US 10330607

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number, including any CAFC 2026 activity.

Search results summary — US 10,330,607

Search scope. I searched for the exact string "10330607" / "US10330607" together with CAFC/Federal Circuit and 2026 docket terms. The only substantive hits were the patent's own Google Patents record, its citations/citing documents, and unrelated Altria litigation (the R.J. Reynolds Vapor vape-pen case, the NJOY/ITC actions, and the JUUL antitrust matters). I found no CAFC docket, appeal, or IPR entry that specifically identifies patent 10,330,607 in 2026. If such activity exists, it is not surfaced by the sources I can reach, so I flag that as an uncertainty rather than asserting there is none.

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Patent summary (per the authoritative full text provided)

Abstract. "A process for detecting oil or lubricant contamination in a manufactured product, the process comprising adding a fluorescent taggant to oils or lubricants contained in processing machinery for said product, conveying said product past an infrared detection apparatus, irradiating said product with infrared radiation from said detection apparatus as it passes the detection apparatus, and detecting infrared radiation emitted from said irradiated product."

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Independent claim (plain language)

There is exactly one independent claim — claim 1 (claims 2–16 all depend from it). Note the independent claim is drafted narrowly to tobacco product, not a generic manufactured product:

• Claim 1 — Process for detecting oil/lubricant contamination in a tobacco product. Four steps:
  1. Add a fluorescent taggant to the oils/lubricants used in tobacco processing machinery;
  2. Convey the tobacco product past an infrared detection apparatus;
  3. Irradiate the tobacco product with IR radiation from that apparatus as it passes; and
  4. Detect IR radiation emitted from the irradiated tobacco product.

Dependent claim highlights (for context, not "independent")

• Claim 2/3: taggant is a Stokes-shifting one; absorbs at ~805 nm and emits at ~840 nm.
• Claim 4: product is a paper-wrapped cigarette rod.
• Claim 5: processed tobacco, with the detector upstream of packaging.
• Claim 6/7: taggant is oil-soluble; specifically an Indocyanine Green (ICG) complex.
• Claim 8/9: taggant concentration ~10–100 ppm, typically ~50 ppm.
• Claim 10/11: detection level below ~10 µL, or below ~1 µL.
• Claim 12/14: different fluorescent taggants in different machines, so the emitted signal identifies which machine leaked.
• Claim 13: reject the tobacco product when the taggant is detected.
• Claim 15/16: detection at ≥~2,000 ft/min, or ≥~4,000 ft/min.

Note on the summary section of the specification: the written description recites broader aspects (e.g., a generic "manufactured product" process, a tipping-machine system, and a multi-taggant source-localization process), but the issued claim set covers only the tobacco-product process of claim 1 and its dependents. That broader subject matter appears to have been pursued in the sibling family members (e.g., US 10,209,201; US 9,244,017; US 9,733,197) rather than in this patent's claims.

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Caveats

• Everything above is grounded in the authoritative full text you supplied, which matches the Google Patents record and the sibling patent PDF (US 9,733,197) surfaced in search.
• No CAFC 2026 docket activity for 10,330,607 was located. The 2026 Altria-related litigation hits I retrieved do not name this patent number, and I cannot confirm any appellate proceeding involving it. Treat any assertion of CAFC activity as unverified.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10330607 across patent litigation sources.

Let me search more specifically for litigation records involving this patent number.

Litigation Search: U.S. Patent No. 10,330,607

Bottom line

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,330,607 was found. Based on my searches of patent-litigation sources (Unified Patents litigation portal coverage, Docket Alarm, CourtListener, Federal Circuit and district court dockets surfaced via web search), this specific patent does not appear to have been asserted in any infringement suit — nor does it appear as a counterclaim, declaratory-judgment subject, or IPR/CBM (PTAB) challenge that I could locate.

Patent identification (to confirm the subject)

• U.S. 10,330,607 B2 — "Oil detection process and apparatus"
• Application No. 15/653,377; filed 2017-07-18; granted 2019-06-25
• Assignee: Altria Client Services LLC
• Inventors: Edmond J. Cadieux, Jr.; William James Faenza
• Priority: 2011-05-26; continuation chain back through US 14/994,972 (US 9,733,197), US 13/482,771 (US 9,244,017), and US 13/338,971 (US 9,080,987)
• Subject matter: fluorescent/NIR taggants added to machinery lubricants to detect oil contamination on tobacco products.

Why I found no matching case (and cautions against false matches)

Searching for Altria patent litigation surfaces many cases, but every one I found concerns e-vapor/pod technology patents — not this oil-detection patent. These must not be attributed to the '607 patent. Notably:

• Altria Client Services LLC v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., M.D.N.C. (No. 1:20-cv-00472; filed 2020-05-28) — asserted three Altria pod/e-vapor patents; 2022 jury award of ~$95.2M; Fed. Cir. No. 23-1546 affirmed (decided Dec. 2024). The patents at issue were the "Pod Patents," not the '607 oil-detection patent.
• RAI Strategic Holdings, Inc. et al. v. Altria Client Services LLC et al., E.D. Va. (No. 1:20-cv-00393-LO-TCB) — Reynolds' IQOS-related suit; unrelated to '607.
• NJOY v. JUUL matters (ITC and D. Del., 2023) — asserted U.S. 11,497,864 and 10,334,881, again unrelated.

Note the near-miss number 10,334,881 appears in the NJOY/JUUL ITC complaint. That is a different patent and should not be confused with 10,330,607.

The one post-grant-type signal worth logging

• US 11,262,298 B2 (Caterpillar Inc., "System and method for determining fluid origin") lists US 10,330,607 family members among the art it cites — this is a forward citation, i.e., the '607 patent cited as prior art, not a litigation or PTAB proceeding against '607.

Confidence and limitations

• High confidence that no reported/active litigation naming the '607 patent appeared in the sources my searches reached.
• Caveat: The '607 patent is a Johnson & Johnson–style product-detection patent owned by a single operating company (Altria), which is the profile of a patent that is practiced internally rather than asserted. It is possible but not evidenced that quiet licensing demands or unpublicized settlement correspondence exist, which would not appear in docket databases.
• My automated searches were truncated before I could query PACER, CourtListener, and the Unified Patents caselist directly with the exact string. If an authoritative negative is required, the recommended confirmatory steps are:
  1. CourtListener / RECAP docket search for "10,330,607".
  2. Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation) and PTAB (PTAB E2E, IPR/CBM/PGR) search for the patent number.
  3. USPTO Patent Center – "Litigation" / assignment view for U.S. 10,330,607 to confirm the current assignee has not transferred the patent (transfer to an NPE is a common precursor to assertion).

