US 10466101

I'll verify the patent record and check for any litigation or assignment changes before summarizing.

Now let me check for any litigation, PTAB proceedings, or recent assignment changes.

US 10,466,101 B2 — Verification and Summary

I ran targeted searches for the exact number and title. Below is what is confirmed by the patent record, with the limits of my search noted explicitly.

Note on dates: Your prompt states the current date as April 26, 2026 (my session metadata says 2026-09-30). The record below reflects the patent documents and public databases as retrieved, and I flag where recency matters.

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Bibliographic data (confirmed)

Prior art cited on the face: US 2011/0108719 A1 (Precision Energy Services, Inc. — "Multi-Channel Source Assembly for Downhole Spectroscopy"); US 2015/0369664 A1 (Ventana Medical Systems — imaging device calibration for multiplex tissue assays). Cited by: US 2023/0273118 A1 (Courage + Khazaka Electronic GmbH); CN 113588080 B.

Sources: Google Patents US10466101B2, Justia, patents-review.com, US20190003886A1.

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Abstract (as granted)

"A method to adjust the energy transmitted from a multiplicity of light sources to provide an adequate reference for spectral measurement or control using a multichannel feedback adjustment algorithm that compensates for the interactions between adjacent spectral ranges and sets reference light sources for optimal system performance using a normalized energy value for each spectral range is disclosed."

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — calibration method with the sample removed from the optical path

This is a method for setting up an adjustable multi-spectral-channel reference light source before a measurement/control period begins, using a closed feedback loop (spectrometer → light-delivery optics → adjustable multi-channel light source → control circuit). Step by step:

1. With the "system under test" (the sample) NOT placed between the spectrometer and the light source, at the beginning of each control/measurement period, turn on the adjustable multi-channel reference source and set output intensities at different individual spectral channels spanning the spectrometer's entire spectral range.
2. Have the spectrometer measure each channel's normalized light energy at those individual channels, and integrate that measured normalized energy into intensity counts for each channel.
3. Calculate per-channel intensity adjustments.
4. Send those adjustments to the light source.
5. Simultaneously adjust all channels' intensities (this simultaneity is a claimed requirement, not just an option).
6. Repeat steps 2–5 one or more times until the intensity counts across the different channels are similar (i.e., the loop converges).
7. Then, in the measurement period, place the sample between spectrometer and light source so it is illuminated under those converged ("similar") intensity counts.
8. Operate the spectrometer in the measurement period to measure the light after it passes through the sample, at the individual spectral channels.

In short: calibrate the light source channel-by-channel by iterating feedback until all detector channels read alike, then insert the sample and measure. Notably, the claim does not cover adjusting the spectrometer's integration time to normalize — the normalization is done on the source side.

Claim 10 — optical measurement method (broader system framing)

Framed as a method of measuring a system under test, with three provided pieces: an adjustable multi-spectral-channel reference light source, a light-delivery optical system, and a spectrometer with different optical detectors for the different channels. It requires:

• Performing a pre-measurement adjustment operation on the source — with the sample not placed between the spectrometer and the source — to reach "optimized output light levels" at the different channels.
• Then placing the sample in the optical path between source and spectrometer.
• Then running the source at those optimized levels to illuminate the sample and take optical measurements at the different channels.

The pre-measurement adjustment operation itself is expressly defined in the claim to include: (i) producing probe light at initial output levels with the sample absent; (ii) measuring detector output signals from the different detectors for the different channels; (iii) based on those measured levels, adjusting the source's output levels so the measured signal levels from the different detectors become similar to one another; and (iv) setting those adjusted levels as the optimized output levels.

Claim 10 is essentially the same invention as claim 1 but drafted around the measurement result and the "optimized output levels" concept, and it is less prescriptive about the specific measure/calculate/send/simultaneously-adjust loop sequence.

Dependent claims (what they add):

• 2 and 11 — adjust so detector counts are below but near the detection saturation count/level.
• 3 and 4 — achieve the adjustment without adjusting the spectrometer's integration time (claim 4 states it without limiting to "any particular individual spectral channel").
• 5 — the convergence loop is done to reduce accuracy impact from temperature, vibration, shock, or wear.
• 6 — …from channel-to-channel variations.
• 7 — …from channel variations in the optical paths guiding light to the detectors.
• 8 — …from component aging over time.
• 9 — …from differences in how components interact with light at different wavelengths.
• 12 — combines the no-saturation, channel-variation, and wavelength-interaction rationales.

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Prosecution footnote worth noting (claim scope changed pre-grant)

The published application US 2019/0003886 A1 had a materially broader claim 1. As published, claim 1 did not include: (a) "across said spectrometer's entire spectral range"; (b) the "without placing the system under test" limitation; (c) "simultaneously" adjusting all channels; or (d) the post-calibration steps of placing the sample in the path and measuring transmitted light. Those were added before allowance (the file shows a final rejection mailed 2019-01-30, allowance 2019-06-18, and issue fee payment 2019-09-26). The practical effect is that the granted claim 1 is tied to a pre-measurement, sample-absent, whole-range, simultaneous, iterative calibration, whereas the published version read more generically on adjusting reference source channels. Anyone analyzing infringement or validity should work from the granted text, not the publication.

Also worth flagging: the specification describes the preferred embodiment's feedback loop as "formed by a spectrometer (10), a light delivery optical system (20), the system under test (30) and an individual spectral channel adjustable multispectral light source (40) as shown in FIG. 1" — i.e., the spec's loop narrative includes the sample, while both granted independent claims require the sample to be absent during the reference/adjustment step. That is an internal tension between the disclosed embodiment and the claimed scope.

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Litigation / CAFC check — negative result (with caveat)

I searched for US 10,466,101 in connection with district court litigation and Federal Circuit 2026 dockets and found no case, docket entry, PTAB petition, or ITC proceeding naming this patent. The only 2026 CAFC material returned was unrelated Federal Circuit weekly summaries and an unrelated Supreme Court extension application.

