolts and finally through the outer containment structure. Each heat sink is thermally isolated from neighboring heat sinks that lie on a different lateral axis.
4. Thermal sensor assemblies — each removably coupled to the second side of a heat sink and physically separated from the others; each is a sandwich of two heat‑sink wall sections thermally separated by a bank of thermopiles so heat must pass through the thermopiles.
5. Inner containment structure — removably receives a test cell enclosure (which receives the sample). The sensor assemblies clamp to its outer faces. Its wall sections are separated from one another by thermal isolation barriers and are bolted together with thermally non‑conductive fasteners (e.g., non‑conductive screws driven through a wall's face, through the barrier, into an adjacent wall's edge). Each sensor assembly's plates match the length/width of the wall face they contact.

The claim then specifies the test cell enclosure: a body plus a lid rated to contain pressure up to a first force; lid apertures fitted with interface structures including a pressure sensor and pressure‑sealing wiring feedthroughs that let instrumentation wires pass into the enclosure. Inside are thermocouples — some physically coupled to the sample at multiple locations, and at least one spaced apart from but not touching the sample (ambient temperature). The interface structures also include an exhaust port to selectively release pressure accumulated after a destructive test event, and one instrumentation wire is an electrical source wire to drive current into the sample for destructive testing.

Net effect: the claim ties the per‑face heat‑flow measurement architecture to a pressure‑containing instrumented test cell that can be deliberately abused.

Claim 9 — method of repair

A method built on a system having: a temperature bath housing; an outer containment structure immersed in the bath through an aperture with an outer cover; an internal containment structure formed as a thermal sensor assembly enclosure whose walls are each a layered stack — a thermal sensor assembly with two thermally conductive sheets on opposite sides of one or more thermal sensors, an outer heat sink against one sheet, an inner heat sink against the other sheet, and removable non‑thermally‑conductive coupling structures holding the stack together (not protruding out the opposite sides); walls thermally isolated from each other so each sensor assembly can separately measure heat flow into/out of that section; and a test cell enclosure sized to fit the internal containment structure and contain destructive‑test forces/output.

The method: (a) determine that a thermal sensor in a first wall needs replacement; (b) remove the cover; (c) remove the inner containment structure through the aperture; (d) remove coupling structures from the first wall and detach its outer heat sink; (e) swap in a replacement thermal sensor assembly containing at least one new thermal sensor; (f) place the first wall (with the replacement assembly) back against its former inner heat sink; (g) place the former outer heat sink back against the replacement assembly; (h) reinsert the coupling structures; (i) reinsert the inner containment structure into the outer containment structure; (j) replace the outer cover.

Net effect: field‑level module replacement of a sensor wall instead of scrapping the assembly — the core "repairability" theme of the specification.

Claim 14 — system with measurement electronics

Same hardware stack as claim 9 (bath housing, immersed outer containment structure through an aperture with outer cover, layered‑wall internal containment structure with inner/outer heat sinks and non‑thermally‑conductive coupling structures, walls thermally isolated from each other), plus:

• a measuring system that reads the outputs of each thermal sensor and computes a thermal data value for the thermal energy passing through each thermally isolated wall; and
• a test cell enclosure sized to fit the internal containment structure and adapted to contain forces and output from destructive testing of samples.

Net effect: the claim is drafted at the system level around per‑wall independent measurement plus destructive‑test containment, without claim 1's detailed lid/aperture/thermocouple/exhaust‑port recitations.

Dependent claims in brief: 2–3 add bath stirring/pumping and a heater‑in‑bottom‑plate/cooler‑at‑top control scheme; 4–5 require the thermopiles be thermally parallel but electrically series‑connected and that each face report separately; 6–8 add non‑heat‑conductive bolts/couplers and a non‑thermally‑conductive spacer that forces heat through the thermopiles only. Claims 10–13 add post‑repair testing, an eye bolt for lifting the inner containment structure, thermopile sensors, and separate per‑side signal busses. Claims 15–17 mirror eye bolt, thermopile, and separate signal busses for the claim‑14 system.

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Uncertainty and caveats

• Docket/ litigation search is negative but not authoritative. My searches surfaced no CAFC appeal, district court complaint, ITC action, or PTAB IPR/PGR naming US 10,288,497. Given it is a U.S. Government (Navy) patent with a stated licensing program (Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane), that is unsurprising — but I did not query PACER, the CAFC docket, or USPTO PTAB APIs directly, so I cannot rule out an unfiled/unindexed or recently‑filed proceeding.
• Expiration date conflict. The record fetched here states "Active, expires 2035‑02‑28" and an adjusted expiration consistent with that; a third‑party aggregator (patents‑review.com) lists a different adjusted expiration (2036‑11‑18). I have not reconciled these, and neither is a legal conclusion. The controlling term depends on the priority/CIP analysis under 35 U.S.C. §§ 120/154.
• Similar‑number confusion risk. Search results also surface US 10,288,572 B2 (a different patent — the later CIP, longer title beginning "…highly portable and ease of access…") and US 9,739,670 B2 (the parent "Adaptive Heat Flow Calorimeter"). These are related but are not US 10,288,497 and their claims, abstract, and figures differ materially. The sibling's issued‑PDF OCR renders the second inventor's surname as "Ubellor"; the record I am working from renders it "Ubelhor." I have used the form from the authoritative text provided.
• Inventor ordering. US 10,288,497 as fetched lists Ubelhor, Ellison, Pierce; the sibling US 10,288,572 lists Ellison, Ubelhor, Pierce. Ordering is not substantive here.
• Claim construction. The plain‑language claim summaries above are descriptive paraphrases, not legal claim constructions or infringement analyses. Claim 1 in particular contains several strings of relative terms ("substantially of the same length and width," "up to a first force") whose scope would require prosecution‑history analysis.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 10288497 across litigation-tracking sources.

Initial searches found no litigation. Let me check litigation-specific databases directly.

Let me check a few more specialized sources, including PTAB and docket databases.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497

Bottom line

I found no evidence of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497 ("the '497 patent"). Based on the sources searched, there are no known district court cases, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeals, PTAB proceedings, or ITC investigations in which the '497 patent was asserted as a patent-in-suit, challenged, or otherwise placed at issue.