Conclusion: On the current record, no known litigation involves U.S. Patent No. 10,330,607. I am stating this as "none found," not as a certified negative, given the search limitations noted above.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10,330,607. The structured PTAB feed (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web searches surfaced nothing further — no petition numbers, no institution decisions, no Final Written Decisions, no terminations, and no Federal Circuit appeals tied to this patent. The breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Defensive posture for a defendant: the entire claim set — claims 1–16, all of them — is untested before the Board. That is a double-edged signal: no claims are canceled (so a demand letter citing claim 1 is not automatically sanction-bait), but no petitioner has ever gotten the Board to write an opinion on this specification, so there is no PTAB roadmap, no adopted claim construction, and no estoppel record to borrow.

(Caveat on scope: this is a "no activity" finding, not a "no activity possible" finding. The ODP ingest can lag recent filings, and PTAB E2E should be re-queried at filing time for any live matter.)

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No proceedings to itemize

There is no proceeding number to report. I searched for petitions naming this patent directly ("10,330,607" IPR, US 10,330,607 IPR, PTAB E2E), for prosecution/validity challenges naming the patent owner (Altria Client Services LLC) in combination with this patent's subject matter ("oil detection," taggant, lubricant contamination), and for third-party challengers such as Unified Patents. Nothing names US 10,330,607.

What I did find, and why it is not an IPR on this patent — do not conflate these:

• R.J. Reynolds v. Altria (e-vapor IPRs, 2021). Altria's own litigation notice in Altria Client Services LLC v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., No. 1:20-cv-00472 (M.D.N.C.) reports that Reynolds filed IPRs on all nine asserted patents and that the PTAB denied seven and instituted two. The petitions identified as denied on the merits were IPR2021-00744 through IPR2021-00747, directed to U.S. Patent Nos. 10,299,517; 10,485,269; 10,492,541; and 10,588,357. (Notice of Subsequent Decisions, CourtListener) Those are Altria e-vapor device patents, not the oil-detection patent. None of the nine is US 10,330,607.
• Altria's own litigation posture. The same 2022–2023 M.D.N.C. action produced a $95M jury award for ALCS and a 5.25% ongoing royalty against Reynolds, and a parallel ALJ/ITC track. This tells you Altria is a willing and well-funded enforcer — relevant to how a defendant should expect a demand to be handled — but it is litigation, not an AIA trial, and it is not about this patent. (Altria 2023 Annual Report)

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all 16 claims of US 10,330,607 are UNTESTED. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been confirmed. Claims 1–3 (the core add-taggant → irradiate → detect IR emission method, with the 805 nm / 840 nm Stokes-shift limitation), claims 4–5 (cigarette rod and upstream-of-packaging limitations), claims 6–7 (oil-soluble taggant / ICG complex), claims 8–11 (10–100 ppm, ~50 ppm, <10 µL, <1 µL detection thresholds), claims 12 and 14 (different taggants in different machinery, emission identifying the leaking machine), and claims 13, 15–16 (rejection; ≥2,000 / ≥4,000 fpm detection speeds) are all as-issued. Note the family context: this patent is a continuation in a chain including US 9,080,987, US 9,244,017, US 9,733,197, US 10,209,201, US 10,900,897, US 9,546,966, and US 11,555,790, all sharing the 2011-05-26 priority date. A validity attack aimed only at 10,330,607 leaves the siblings standing; any real clearance or invalidity analysis has to treat the family as a block.

Estoppel landscape: nothing to inherit, and nothing to hand the patent owner. Because no IPR was ever instituted on this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a blank slate — there is no petitioner, no privy, and no instituted ground that could have been run in district court. Practically, that is favorable: a defendant today can raise any § 102/§ 103 ground it can support with patents and printed publications, without worrying about stepping into a predecessor's estoppel shoes. There is also no adverse final written decision for Altria to brandish under § 315(e) or as collateral estoppel. The corollary is that Altria has no PTAB win to point to either — a favorable fact if you are considering an IPR, because you will not be fighting an institution decision that already rejected a challenger's theory.

Pattern signals: none on this patent. No serial petitioner, no repeat filer, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or similar) in the chain for US 10,330,607. Altria does not appear to be a serial PTAB appellant on this patent line — the aggressive PTAB activity in the Altria universe is on the e-vapor side (where Reynolds ran nine petitions in 2021 and where ALCS/NJOY have pursued ITC and district court actions through 2025–2026), not the oil-detection/taggant side. The oil-detection family looks like what it is: an internal quality-control technology that Altria has largely kept in-house rather than a licensing or assertion asset.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not rely on an invalidating FWD — there isn't one. If you are a defendant and your counsel has floated "there's probably an IPR we can piggyback on," there is not. Verify once more against PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions page at the moment you build the invalidity case, but plan on a clean-slate challenge.

2. Assume full 16-claim scope is live. Nothing in the record narrows claims 1–16. Any non-infringement or invalidity position must be built from the intrinsic record of this patent and its family — and remember the family shares a 2011-05-26 priority date, so § 102/§ 103 art must predate that (subject to the actual priority chain, which includes provisional 61/490,403 and Ser. No. 13/338,971).

3. No estoppel, no discretionary-denial history — but weigh Fintiv/Vidal-era factors. With no prior petition, you face no § 325(d) "same art already before the Office" problem and no follow-on discretionary denial from a prior PTAB record. However, the 2025–2026 institution framework (parallel-litigation stipulation requirements, "settled expectations" and compelling-merits factors) still applies. If your client has been sued, note the § 315(b) one-year bar: the clock runs from service of the complaint, and a missed deadline permanently forecloses IPR on this patent.

4. If no PTAB activity, say so plainly in your memo — the absence is itself a signal. Well-asserted commercial patents in active campaigns tend to attract IPRs (cf. the nine Reynolds petitions against Altria's e-vapor line). The fact that none exists here suggests this patent has not yet been asserted broadly, or that any disputes have resolved pre-petition. Treat it as an opportunity to be the first challenger — first-mover advantage at the Board is real, and there is no FWD establishing a claim construction you would have to litigate against.

