US 10900773

I'll search for this specific patent number and check for any CAFC docket activity.

Initial searches returned noise. Let me run more targeted queries.

Let me try to pull the actual claim text and check for any litigation/PTAB activity tied to this number.

Summary of US 10900773 B2

Caveat up front: The authoritative full text supplied in this session (Google Patents fetch, 2026‑09‑24) contains the front matter, abstract, and description, but the claims section was truncated and is not in the supplied text. I therefore cannot quote verbatim claim language. The claim overview below is a plain‑language reconstruction from the "Solution to Problem" section and the described embodiments, and is flagged accordingly. I also could not confirm any CAFC or PTAB activity — details in the last section.

Bibliographic data (from the supplied authoritative text)

Abstract (as published, verbatim)

"An object is to provide a technology capable of realizing miniaturizing of a measurement unit in a distance measuring device. The distance measuring device including a light emitting unit that outputs measurement light, a polarization state control unit that controls polarization of the measurement light output from the light emitting unit, and an optical path switching element that selectively emits the measurement light controlled by the polarization state control unit, in which the polarization state control unit controls the polarization so as to emit the measurement light in a plurality of directions from the optical path switching element, and the optical path switching element receives reflected light with respect to an object of the measurement light emitted from the optical path switching element, the reflected light being used to measure a distance to the object."

Technical problem and background

The stated problem: in PTL 1 (JP‑A‑2007‑271601), the irradiation direction of measurement light is changed by physically pivoting a reflection mirror (mirror 37 on shaft 36, held by holding member 35 in housing 34). Because the mirror must move inside the housing, miniaturization of the housing is limited, which constrains measurement of narrow features. The patent's object is to miniaturize the measuring unit in a distance measuring device.

Plain‑language overview of the independent claims

(Reconstructed — not verbatim; the claims text was not available in the source I was given.)

1. Distance measuring device (polarization‑based switching) — mirrored by the "Solution to Problem" paragraph. A device comprising: (a) a light emitting unit that outputs measurement light; (b) a polarization state control unit that controls the polarization of that light; and (c) an optical path switching element that selectively emits the polarization‑controlled light. The polarization control unit controls polarization so the switching element emits the measurement light in a plurality of directions, and the switching element also receives reflected light back from the object, that reflected light being used to measure the distance to the object. In the disclosed embodiment the switching element is a polarization beam splitter (180) emitting along a first direction (300a, same as the input axis) or a second direction (300b, substantially orthogonal), and the control unit is a half‑wave plate (305) (alternatives: liquid crystal element, polarizing plate, fiber‑type polarization controller). A rotation mechanism (162) rotates the switching element about the input axis so the second direction sweeps angularly.

2. Distance measuring device (wavelength‑based switching) — Second Embodiment. A variant in which the emission direction is selected by wavelength rather than polarization: a dichroic mirror/prism (183) as the optical path switching element, with two laser sources (101a, 101b) of different wavelengths selected via an optical fiber switcher or combined with a WDM coupler. An alternative configuration uses two complete OCT/FMCW generation‑and‑detection units (171a, 171b) with a WDM coupler (192) so that measurement in the first and second directions can proceed in parallel.

3. Three‑dimensional shape measuring apparatus. An apparatus incorporating the distance measuring device above, plus a moving mechanism (e.g., XZ‑axis moving mechanism 251 and Y‑axis moving mechanism 252, optionally a rotation mechanism 256/sample stage 255 giving up to five degrees of freedom) and a calculation unit (260) with a distance calculation unit (261), shape calculation unit (262), and moving mechanism control unit (263). The rotating probe tip both sweeps the laterally emitted beam and translates, enabling non‑contact on‑machine 3D shape measurement (e.g., inner walls/depths of cylindrical or hexagonal bores).

Fourth embodiment (likely dependent matter): interchangeable measurement probe tip end units (164) with condenser lens systems (304) of differing focal lengths/lengths, CFRP construction for thermal/rigidity stability.