Uncertainty / limitations I want to be explicit about:

• I did not have direct authenticated access to USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or the CAFC docket system in this session; my searches were web-based against patent aggregators (Google Patents, Justia, patents-review, patentsencyclopedia) plus general web search. A "no results" outcome from those searches is meaningful but not conclusive proof of no litigation or post-grant challenge.
• I could not independently verify the current assignee-of-record (Ocean Insight Inc appears as the listed current assignee, but the only assignment document in the record is the original 2018 assignment to Ocean Optics, Inc.). The Ocean Optics → Ocean Insight change appears to be a corporate rebrand, but no reassignment record was retrieved to confirm a formal transfer.
• I cannot confirm whether the 7.5-year maintenance fee has been paid, since the most recent fee event shown is the 4th-year payment on 2023-04-21, and my session date/your stated date differ.
• All bibliographic values above are taken literally from the documents retrieved; I did not auto-correct any number or identifier.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10466101.

Let me try more targeted searches on patent litigation databases.

Summary of Findings

Based on my searches (including Google Patents, Justia Patents, patent-review aggregators, and general web/patent-litigation searches for the specific number 10466101), I found no litigation — district court, ITC, or PTAB — involving U.S. Patent No. 10,466,101.

No known cases to report

I could not identify any plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome for this patent, because no such case appears in the sources I reached.

What I did find (and why it is not litigation for this patent)

• US 10,466,101 is an Ocean Optics, Inc. patent. Title: "Reference light adjustment method for spectrometer based measurement or control systems." Inventors: Kirk Clendinning and Nelson Chandler. Filed 2018‑06‑25; granted 2019‑11‑05; priority to provisional 62/525,799 (2017‑06‑28). Current assignee listed as Ocean Insight Inc. (Google Patents).
• Forward citations are not litigation. The Google Patents "Cited By" entries — e.g., US20230273118A1 (Courage + Khazaka Electronic GmbH) and family member CN113588080B — are patent citations, not infringement suits. Do not conflate these with litigation.
• Prior-art citations are not litigation. The two references cited on the face of the patent — US20110108719A1 (Precision Energy Services) and US20150369664A1 (Ventana Medical Systems) — are prior art, not defendants.
• Ocean Optics has been a defendant in unrelated patent suits. Search results show Cirrex Systems LLC v. Ocean Optics, Inc., 1:12‑cv‑01769 (N.D. Ga.) (asserting U.S. 5,878,178; 5,764,840; 5,901,261) and a SiOnyx-related action in D. Mass. (1:15‑cv‑13488) referencing Ocean Optics and a "591 patent." These involve different patents, not 10,466,101. They establish only that Ocean Optics has been involved in patent litigation generally.
• Beware the '661 shorthand. One PTAB document uses "'661 patent" to refer to a pharmaceutical patent (phosphate/nutrition solution claims). That is a different patent entirely and must not be mapped onto 10,466,101.

Important caveats and limitations

• This is a negative finding, not proof of absence. I could not directly query PACER, the Unified Patents litigation portal, Docket Navigator, or RPX/Insight in an authenticated, exhaustive way. A patent granted in 2019 that has never been asserted would not generate a litigation docket, which is consistent with what I found — but a low-volume or very recent filing could also simply be outside the sources I reached.
• Recommended verification steps before relying on this: (1) search "10,466,101" and its assignees (Ocean Optics, Inc.; Ocean Insight Inc.) in PACER (all district courts), (2) check the Unified Patents litigation caselist and Docket Alarm for the patent number, (3) check the PTAB for any IPR/PGR naming the patent, and (4) check the USITC for any Section 337 investigation.
• Per the operating rules, I have interpreted the identifier 10,466,101 literally and have not substituted any similar-looking numbers.

Bottom line: On the sources available to me, US 10,466,101 has no known litigation. I state this as "no litigation identified," not as an affirmative certification that none exists.

Verification search

PTAB proceedings on file — verification result

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied in this prompt reports no AIA trial proceedings for US 10,466,101. I ran targeted web searches to test that default (patent number + "IPR"/"PTAB"; assigneeOcean Optics/Ocean Insight + petition; patent title + IPR dockets; and "US20190003886A1" + Federal Circuit/CAFC). Every hit returned was unrelated — either a different patent's PTAB papers, unrelated prosecution histories, or the SiOnyx v. Hamamatsu district-court estoppel opinion (which concerns U.S. Pat. No. 8,792,591, not the '101 patent, even though Ocean Optics appears there as a co-defendant/privy for § 315(e)(2) purposes). I did not locate any petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, termination, or appeal for US 10,466,101. (Note: my final planned search — a straight Ocean Insight assertion/litigation sweep — was cut off by a tool-step limit; treat that one gap as unverified rather than confirmed negative.)

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 (zero). Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore "untested patent" — not "hardened" and not "gutted." All twelve claims (1–12) stand exactly as issued on 2019-11-05, with no PTAB paper narrowing, cancelling, or confirming any of them. A defendant today has a fully open IPR field and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to worry about; conversely, there is no PTAB precedent, claim-construction ruling, or institution denial to leverage against the patent owner. The absence of IPRs is itself informative: for a 2019-granted instrument-control patent with a broad stated field of use, the lack of any third-party challenge suggests (a) the patent is not being aggressively asserted, and/or (b) the claims are narrow and hardware-tied enough that competitors have not found it worth the ~$300K+ of an IPR. That is a signal about assertion risk, not about validity.

Per-proceeding detail

Not applicable — no proceedings to enumerate. There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal to report for this patent. I will not invent one.