Caveat on sourcing: I found no proceeding numbers to fabricate and have reported none. Every statement above about PTAB activity on US 10,330,607 is a negative finding from the canonical ODP list plus my searches; the Reynolds/Altria IPR numbers I quote are real but belong to different patents, and I have flagged that explicitly rather than attaching them to this patent.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,330,607, focusing on the recorded assignment to Altria Client Services LLC and any further transfers.

I attempted direct retrieval from the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referenced the patent front page and Google Patents legal-events table. A note up front: my web tooling was capped mid-research, so I could not pull the exact reel/frame or the recorded correspondent from Assignment Center for this patent. I am reporting what the authoritative record I do have supports and flagging the gaps explicitly rather than inventing reel numbers.

Inventors

Pattern note. This is an external-collaborator inventorship structure, not an all-in-house one: Altria's scientist (Cadieux) paired with the supplier's principal (Faenza). That is the opposite of the "inventors departing pre-fire-sale" tell — here the pair is stable, and the same two names recur across the whole family (US 9,244,017, US 9,733,197, US 10,209,201, US 10,330,607). No evidence of either inventor exiting within 12 months of filing.

Caveat: One aggregator site (patentleaderboard.com) labels "William J. Faenza, Jr." under "American Express," which conflicts with every primary record (the patent front page, the EPO/AT and OEPM registers, and the specification all tie Faenza to Andreas, PA / Persis Science). I treat the "American Express" label as a data artifact of that third-party site, not a finding.

Original assignee

Altria Client Services LLC (Richmond, VA) — named as both the "(71) Applicant" and the "(73) Assignee" on the face of US 10,330,607, and the current assignee per Google Patents.

• Primary line of business: the services/IP subsidiary of Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE: MO), the parent of Philip Morris USA. Altria Client Services holds and manages Altria's brand, R&D, and patent assets.
• Product practice: Altria is a large operating tobacco company; the claimed process (tagged-lubricant, NIR fluorescence detection of oil contamination on tobacco/cigarettes) is an in-house manufacturing QC process that Altria practices on its own cigarette and smokeless production lines. So the assignee both makes the products referenced in the claims and practices the claimed inspection step internally.
• Status: operating, solvency intact. Altria Group is a publicly traded, active Virginia corporation (VA entity ID 02675999; latest annual report signed 08/13/2020, status "Active"). No bankruptcy, no dissolution.

Assignment timeline

Only one conveyance appears in the record — the original chain-of-title assignment from the inventors to Altria. Google Patents' legal-events table records:

• Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2018-05-11 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved; see caveat)
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)."
  • Assignor: FAENZA, WILLIAM JAMES; CADIEUX, EDMOND J., JR.
  • Assignee: ALTRIA CLIENT SERVICES LLC (Richmond, VA)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — Assignment Center was not reachable with my remaining search budget. (On the sibling/registered member US 10,900,897 the firm of record is Harness, Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C.; I do not assert that firm is the correspondent on this reel without confirmation.)
  • Context: Original inventor-to-assignee chain-of-title assignment confirming Altria's ownership of application 15/653,377. It was recorded ~10 months after the 2017-07-18 filing, which is a routinized late-recordation of the standard employment/obligation-to-assign paperwork — not a transfer between unrelated parties.

No other assignments are recorded. There is no post-issuance transfer, no security agreement, no merger, no change of name, and no license record for US 10,330,607. Related life-cycle events (per Google Patents): application filed 2017-07-18; patent issued 2019-06-25; status Active; anticipated expiration 2031-12-28 (20 years from the earliest non-provisional parent, US 13/338,971, filed 2011-12-28).

If the Assignment Center shows no additional entries beyond the one above for this patent number, that is itself the finding: the original assignee (Altria) still owns the patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10330607
    2011 : Priority provisional filed
    2017 : Continuation application filed
    2018 : Inventors assign to Altria Client Services
    2019 : Patent issued
    2031 : Anticipated expiration

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the narrow menu sense of "no records, or only the original assignment." Concretely: the only recorded conveyance is the inventor→Altria Client Services LLC assignment recorded 2018-05-11 (reel/frame not retrieved), and no post-issuance transfer exists.

Substantively, none of the eight NPE signals is present. The owner is a large operating company that develops this technology in-house, practices the claimed process on its own production lines, and has not divorced the patent from its operating business. The "could be a shell" concern is affirmatively negatived here: the assignee's principal office is Altria's Richmond headquarters, not a registered-agent address, and the same entity appears as applicant, assignee, and current owner on the face of the patent. If your taxonomy distinguishes "operating-company owned, not asserted," that is the accurate characterization; on the menu provided, the honest label is insufficient data because the record contains only the original assignment.

Note on the prior section. This is consistent with the earlier summary: the earlier analysis flagged that no CAFC-2026 docket activity for 10,330,607 could be located, and the ownership record confirms why — the patent sits quietly with Altria and has never been transferred or asserted. No contradiction between the two sections.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center search page — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 10330607). I recommend confirming the reel/frame and, especially, the correspondent of record directly there, since I could not retrieve them and do not want to guess them.

I'll start by pulling the authoritative prior-art citation record for this exact patent, then research the most relevant cited references.

Let me retrieve the full citation list for this exact patent and research the most material references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,330,607 B2

1. Scope, source, and a critical caveat about the citation list

Patent confirmed (exact number, literal): US 10,330,607 B2, "Oil detection process and apparatus," Altria Client Services LLC, appl. 15/653,377, filed 2017-07-18, issued 2019-06-25, priority 2011-05-26. Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10330607/en — this matches the authoritative text supplied, so no auto-correction was needed.

Caveat on the citation set. The authoritative record lists 174 cited references ("Citations (174)"), but the text supplied to me truncates the list at US 2007/0084269 A1 (Quest). The tail of the list (references numbered roughly 130–174) is not present in my source text, and I was unable to retrieve the complete enumerated list in the searches I ran. The Justia record (https://patents.justia.com/patent/10330607) supplies the foreign-document portion and the non-patent literature, which I incorporate below. Where I rely on Justia or Google Patents for a date or description, I say so. I have not individually opened the full text of every one of the 174 references; references I could not inspect directly are marked [text not independently verified].

A structural point that governs the whole §102 analysis: Claim 1 is the only independent claim, and claims 2–16 all depend from it. Every dependent claim therefore incorporates each and every limitation of claim 1. There is no claim stand the cited art can knock out by matching only a dependent-claim feature (e.g., "rejecting the product" or "different taggants in different machines") because the full claim-1 combination must be present in a single reference for §102 anticipation of any claim in the set.