Patent identity (verified, parsed literally)

• Patent number: US 10,288,497 B2
• Title: "Apparatus for destructive event testing of chemical energy systems using adaptive heat flow testing systems and related methods"
• Application no.: 15/226,604; filed 2016-08-02
• Publication: US 2016/0341609 A1 (2016-11-24)
• Grant date: 2019-05-14
• Inventors: Ryan Ubelhor; Daniel Ellison; Cecilia Pierce
• Assignee: United States of America (US Department of Navy), Navy Case 200,266
• Priority: 2014-08-11 (via parent US 14/539,241 → US 9,739,670; and provisional 62/200,535 filed 2015-08-03)
• Family/related: Continuation-in-part of US 14/539,241 ("Adaptive heat flow calorimeter," US 9,739,670 B2); child CIP US 15/669,522 (US 10,288,572 B2)
• Status: Active; adjusted expiration 2035-02-28
• Classification: G01K 19/00; G01K 17/00; G01N 25/20, 25/22, 25/28, 25/30, 25/32 (calorimetry)

Searches performed and results

No case with a plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome exists in the retrieved record — because no such case was found.

Important caveats (please read before relying on this)

1. This is a negative finding, not a certification of non-existence. The searches above were general web searches, not a direct, complete query of a paywalled/full-access litigation database (Unified Patents' litigation portal, Lex Machina, Docket Navigator, full PACER, or Westlaw/Lexis). I was unable to directly render the Unified Patents case-list page or run exhaustive PACER/CAFC docket searches within this session.

2. Plausibility factors support the "no litigation" conclusion. The patent is:

   • Government-owned (U.S. Navy / Department of Navy), which makes it unlikely to be asserted offensively by a private patent holder; and
   • A narrow instrumentation/calorimetry patent (Art Unit covering measuring/testing), a technology area with little observable NPE assert activity.

3. "Sibling" citations are not litigation. My results repeatedly surfaced citing references — e.g., NASA's US 11,201,358 B1 and US 12,253,484 B1 (battery thermal-runaway calorimeters) listed as "Families Citing this family" — and the related family patents US 9,739,670 and US 10,288,572. These are citations/related applications, not lawsuits, and should not be reported as litigation.

Recommended next steps to confirm

To convert this negative finding into a definitive clearance, I recommend directly querying (which I could not fully access here):

• Unified Patents Litigation Portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search exact patent number 10288497)
• USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) — https://developer.uspto.gov / PTAB API, for any IPR/PGR
• PACER (Case Locator, nationwide) and the CAFC docket, for "10,288,497"
• USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records for the '497 patent, to check for any assignment or security-interest events (I did not observe any)

If you can confirm access, I'm glad to run these targeted queries and expand the report with any case-level detail. As of this date, on the record available to me, no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497 is known.

I'll verify the structured data against live sources before writing up.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks to be thorough.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings naming US Patent 10288497, and my independent web searches (PTAB P-TACTS dockets, Docket Alarm PTAB records, CourtListener, CAFC opinions) surfaced no petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision challenging this patent — breakdown: 0 active / 0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. The defensive posture this creates is unusual and worth stating precisely: the patent is not "hardened" — it is untested. All 17 claims stand exactly as issued on 2019-05-14, but no petitioner has ever put them in front of the Board, so there is no PTAB precedent on their scope, no estoppel, and no claim-construction record. For a defendant, this is the rare case where the IPR path is entirely open — no § 315(e) estoppel, no prior Board credibility findings against you, and no Patent Owner bill of costs from a prior defense.

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Proceedings on file

None. There is no proceeding to analyze at claim-level granularity, no judge panel, no FWD, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal, because no AIA trial was ever instituted.

Per the task constraints, I will not manufacture proceeding numbers. The canonical structured list is empty, and the web searches corroborate it. Two notes on what I did find, so you can distinguish signal from noise:

• The search hits referencing "IPR2014-00982," "IPR2017-00587," "IPR2022-00601," "IPR2024-01134," etc. are unrelated proceedings involving unrelated patents (Netlist, CPCPatent, Optronic Sciences, etc.). None names 10288497 or its inventors (Ubelhor, Ellison, Pierce).
• Google Patents' "Families Citing this family" lists two NASA follow-on patents (US11201358B1, US12253484B1) on battery thermal-runaway calorimetry. Those are citations, not challenges — prior art of interest, not PTAB activity.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — all UNTESTED. Claims 1–8 are apparatus claims to the testing system (bath, outer containment, heat sinks, thermal sensor assemblies with thermopiles, inner containment with thermal isolation barriers, and the sealed test cell enclosure with pressure sensor, sealing wiring interfaces, exhaust port, thermocouples, and an electrical source wire for destructive testing). Claim 9 is a method-of-repair claim; claims 10–13 depend from it. Claim 14 is a second independent system claim; claims 15–17 depend from it. Not one of claims 1–17 has been canceled, narrowed, or even construed by the Board. Treat every claim as fully live. If you have received a demand letter citing claim 1's sealed-cell-enclosure limitations (the pressure sensor + sealing wiring interface + exhaust port + electrical source wire combination), there is no PTAB ruling to point to as a knockout — you would be the first petitioner.

Estoppel landscape. Because there have been no IPRs, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone. Any defendant is free to raise § 102/§ 103 grounds via IPR on any of claims 1–17, and is equally free to raise § 112 and § 101 grounds in district court (those are unavailable in IPR but fully available in litigation; PGR on § 112/§ 101 is time-barred here since the patent issued 2019-05-14, more than nine months ago). The prior art searched and the claim charts are yours to build from scratch — a clean slate, which is both an opportunity and a cost.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern, and that is itself the diagnostic fact. No serial petitioner. No Unified Patents or other defensive aggregator in the chain. No Patent Owner-side Director Review or CAFC appeal activity — unsurprising, since the Navy has never had a Board loss to appeal. The reason for this quiet posture is structural: the assignee is the United States Government (Department of the Navy, Navy Case 200,266), with a stated licensing posture via NSWC Crane's Technology Transfer Office (Cran_CTO@navy.mil). Government-owned patents are typically licensed, not asserted in troll-style campaigns, and the patent is directed to test equipment for battery thermal-runaway characterization — a laboratory instrument, not a consumer product. That does not mean you can ignore it, but it does explain the empty docket and predicts that any future IPR is likely to arise from a supplier dispute in the battery-test-equipment or battery-manufacturing space rather than from a mass-assertion campaign.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to anyone that this patent is invalidated or narrowed. It is not. Any statement that claims have been canceled would be false and potentially sanctionable. The correct framing for a client is: "No PTAB challenge has ever been filed against US10288497. Its 17 claims are intact and untested. We would be the first petitioner, which means no estoppel and no adverse precedent, but also no free roadmap."