Measurement physics disclosed: FMCW / SS‑OCT (FIG. 3), SD‑OCT (FIG. 5), and white confocal variants; optical switches 113a/113b select fiber lengths to keep the reference‑to‑object path difference within coherence length and the beat frequency detectable; peak interpolation (quadratic/Gaussian fit) raises resolution ~10×; the formula γ = 2β − α (with β = (γ+α)/2 or (γ+α)/2 − π/4) governs half‑wave‑plate vs. beam‑splitter angle control.

CAFC 2026 docket / USPTO litigation check

• I ran searches aimed at the Federal Circuit (cafc.uscourts.gov opinions/orders and 2026 dockets) and at PTAB/IPR and district‑court activity specific to 10900773.
• No result tied US 10900773 to any CAFC appeal, and no IPR or district‑court matter involving this patent surfaced. The only Hitachi‑related CAFC item returned was unrelated: In re GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC, No. 2025‑1410 (Rule 36 judgment, July 9, 2026), concerning application 16/237,637 — a different subject matter entirely.
• Conclusion with appropriate uncertainty: I have no authoritative evidence of any CAFC or PTAB proceeding involving US 10900773. Absence of search hits is not proof of absence of litigation; I could not query PACER, the CAFC docket system, or USPTO Patent Center directly, so this should be treated as "nothing found" rather than "nothing exists." Note also that several search returns were dated after the April 26, 2026 reference date you gave, which suggests index coverage may be incomplete or inconsistent relative to that date.

Items I cannot confirm

• Exact claim numbers, count, and verbatim wording of the independent claims — the claims text was not in the supplied source, and my searches for the claim text hit the tool‑call limit before returning a reliable result.
• Whether claim 1 is limited strictly to polarization switching, or whether a separate independent claim covers the wavelength/dichroic embodiment.
• Exact claim scope of the three‑dimensional‑shape‑measuring‑apparatus claim (e.g., whether the moving mechanism and calculation unit are positively recited).

If you need verbatim claims, the reliable route is the granted‑patent PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/98/f3/f0/a574dbf2b00006/US10900773.pdf or USPTO Patent Center for application 16/484,844.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10900773.

Let me try additional searches on litigation-specific databases.

Let me refine my searches with more specific queries.

Litigation Search Results: US Patent No. 10,900,773

Summary: No litigation involving US Patent No. 10,900,773 was found.

I searched litigation-focused sources (Unified Patents litigation portal, PTAB/PTActs records, CourtListener/RECAP dockets, Justia, and general web) using the literal identifier "10900773" / "10,900,773" alongside terms such as "litigation," "lawsuit," "infringement," "complaint," and "case number." No district court action, ITC proceeding, PTAB post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or CAFC appeal naming US 10,900,773 as an asserted or challenged patent was returned.

Important caveats about this negative result

1. No auto-correction applied. Per the operating rules, I interpreted the identifier literally. Searches did surface documents referencing different patents with similar numbers (e.g., 10,311,073, 8,505,773, 7,454,002, 11,405,224, 10,237,773). None of these is US 10,900,773, and I have not substituted any of them.
2. Scope/limitations. My searches were web-indexed. PACER is a paywalled system not fully indexed by public search engines, and very recent filings may not yet be reflected in public aggregators. A definitive "no litigation ever filed" conclusion cannot be guaranteed from an open-web search alone.

Why litigation is unlikely (contextual, not a substitute for primary-source verification)

• US 10,900,773 is a Hitachi, Ltd. patent (title: "Distance measuring device and three-dimensional shape measuring apparatus"), granted 2021-01-26 with a priority date of 2017-06-06 and an anticipated expiration of 2038-05-22.
• Google Patents lists the legal status as Active, but lists no "Litigation" or "PTAB" event entries in the patent's event timeline (those sections are typically populated when such matters exist).
• Hitachi, as a large operating company rather than a non-practicing entity, has historically asserted patents selectively; no assertion of this particular patent appears in public dockets.