Claim 1 requires, in combination:

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2. How to read the "§102" column

I apply §102 strictly: a reference anticipates only if it discloses all limitations (a)–(d) as arranged. Because the claim set is narrow (tobacco-specific, taggant-in-lubricant, IR excitation → IR emission), almost none of the cited art can anticipate any claim outright. Most references are §103 (obviousness) material, or art that anticipates only a component concept that the inventors did not claim in isolation. I say so explicitly rather than over-reading each reference.

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3. Tier 1 — Most material references (closest to the claimed combination)

3.1 US 5,807,605 A — Becton Dickinson and Company

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 5,807,605, "Lubricant soluble fluorescent agent and method for its use in a system for detection of lubricant coatings," inventors Williamitis et al.; assignee Becton Dickinson and Company.
• Dates: filed 1996-02-27; published/granted 1998-09-15.
• Description (verified): A fluorescent agent is dissolved into a lubricant (polydimethylsiloxane), the lubricated surface is irradiated with electromagnetic radiation "capable of inducing a fluorescent emission," and the fluorescent emission is detected to determine lubricant coverage — explicitly on an assembly line at production rate (Figs. 1–3, "may be easily incorporated into an assembly line"). Detector tuned to ~450–520 nm.
• §102 mapping: This is the single closest teaching of "add fluorescent taggant to a lubricant → irradiate → detect the emission → do it in-line." But it does not anticipate claim 1 because (i) the substrate is a medical device, not a tobacco product; and (ii) it uses UV excitation / visible emission, not IR-to-IR. Anticipates: none of claims 1–16 as written. Strong §103 reference against claims 1, 6 (oil-lubricant-soluble taggant), and 13 (in-line accept/reject).
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5807605A](/patent/US5807605A)/en

3.2 US 2005/0241989 A1 — Shell Oil Company (Shell Internationale Research)

• Full citation: U.S. Published Application 2005/0241989 A1, "System for identifying the lubricating oil in a machine"; EP counterpart EP 1,549,943 A2 / WO 2004/031332 A2.
• Dates: priority 2002-10-01; PCT filed 2003-10-01; published 2005-11-03. Status: abandoned.
• Description (verified): A lubricating oil that carries "passive markers" detected in situ by a detector in the machine, so the machine can identify the oil; markers are odourants/RFID/magnetic/biomagnetic micro- and molecular tags; contemplates multiple markers and an electronic control unit responding to detection.
• §102 mapping: Discloses (a) marking a lubricant for detection, and the concept of multiple markers. It does not disclose a fluorescent IR taggant, tobacco product, or IR emission detection, and the detection is of the oil in the sump/filter, not contamination of a product stream. Anticipates: none. Relevant §103 to claims 1 and 12/14 (multi-taggant discrimination).
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050241989A1/en

3.3 JP 3907042 B2 / EP 1,188,385 / US 6,614,531 / US 7,227,148 — Japan Tobacco Inc. (Sato et al.)

• Full citation: Japanese Patent 3907042 B2, "Contaminant detection apparatus in raw material and detection method thereof" (原料中の夾雑物検出装置およびその検出方法), Japan Tobacco Inc. English-language counterparts: EP 1,188,385 A1 and US 6,614,531 B2 / US 7,227,148 B2 ("Apparatus for detecting impurities in material…").
• Dates: JP 3907042 filed 1999-06-08, registered/issued 2007-04-18; US 6,614,531 published 2003-09-02; US 7,227,148 2007-05-22.
• Description (verified from the JP B2 claims and the EP/US text): An IR (or laser) light source irradiates tobacco-leaf material on a conveyor, reflected IR is received at specific wavelength components (1,200 nm, 1,700 nm, 1,940 nm), reflection intensities are compared against reference values, and a decision circuit detects/identifies impurities in the tobacco stream (optionally with a rotating polygon mirror and IR camera).
• §102 mapping: This is the closest tobacco + IR/on-line detection art. It discloses conveying tobacco past an IR apparatus, irradiating with IR, and detecting IR (by reflectance) from the tobacco — i.e., limitations (b), (c), and a form of (d). It does not disclose a fluorescent taggant added to lubricants (limitation (a)) and it detects reflected, not emitted, radiation. Anticipates: none of claims 1–16 as a whole. Highly material §103 art for the general "IR inspection of tobacco on a conveyor" element of claim 1 and for claim 13's accept/reject environment.
• URLs: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5f/5f/41/c7a5f7afe7586b/JP3907042B2.pdf ; http://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/patents/EP1188385NWA1/document.html

3.4 US 5,804,447 A and US 5,998,211 A — BASF AG

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 5,804,447 (and sibling 5,998,211), "Use of compounds which absorb and/or fluoresce in the IR region as markers for liquids," BASF.
• Dates: filed 1992-07-23; granted 1998-09-08 (and 1999-12-07).
• Description (from citation record): IR-absorbing/IR-fluorescing compounds used as markers in liquids (fuels/oils).
• §102 mapping: Directly on point for "fluorescent IR taggant dissolved in a liquid/oil" (limitation (a), and claim 6/7 concepts of an oil-soluble IR fluorophore). Does not disclose tobacco-processing machinery, conveying tobacco, or product-stream IR emission detection. Anticipates: none. Core §103 art for the taggant chemistry element.

3.5 US 5,525,516 A — Eastman Chemical Company and US 5,714,046 A — Amoco Corp.

• Full citation: US 5,525,516, "Method for tagging petroleum products," Eastman Chemical (filed 1994-09-30; granted 1996-06-11); US 5,714,046, "Tagging hydrocarbons for subsequent identification," Amoco (filed 1994-11-04; granted 1998-01-20).
• Description: Adding taggant/marker substances to hydrocarbons and later detecting them for identification.
• §102 mapping: Establish the well-known practice of tagging oils for later optical/spectroscopic identification (supports limitation (a) conceptually). Anticipates: none (no tobacco, no fluorescence-IR product-stream detection of a contaminant). §103 background for the taggant-adding step.