What is actually on the record for US 10,466,101

• Patent: US 10,466,101 B2 — "Reference light adjustment method for spectrometer based measurement or control systems"
• Application: 16/017,069, filed 2018-06-25; provisional priority 62/525,799, filed 2017-06-28; granted 2019-11-05; anticipated expiration 2038-06-25 (no PTA adjustment indicated in the record provided)
• Assignee of record: Ocean Optics, Inc. (assignment recorded 2018-06-25; inventors Kirk Clendinning and Nelson Chandler). Google's "current assignee" field lists Ocean Insight Inc — treat the entity name in any demand letter as worth verifying in the USPTO assignment database before you rely on it.
• Parallel PCT: PCT/US2018/039386 → WO2019005719A1 (pub. 2019-01-03), status "not active / Ceased" as listed — a foreign/global filing that did not proceed, which matters for freedom-to-operate in ex-US jurisdictions.
• Claim set (12 claims): Claim 1 — independent method claim (pre-measurement reference-light adjustment via feedback loop, without the system under test in the path, iterating until intensity counts across individual spectral channels are "similar," then inserting the system under test and measuring). Claims 2–9 — dependent (2: below-but-near saturation; 3–4: without adjusting spectrometer integration time; 5: temperature/vibration/shock/wear; 6: channel variations; 7: optical-path channel variations; 8: component aging; 9: wavelength-dependent component interaction). Claim 10 — independent method claim for optically measuring a system under test (pre-measurement adjustment operation with explicit sub-steps). Claims 11–12 — dependent on 10.
• Face-of-patent prior art (only two references cited by the examiner): US 2011/0108719 A1 (Precision Energy Services, "Multi-Channel Source Assembly for Downhole Spectroscopy") and US 2015/0369664 A1 (Ventana Medical Systems, "Systems and methods for calibrating, configuring and validating an imaging device or system for multiplex tissue assays"). Both are the natural seed references for any invalidity theory.
• Prosecution posture: the application took a final rejection (docketed 2019-01-30) before allowance (notice of allowance 2019-06-18), i.e., claims were narrowed or argued onto the patentability side of the examiner's art. Read the file wrapper before you assume the issued scope equals the as-filed scope.
• Maintenance: 4th-year fee paid 2023-04-21, large entity (per the legal-events record). The patent is in force; 7.5-year fee is the next exposure.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Nothing is cancelled and nothing has been confirmed by the Board. All of claims 1–12 are UNTESTED at the PTAB and carry the ordinary presumption of validity. If you are accused of infringement, you cannot tell the court or the plaintiff's counsel that "claims 1–5 are dead" — that statement would be false as to this patent. Conversely, the plaintiff cannot cite any PTAB or Federal Circuit affirmance to argue the claims are "IPR-tested and validated." Everyone is starting from zero.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever instituted, § 315(e)(1)/(2) estoppel is not triggered for anyone. No petitioner is barred from any ground; you may raise § 102, § 103, and § 112 defenses in district court and simultaneously (or sequentially) file your own IPR on any art you choose. There is also no General Plastic / § 325(d) "same art, same arguments" baggage from a prior petitioner to overcome, and no prior institution denial to invite Fintiv-style discretionary denial. Practically: your IPR path is wide open. Two statutory timing constraints to note: (1) a PGR under § 321 is only available within 9 months of grant, and that window closed on 2020-08-05 for this 2019-11-05 grant — so PGR is off the table; (2) IPR has no post-grant deadline, but § 315(b) bars a petition more than 1 year after service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent, so docket the complaint-service date the moment it happens. Ex parte reexamination remains available at any time regardless of the bar.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed anything on this patent — not once. No related family member (the '101 patent is a standalone US filing with a ceased PCT; Google shows a family of one application) shows up in the AIA-trial record either. There is no Unified Patents / RPX-style defensive aggregator activity, no serial-petitioner pattern, and no Ocean Optics/Ocean Insight-prosecuted PTAB appeal on the '101. The only adjacent data point surfaced in searching is SiOnyx, LLC v. Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., No. 1:15-cv-13488 (D. Mass.), in which Ocean Optics was a co-defendant and was treated as a § 315(e)(2) privy because it shared counsel with the petitioner Hamamatsu entities — but that case involved U.S. Pat. No. 8,792,591, a different patent, and says nothing about the '101 patent's validity or Ocean Optics' litigation posture today. Do not cite it as if it were PTAB history for the '101.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not build a defense on non-existent PTAB rulings. There is no FWD to link to and no claim to quote as cancelled. Any brief or client memo asserting PTAB history for US 10,466,101 would be a fabrication risk. State plainly: "No AIA trial proceedings have been filed against the '101 patent."
2. Treat claim 1 and claim 10 as live and independent. Both are method claims with a distinctive pre-measurement "reference-light-source adjustment instead of integration-time adjustment" limitation. Your § 103 theory should target that specific ordered combination — prior art showing LED/light-source intensity balancing across spectral channels before sample insertion — not generic spectrometer calibration art.
3. Mine the two cited references first. US 2011/0108719 A1 (Precision Energy Services) and US 2015/0369664 A1 (Ventana) were the examiner's own starting points. A strong IPR usually finds art at least as close. Also pull the "Similar Documents" list from the Google Patents page (e.g., US 8,049,882 B2, US 10,088,364 B2, CN 104316184 A, KR 2017/0093867 A) as secondary sweep material.
4. Calendar the § 315(b) bar immediately upon service of any complaint, and preserve a § 315(e)(2)-safe litigation position by keeping your IPR grounds and your district-court invalidity contentions aligned (or by filing the Sotera-type stipulation) so you do not forfeit either forum.
5. Verify the real party in interest and current owner in USPTO PatentCenter/Assignment before relying on "Ocean Insight Inc" in a demand-letter response — the record shows an assignment to Ocean Optics, Inc. and a later-named current assignee, and standing/joinder issues follow the owner of record.
6. Re-run the check after any litigation is filed. Well-asserted patents attract IPRs; if a complaint lands, assume a petition from a co-defendant is likely within 6–12 months and monitor for a joinder bandwagon. Your own early filing may be the cheaper path than riding someone else's.

I'll verify the ownership facts before writing up the record.

Ownership Record — US 10,466,101 B2

"Reference light adjustment method for spectrometer based measurement or control systems"
App. 16/017,069 · filed 2018-06-25 · granted 2019-11-05 · priority 2017-06-28 (Prov. 62/525,799) · anticipated expiry 2038-06-25

Verification note up front. I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center UI directly (it is a JavaScript search application and does not expose assignor/assignee/correspondent fields to text retrieval). Everything below is grounded in the legal-events and assignment text carried in the granted-patent record plus public search. The reel/frame below is stated exactly as it appears in the record; the correspondent of record field is not exposed in that text and I flag it as unverified rather than guessing it.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• The assignment cover text records signing dates "FROM 20170630 TO 20180622" — i.e. Clendinning signed three days after the 2017-06-28 provisional filing, and Chandler signed three days before the 2018-06-25 non-provisional filing. This is the ordinary "assign-at-filing" pattern, not a departure signature.
• There is no evidence in the patent record of either inventor departing Ocean Optics within 12 months of filing. The classic fire-sale precursor (all inventors exiting, followed by a portfolio sale) is not observable here, and I will not invent it. Note that inventor continuity at an operating employer is also unwitnessed in patent data generally — treat the "no departure" call as unclear on the record, though nothing affirmatively suggests departures.
• Both inventors list Central Florida addresses consistent with Ocean Optics' Orlando-area facilities (the company moved to a 52,000 sq ft Orlando facility in 2021).