What to do for a conclusive check

To definitively confirm or rule out litigation, the following primary sources should be queried directly (they are not fully reachable via open web search):

• PACER / CourtListener RECAP — search the docket text for "10,900,773" and "10900773" across all district courts.
• USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) API / PTActs — to catch any IPR, PGR, or CBM.
• USPTO Patent Assignment / Global Dossier and the patent's "Litigation" tab on Google Patents or Espacenet — Espacenet sometimes lists national litigation events.
• CAFC docket search for any appeal naming the patent.

If you would like, I can perform additional targeted searches against any one of those specific sources.

Bottom line: Based on the searches performed, no known litigation involves US Patent No. 10,900,773. This is a negative finding subject to the index-coverage caveats above.

I'll verify the structured data against public sources before writing the report.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be thorough before concluding.

No PTAB hits. Let me do a final check on litigation/aggregator channels and the patent's family.

PTAB Proceedings Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,900,773

Patent: US 10,900,773 B2 — "Distance measuring device and three-dimensional shape measuring apparatus"
Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd. (original and current)
App. No.: 16/484,844 (PCT/JP2018/019625, filed 2018-05-22)
Priority: 2017-06-06 (JP 2017-111271; JP 2018-046769, filed 2018-03-14)
Granted: 2021-01-26 | Anticipated expiration: 2038-05-22
Report date: 2026-09-29

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for US 10,900,773 as of the most recent ODP ingest, and my independent web searches surfaced no unindexed or recently filed AIA petitions naming this patent. Breakdown by status is therefore: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials.

Bottom-line defensive posture: the "ptab has not touched this patent" flavor of defense is unavailable — there is no FWD to point to, no canceled claim to hide behind, and no estoppel to exploit. Equally, there is no adverse PTAB precedent hardening the patent either; it is simply untested. Every claim of the '773 patent stands exactly as issued, and the full prior-art universe remains open to a defendant. Note also that the framing of the assignment ("the troll has no case") does not fit this patent: the patent owner is Hitachi, Ltd., a large operating company, not an NPE — which is the most likely explanation for the absence of IPR activity (operating companies assert selectively and settle, so their patents often never reach the Board).

Proceedings

No proceedings to report. There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, final written decision, settlement, or Federal Circuit appeal to describe for this patent. I am deliberately not populating the per-proceeding template, because filling it would require inventing proceeding numbers, which the operating rules prohibit.

Search coverage and residual uncertainty (stated plainly): I searched for the patent number in combination with "IPR," "PTAB," "inter partes review," "petition," and the assignee name, and surfaced only unrelated documents (e.g., proceedings on other patents numbered '773 — U.S. 6,896,773; 7,973,773; 8,727,773; 10,237,773 — which are different patents and must not be conflated with US 10,900,773). I could not directly query PTAB E2E or Docket Alarm in this session. If you need a belt-and-suspenders confirmation before relying on the absence, run the patent number through PTAB E2E's "Patent Number" search and Docket Alarm's PTAB case lookup; both index petitions earlier than ODP sometimes does.

Related family activity (not PTAB proceedings, flagged only to avoid confusion): the '773 patent is in a Japanese-origin family including JP 2018205301 A and JP 2020008496 A (a continuation-style filing directed to first/second polarization state control units). Foreign prosecution is not PTAB activity and should not be cited as such, but it is worth knowing the family exists if you are mapping claim scope across jurisdictions.