3.6 WO 1991/017265 A1 and EP 0657028 A1 — James Howard Slater

• Full citations: WO 1991/017265 A1, "An ultrasensitive microtrace procedure for monitoring the origin, movement and fate of any liquid or solid material" (filed 1990-05-04; published 1991-11-14); EP 0657028 A1, "A method of marking a liquid" (filed 1992-08-26; published 1995-06-14).
• Description: Microtrace marking of liquids/solids to trace their origin and movement — i.e., source attribution via tags.
• §102 mapping: Directly relevant to the concept behind claims 12/14 (different taggants → identify the leaking machine). Does not disclose tobacco, IR fluorescence, or on-line product detection. Anticipates: none. §103 material for the multi-taggant/source-localization aspect.

3.7 JP H09-309845 A — Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.

• Full citation: Japanese Published Application H09-309845, "Near-infrared fluorescent tracer and fluorescent imaging" (近赤外蛍光トレーサおよび蛍光イメージング).
• Dates: filed 1996-05-21; published 1997-12-02.
• Description (from citation record; title and abstract level only) [text not independently verified]: An NIR fluorescent tracer with fluorescent imaging.
• §102 mapping: Title-level relevance to an NIR fluorescent tracer (claim 2/3/7 concepts). Insufficient verified disclosure to assert anticipation. Flagged as a reference the examiner considered and worth full-text review.

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4. Tier 2 — Substantively relevant art (component-level / §103)

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5. Tier 3 — Background / field art (low §102/§103 weight)

These are cited but are general background — security taggants/inks, general sorting, packaging, and identification systems. None is closer than Tier 1–2:

US 3,085,581; US 3,800,727; US 3,985,581; US RE29,298; US 4,175,996; US 4,480,702; US 4,854,865; US 4,971,077; US 5,048,543; JP H04-00473; US 5,134,291; US 5,265,732; JP H06-066728 (Philip Morris, optical inspection of cylindrical surfaces); US 5,554,480; WO 1998/000243 (Zellweger Luwa, fibre-flow foreign-body recognition); US 5,764,874; JP H09 / EP 0897762 (AIS Sommer, bulk-material sorting); WO 1999/057417 (Baker Hughes); US 5,990,197 (Eastman, invisible marking ink); US 6,058,940 and US 2004/0134504 (Lane, tobacco toxin assay/removal); US 6,060,677 (Tiedemanns, determination of characteristics of material); US 6,135,386 (Philip Morris, tipping-paper guide); US 6,149,719 (HP, invisible ink); US 6,166,366 (monitoring/controlling coating deposition); WO 2001/025767, US 6,477,227, US 2002/0094058, US 2002/0097833, US 2002/0194052, WO 2002/068945 (Keymaster/Isotag "identification and verification" taggant family); US 2001/0045378; JP 2,505,426 and JP 2,513,155 (Isotag, marking items for identification); US 6,380,547 (Gonzalez, tagging compositions); US 6,444,143 (MIT, water-soluble fluorescent nanocrystals); US 2002/0122878 (Kerns, identification particles/spectral codes); US 2002/0158212 (time-resolved optical spectroscopy); US 6,511,756; US 2003/0034282; US 2003/0097833; US 2003/0129283; US 2003/0141459 (Hegazi, petroleum-oil fluorescence characterization); US 2003/0183326; US 6,734,383 (Barco Elbicon, sorting by emitted light); US 6,771,365 (Uster, foreign matter in fibre assembly); US 6,795,179 (metal scrap sorting); US 6,830,310; US 2005/0029469; US 2005/0031838 (Spectra Systems taggant security); US 2005/0083720; US 2005/0092336; US 2005/0092408 (Lauf, inorganic optical taggant); US 2005/0099475 (edible invisible ink); US 6,905,538 (Pitney Bowes invisible inks); US 6,914,678 (Titech); DE 20320957 U1; US 6,926,764 (Sicpa); US 2005/0236015 (Halliburton, drill-cutting deoiling); US 2005/0276906 (Metzger, taggant verification); US 2006/0016735 (Satake, pellet separator); US 2006/0081503 (Wegner, separating particulate matter); US 2006/0118741, US 2006/0131517, US 2006/0131518, US 2007/0023715 (Ross, security markers); US 2006/0186348 (American Dye Source, luminescent tag encoding); US 7,124,944 (Verification Technologies); US 2006/0246020 (topical composition detection); US 2006/0262318 (Northrop Grumman); US 7,142,296 (SRU Biosystems); US 7,153,557 (Arjowiggins, security document with marker); US 2006/0291872 (Ping Mei, anti-counterfeiting for consumables); US 2007/0048761 (Applied DNA Sciences); US 2007/0084269 (Quest, leak detection).

Also cited and worth noting: DE 10 2011 007 666 (Oct 2012); EP 2,715,320 / WO 2012/162701 and JP 2014-512185 / JP 2014-515487 — these are the applicant's own family members of the present patent (EP 2715320 = "Oil detection process and system," Altria; WO 2012/162701), so they are not prior art against the '607 patent and should not be treated as such.

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6. Non-patent literature cited (relevant to claim 7)

• Rodriguez, V.B. et al., "Encapsulation and Stabilization of Indocyanine Green within Poly(Styrene-Alt-Maleic Anhydride) Block-Poly(Styrene) Micelles for Near-Infrared Imaging," Journal of Biomedical Optics, 2008-01-30, vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 014025-1–014025-10. — Directly on point for ICG as an NIR fluorophore (claim 7). §103 relevance to claims 6–7; not §102 (no lubricant/tobacco/contamination context).
• International Search Reports / IPR-P for PCT/US2012/039870, PCT/US2013/043172, PCT/US2014/026556, PCT/US2015/060179 (dated 2013-01-14, 2013-08-06, 2014-08-05, 2016-02-08 respectively) — these are prosecution documents, not prior art.
• Prosecution correspondence for JP 2014-512185, JP 2017-073848, MX/a/2013/013768, CA 2,837,315, and several co-pending U.S. applications — again prosecution files, not prior art.
• (Source for this section: https://patents.justia.com/patent/10330607)

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7. Bottom-line §102 assessment

No single cited reference anticipates claim 1 (or any of claims 2–16, which incorporate claim 1). The reason is structural: claim 1 requires the conjunction of (i) a fluorescent taggant in tobacco-processing-machinery lubricant, (ii) conveying a tobacco product past an IR detector, (iii) IR irradiation, and (iv) detection of IR emission. The cited art divides cleanly into:

• art that marks lubricants/oils for detection but not on a tobacco product and not by IR fluorescence (US 5,807,605; US 2005/0241989; US 5,525,516; US 5,714,046);
• art that IR-inspects tobacco on a conveyor but detects reflectance of untagged material (JP 3907042 / US 6,614,531 / US 7,227,148);
• art that provides IR-fluorescent markers in liquids (US 5,804,447 / US 5,998,211); and
• art that detects contaminants/oil on products or webs by non-IR/optical or destructive means (Toray JP S64059095; B&W US 5,462,176; RJR US 5,476,108).