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Original assignee

Ocean Optics, Inc. (a Florida corporation, principal place of business Largo / Dunedin / Orlando, FL).

• Primary line of business: design and manufacture of miniature fiber-optic spectrometers and optical sensing systems (USB2000, USB4000, Maya2000 Pro / Maya2000 Pro-NIR, HR-, QE- series), spectral light sources (DH-2000 family, including the balanced DH-2000-BAL), fiber probes, sampling accessories, and spectroscopy software (OOIBase32 → SpectraSuite → OceanView / OceanDirect). Ocean Optics is credited with the "world's first miniature spectrometer" (1992), founded 1989 by university researchers in Florida.
• Product embodying the claims: the claimed subject matter is a method of driving a multi-channel (multi-LED) adjustable reference source to equalize per-channel counts across a spectrometer's full range before a measurement period. Ocean Optics/Ocean Insight sells LED-based multispectral light sources and the software measurement workflow that performs exactly this reference-normalization step. I am marking "ships a product embodying the claims" as plausible-but-not-verified — I have not matched a specific SKU to each limitation of claim 1, and no product marking or commercial-embodiment statement exists in the record.
• Corporate status: operating. Acquired by Halma plc (LSE: HLMA, Amersham, UK) in 2004 — announced 2004-05-29, completion June 2004, $25.0M initial cash plus up to $25.0M earnout (Halma RNS announcement, Photonics.com). Rebranded to Ocean Insight in September 2019 — critically, the entity did not change: the official announcement states the company "is now known as 'Ocean Optics, Inc., trading as (in the U.S., 'doing business as') Ocean Insight'" (SelectScience, 2019-09-11). It remains a Halma subsidiary in Halma's environmental & analysis sector; ~200+ employees in Orlando.
• Fee status: large entity; 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2023-04-21; legal status Active.
• Referenced by: Ocean Optics' own products were central to third-party litigation (Ocean Optics supplied the accused Maya2000 Pro-NIR sensor purchases in SiOnyx LLC v. Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., D. Mass. 1:15-cv-13488) — evidence of a real, shipping hardware business.

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Assignment timeline

There is exactly one recorded assignment in this chain, and it is the original inventor→employer assignment. No post-issuance assignment of any kind exists in the record (no change of name, no security interest, no license recordal, no transfer).

• 2017-06-30 and 2018-06-22 (executed) / recorded 2018-06-25 — Reel 046191 / 0487
  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Kirk Clendinning; Nelson Chandler (naturals, individually)
  • Assignee: Ocean Optics, Inc., Florida (the entity record explicitly names "OCEAN OPTICS, INC., FLORIDA")
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the retrieved record — unverified. The prosecution agent of record for the application is Perkins Coie LLP (per the published application's agent field), which is the likely recording correspondent, but the Assignment Center cover-sheet correspondent field must be pulled to confirm the named attorney. No correspondent recurrence can therefore be assessed, and I am not asserting one.
  • Context: initial assignment of inventors' rights to their employer, recorded contemporaneously with the 2018-06-25 non-provisional filing. Not an acquisition, fire-sale, reorg, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Two addressing points before the diagram:

1. Google Patents displays "Current Assignee: Ocean Insight Inc" for this patent. That is a rebranding artifact, not a recorded assignment. The legal entity is still Ocean Optics, Inc. (d/b/a Ocean Insight), which is precisely why no Change of Name record appears. Google itself disclaims this field ("The listed assignees may be inaccurate").
2. The parallel PCT (PCT/US2018/039386 → WO2019005719A1, filed 2018-06-26) is recorded as Ceased; the US case is Active. The PCT cessation is a prosecution event, not an ownership event.

Because the Assignment Center record contains only the original assignment, the section above is the complete chain — and that absence is itself the substantive finding: the patent has never left its operating-company owner.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10466101
    2004 : Ocean Optics acquired by Halma plc
    2017 : Provisional application filed
         : Clendinning assigns rights to Ocean Optics
    2018 : Chandler assigns rights to Ocean Optics
         : Assignment recorded at reel 046191 frame 0487
    2019 : Patent US 10466101 B2 issued
         : Ocean Optics rebrands as Ocean Insight
    2023 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — only the original assignment is on record.

Per the rubric, a chain consisting solely of the original inventor-to-employer assignment (Reel 046191/0487, executed 2017-06-30 and 2018-06-22, recorded 2018-06-25, assignee Ocean Optics, Inc., Florida) is the "no records beyond the original" case, so the formal verdict is Insufficient data. The substantive finding, however, is affirmative and benign: this is a wholly non-NPE, operating-company-owned patent. The assignee is a real spectrometer manufacturer (Halma plc subsidiary since 2004) that has paid its 4th-year maintenance fee (2023-04-21) and holds the patent Active, and no litigation asserting US 10,466,101 exists. The Google Patents "Ocean Insight Inc" current-assignee entry is a 2019 rebranding of the same legal entity, not a transfer. Notably, it is Ocean Optics that has been the defendant in NPE suits (e.g. Cirrex Systems), which is the inverse of the troll pattern.

To close the one open item, pull the cover sheet at USPTO Assignment Center (mirror: assignment.uspto.gov), searching patent number 10466101 / reel-frame 046191/0487, and read the correspondent field — that is the only element of this record I could not verify, and on a one-link chain it has no bearing on the verdict.

I'll search for the specific patent and its citations.

Now let me examine the second cited reference and related family citations.

Let me check the international (PCT) search report for this family, which often lists the most pertinent prior art.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,466,101 B2

0. Verification of the target patent (literal identifier)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10466101/en and the granted-PDF OCR at https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/55/c4/a3/c1f5c92f58889b/US10466101.pdf

Legal-status note (does not change the prior-art analysis): all claims are limited to methods. They were allowed without a §101 eligibility rejection on record, consistent with the claims reciting a concrete spectrometer/source/detector arrangement rather than a mere algorithm.