Claim set caveat: the authoritative patent text supplied to me includes the abstract, summary, and description, but not the full printed claim set. I therefore cannot state which claims are independent or quote claim numbers. Do not assume claim numbering from this report — pull the issued claims directly from the patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 100% UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,900,773 has been canceled, confirmed, or even instituted upon in an AIA trial. There are no "surviving claims" to list because none were ever at risk — the entire issued claim set carries its original, unadjudicated presumption of validity under § 282. Practically, that means a defendant faces the full scope of the patent as granted, with no narrowing claim amendments (no § 316(d) motions, no disclaimer) and no prosecution-history concessions attributable to a trial.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is inapplicable, and no petitioner or privy is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground in district court or the ITC. Conversely, and more importantly for you: nothing about this patent's history limits your art choices. The whole field — including references that were before the examiner and references that were not — remains available. There is also no § 325(d) overlay and no prior-institution record for the Board to lean on under General Plastic or Fintiv when it evaluates a first petition.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner at all). No patent-owner appeal activity to the Federal Circuit, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) in the chain — my searches specifically looked for a Unified Patents challenge and found none. The absence is consistent with a patent that has not been broadly asserted in the U.S. The more informative signal may be the inverse: with no U.S. litigation identified, no § 315(b) one-year clock has started, so any future IPR petitioner's bar date is unset and purely contingent on being served with a complaint. Note the long runway — the patent does not expire until 2038-05-22, so there is more than a decade of assertion exposure.

Recommended next steps

Because no AIA trial proceeding exists, here is what that means for you:

1. Do not build a defense around PTAB outcomes. There is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote. Any brief or demand-letter response that implies IPR history on this patent would be a misrepresentation. If opposing counsel or a broker suggests otherwise, demand the proceeding number and check it against PTAB E2E.

2. Verify the null result independently before relying on it. Search US 10,900,773 at:

   • USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) — use "Patent Number" search;
   • Docket Alarm PTAB lookup (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/);
   • CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) for any CAFC appeal.

   There can be no Federal Circuit appeal here — appeals arise only from an FWD, and none issued.

3. Preserve your IPR option and watch the § 315(b) clock. If you are sued, the one-year bar under § 315(b) runs from service of the complaint. Given the patent runs to 2038, an early IPR filing — or a well-drafted invalidity contention that keeps IPR as a fallback — is worth evaluating as soon as you have the complaint in hand.

4. Attack the priority date first. The patent claims priority to JP 2017-111271 (2017-06-06) and JP 2018-046769 (2018-03-14). Any art dated between 2017-06-06 and the 2018-05-22 PCT filing date is only useful to you if you can knock out the earlier priority claim — a § 102/§ 103 theory worth scoping before you invest in an IPR.

5. Consider design-around leverage. The asserted technical core is polarization-controlled optical-path switching (half-wave plate / liquid crystal element / fiber-type polarization controller feeding a polarization beam splitter such as element 163, with an alternative dichroic-mirror embodiment keyed to wavelength). The specification itself describes alternatives and a rotation mechanism 162, which may create design-around space that is cheaper than invalidity — but that requires mapping the issued claims, which I could not do from the text provided.

If you want to be thorough, the one open gap in this report is a direct PTAB E2E patent-number query, which I could not run here. Everything else is either grounded in the structured ODP data or in searches that came back empty. If you can run that one query, the "no PTAB activity" conclusion moves from high confidence to verified.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10900773 across the sources you specified.

Let me search for the specific assignment record details and any Hitachi ownership transfers.

Ownership Analysis — US 10900773 B2

Data-access caveat up front: I was unable to open the USPTO Assignment Center record for this patent directly (the Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov pages did not surface in my retrieval, and targeted searches did not return the reel/frame for this specific patent). What follows is built from the patent's own front-matter/legal-events data (Google Patents), the prosecution materials mirrored on Google Patents/PubChem, and inventor-affiliation evidence in the public literature. I have not fabricated any reel/frame numbers or correspondents — where a field could not be verified, I say so. Verify the Assignment Center entry directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ before relying on any ownership conclusion.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: Not present. The opposite of the "all inventors depart within 12 months" tell — Hariyama and Watanabe were still publishing under Hitachi's R&D Group affiliation in 2022, well after filing (2017/2018). No evidence of a pre-fire-sale inventor exodus.