The strongest §103 combinations the examiner would have considered are (Becton Dickinson US 5,807,605 + BASF US 5,804,447 + Japan Tobacco JP 3907042), i.e., "add an IR-fluorescent taggant to a lubricant, and IR-inspect tobacco on a conveyor." That is why the issued claim 1 is narrowed to the specific tobacco + taggant + IR-emission combination rather than the broader "manufactured product" aspect recited in the specification (which was carried in the sibling family members US 10,209,201 / US 9,244,017 / US 9,733,197).

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8. Caveats and verification status

• Truncated citation list (material limitation). My authoritative source enumerated 174 cited documents but the text cuts off at US 2007/0084269 A1. References in the unlisted tail (roughly items 130–174) were not available to me for individual analysis; if an anticipation-grade reference sits there, this report would not capture it. The foreign-document list was recovered from Justia and is included.
• Dates. Dates for the Tier 1/Tier 2 references I retrieved directly (US 5,807,605; US 2005/0241989; JP 3907042 and its EP/US counterparts; the Shell PCT) are verified. Dates for references taken only from the citation listing are the citation-listing dates and were not each re-verified against the front page of the document.
• Text not independently read. References marked [text not independently verified] (notably JP H09-309845) are assessed from title/abstract/citation metadata only; they should be pulled in full before any anticipation call is made.
• No legal conclusion. These are technical §102/§103 observations, not a freedom-to-operate or validity opinion. A definitive anticipation analysis requires full-text review of each reference against each claim limitation.

I'll ground my mapping of the cited prior art before building the combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,330,607 B2

"Oil detection process and apparatus" (Altria Client Services LLC)

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — built on the "Citations (174)" prior-art record reproduced in the patent's Google Patents page

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A. Scope, standard, and a threshold note

Legal framework. Obviousness is assessed under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) — scope/content of the prior art, differences between the prior art and the claims, level of ordinary skill, and secondary considerations — and under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), which holds that (i) a combination of known elements is obvious where each element does no more than it was known to do, (ii) a "mere improvement" in a known technology is obvious, (iii) a finite number of identified, predictable solutions creates a "reasonable expectation of success," and (iv) a design incentive need not be found in the references themselves — it may come from "the background knowledge, creativity, and common sense of the person of ordinary skill." KSR also endorses the "obvious to try" branch where the art supplies a recognized problem with a finite set of predictable solutions.

Effective filing date / prior-art status. The '607 patent issued from App. No. 15/653,377 (filed 2017-07-18) and claims priority to U.S. Provisional 61/490,403 (2011-05-26). Because it was filed after March 16, 2013, AIA § 102 governs; the controlling effective filing date is May 26, 2011. Every reference I rely upon below published well before May 26, 2011, so all of them are "prior art" under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) whether or not the 2011 priority claim survives. That removes the § 102 date dispute as a defense.

Evidentiary caveat (important). Several of the citations in the patent's record I could confirm only at the title/abstract/claim level (I flag these as [title-level] below). My element-mapping for those references rests on their titles/known subject matter and should be verified against full text before being relied upon in a filing. The four references I quote verbatim (US 5,807,605; US 5,804,447; US 5,525,516; US 2005/0241989) I verified from full text.

Specification admissions that materially narrow the gap. The '607 specification itself concedes: (a) "[s]uch materials are well-known in the art as Stokes-shifting materials, and have recently found increasing use in inks for security marking of documents"; (b) the inorganic doped-rare-earth taggant of US 2010/0219377 was already conventional; (c) ICG is "an infrared fluorescing compound currently used in the medical industry"; and (d) chlorophyll/benzindolium dyes "absorb around 670 nm and emit at 713 nm" were known. These are admissions against interest that the general concept (fluorescent taggant + excitation/emission wavelength pair + optical readout) was known art.

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B. The claim to be tested — element decomposition

Claim 1 (the sole independent claim) breaks into four elements:

Nothing in claim 1 requires: a specific dye, a specific wavelength pair, oil-solubility, a concentration, a detection limit, source-localization, rejection, or any throughput. Those live in claims 2–16. That framing matters: claim 1 is a bare "tag the lubricant → shine IR → read the emission" process applied to tobacco.

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C. Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A person having ordinary skill would hold a bachelor's degree in chemistry, chemical engineering, optics, or a related field, with 2–5 years' experience in optical inspection of consumer products or in fluorescent-tracer/dye chemistry, or a master's degree with less experience. Such a person would be familiar with: (i) Stokes-shifting and NIR fluorophores; (ii) on-line optical inspection stations on high-speed cigarette/tobacco lines (the assignee's own field); and (iii) taggant/dye marking of fuels and lubricants.

The '607 patent is not directed to an unpredictable art. It is the intersection of two mature, heavily populated arts: fluorescent-tracer marking of liquids and optical inspection of tobacco/cigarettes.

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D. The prior-art set (all from the patent's own "Citations (174)" record)

The record clusters into three families:

(D-1) Fluorescent/IR taggants dissolved in a lubricant or oil, optically detected.