2. If you are a defendant considering IPR, you are inside the one-year § 315(b) window only if you were served more than a year ago — confirm your service date immediately. There is no Fintiv-style discretionary-denial exposure from a parallel IPR, but a co-pending district court case with an imminent trial date is still a live § 314(a) discretionary consideration under current Director practice. Coordinate the petition timing with the litigation schedule.

3. The most promising invalidity targets. The claim set is dense and narrow — claim 1 alone recites the combination of (a) a sealed pressure-containment test cell enclosure, (b) a pressure sensor and sealing wiring interfaces through the lid, (c) an exhaust port to release post-event pressure, (d) a floating thermocouple not touching the sample plus sample-coupled thermocouples, and (e) an electrical source wire for destructive testing — layered onto the calorimeter architecture of the parent patent (US9739670, "Adaptive Heat Flow Calorimeter"). Expect the Patent Owner to rely on the combination for validity. The best § 103 story is likely to pair standard sealed-vessel / closed-bomb battery-abuse-test hardware (the kind used in UN 38.3 and DOE abuse-testing literature) with a conventional heat-flow calorimeter having per-face thermopile channels.

4. Related-family exposure. Verify whether your product or process implicates the parent US9739670 (Adaptive Heat Flow Calorimeter, priority 2014-08-11) and the continuation-in-part US10288572 (priority 2017-08-04) as well. A challenge limited to 10288497 leaves those siblings untouched, and the parent/sibling claims may be broader or differently scoped. Any freedom-to-operate or invalidity analysis should cover the whole family.

5. Where to monitor. If a petition is filed, it will appear in PTAB P-TACTS / the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E system (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and on Docket Alarm's PTAB tracker within days of the filing-date-accorded notice. I recommend a standing watch on the patent number, since the ODP ingest lag means a new petition may not appear in structured data for several weeks.

Bottom line: no PTAB activity on file for US10288497 — the absence is real, not a data gap, and it reflects a government-owned laboratory-instrument patent that has never been challenged. All 17 claims are live and untested; your invalidity options are wide open and unencumbered by estoppel.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,288,497 on the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources.

Let me look for the specific assignment record and inventor/assignee details.

Let me try to surface the specific recorded assignment (reel/frame) and any legal-events record.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497

Verification note (read first): I was unable to render a specific reel/frame entry from USPTO Assignment Center for this patent within this session. The Google Patents record provided as the authoritative source lists only the application filing event ("filed by US Department of Navy") and the pre-existing external-priority link to US 14/539,241; it does not surface a recorded post-issuance assignment event. Accordingly, the "Assignment timeline" section below states plainly what is and is not on the record, rather than inventing reel/frame numbers. Any reel/frame below would need to be confirmed at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ by searching patent number 10288497 (or application 15/226,604).

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Inventors

Pattern note: No unusual pattern. All three inventors are (or were) serving NSWC Crane personnel working in the same calorimetry group, consistent with the patent's statement that the invention "was made in the performance of official duties by employees of the Department of the Navy." There is no evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing — the opposite is observed (continuing joint publications through 2023).

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy (Department of the Navy). Navy Case No. 200,266, NSWC Crane.
• Primary line of business: U.S. federal government defense laboratory; NSWC Crane is a Navy warfare center performing R&D and test/evaluation, including battery and energetic-materials calorimetry.
• Product embodying the claims: The patent describes an in-house laboratory instrument ("adaptive heat flow calorimeter" with a sealed test-cell enclosure). It is a government research/testing apparatus, not a commercial product. The Navy states in the specification that the invention "is available for licensing for commercial purposes" via the NSWC Crane Technology Transfer Office — i.e., the government owns it and solicits licensees, rather than selling a product.
• Current status: Operating (a standing federal agency). Not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Patent status per the record: Active, adjusted expiration 2035-02-28.

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Assignment timeline

Plain statement: No post-issuance assignment, security agreement, merger, change-of-name, or license recording for U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497 was retrievable in this session, and none is reflected in the authoritative Google Patents record supplied. What is evidenced is the original, inherent government ownership: the application was filed 2016-08-02 by the U.S. Department of the Navy, and the specification carries the standard government-interest statement (federal employees; invented in performance of official duties; Navy Case 200,266).

What can be stated about the chain, without fabricating reel/frame numbers:

• 2015-08-03 — Provisional application 62/200,535 ("Apparatus for destructive event testing of chemical energy systems using adaptive heat flow testing systems and related methods") filed; the priority document.
• 2016-08-02 — Non-provisional 15/226,604 filed by the U.S. Department of the Navy; a continuation-in-part of US 14/539,241, which issued as US 9,739,670 B2 ("Adaptive heat flow calorimeter").
• 2016-11-24 — Published as US 2016/0341609 A1.
• 2019-05-14 — Issued as US 10,288,497 B2; assignee on the face: United States of America / Secretary of the Navy.
• Correspondent of record (related Crane cases): the Navy's in-house patent operation — "CRANE NAVAL SURFACE WARFARE CENTER, OFFICE OF COUNSEL," Crane, IN. This is a government patent office, not an outside law firm and not a repeat-player NPE recording firm. (A sibling Navy case from the same office was recorded via the Office of Counsel, Chief of Naval Research — see legacy reel 018461/0783 for an unrelated Navy patent, illustrating the in-house recording pattern.)

If a reel/frame does exist for the inventor→Navy assignment, it will almost certainly be a single "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" instrument naming the inventors Ubelhor, Ellison, and Pierce as assignors and "The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy" as assignee, executed on or about the 2016 filing date. I could not confirm a specific reel/frame and do not report one.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10288497
    2014 : Parent case filed by US Navy
    2015 : Provisional 62 200 535 filed
    2016 : Non-provisional 15 226 604 filed by US Navy
         : Published as US 2016 0341609 A1
    2019 : Patent US 10288497 issued to US Navy
    2035 : Adjusted expiration date

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Net: 0 of 8 NPE signals present.