Original assignee

Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan). Hitachi is a large diversified operating company; the technology here is a FMCW / SS-OCT / SD-OCT laser distance-measuring probe for narrow-space 3D shape metrology, which sits squarely in Hitachi's inspection/metrology product line (the same authors published on "development of inspection and measurement equipment"). So the original assignee did develop and describe a working embodiment (the apparatus of FIGS. 1–17), i.e., this is an operating-company R&D portfolio asset, not a holding vehicle. Current status: Hitachi, Ltd. remains an operating company (no bankruptcy, no dissolution). Note that Hitachi has periodically divested patent portfolios (the related Hitachi → Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell → Maxell chain appears on other Hitachi patents), so a future transfer is conceivable — but no such transfer is recorded for this patent.

Assignment timeline

Google Patents records exactly one reassignment event for US 16/484,844:

• Exec. date not retrieved / recorded 2019-08-09 — Reel/Frame not retrieved from my sources
  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: HARIYAMA, TATSUO; MARUNO, KENJI; TANIGUCHI, ATSUSHI; WATANABE, MASAHIRO (the named inventors)
  • Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from my sources. I will not guess at an attorney/firm name. (This should be captured from the Assignment Center entry — it is the single most useful field per the task brief.)
  • Context: Original inventor-to-employer assignment, i.e., the standard conveyance that accompanies filing/national-stage entry (the app is a 371 national stage of PCT/JP2018/019625). Not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

There are no post-issuance assignments recorded. No transfer to any Hitachi holding entity, no LLC, no NPE. Per the task rubric, the absence of post-issuance records here means the original assignee (Hitachi, Ltd.) still owns the patent — this is consistent with the Google Patents "Current Assignee: Hitachi Ltd" and "Legal status: Active" entries.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10900773
    2017 : Priority filed in Japan by Hitachi
    2018 : PCT application filed
    2019 : Inventors assign rights to Hitachi Ltd
    2021 : Patent US 10900773 issued to Hitachi
    2026 : Hitachi Ltd still the recorded owner

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No assignment to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity is recorded. The only assignee in the chain is Hitachi, Ltd., an operating manufacturer.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither Hitachi, Ltd. nor the inventors appear on any of the listed NPE directories (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Conversant, etc.), and no such entity appears as an assignee.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not assessable. The correspondent of record for the single 2019 recording was not retrievable, and with only one link in the chain there is no recurrence to measure. Not a finding.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. A single inventor→employer assignment; no chained LLC transfers within any window.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was surfaced, and there is no pre-suit assignment.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Hitachi, Ltd. has not undergone a Chapter 7/11 sale of this asset.
7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer from Hitachi to an NPE asserting on Hitachi's behalf.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN; it terminates at the original operating company.

Verdict

Insufficient data (per the rubric: "no records, or only the original assignment").

Justification: The only recorded event is the 2019-08-09 inventor→Hitachi, Ltd. assignment (conveyance "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST"), which is the conventional original-assignment step for a PCT national-stage filing, not a transfer. There are no post-issuance assignments, so Hitachi, Ltd. remains the current assignee and the patent shows zero NPE-pattern signals. I am not raising this to "Operating-company assertion" because no litigation against competitors was found — the affirmative evidence is a well-documented operating-company R&D portfolio asset (the inventors were still publishing on the same metrology program under Hitachi in 2022). The classification is capped at "Insufficient data" solely because the record contains only the original assignment and I could not retrieve the reel/frame or correspondent to fully close the chain.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 10900773 or application 16/484,844) — specifically pull the single 2019 recording's reel/frame and correspondent, which are the two fields I was unable to confirm.

I'll research US patent 10900773 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig deeper into the front-page references and citation lists.

Let me try to retrieve the front-page "References Cited" list specifically.

Prior-Art Analysis: US 10,900,773 B2

0. Method note / limitation up front

I do not have direct API access to USPTO PatentCenter or the Global Dossier in this session. I searched public mirrors of the USPTO record (Google Patents / patentimages PDFs hosted by Google, FreePatentsOnline) plus Espacenet-family pages. I was able to confirm the bibliographic record and the prior art that is discussed on the face of the patent, but I was unable to retrieve the complete examiner citation list (the full "(56) References Cited" table) or the PCT/JP2018/019625 search report before exhausting my search budget. Anything below marked [UNVERIFIED] should be confirmed against the authoritative citation list before being relied on.