• US 5,807,605 — Becton Dickinson, Lubricant soluble fluorescent agent and method for its use in a system for detection of lubricant coatings (1998). Verified full text. Teaches "dissolving a fluorescent agent into a polydimethylsiloxane lubricant"; irradiating the surface; "detecting the fluorescent emission"; detector output coupled to "a divertor/sorter 34 to divert devices ... to a reject station 38," or to "an alarm, line shut-down or the like"; and — pivotally — the system "may be easily incorporated into an assembly line." It also teaches the solubility constraint: "the fluorescent agent must have a degree of solubility in [the lubricant]." (US5807605A)
• US 5,804,447 — BASF, Use of compounds which absorb and/or fluoresce in the IR region as markers for liquids (1998), and its sibling US 5,998,211. Verified full text. Claims "[u]se of compounds from the class of the phthalocyanines, naphthalocyanines, nickel dithiolene complexes, aminium compounds of aromatic amines, methine dyes or azulenesquaric acid dyes which have their absorption maximum in the range from 600 to 1,200 nm and/or a fluorescence maximum in the range from 620 to 1,200 nm, as markers for liquids," detected "by means of conventional photometers ... and/or of the fluorescence ... after excitation with a suitable radiation source." (US5804447A) Note that the expressly named "methine dyes" class encompasses the polymethine/cyanine family to which ICG belongs.
• US 5,525,516 — Eastman Chemical, Method for tagging petroleum products (1996). Verified full text. Claim 1: "dissolving at ambient temperature in said hydrocarbon a near infrared fluorophoric compound"; claim 4: "wherein the petroleum hydrocarbon is lubricant oil"; identification by exposing to 670–850 nm radiation; and multiple markers differing by "as little as 20 nm." (US5525516B1)
• US 5,719,046 — Amoco, Tagging hydrocarbons for subsequent identification [title-level].
• US 5,974,860 — Toshiba, Oil detecting system [title-level].
• US 4,858,465 — Rockwell, Water washable contaminant detection and labeling compositions [title-level].
• US 3,417,241 — Davis, Empty bottle inspection ... utilizing both water soluble and oil soluble fluorescent dyes [title-level] — direct teaching that oil-soluble fluorophores are a known, selectable category.
• WO 1991/017265 — Slater, "ultrasensitive microtrace procedure" [title-level].
• WO 1992/007249 — Boston Advanced Technologies, "sensor systems for sensing hydrocarbon-containing fluids based on fluorescence detection" [title-level].
• US 6,529,273 — Accentus, Monitoring oil films [title-level].
• US 6,312,958 — BASF, Method for marking liquids with at least two marker substances ... [title-level].

(D-2) On-line optical / NIR inspection of tobacco and cigarettes.

• US 4,971,077 — R.J. Reynolds, On-line tobacco evaluation system and method (1990) [title-level].
• US 4,845,374 — R.J. Reynolds, detecting the deposition of an adhesive on a travelling web (1989) [title-level].
• US 5,092,349 — R.J. Reynolds, Cigarette quality assurance method (1992) [title-level].
• US 5,476,108 — R.J. Reynolds, detecting foreign matter within a layer of tobacco (1995) [title-level].
• US 5,462,176 — Brown & Williamson, Latex detection system (1995) [title-level] — contamination detection on tobacco by an optical (fluorescence-type) method.
• US 4,445,520 — Philip Morris, Cigarette detection and rejection device (1984) [title-level] — rejection of defective cigarettes on a maker/tipper.
• US 6,384,359 — Philip Morris, Inspection system (2002) [title-level].
• JP 3907042 B2 — Japan Tobacco, Contaminant detection apparatus in raw material and detection method thereof (2007) [title-level]. (Note: the '607 specification's own family counterpart, WO 2013/181286, claims an equivalent "contaminant detection in raw material" concept.)
• US 2005/0029469 — Hauni, detecting foreign bodies within a continuously guided product stream (2005) [title-level].
• JPH 09309845 — Hamamatsu, Near-infrared fluorescent tracer and fluorescent imaging (1997) [title-level] — NIR tracer + imaging, the very "NIR dye in / NIR emission out" paradigm.
• JPH 0666728 — Philip Morris, Device for optically inspecting cylindrical surface (1994) [title-level].

(D-3) Marker identification and high-speed sorting/process control.

• US 2005/0241989 — Shell, System for identifying the lubricating oil in a machine (2005). Verified full text. Teaches "purposively adding identifying markers to a lubricating oil, which markers are capable of detection in situ in a machine," where "a specific lubricating oil ... will have a unique marker added to it" so the system can distinguish which oil is present in which machine; "machine" includes "any mechanical equipment having a lubricating system." (US2005/0241989A1)
• US 5,887,073 — Key Technology, High speed mass flow food sorting apparatus for optically inspecting and sorting (1999) [title-level].
• US 6,734,383 — Barco Elbicon, sorting by emitted light [title-level].
• US 6,809,819 — Monsanto, Methods for determining oil in seeds [title-level].

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E. Ground 1 (primary) — obviousness of claim 1

Combination: US 5,807,605 (Becton Dickinson) + US 5,804,447 (BASF) + US 5,462,176 (Brown & Williamson) [or US 6,384,359 / JP 3907042 B2].

Motivation to combine (explicit and implicit).

1. Common problem, common art. Both BD '605 and the (D-2) references solve "detect a tiny amount of a foreign liquid on a product in a moving line." BD '605's own text states application "to other objects or articles with a lubricant coating" is within its scope and that the system "may be easily incorporated into an assembly line." That is an express invitation to port the technique into other manufacturing environments — including cigarette manufacture.
2. The oil-matrix problem was the known design driver (BASF '447's NIR rationale), so the move to IR excitation/emission is not a new insight but a documented, pre-existing solution to a recognized interference problem.
3. Predictable result. Adding a known fluorophore to a known lubricant, irradiating, and reading the emission is exactly what each reference says it does. There is no unexpected interaction; NIR photons traverse the tobacco rod and the taggant emits as it always does.
4. No field-crossing barrier. Tobacco/cigarette inspection (D-2) and lubricant tagging (D-1) were both established, well-populated arts, so the PHOSITA faced no "unrecognized problem" or "teach-away" hurdle under KSR.

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F. Ground 2 (alternative) — same claims, different primary reference

Combination: US 5,525,516 (Eastman) + JPH 09309845 (Hamamatsu) + US 6,384,359 (Philip Morris) [or JP 3907042 B2].

• Eastman '516 supplies "tag the lubricant oil with a near-infrared fluorophore, excite at 670–850 nm, detect the NIR fluorescence" — i.e., every functional limitation of 1a–1d except the tobacco situs.
• Hamamatsu '845 supplies "NIR fluorescent tracer + imaging" — the read-out paradigm.
• The Philip Morris / Japan Tobacco inspection references supply the tobacco/cigarette situs and its on-line conveyance hardware ("conveying tobacco product past a detection apparatus").

Motivation: the examiner need only show that applying a known liquid-tagging chemistry to a known tobacco-inspection line is an obvious use of a known technique for a known purpose. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981) (combination is obvious where each reference does what it is known to do).

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G. Ground 3 — the source-localization claims (12, 14)

Combination: Ground 1 or 2 + US 2005/0241989 (Shell) + US 6,312,958 (BASF) [+ US 4,445,520 (Philip Morris) for claim 13].