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Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting.

The '497 patent has been owned continuously by The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy since filing (2016-08-02) — an operating federal agency, not a shell LLC or known asserter — and no post-issuance assignment, license, security agreement, or transfer appears on the authoritative record. Because the only evidenced transfer is the original inventor→Government chain, there are zero NPE-pattern signals; the Navy's documented posture (in the specification itself) is licensing for commercial use through NSWC Crane's Technology Transfer Office rather than assertion against competitors.

Definitional caveat: the "Defensive / non-asserting" category is worded around defensive aggregators (RPX/AST/etc.); here the non-assertion arises from government ownership, not from a defensive aggregator, and the alternative "Insufficient data (only the original assignment)" equally describes the sparse record. Either way, the evidence rules out NPE status with high confidence.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 10288497 / application 15/226,604). If that search returns only the original inventor→Secretary of the Navy assignment (or none, per the E.O. 10096 government-employee convention), the "defensive / non-asserting" verdict is confirmed.

I'll research prior art citations for US Patent 10,288,497, focusing on patent references cited against it.

Let me access the specific patent's citation data from USPTO and patent databases.

Let me try to retrieve the patent's citation tables directly from patent databases.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497 ("the '497 patent")

Bottom line (read this first)

I was unable to retrieve the actual "(56) References Cited" list that appears on the face of U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497. The authoritative full text supplied for this analysis (the Google Patents page for US10288497B2) does not contain a References Cited / Patent Citations table, and my searches of the patent number, application number (15/226,604), and publication number (US 2016/0341609 A1) did not surface that table either.

Because the operating rules require me to interpret identifiers literally and to not fabricate citations, I will not invent a list of "cited references" and attribute it to the '497 patent. Instead, I separate below:

• (A) what is definitively on the record in the supplied authoritative text;
• (B) citation-graph relationships I could partially verify (with explicit confidence levels); and
• (C) the technically closest analog art in the field, clearly labeled as not confirmed to be cited on the '497 patent.

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1. Verified patent identity and the claims that drive the prior-art analysis

Everything in this section is taken literally from the supplied authoritative text.

Independent claims: claim 1 (testing system), claim 9 (method of repair), claim 14 (testing system). Claims 2–8 depend from claim 1; claims 10–13 depend from claim 9; claims 15–17 depend from claim 14. There are 17 claims total.

The features that carry the patentable weight — and therefore the features any § 102 reference must disclose — are the combination of:

1. A temperature bath + outer containment structure (fluid-tight), with removable sections (claim 1);
2. Removable, per-wall thermal sensor assemblies, each comprising two heat-sink wall sections separated by thermopiles (claims 1, 4, 5, 7);
3. Thermal isolation barriers between every wall section, coupled with thermally non-conductive fasteners (claim 1);
4. An inner containment structure that removably receives a test cell enclosure (the "closed bomb": lid + body that contains pressure "up to a first force," lid apertures, sealing interface structures, a pressure sensor, instrumentation wires including an electrical source wire, one or more thermocouples spaced apart from the sample, and an exhaust port to release pressure after a destructive event) — claim 1.

Feature (4) is the distinctive "destructive event testing" overlay. To anticipate claim 1, a single reference would need to teach all of features (1)–(4) in one disclosure, which is a demanding standard.

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2. What is definitively on the record (verified)

These items are stated in the authoritative text and are not § 102 prior-art "references" in the examiner-citation sense, but they are the only citation-adjacent material I can confirm:

(a) Related / parent / child applications (family, not prior art):

• Parent US 14/539,241 → US 9,739,670 B2, "Adaptive heat flow calorimeter" (CIP parent). URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9739670B2](/patent/US9739670B2)/en
• Child CIP US 15/669,522 → US 10,288,572 B2
• Provisionals 62/035,738 (2014-08-11) and 62/200,535 (2015-08-03)

Note: Family members sharing a specification are not "prior art" to the '497 patent in the § 102 sense unless separately published earlier. US 9,739,670 shares the same priority and is the direct parent under a CIP — it cannot be § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art against the '497 claims to the extent priority is supported, and would instead raise a § 102(b)/§ 103-type "sibling" concern only for subject matter not carried over.

(b) The only prior-art methodology named in the specification: the Accelerating Rate Calorimeter (ARC) method, described generically (an oven enclosure with stepped temperature increases until thermal runaway). No patent number, author, or publication is cited for ARC. This is a naked characterization, not a citable reference.

(c) "Families Citing this family" (third-party, later-dated):

• US 11,201,358 B1 (published 2021-12-14; priority 2018-05-08), NASA — "Systems and methods for measuring a heat response of a battery cell in thermal runaway."
• US 12,253,484 B1 (published 2025-03-18; priority 2018-10-30), NASA — "Large format-fractional thermal runaway calorimeter."

These are later in time than the '497 priority date, so they are not § 102 prior art. They are citing references only.

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3. Citation-graph relationships I could partially verify (with explicit confidence levels)

While searching, I encountered a Google Patents "Cited By (9)" table on the page for US 2016/0025661 A1, "Flow-measuring differential calorimeter" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160025661A1/en). That table lists, among the documents citing US 2016/0025661 A1:

• US 2016/0041045 A1 — "Adaptive heat flow calorimeter"
• US 2016/0341609 A1 — this is the publication of the '497 application
• US 9,739,670 B2 — "Adaptive heat flow calorimeter"
• US 2017/0299447 A1; US 2018/0143149 A1; US 10,001,417 B2
• CN 109655174 A

Inference (flagged): If the Google Patents citation graph is accurate, then US 2016/0025661 A1 ("Flow-measuring differential calorimeter") was cited by the '497 application and is therefore a plausible face-of-patent reference. Publication date ~2016-01-28, i.e., before the '497 filing date — so potentially § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(a)(1) art.

Confidence: moderate, not high. I could not open the '497 "References Cited" table itself, and a "Cited By" edge in a third-party graph is a weaker source than the patent face. Treat this as a lead to verify against the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper, not as confirmed.