1. Patent identification (confirmed)

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10900773/en ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/98/f3/f0/a574dbf2b00006/US10900773.pdf ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2020/0041259.html

Note on timelines: Because the invention has a 2017-06-06 priority date, prior art must predate that date to qualify under §102(a)(1)/(a)(2) (AIA). JP 2017-111271 and JP 2018-046769 are the applicant's own priority applications and are not prior art.

2. The one reference the patent itself cites as prior art ("PTL 1")

Citation: JP 2007-271601 A — published 2007 (Japanese unexamined application publication; "PTL 1" in the patent's Citation List).
Cited passages: ¶¶[0034]–[0036] of that document: a rod-shaped shaft (support member 36) fixed in a housing portion 34; a reflection mirror 37 held pivotably about shaft 36; a holding member 35 holding the mirror at a first position (measurement light from light source 38 not reflected) and a second position (mirror rotated ~45°, deflecting the measurement light ~90°). This is a mechanical, pivoting-mirror beam deflector inside the probe housing.

Does it anticipate under §102? No. JP 2007-271601 discloses a mechanically driven direction-control mirror. It lacks every element that distinguishes the claims on their face:

• no polarization state control unit that controls polarization of the measurement light;
• no optical path switching element that "selectively emits the measurement light controlled by the polarization state control unit" (e.g., a polarization beam splitter, dichroic mirror, or birefringent-plate + mirror combination as recited/described);
• no polarization-based selection of emission direction.

The patent expressly uses PTL 1 as the problem statement (mirror actuation limits miniaturization) — i.e., it is a background/§103 reference, not an anticipating reference. It would only be relevant under §102 against a hypothetical claim that recited nothing more than a switchable emission direction in a probe head — no such claim appears to exist here.

Confidence: High on the technical content (quoted verbatim in the patent). The exact publication date (day/month 2007) should be confirmed from JPO/Espacenet. [UNVERIFIED: exact pub. date]

3. References that appear in the citation data retrieved for US 10,900,773 [UNVERIFIED — flag]

A references table was retrieved in association with the US10900773.pdf document, containing at least:

Source snippet: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/98/f3/f0/a574dbf2b00006/US10900773.pdf

Cautions:

• Per your instruction I am interpreting the identifiers literally: I am not correcting "US 2016/029333 A1" to any presumed 7-digit publication number. The string as retrieved is not a valid US pre-grant publication format (which is US YYYY/NNNNNNN A1), so the true number is uncertain and must be verified from the printed front page.
• The leading asterisk on the Horimai entry typically denotes a reference the examiner considered of particular relevance (in US practice, an examiner-cited/* entry), which is why I flag it as the most likely substantive §102/§103 reference among the two.

Does Horimai anticipate? On the evidence available, probably not for the controlling claim. G01B 9/02011 and 356/458 place it in the interferometric/low-coherence distance-measurement space, i.e., it likely discloses the distance-measurement principle (OCT/interferometry) rather than the claimed polarization-controlled optical path switching element at the probe tip. That maps to the measurement-principle limitations, not the novelty-defining limitation. Confidence: Low–Medium — I could not open the reference.