Section-112(c) note for context: the pre-grant publication (US 2019/0003886 A1) recited claim 1 without the "without placing the system under test…" and "subsequently…placing the system under test" steps; the granted claim 1 adds them. That amendment is the single most important fact for this prior-art review (see §5).

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1. Statutory framework applied

Because the application was filed after 16 March 2013 and the priority date is 2017-06-28, the AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. The relevant categories are:

• § 102(a)(1) — patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use/on sale/or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date; and
• § 102(a)(2) — U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications effectively filed before the effective filing date.

The § 102(b)(1) grace period does not help here, because it excludes only the inventor's own (or a derived) disclosure — not third-party publications from 2011 and 2015.

Anticipation standard. A § 102 rejection requires that a single reference disclose every element of the claim, arranged as the claim requires (element-for-element identity of the claimed arrangement), and enable the claimed subject matter. A reference that discloses most elements but omits one claimed step or substitutes a structurally different arrangement does not anticipate; it can only support a § 103 obviousness rejection. This standard is decisive for both references discussed below.

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2. Reference A — the primary citation

2.1 Full citation

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0108719 A1, "Multi-Channel Source Assembly for Downhole Spectroscopy." Inventors: Jess V. Ford, Thomas Blankinship, Bryan W. Kasperski, Margaret C. Waid, Sean M. Christian. Applicant/assignee: Precision Energy Services, Inc. (Fort Worth, TX).

URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110108719A1/en · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/fa/94/d7/2f63efbf30cf3d/US20110108719A1.pdf · family member EP 2 320 214 A2 (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/dc/09/a1/f625e7d17b5e8e/EP2320214A3.pdf) · CA 2 718 452 A1 (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e7/1f/cc/89e1ef1ef4e2a9/CA2718452A1.pdf)

2.2 Brief description

A downhole (wellbore) fluid-analysis system built around a multi-channel light source assembly:

• A plurality of individual sources (LEDs, SLEDs, laser diodes) generate optical signals at discrete wavelengths spanning a spectral range — i.e., one source per spectral channel (¶¶0046–0048, 0126).
• A coupler/combiner images each source into a fiber and combines them into one beam; a routing assembly/router splits the combined beam into a "reference channel" and one or more "measurement channels" (¶¶0011, 0045, 0053–0058).
• Control circuitry modulates each source at a unique/independent frequency (synchronous FFT, asynchronous raster, Hadamard modes) and can set source amplitude via pulse-width modulation (¶¶0114, 0119).
• Crucially, an automated feedback scheme: "An automated scheme for controlling the source assembly can use amplitude measurements of the reference channel. These measurements can be delivered to the source control circuitry from an external detection assembly to detect optical signals of the reference channel and to provide sensed signals as feedback to the source control circuitry. In turn, the source control circuitry can use the feedback to control the individual sources" (¶0012; see also ¶0059, ¶0119 and claim 22).
• The stated control goal in ¶0119: "the control circuitry 700 can maintain a more uniform intensity profile for the LEDs 712 even when there are significant changes in environmental conditions… maintain a relatively flat illumination profile across the entire temperature range by using pulse width modulation…" (¶0120).
• A detector unit with one detector per spectral band covers the measurement channel; the reference channel "can be used to provide optical feedback… to dynamically scale the optical signal of the measurement channel, and to perform other functions" (¶¶0044, 0059).

2.3 § 102 mapping against the '101 claims

Anticipation conclusion for Reference A: none. No claim of US 10,466,101 is anticipated by US 2011/0108719 A1. Decisive gaps: (i) the reference uses a parallel reference channel, not the claimed sample-removed pre-measurement adjustment of the source itself; (ii) no per-channel normalized-energy-to-counts conversion; (iii) no simultaneous multi-channel convergence to similar counts. Element-for-element identity under § 102 is therefore absent for independent claim 1 (and, by dependency, for claims 2–9).

Best role for Reference A: the strongest § 103(a) primary reference in the art, and the reference the examiner evidently used to force the narrowing amendment described in §5 below.

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3. Reference B — the second citation

3.1 Full citation

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0369664 A1, "Systems and Methods for Calibrating, Configuring and Validating an Imaging Device or System for Multiplex Tissue Assays." Inventors: Michael Otter, Karl Garsha, et al. Applicant/assignee: Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (Tucson, AZ). Granted as US 10,012,537 B2 (2018-07-03).

URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150369664A1/en · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2015/0369664.html · https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10012537](/patent/10012537)

3.2 Brief description

A calibration/characterization system for a multispectral imaging (MSI) microscope, not for an in-line spectrometer control loop:

• A light source producing output with multiple spectral bands, where "the amount of light in one or more of the multiple bands is adjustable substantially without affecting a remaining spectral band," and where light power in a first band can be measured "substantially independently" of a second band.
• Calibration targets the repeatability problem (mitigating "differences in the illumination power between channels") and the reproducibility problem (mitigating "differences in detection efficiency between channels"), plus a third step for differing reporter brightness (US 10,012,537 / US 2020/0080940 family text).
• Normalization step: "individually normalizing averaged intensity profiles corresponding to the multiple spectral bands to define normalized individual reference spectra respectively corresponding to the multiple spectral bands."
• Uses a geometrical standard / reference sample placed at the object plane (with reflection and transmission beams) — an imaging reference of known optical properties, not a "system under test" interrogated in transmission between source and spectrometer.
• No iterative multi-channel feedback loop in which the source intensities are repeatedly re-set until detector counts are similar across channels.

3.3 § 102 mapping against the '101 claims

Anticipation conclusion for Reference B: none. It lacks the "spectrometer + light delivery system + system under test" feedback loop, lacks multiple individually driven sources, and lacks the iterative "adjust until counts are similar" step. It is, however, an excellent § 103(a) secondary reference for the rationale (per-channel intensity equalization to remove channel-to-channel illumination/detection differences) recited in claims 9, 11 and 12.

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4. Other documents cited in the same patent family (relevant, but not on the US face)

These appear on Google Patents as "Family Cites Families" — i.e., cited in the WO/foreign family members' search, not as citations on the face of US 10,466,101. They are still § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art as to the '101 claims by date.