I also found, on the page for US 9,476,780 B2 ("Calorimeters for testing energy storage systems and power electronics…"), a References Cited list — including US 3,718,437 (Isothermal calorimeter), US 4,208,907 (Accelerating rate calorimeter, Dow), US 4,511,263 (Bomb-type conduction calorimeter), US 4,923,306 (Stable isothermal calorimeter), US 5,186,540 (Power measurement calorimeter), US 5,779,362, US 2002/0098592 A1 (infrared calorimetric measurements), US 2006/0251145 A1 / US 7,481,575 B2 (Leco calorimeter), US 2008/0247441 A1 (Low-cost multimode calorimeter), among others. Important caveat: that list belongs to US 9,476,780 B2, a different patent — it is not the '497 citation list, and I am not asserting any of these were cited against the '497 patent. They are useful only as evidence of the field's art.

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4. Most relevant prior art, by technology and claim mapping

The references below are the closest analog art in the field as evidenced by the record above and the '497 specification's own framing. They are not confirmed as cited on the '497 patent; I label each with what I know.

4.1 Sealed-vessel / "closed bomb" destructive testing art

• US 4,511,263 A — "Bomb-type conduction calorimeter" (Prosen; published 1985-04-16). A bomb-type (sealed) conduction calorimeter measuring heat evolved in a sealed reaction vessel. Relevance: structurally closest to the '497 "test cell enclosure" (sealed body + lid) combined with heat-flow detection. Under § 102, a bomb calorimeter anticipates the concept of sealed-vessel calorimetry but would not anticipate claim 1, because the '497 claim requires the integrated reconfigurable multi-wall thermopile architecture plus the specific lid interface structures (pressure transducer, sealing wiring interfaces, spaced-apart thermocouple, exhaust port, source wire) — a bomb-type conduction calorimeter does not disclose per-wall isolated thermopile pathways or the removable modular sensor assemblies. Best characterized as § 102 art against the broadest "sealed vessel + calorimetry" concept only, and more realistically as § 103 background.

4.2 Isothermal / heat-flow calorimetry with thermopiles

• US 3,718,437 A — "Isothermal calorimeter" (Paloniemi; 1973-02-27) and US 4,923,306 A — "Stable isothermal calorimeter" (Westinghouse; 1990-05-08). Relevance: anticipate the general concept of maintaining an isothermal sample environment while measuring heat flow — the premise of '497 claim 1's temperature-bath aspect. Neither discloses the per-wall isolated thermopile sensor assemblies or the destructive-event test cell of claim 1.
• US 5,186,540 A — "Power measurement calorimeter" (Raytheon; 1993-02-16) and US 5,779,362 A (Lightfoot; 1998-07-14). Relevance: heat-flow/thermal-power measurement against a controlled sink — background for the heat-sink + thermopile pathway of claim 1.

4.3 Multi-cell / multi-holder calorimeters with heat-sensor modules

• US 2010/0303124 A1 — "Top loaded twin cell calorimeter system with removable reference" (Burnell et al.). This one is notable because it discloses a calorimeter with heat sensing modules containing heat sensors (Peltier/thermoelectric modules using the Seebeck effect), supports that transfer heat, and a removable sample/reference loaded along a longitudinal axis. Relevance: this is the closest analog art I actually retrieved for the "thermoelectric-module heat-sensor module" limitation of '497 claims 1/4/5. It does not disclose multiple thermally isolated wall sections of an inner containment structure each with its own thermopile assembly, nor the destructive-event test cell. Possible § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art against claims 4–5 and 7 (thermopile heat-sensing pathways) taken alone, and § 103 material against claim 1 in combination.

4.4 Gas/thermal-measurement instrumentation generically

• US 2002/0098592 A1 — "Apparatus and methods for infrared calorimetric measurements" (Flir Systems Boston). Relevance: parallel heat-flow measurement across many channels; background for the "separate measurement per surface" concept (claims 4–5, 13, 17).

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5. § 102 claim mapping summary (with the required caveat)

Bottom line on § 102: On the art I could actually retrieve and read about, no single reference anticipates independent claim 1, 9, or 14 in full. Each analog reference supplies at most one or two of the four claim-1 pillars (isothermal bath, per-wall thermopile modules, thermal isolation barriers, sealed destructive-test cell with lid interfaces). The '497 patent's likely novelty/validity is anchored in the combination of a closed-bomb test cell with a multi-wall, thermally-isolated, individually-measured thermopile calorimeter — which no retrieved single reference discloses.

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6. Honest limitations and recommended verification steps

1. I could not obtain the '497 face-of-patent citation list. To do this reliably, query the USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search file wrapper for application 15/226,604 and the PTAB/assignment records, or open the "References Cited" table directly at https://patents.google.com/patent/US10288497B2/en (which my fetches returned without that table). Until then, no list of "cited references" for the '497 patent should be treated as complete or authoritative.
2. Sections 4–5 are field-landscape prior art, not a certified examiner citation list. I have deliberately not presented them as "the references cited on the '497 patent."
3. Numbers were interpreted literally. I did not auto-correct any identifier (e.g., I kept US 2016/0025661 A1 and US 9,476,780 B2 distinct from the '497 family, and noted the US 2016/0341609 A1 / US 10,288,497 B2 equivalence only where the record states it).
4. Because the parent is a CIP, the effective § 102 date for any given claim turns on which '497 subject matter is supported in 14/539,241/62/035,738 versus newly added in the 2016 filing — particularly the test cell enclosure / closed-bomb features (FIGS. 18–25), which appear to be the CIP-added matter and therefore likely governed by the 2015-08-03 provisional and 2016-08-02 filing dates rather than 2014-08-11. This should be confirmed before applying any reference's date.

If you can provide (or grant access to) the USPTO file-wrapper "References Cited" / PTO-892 forms for application 15/226,604, I will map each cited reference to specific claims under § 102(a), (b), (a)(2), and § 103 with element-by-element comparisons.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior-art record. Let me pull the cited references and related family members first.

Let me pull the patent's own citation list and the closest field art on sealed-cell calorimetry.

Strong leads. Let me verify the NREL reference and find sealed-abuse-cell art with feedthroughs.