For US 2016/029333 A1 (Hirono et al.): I could not open the document; no §102 mapping is possible without it. [UNVERIFIED]

4. Family-level citations (likely relevant, but I could not tie them to the US patent's face)

From the family page for the JP sibling JP2018205301A5 (same priority lineage, listing US16/484,844 → US10900773B2), the family citation list includes older documents such as:

• US 5,949,546 A (Ahead Optoelectronics) — 1999-09-07 (asterisked)
• JP 4075191 B2 (Aisin Seiki) — 2008-04-16 — "shape measuring device and shape measuring method"
• JP 3527882 B2 (asterisked)
• JP S50-8668 B1 — 1975-04-05

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2018205301A5/en

These are plausibly the JPO/ISA search-report citations for the shared priority family, and if so they would form part of the §102/§103 record for US 10,900,773 as well. I could not confirm this — treat as a lead only. [UNVERIFIED]

5. Forward citations (NOT prior art) — for completeness only

Documents citing the US 10,900,773 family (per the family page above) include: JP 7193992 B2 (Hitachi), JP 2022-508497 A (Quality Vision International — "partially coherent range sensor pen connected to a light source/detector by polarization-maintaining fiber"), JP 6835919 B2 (Hitachi), CN 114667432 A (DeFritz Automation — non-contact optical measuring device with replaceable optical probe), JP 7414643 B2 (Hitachi), DE 10 2021 102292 A1 (Valeo), JP 7001184 B1 (Omron), CN 115406357 B, JP 7787776 B2 (Hitachi High-Tech). These post-date the 2017-06-06 priority date and therefore have no §102 value against this patent.

6. Bottom line on §102 anticipation

1. The only prior art expressly cited and addressed by the applicant is JP 2007-271601 A, and it does not anticipate any claim — it discloses a mechanically pivoted mirror, not the claimed polarization-controlled optical path switching element. It is a §103/background reference.
2. US 2015/0300803 A1 (Horimai) is the most likely substantive examiner citation found, but on classification evidence it appears directed to interferometric/OCT distance measurement rather than the polarization-based beam switching, so anticipation of the controlling claim is unlikely; its real role was probably §103.
3. US 2016/029333 A1 (Hirono et al.) cannot be assessed — identifier is ambiguous as retrieved.
4. I could not obtain the authoritative, complete "(56) References Cited" list or the ISA search report, so I cannot certify that these are all the citations, nor assign anticipation to specific claim numbers with confidence.

To produce a defensible claim-by-claim §102 chart, the following are still required:

• The full printed front page of US 10,900,773 B2 (all §56 citations, with examiner asterisks);
• The complete claim set (I only have the abstract-level claim 1 language: light emitting unit → polarization state control unit → optical path switching element selectively emitting the polarization-controlled measurement light in a plurality of directions and receiving the reflected light);
• The WO 2018/225496 A1 / PCT-JP2018-019625 ISR & Written Opinion (which would give the examiner's X/Y category designations and the claim numbers affected);
• USPTO PatentCenter "Patent History" / Global Dossier "Citations" for application 16/484,844 and its "References Cited by Examiner."

If you can supply the PDF of US 10,900,773 B2 (front page) or its file wrapper citation list, I will convert this into a complete reference-by-reference, claim-by-claim §102 table.

I'll research the claims and prior art references before constructing the obviousness analysis.

Let me retrieve the actual claims and the PCT/priority documents which serve as prior art context.

Let me get the complete claims and the cited prior-art references from the patent front page.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — US 10,900,773 ("Distance measuring device and three-dimensional shape measuring apparatus")

0. Scope, sources, and a flagged discrepancy

Data-integrity flags (please read first):

1. The authoritative full text supplied in the prompt contains no claims section. The provided rendering of US 10,900,773 ends mid-sentence in the "Description" and gives only an Abstract, classification, and a "Prior Art" block. The claim text used below is taken from the Justia rendering of the pre-grant publication US 2020/0041259 A1 (App. 16/484,844), which Justia explicitly maps to grant number 10,900,773. If the granted claims differ from the published claims (a real risk — the Justia excerpt skips claim numbers 2, 4, 7, 11, 12, and 14, which suggests intervening claims were cancelled/amended during prosecution), the mapping below must be re-verified against the granted claim set on USPTO PatentCenter.
2. Per the operating rules I have not auto-corrected identifiers. Search results surfaced unrelated patents with similar numbers (e.g., 10,311,073; 8,505,773; 10,237,773; 11,405,224); none is 10,900,773 and none has been substituted.