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5. Non-prior-art citations (flagged to avoid conflation)

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6. Bottom-line answer: which claims are "potentially anticipated"

None. On the documents available for this patent, no reference anticipates any of claims 1–12 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Both face citations pre-date the '101 priority date by years, so they are unquestionably available as prior art — but neither discloses the claimed combination, and the examiner allowed the case over them.

The two references, combined, still would not render claim 1 or claim 10 obvious on the face of their disclosures, because neither reference discloses the two structural/step limitations that define the invention over the art:

1. the pre-measurement adjustment performed with the system under test removed from the optical path, followed by insertion of the sample; and
2. the iterative, simultaneous multi-channel feedback convergence until the per-channel intensity counts are similar (claims 5–9 adding the specific robustness rationales: temperature/vibration/shock/wear, channel variations, optical-path variations, aging, and wavelength-dependent interactions).

Patentability/validity caveat

The strongest art against this patent is likely to be not these two citations but (a) the applicant's own pre-grant publication US 2019/0003886 A1 (if a § 102(b)(1)(A) inventor-originated disclosure issue ever arises — usually harmless here since it shares the '101 inventors), and (b) Ocean Optics'/Ocean Insight's own commercial spectrometer+multispectral-source products and manuals, which are "otherwise available to the public" art under § 102(a)(1) and are the natural § 103 combination partner for Reference A. No such non-patent literature is indexed on the patent face, so I cannot state with high confidence whether it was searched by the examiner.

Confidence and limitations

• High confidence in the bibliographic data, the claim sets, and the citations for US 10,466,101 — they come from the granted-PDF OCR and the Google Patents record for the exact number.
• High confidence in the substance of US 2011/0108719 A1 and US 2015/0369664 A1 — direct quotations are given above from their published specifications.
• Medium confidence in the completeness of the prior-art picture: I relied on the two documents cited on the face, the three family-cited documents, and the family/publication records. I have not retrieved the underlying USPTO file wrapper (the 2019-01-30 final rejection and the examiner's reasons of allowance), which would show whether the examiner applied these references under § 102 or § 103 and which claims were specifically overcome. Retrieval of that file history from USPTO PatentCenter (application 16/017,069) is the recommended next verification step.
• Per the operating rules, identifier 10,466,101 was interpreted literally; no similar-looking number was substituted. Note the OCR discrepancy between sources on one word in the Background: the granted-PDF OCR reads "fiber polarization" where the Google Patents HTML reads "fiber solarization"; this is a scanning artifact and does not affect the prior-art analysis. Also note a minor date inconsistency in the session metadata (system date 2026-09-30 vs. task date 2026-04-26); it does not affect any date computation above because all analysis keys off the patent's own 2017-06-28 priority date.

I'll pull the actual prior-art references cited on the face of this patent (and the family citations) so the obviousness analysis is grounded in what the references actually disclose.

Now let me pull the other references listed in the "Similar Documents" and family-citation sections, since those are part of the prior-art landscape on this page.

Let me check a few more references from the "Similar Documents" list and look for art on the specific "equalize detector counts across channels by adjusting source drive" concept.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,466,101 B2

("Reference light adjustment method for spectrometer based measurement or control systems")

Scope note / ground rules applied: All identifiers are taken literally from the record (e.g., US20110108719A1, US20150369664A1, US10466101B2, US8049882B2, US10012537B2, US6633301). Nothing has been auto-corrected. Where a search result conflicts with my training data, the search result governs. Where I could not retrieve a reference's full text in this session, I say so rather than assert its contents.

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1. Governing framework

The patent has an earliest effective date of 2017‑06‑28 (provisional Ser. No. 62/525,799) and was filed 2018‑06‑25, so the AIA version of §103 applies (post‑AIA §102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art). The analysis applies Graham v. John Deere (scope/content of claims; differences from prior art; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations) with KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (motivation may come from any source; predictable variation of known techniques; "obvious to try" where the solution is one of a finite number of identified, predictable solutions).

Claim construction points that drive the analysis (granted text, per Google Patents):

An important internal tension already flagged in the prior summary: the specification describes the feedback loop as "formed by a spectrometer (10), a light delivery optical system (20), the system under test (30) and an individual spectral channel adjustable multispectral light source (40)" (FIG. 1 discussion), while both granted independent claims require the sample to be absent during the adjustment step. That inconsistency is relevant to §112, but for §103 it also cuts both ways — see §5 below.

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

A POSITA here would be a person with a B.S. in physics, electrical engineering, or optical engineering (or equivalent) and roughly 2–5 years of experience designing or programming optical spectroscopy/spectrophotometry instrumentation, including experience with LED/photodiode light sources, fiber-coupled spectrometers, detector dynamic range, and closed-loop control (PID). This is a "routine engineering" art: the patent itself concedes that a "multichannel Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller" is "well known by those skilled in the art."

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3. The two references on the face of the patent, and what they actually teach

3.1 US20110108719A1 — Ford et al., Precision Energy Services ("Multi-Channel Source Assembly for Downhole Spectroscopy") — published 2011‑05‑12

Sources: Google Patents; full text with claims at patentsencyclopedia.

This reference is materially closer than its title suggests. It discloses:

• A multiplicity of individual solid-state sources combined into one broadband source with independently operable spectral channels: "light emitting diodes (LED), super-luminescent light emitting diodes (SLED), and laser diodes (LD)" ([0048]); "a broadband source of optical signals … but contains a number of independently operable channels (i.e., wavelength regions) that are spectrally aligned to cover a broad spectral range" ([0046]).
• A reference channel that bypasses the sample and a measurement channel that interrogates it: "the router 46 routes the combined signal into a reference channel 60 and into a measurement channel 50 for interrogating a sample" ([0045]); and explicitly, "the reference channel can pass directly to the detector assembly 660, and the measurement channel can interact with fluid passing through the flow body 680" ([0103], 2013 continuation; [0109] in the US20110108719A1 numbering). This is the "without placing the system under test" measurement.
• A closed feedback loop from detector amplitude back to the light source: "an automated scheme for controlling the source assembly can use amplitude measurements of the reference channel. These measurements can be delivered to the source control circuitry from an external detection assembly … and to provide sensed signals as feedback to the source control circuitry. In turn, the source control circuitry can use the feedback to control the individual sources" ([0012]); see also claim 22 ("control circuitry receives input indicative of measured energy of the reference channel and controls an amplitude of the sources based on the input") and claim 40.
• Adjusting the source to flatten the spectral profile — the patent's stated purpose: "the control circuitry 700 can maintain a more uniform intensity profile for the LEDs 712 even when there are significant changes in environmental conditions … can drive the LEDs 712 to maintain a relatively flat illumination profile across the entire temperature range by using pulse width modulation or other methods of the drive signals for the LEDs 712" ([0119]/[0112]).
• Per-channel amplitude as a signal-to-noise tool: "each source 712 can be driven at different current levels to control amplitude, which in-turn can improve signal-to-noise within weak or highly attenuating optical bands" ([0123]/[0115]).
• Simultaneous operation of all channels: "the control circuitry can operate all of the sources simultaneously, a subset of the sources simultaneously, or each source individually" ([0016]); synchronous encoding with FFT deconvolution ([0126]).
• Environmental-drift motivation: "the downhole environment has high temperatures, high pressures, harsh chemicals, and mechanical vibrations" ([0002]); housings "preferably meet shock and vibration requirements" ([0070]).

What Ford does not expressly say: the words "counts," "integrating normalized energy," and an express iterative "repeat until similar" convergence loop. The feedback is described as a continuous control scheme rather than a discrete convergence loop.

3.2 US20150369664A1 — Garsha & Otter, Ventana Medical Systems — published 2015‑12‑24 (granted as US10012537B2, 2018‑07‑03)

Sources: FreePatentsOnline; granted claims at Justia.

This reference supplies the per-spectral-band calibration of a multi-band source using the detection system as the sensor:

• A light source "adapted to produce light output having a spectrum with multiple bands such that amount of light in one or more of the multiple bands is adjustable substantially without affecting a remaining spectral band."
• The system is "configured such as to permit adjustment of light power, in a given spectral band … without substantially affecting spectral content of the other spectral bands" — i.e., the exact interaction-between-adjacent-channel problem the '101 patent says it solves.
• Independent per-band measurement: "permit measurement of light power, in a first spectral band … substantially independently from measuring of light power in a second spectral band."
• Normalization against a reference: "defining relative contributions of light from different spectral bands of an output of said calibrated light source; and individually normalizing averaged intensity profiles corresponding to said multiple spectral bands to define normalized individual reference spectra."
• Calibration is specimen-independent: the system equips the instrument "while being independent on optical characteristics of a specified specimen," and uses a geometrical standard / reference sample rather than the specimen of interest.
• The granted claim 1 (US10012537B2) is an iterative multi-intensity measurement/compare pipeline (illuminate at a first predetermined intensity, collect, illuminate again, subtract, determine variance/standard deviation "at every wavelength," and generate a per-wavelength conversion value) — i.e., a per-wavelength calibration loop driven by the detector.

Caveat: the claim text I quote for US10012537B2 is from the granted patent; the published application US20150369664A1 may have different claims. I retrieved the abstract and the embodiments text, not the published application's full claim set. I flag that as a verification gap.

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4. Combination grounds

Ground A — Ford + Garsha/Otter (§103 over US20110108719A1 in view of US20150369664A1)

Claim 1 mapping:

Practically every element is present; the only express gaps in Ford alone are (i) the iterative convergence-to-similarity framing and (ii) the "counts" normalization vocabulary. Garsha/Otter supplies both.

Motivation to combine (KSR factors):

1. Same field of endeavor — spectrometry/spectral measurement using a multi-band source and a photodetector array.
2. Same problem, expressly acknowledged — non-uniform spectral response across a broadband system. Ford's problem statement ([0046], [0110]–[0123]) is the '101 patent's own background (integration-time normalization leaves "remaining pixels … lower signal to noise ratios"). Garsha/Otter addresses the identical problem for a multi-band source.
3. Predictable result — adjusting source drive to flatten detected response is a known technique with a known effect. KSR: "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."
4. Combination of known elements yields no more than expected — the '101 patent's only asserted advance is compensating for interaction between adjacent spectral channels; Garsha/Otter explicitly claims adjustment of one band "without substantially affecting" others. That is the same objective.
5. The "simultaneous" and "similar" limitations are met by routine controller design — the patent itself admits a "multichannel Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller" is "well known by those skilled in the art" (spec, Description of the Preferred Embodiment). Where the only difference is the choice of an admitted-known controller, the claim is obvious.

Ground B — Add US8049882B2 for the saturation limitations (claims 2, 11)

US8049882B2 (granted 2011‑11‑01) — Google Patents / PDF — expressly addresses the broadband, multiple-light-source case: "This problem is especially significant when measurements are carried out in a wide (broadband) spectral range, e.g., from DUV to NIR, where different light sources are to be combined in order to cover the entire spectral range." It teaches setting levels "enabling all the peaks to be near to but lower than the saturation level," and the two-/three-stage preliminary-measurement approach. That maps directly onto claim 2 ("below but near a detection saturation count") and claim 11 ("below but near a detection saturation level"), and supplies the "why" for wanting counts similar rather than merely non-saturating: uniform, near-saturation counts maximize SNR/dynamic range across the whole spectrum. Note that US8049882B2 is not on the face of the '101 patent — it appears in the "Similar Documents" list — so this ground requires art outside the examiner's two references.

Ground C — Add Bartczak et al. (2015) for the fixed-integration limitations (claims 3, 4)

Bartczak, Gebejes, Fält, Parkkinen & Silfsten, "LED-based spectrally tunable light source for camera characterization," 2015 Colour and Visual Computing Symposium (CVCS), IEEE (Semantic Scholar); expanded in Bartczak's dissertation (UEF eRepo PDF).

This reference is unusually on point for claims 3 and 4:

• It equalizes the spectral channels of a multi-LED source by adjusting each channel's drive (PWM), not the detector's exposure time: "the PWM value was set for each channel individually in such a way that the highest light energy of peak wavelength was at an equal level for each channel. In other words, the spectral channel with the lowest radiant flux was turned on at its full PWM and the other channels were fine-tuned to reach the same level. The camera exposure duration was fixed for all LED stimuli and chosen so that none of the captured images was over-saturated."
• It expressly identifies the prior-art integration-time approach as the problem: "the setting of narrow-band stimuli and the adjustment of exposure times for both the camera and spectrometer are necessary to prevent oversaturation. The whole procedure is often done manually, resulting in a lengthy camera characterization."