Obviousness Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — U.S. Patent No. 10,288,497 B2

Building on the claim summaries, bibliographic record, and litigation/PTAB sections already generated. This section adds the § 103 merits analysis and does not repeat those sections.

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0. Scope note — what "the Prior Art section of this page" actually gave me

I have to flag a limitation up front, because it materially affects how you should use this memo.

The authoritative text supplied for US10288497 ends its citation listings at "Cita …" — i.e., the Google Patents "Citations" / "References Cited" / "Cited By" tables were truncated in the fetched record. What survived intact is only:

• "Families Citing this family (2)" — US 11,201,358 B1 and US 12,253,484 B1 (both NASA).

That means I cannot enumerate the examiner-cited references of record, and I will not invent them. Instead, this analysis is built on (a) the two citing documents that are present, and (b) the closest prior art I was able to independently identify and verify in the field through search. Where I could not verify a reference's disclosure, I say so rather than characterize it.

Corollary that matters for strategy: the patent's own parent, US 9,739,670 / US 2016/0041045 A1 ("Adaptive Heat Flow Calorimeter"), is the single best prior-art-quality disclosure of the claim-1 calorimeter architecture — and it is very likely disqualified as prior art (§ 102(b)(1)(A) and/or § 102(b)(2)(C); see § 10 below). Any § 103 attack must therefore be reconstructed from third-party art. The pivot reference is the NREL/Alliance for Sustainable Energy patent family.

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1. The prior-art record actually available

Flagged — NOT prior art (do not cite as § 102/§ 103 art):

• US 11,201,358 B1 (NASA, filed 2018-05-08) and US 12,253,484 B1 (NASA, filed 2018-10-30) — the two "Families Citing this family" entries. Both were effectively filed after the '497 filing date, so they are not §§ 102/103 art; they are citations of '497. They are useful only as (i) evidence of the field's trajectory, and (ii) potential Patent-Owner evidence of recognition/industry uptake.
• US 10,288,572 B2 ('497's own CIP) and US 9,739,670 B2 (parent) — same-family, same owner. Not art.
• US 11,841,279 / US 2021/0156750 A1 (Isothermal calorimeter, filed 2020-11-04) — post-dates the critical date. The search surfaced it because it cites the NREL work; it cannot be art against '497. Note the direction of citation: it is downstream, not upstream.

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2. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA at the critical date would be a person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical, chemical, or electrical engineering (or physics) and 2–4 years' experience in calorimeter/thermal-instrumentation design, or a master's degree with ~1–2 years, plus familiarity with battery thermal-safety test practice. That person would be expected to know: Seebeck-effect thermopiles and heat-flux gauges; the design of isothermal oil baths and their PID-controlled heating/cooling/mixing loops; the necessity of thermally isolating parallel measurement channels to avoid cross-talk; the use of low-conductivity (e.g., PEEK/ceramic) hardware to avoid thermal short-circuits around a flux sensor; and — critically — the long-standing practice of enclosing a battery under abuse test in a sealed, instrumented pressure vessel.

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3. Critical date (per-claim)

Google Patents lists the prior-art date as 2014-08-11. But the claim set is not uniform:

• Claims 1–8, 14–17 recite the sealed test cell enclosure (pressure sensor, sealing feedthroughs, exhaust port, thermocouples, electrical source wire). That subject matter is new matter relative to the 2014-08-11 parent and is first supported by provisional 62/200,535 (filed 2015-08-03). Best-case effective filing date for these claims: 2015-08-03.
• Claims 9–13 (repair method) overlap heavily with the parent disclosure; they may reach back to 2014-08-11 for some elements, but the "test cell enclosure sized to fit into said internal containment structure" recitation in claim 9 pulls the same new-matter problem into that claim.

Practical consequence: every reference in § 1 above predates 2015-08-03, so no reference in my set is date-fragile. Even if the Patent Owner successfully argued a 2014-08-11 date, PA-1 (2014-01-02), PA-3 (2010), PA-4 (1967), PA-6 (2014-01-30) and PA-8 all still qualify. That is a deliberately defensive construction of the art set — I recommend a challenger verify the 2015-08-03 support in provisional 62/200,535 as an early workstream, because the only art that becomes unavailable under the earlier date is art published between 2014-08-11 and 2015-08-03, and PA-1/PA-6 sit just outside that window.

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4. Ground 1 — Claim 1 is obvious

4.1 Primary combination

PA-1 (NREL '780/'460) in view of PA-8 (instrumented sealed battery-abuse pressure vessel), further in view of PA-4/PA-6/PA-3 (thermopile sandwich as a modular per-face flux sensor; removable/top-loaded calorimeter modules) and PA-7 (admitted pressure-sealed feedthrough).

4.2 Element-by-element

4.3 Motivation to combine (KSR/WSGR rationales)

1. PA-1 itself supplies the design imperative. PA-1's burst disk addresses, verbatim, "over-pressure caused… by a battery explosion," and its snorkel exists to protect the chamber "in the event of thermal runaway of a test sample." Once the apparatus is expressly engineered to survive a runaway, instrumenting that event (pressure transducer, event thermocouples, a driven overcharge line) is the predictable next step, not an inventive leap.
2. A closed environment invites instrumentation. A sealed vessel's only route to event data is through the lid. PA-1 already runs an electrical conductor through the lid into the chamber to power the sample; adding a pressure tap and thermocouple feedthroughs through the same lid uses the same pressure-sealing technology (PA-7) for the same purpose.
3. Regulatory/programmatic pull. UN 38.3 / UL abuse protocols require overcharge-driven events and record pressure and multi-point temperature; a lab needing one instrument that reports both per-face heat flow and event pressure/temperature has an obvious reason to combine the heat-flow architecture of PA-1 with the instrumented-bomb practice of PA-8. The Navy's own stated goal (in the '497 specification) — "combine a robust sample environment of a closed bomb… with a highly sensitive detection capability including heat flow calorimetry" — is a statement of the problem, and under KSR a problem recognized in the art can itself supply the motivation. That sentence is, candidly, the strongest piece of § 103 evidence the Patent Owner has written into its own specification.
4. Predictable results / mere substitution. Substituting an instrumented, sealed pressure vessel for PA-1's simple sealed sample chamber yields nothing more than the expected benefit of each component: tight heat-flow measurement (PA-1) + contained, measured abuse event (PA-8).
5. Interchangeability of the vessel. PA-1 teaches that the sample sits in a chamber sized to the sample; swapping that chamber for a differently-sized sealed cell is an obvious accommodation of a different sample, which is precisely how the '497 specification frames the FIG. 22 aluminum-block embodiment.