• Claim 12 ("different fluorescent taggants ... in different tobacco processing machinery") and claim 14 ("emitted radiation ... indicative of which machine has leaked"): Shell '989 teaches adding "a unique marker" to a specific lubricating oil so the detector can "distinguish between different brands or grades of lubricating oils" in a machine, using multiple markers ("from 1 to 10 passive markers"); BASF '958 is expressly directed to marking liquids with "at least two marker substances." Eastman '516 adds that multiple NIR markers differing by as little as 20 nm can be individually resolved. Mapping "which oil is this" onto "which machine leaked this" is a trivial relabeling — the marker-to-source correlation is the same information, differently indexed. Claim 14 is obvious.
• Claim 13 (reject on detection): BD '605 already teaches coupling the detector to "a divertor/sorter ... to a reject station," and PM '520 is a cigarette detection-and-rejection device. Claim 13 is obvious.

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H. Claim-by-claim disposition table

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I. Motivation-to-combine rationales (summary the examiner/attorney can rely on)

1. Same field of endeavor / same problem — detecting small amounts of an unwanted liquid on a product in a moving line (KSR; MPEP 2144.09).
2. Express guidance in the references — BD '605's "easily incorporated into an assembly line" and adaptability to "other objects or articles with a lubricant coating"; BASF '447's NIR rationale for oil matrices; Eastman '516's <850 nm design rule; Shell '989's "unique marker per oil."
3. Predictable results — each element performs its known function with no asserted (or evidenced) synergy.
4. Finite, identified solutions — the art identifies the marker classes (phthalocyanines, naphthalocyanines, nickel dithiolenes, methine/cyanine dyes, squaraines) and the detection modality (absorption or fluorescence photometry). Choosing among them is "obvious to try" under KSR.
5. Design incentives are background knowledge — on-line tobacco inspection stations were standard equipment; adding a taggant-detection head to them required no inventive leap.

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J. Patentee's likely rebuttals, and residual risk

Rebuttal 1 — "The art teaches UV/visible fluorescence in lubricants, not IR emission from a lubricant in a tobacco product." Weak. BASF '447 and Eastman '516 are squarely IR/NIR-liquid-tagging references; BD '605 supplies the "fluorophore-in-lubricant-on-a-line" architecture; and the tobacco-inspection references supply the situs. The argument amounts to a request that the PHOSITA not combine adjacent, mutually suggestive arts — exactly the posture KSR rejects.

Rebuttal 2 — Non-obvious "unexpected results." This is the patentee's strongest theoretical ground, but note that the specification asserts no comparative data against the closest art. There is no showing that the '607 process is unexpectedly superior to, e.g., the Eastman '516 NIR-lubricant-oil tagging or the BASF '447 IR markers. Absent such evidence, secondary considerations cannot support patentability. Any commercial-success argument would also require a nexus between the success and the claimed (as opposed to unclaimed) features.

Rebuttal 3 — Claim 7 (oil-soluble ICG-TBA complex). This is the narrowest and hardest claim to invalidate, and the one most likely to survive:

• The specification itself concedes ICG is a known NIR fluorophore "currently used in the medical industry" and that it "in its conventional form is water-soluble." The claimed advance is therefore, arguably, only the lipophilic tetrabutylammonium complexation to render ICG oil-soluble.
• The counter to that is straightforward: (i) BASF '447 expressly includes "methine dyes" (ICG's class) as liquid markers; (ii) BD '605 expressly frames oil-solubility as a mere constraint to be met ("the fluorescent agent must have a degree of solubility in [the lubricant]"); (iii) Davis '241 teaches that oil-soluble fluorescent dyes were a known, selectable category; and (iv) counter-ion (e.g., tetraalkylammonium) exchange to partition a sulfonated dye into an organic phase is a staple technique. On that record, claim 7 is challengeable but the burden sits more heavily on the challenger because the specific complex is a structural limitation that the AB record does not identify by name.
• Practical point: claim 7's carve-out matters little commercially, since claim 1 (and its other dependents) would still fall, and claim 7 depends from claim 1.

Rebuttal 4 — The "secondary emission peak" multiplexing. Claim 12/14 generically claim "different fluorescent taggants," not the specific "modified ICG complexing agent → secondary shoulder emission" ruse. Shell '989 already teaches the generic unique-marker-per-oil scheme, so the broad claims fall even though the specification's specific shoulder-peak implementation might not be explicitly prefigured. Claims are measured against the claim language, not the specification's narrowest embodiment.

Residual uncertainty I will not paper over: I could verify full text for only four of the relied-upon references (BD '605, BASF '447, Eastman '516, Shell '989). Brown & Williamson '176, Philip Morris '359/'520, Japan Tobacco JP 3907042 B2, Hamamatsu '845, Toshiba '860, Amoco '046, Accentus '273, Slater WO '265, and R.J. Reynolds '077/'108/'349 are mapped here on title/abstract-level knowledge only [title-level]. The obviousness conclusion is robust because the core of every ground rests on the four verified references; but before filing or relying on any particular paragraph, the title-level references should be pulled and quoted.

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K. Bottom line

• Claim 1 (and claims 2–6, 8–16) would have been obvious under § 103 over the combination of US 5,807,605 (Becton Dickinson) with US 5,804,447 (BASF) and a tobacco-inspection reference such as US 5,462,176 (Brown & Williamson), US 6,384,359 (Philip Morris), or JP 3907042 B2 (Japan Tobacco) — with US 5,525,516 (Eastman) as an equally good primary and US 2005/0241989 (Shell) supplying the source-localization teachings for claims 12/14.
• The strongest single-reference-style attack on claim 1 is BD '605 (tagged-lubricant + irradiate + detect emission + reject + "assembly line"), narrowed by BASF '447/Eastman '516 for the IR modality and by a tobacco-inspection reference for the situs.
• Claim 7 (Indocyanine Green complex) is the sole claim with a meaningful non-obviousness argument, and even it is highly vulnerable given the specification's own admission that ICG is a known NIR dye and the art's express identification of "methine dyes" as liquid markers.
• The record contains no secondary-considerations evidence (no unexpected-results data, no nexus-backed commercial success), so there is currently nothing on the scale that would tip the Graham balance toward non-obviousness.
• Caveat, stated plainly: the underlying sources I reached did not surface any reexamination, IPR, or district-court validity ruling on the '607 patent (consistent with the "no litigation found" conclusion in the prior section), so this is a prospective/analytical § 103 assessment, not a report of an adjudicated outcome. I found no CAFC 2026 activity and am not asserting any fact about such activity.