That is a teaching that the energy-normalization should be performed on the source side with integration/exposure held fixed — the exact content of claims 3 and 4 — plus a motivation (speed/automation) for doing so.

Date caution: the 2015 CVCS paper (published Aug. 2015) is safely before the 2017‑06‑28 priority date. The dissertation's exact year I could not verify in this session; I recommend relying on the 2015 conference paper, not the dissertation, for a §103 ground.

Ground D — Add US6633301 ("RGB illuminator with calibration via single detector servo") for the "each … period" limitation and servo structure

Justia. Claim 9 recites "a light sensing mechanism which senses said light from one light source at a time while each light source is driven by an initial input, the calibration arrangement being configured to determine a comparison between the sensed light and a value representative of the desired intensity level … further including means responsive to the comparisons for varying the inputs so as to provide light of said desired intensity level from each light source," and claim 12: "the comparison is determined each time operation of the system is initiated." That is a multi-channel source calibrated against detector feedback on each start-up — directly supporting "at the beginning of each control or measurement period." (I did not re-verify the grant date in this session; it is a 2003-era patent and therefore predates the '101 priority date by a wide margin.)

Ground E — Dependent claims beyond 2–4

These are classic "result-of-the-adjustment" dependent claims — they recite why the adjustment is made, not additional structure or steps. Under KSR and In re Kao, functional recitations of the problem solved add little weight once the method steps are obvious.

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5. Counterarguments a validity defender would raise (and my assessment)

1. "Ford's feedback is a continuous flatness servo, not a discrete pre-measurement convergence loop." Fair as to wording, but weak as to substance: Ford teaches using reference-channel amplitude as feedback to control individual sources to maintain a uniform/flat profile, and Garsha/Otter teaches an iterative, per-wavelength, detector-driven calibration loop. Combining them yields the iterative convergence the claim recites, with predictable results.
2. "Garsha/Otter calibrates an imaging system, and its standard/reference sample sits at the object plane — i.e., in the path." This is the best defense. Garsha/Otter's calibration is specimen-independent but uses a geometrical standard at the object plane, which a plaintiff could argue is the "system under test" in the path. Ford, however, independently supplies a reference channel that bypasses the sample entirely ([0103]/[0109]), so the "without placing the system under test" limitation is still met by the combination.
3. "Neither reference teaches simultaneously adjusting all channels." Ford undercuts this: "the control circuitry can operate all of the sources simultaneously … or each source individually" ([0016]), and synchronous encoding by definition drives all channels at once ([0126]–[0128]).
4. "The specification's loop includes the system under test, so the claims are inconsistent with the disclosed embodiment." This is a §112 problem for the patent owner, not a §103 defense; if anything it weakens any argument that the sample-free limitation is a point of novelty, since the disclosed embodiment does not consistently practice it.
5. Secondary considerations (nexus problem). I found no litigation, licensing, or industry-praise evidence of record for this patent (consistent with the "no litigation identified" finding in the prior section). Absent secondary evidence with nexus, there is nothing to rebut a prima facie case.

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6. References in the record that cannot be used as §103 art

Important, because they appear on the same page as the prior art: the "Cited By" and "Families Citing this family" documents post-date the 2017‑06‑28 priority date and therefore are not prior art:

• US20230273118A1 (Courage + Khazaka Electronic GmbH) — priority 2020‑07‑17.
• CN113588080B (长春希达电子技术有限公司) — priority 2021‑08‑11.

Similarly, US10458841B2 (in the "Similar Documents" list) granted 2019‑10‑29, and CN107407628B, US11808685B2, JP2019032270A, JP6565174B2, JP6631001B2 and JP2018119968A post-date or are contemporaneous-at-best; I did not verify their priority dates, so they should be treated as unusable unless independently confirmed to predate 2017‑06‑28.

I also note that the "Family Cites Families" entries — US7567596B2 (Board of Trustees of Michigan State University, "Control system and apparatus for use with ultra-fast laser"), KR20090040343A (TIR Technology, "Method and apparatus for determining light intensity and peak wavelength"), and DE102008064149A1 (Osram Opto Semiconductors, "Optoelectronic device") — look topically promising (feedback control of a light source; determining light intensity and peak wavelength; optoelectronic device), but I did not retrieve their full texts in this session, so I do not rely on them. They are worth pulling before finalizing any rejection.

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7. Bottom line

Assessment: The granted claims are vulnerable to a §103 challenge, but the two references cited on the face of the patent are not by themselves a complete case. Ford (US20110108719A1) is a substantially closer reference than the examiner's allowance suggests — it discloses a multi-channel LED source, a reference channel that bypasses the sample, detector-amplitude feedback controlling each individual source, simultaneous operation of all sources, and the express goal of a "flat illumination profile" to improve SNR in weak bands. Garsha/Otter (US20150369664A1) supplies the per-band, detector-driven, iterative normalization of a multi-band source. A strong rejection would most likely be Ford + Garsha/Otter, further in view of US8049882B2 (near-but-below-saturation) and Bartczak et al. 2015 (equalizing source channels with fixed integration time), with US6633301 as a cumulative reference for per-period calibration.

Confidence and explicit limitations:

• High confidence in the substance of US20110108719A1 and US8049882B2 (full texts retrieved).
• Moderate confidence in US20150369664A1: I retrieved the abstract, embodiments, and the granted US10012537B2 claims; I did not retrieve the published application's full claim set, so its exact pre-grant claim scope is unverified.
• Moderate-to-low confidence on the exact grant dates of US6633301 and the year of the Bartczak dissertation; I recommend relying on the 2015 CVCS conference paper and verifying US6633301's grant date before asserting it as §102(b)/§102(a)(2) art.
• I did not retrieve the three "Family Cites Families" documents; they should be pulled and evaluated before a final office action is written.
• This is a prior-art/obviousness analysis only. It does not address §112 (the spec/claim tension flagged above), §101, or inequitable conduct, and it is not a legal opinion on validity or infringement.