4.4 Alternative Ground 1′ (if PA-1 is somehow distinguished on the flux-sensor architecture)

PA-3 (top-loaded, removable-module calorimeter) + PA-4/PA-6 (thermopile flux measurement) as primary, in view of PA-8/PA-7 for the sealed instrumented enclosure, in view of PA-1 for the isothermal-bath + per-wall isolation + burst-relief teaching. This ground is weaker on the "lateral heat-sink axes through thermally conductive bolts" limitation but cleaner on modularity/repair.

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5. Ground 2 — Claims 2–8 are obvious

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6. Ground 3 — Claim 9 (repair method) and claims 10–13 are obvious

The combination: PA-1 (serviceable chamber: removable sealed lid, per-wall flux sensors) + PA-3 (calorimeter expressly designed for top-loading and removal/replacement of sample, reference, and heat-sensing modules; thermally insulating separator between holders) + PA-2 as background for the plate–thermopile–plate module held by non-conductive fasteners, + PA-8/PA-7 for the test cell enclosure.

Element mapping highlights:

• "layered structure [of each wall]: outer heat sink / flux sensor between two conductive sheets / inner heat sink, joined by removable non-thermally-conductive coupling structures that do not extend from opposing sides" → the natural commercial packaging of the plate–thermopile–plate gauge; PA-1's plate-mounted gauges + PA-3's removable sensing module. The "does not extend from opposing sides" limitation is a routine fastener-length choice with an evident benefit (no protrusion into the adjacent structure).
• "walls thermally isolated from each other… so as to enable each assembly to measure heat flow into or out of different sides" → PA-1 (insulative devices 708 between plates; per-wall gauges) + PA-3 (insulating separator).
• Repair sequence (remove cover → withdraw inner structure → detach outer heat sink → swap sensor assembly → re-seat against inner heat sink → re-fit outer heat sink → reinsert couplers → reinsert structure → replace cover) → PA-3's removable-module design makes the disassembly order self-evident; each step is the mechanical inverse of the assembly steps PA-1/PA-3 already disclose.
• Motivation: PA-3's title and stated purpose are literally about removability. Pair that with the undisputed engineering reality that the heat-flux sensor is the highest-failure, highest-cost component in a large calorimeter cell, and there is a strong, articulated reason — service the sensor without scrapping the wall, the heat sinks, or the bath assembly — to arrange the sandwich as a field-replaceable cartridge. Cost-of-repair motivation is a classic KSR rationale and is echoed in the '497 specification's own framing of scale-up failures ("there is a higher level of failures in system components which require new designs to accommodate repairs or maintenance rather than throwing out large sub-assemblies").

Dependent claims 10–13:

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7. Ground 4 — Claim 14 (system) and claims 15–17 are obvious

Claim 14 is the claim-9 hardware stack plus two additions:

1. "a measuring system that measures outputs from each of said thermal sensors and determines a thermal data value associated with thermal energy passing through each thermally isolated said wall" → PA-1: "data cables that provide measurements from the heat flux sensors 110 to an external computer"; separate flux sensors per wall; and per-plate dedicated sensors for the busbars "to separately measure the heat from the busbars… as opposed to the heat from the test sample." Converting a sensor voltage to a heat-flow value via a calibration constant is the definition of calorimetry; PA-1 also teaches resistive calibration heaters 146 for exactly that conversion. Obvious.
2. Test cell enclosure sized to fit and adapted to contain destructive-test forces/output → PA-1 (sealed, burst-disk-protected chamber for a battery that can explode) + PA-8/PA-7.

Claims 15–17 (eye bolt, thermopile, separate signal busses) → identical analysis as claims 11–13.

Note for the challenger: claim 14 drops the lid-aperture/pressure-sensor/thermocouple/exhaust-port recitations of claim 1. That makes claim 14 the broader and therefore more vulnerable independent claim, and it is the one on which I would expect a well-run IPR to focus alongside claim 1. See the earlier PTAB section's point that all claims are untested — claim 14's added scope is an unexploited opening.

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8. Consolidated KSR rationales

1. Combination of known elements, each performing its known function. Isothermal bath (PA-1), thermopile flux sensor (PA-4/PA-6), modular removable calorimeter cartridge (PA-3), sealed instrumented abuse vessel with feedthroughs/relief (PA-8/PA-7). No element changes its function in the combination.
2. The problem was known and expressly stated. PA-1's burst disk exists for battery runaway/explosion; the '497 specification states the problem as combining "closed bomb" containment with heat-flow sensitivity. Under KSR, a problem recognized in the art supplies the motivation.
3. Design incentive from a single primary reference. PA-1 already seals + powers + over-pressure-protects the sample chamber. Adding event instrumentation uses the same lid, the same sealing technology, and the same cables.
4. Predictable result / substitution of a known equivalent. Instrumented sealed vessel for uninstrumented sealed vessel; result is the union of the two known benefits.
5. Design choice among a finite number of identified, predictable solutions. Per-face vs. lumped heat flow; bolted module vs. welded assembly; conductive vs. insulating fastener (claimed both ways); separate per-side busses vs. multiplexed.
6. Market/regulatory pressure. UN 38.3 / UL abuse protocols demand overcharge-driven pressure and multi-point temperature data; a single instrument producing both heat-flow and event data has obvious commercial and programmatic value.
7. Cost-of-repair motivation expressly recited in both PA-3 (removability) and the '497 specification itself (scale-up failures → repair rather than discard sub-assemblies).

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9. Anticipated Patent-Owner rebuttals, and how to meet them

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10. The structural problem with this whole analysis — and it is significant

The best prior art against claim 1 is the patent's own parent, and it is probably not prior art. PA-2 (US 2016/0041045 A1 → US 9,739,670 B2) discloses — with identical figure numbers and element numerals — heat sinks 7/7′, per-face thermopile sensor assemblies 5, heat-sink wall sections 21A/21A′, thermal isolation barriers 17/18, thermally non-conductive bolts 33, spacer 24, separate signal wires 31, quick-disconnect plugs 32, eye bolt 35, and a module-swap repair method. In plain terms, PA-2 discloses every element of claims 9 and 14 and almost every element of claim 1 except the sealed test cell enclosure.

But:

• § 102(b)(2)(C) excepts a commonly-owned § 102(a)(2) disclosure. Both the parent and '497 are owned by the U.S. Navy. PA-2's effective filing (2014-08-11) is before '497's, so PA-2 is § 102(a)(2) art unless the common-ownership exception applies — and it does.
• If '497's claim 1 does not get the 2015-08-03 provisional date, then PA-2's 2016-02-11 publication is § 102(a)(1) art — but § 102(b)(1)(A) excepts a disclosure made by the inventors themselves within one year. Ubelhor/Ellison/Pierce are common inventors across the family.

Net: PA-2 is almost certainly unavailable, and '497's novelty over its own family rests entirely on the test-cell-enclosure limitations. That is a narrow but real distinction, and it is exactly why the claim-1 attack must be built from PA-1 + PA-8 rather than from the patent's own lineage. Any challenger who builds a petition around the parent patent will be met with the common-ownership/inventor-disclosure exceptions and will lose.

Additional flags on the claims themselves, which bear on § 103 posture:

• Internal tension in claim 1 vs. claim 6. Claim 1 requires the heat-sink-to-outer-containment thermal path to include "thermally conductive bolts"; claim 6 then adds "non-heat conductive bolts or couplers" attaching the sensor assembly to the inner containment structure. Read literally, the claim set requires both a thermally conductive bolt path and non-conductive coupling in the same apparatus. That is a conduction-path-by-fastener design choice claimed in both directions, which cuts toward obviousness ("any fastener conductivity works") and simultaneously raises a § 112 clarity question. Worth developing.
• Claim 1's conductive-bolt path appears to bypass the thermopiles, which is the very bypass that claim 7's spacer is designed to prevent. Expect the Patent Owner to argue the bolts are a deliberate parallel heat path for calibration; expect a challenger to argue the two teachings are inconsistent and that the fastener choice is arbitrary — either way, the point is that fastener conductivity is a result-effective variable being claimed as a distinction, which is weak ground for non-obviousness.
• Claim 14 is broader than claim 1 on the enclosure limitations and is the most attackable independent claim; claims 13 and 17 ("separately detecting and recording heat flow through one, some or each said side") are near-functional recitations of a data-routing choice PA-1 already makes.

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11. Weaknesses and residual uncertainty in this analysis

• I could not enumerate the examiner's cited references — the citation tables in the supplied record are truncated. If the examiner cited art that is closer than PA-1, that art is not in this memo. Priority action: pull the full "References Cited" and "Cited By" tables from Patent Center / Global Dossier and re-run the mapping.
• PA-5 is characterized by title and date only. I did not retrieve US 4,208,907, 4,511,263, 4,923,306, 5,186,540, 5,779,362, or 7,481,575. Do not rely on them as disclosure-level art until the specifications are read.
• PA-8 (UN 38.3 / DOE abuse practice) is characterized at the general-practice level. For a petition, paper it with the actual standard text and a DOE/Sandia abuse-test protocol document with verified dates.
• The effective filing date question (§ 3) drives whether marginal art is available. Confirm the 62/200,535 support for the claim-1 enclosure limitations.
• Claim construction of relative terms ("substantially of the same length and width," "up to a first force," "along a plurality of lateral axis") is unsettled; the PTAB section already noted there is no claim-construction record because there has never been an AIA trial. Any § 103 argument on the "lateral axis" and "first force" limitations should be built to hold under both the broadest reasonable interpretation and a Phillips construction.

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12. Bottom line

Claims 1–17 of US 10,288,497 are obvious over:

• PA-1 (US 9,476,780 B2 / US 2014/0003460 A1, NREL) as the primary reference — it alone supplies the isothermal bath, the fluid-immersed sealed chamber with a removable clamped lid, per-wall heat flux sensors with explicit inter-plate thermal isolation, the external power/data cabling into the chamber, calibration heaters, and a burst-disk over-pressure relief path expressly for battery thermal runaway and explosion;
• in view of PA-8 (standardized instrumented battery-abuse pressure-vessel practice) and PA-7 (the applicant's own admitted Conax pressure-sealed power-lead feedthrough) for the pressure sensor, sealing wiring interfaces, event thermocouples (sample-coupled plus a spaced-apart ambient thermocouple), exhaust port, and overcharge drive line;
• further in view of PA-4/PA-6/PA-3 (thermopile heat-flux sandwich; removable/top-loaded calorimeter modules; insulating separators) for the modular per-face sensor architecture and the repair method.

The motivation is supplied directly and independently by (i) PA-1's own design-for-runaway burst disk, (ii) the regulatory/test-protocol demand for both heat-flow and event-pressure/temperature data, (iii) PA-3's express removability objective plus the recognized cost of scrapping large calorimeter sub-assemblies, and (iv) the Navy specification's own statement of the problem to be solved.

The single most important caveat: the strongest-looking reference — the patent's own parent, US 9,739,670 / US 2016/0041045 A1 — is very likely disqualified by § 102(b)(1)(A) / § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership and inventor-disclosure exceptions. The § 103 case must stand on PA-1, which is independently owned (Alliance for Sustainable Energy/NREL) and published 2014-01-02 — comfortably before any plausible critical date for any claim. That is the reference to build the petition on.

Sources cited in this section: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10288497/en (authoritative text) · https://patents.google.com/patent/US9476780B2/en · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0003460.html · https://www.osti.gov/doepatents/biblio/1330320 · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/fe/0c/72/4fe4687090cb3f/US9476780.pdf · https://patents.google.com/patent/US9739670B2/en · https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10001417](/patent/10001417) · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/8a/ae/f0/d766e9b52c20ec/US20100303124A1.pdf · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/43/6c/6c/1e4c5f20dc6df3/US3298790.pdf · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/59/b7/6a/e2696bd56f2c51/WO2014018688A3.pdf · https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10288572B2](/patent/US10288572B2)/en