Prior art consulted (from the patent page's own "Prior Art" block plus references surfaced by search):

Note also that WO 2018/225496 A1, JP 2018-205301, and JP 7787776 B2 are the applicant's own family/later publications and are therefore not usable as prior art against this patent.

1. The governing framework and the PHOSITA

The device sits at the intersection of (a) optical metrology / interferometric ranging and (b) polarization optics. A person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) here is an optical engineer (M.S. or B.S. + 2–5 years) familiar with FMCW/SS-OCT/SD-OCT and TOF ranging, fiber and free-space beam delivery, and standard polarization components (polarizing beam splitters, waveplates, liquid-crystal polarization rotators, birefringent plates).

Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and MPEP § 2143, a claim is obvious where (i) each element was known in the art, (ii) there was a reason to combine them, and (iii) there was a reasonable expectation of success. All of these are satisfied here, and the specification itself supplies much of the motivation and several implicit admissions of what was conventional.

2. Ground 1 — PTL 1 (JP-A-2007-271601) in view of conventional polarization beam-steering → claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 8

2.1 What PTL 1 teaches

The patent's own background section (Description, ¶ citing PTL 1 ¶¶[0034]–[0036]) quotes JP-A-2007-271601:

• a light source 38 emitting "measurement light";
• a reflection mirror 37 pivoted on shaft 36, with holding member 35, together forming a "direction control unit for changing a traveling direction of the light for measurement output from the light source 38 to a predetermined direction (for example, 90 degrees)."

So PTL 1 discloses a meter emitting measurement light whose emission direction is switched between two directions (0° / 90°) — the identical functional objective of claim 1's "optical path switching element." PTL 1 also describes the same use case (measuring the shape of a three-dimensional object while suppressing movement of the measuring unit).

2.2 The only missing element, and why it was obvious to supply it

Claim 1's distinguishing feature over PTL 1 is simply how the switching is done: a polarization state control unit in series with a polarization-selective optical path switching element. That is textbook, decades-old polarization optics:

• A 45°-oriented polarizing beam splitter (PBS) inherently transmits one linear polarization along the input axis and reflects the orthogonal polarization at 90°. This is exactly claim 3's "first direction by transmitting / second direction substantially perpendicular by reflecting" — and exactly the 90° deflection PTL 1 already achieves mechanically with mirror 37.
• US 8,773,645 B2 (Nikon) demonstrates a distance measuring device that steers/separates light by polarization using "a polarizing element… an optical rotatory plate rotating a polarizing axis… [and] a polarization separation element."
• EP 1 191 316 A1 discloses an element for manipulating an optical signal whose "manipulation property… compris[es] a polarization manipulation property."
• JP 5162889 B2 shows actively controlling signal-light polarization direction with polarization controllers driving a switch — i.e., the "polarization state control unit" concept.
• The patent's own text confirms conventionality: it states a half-wave plate (with the standard 2β−α output relation), a liquid-crystal element, a rotatable polarizer, and a fiber-type polarization controller are all usable implementations — the specification presents the §103 problem as one of ordinary component selection, not invention.

2.3 Motivation to combine (KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same purpose. PTL 1 and the claim are both optical measuring instruments that change measurement-light direction to reach confined features. Combining references from the same technical field to solve the same problem is the paradigm KSR case.
2. The problem to be solved is expressly identified. The patent admits the state of the art and states its own object: "In order to move the mirror in the housing portion, miniaturizing of the housing portion is limited." A PHOSITA reading PTL 1 would immediately see that removing the pivoting mirror (and its shaft 36, holding member 35, and drive space) frees volume in the probe tip. Requirement is a beam-steering element that needs no moving parts — an express design goal widely known in optical metrology.
3. Substitution of known elements with predictable results (MPEP § 2144.04(IV)). Swapping a pivoting mirror for a fixed PBS + polarization controller is the substitution of one known beam-steering means for another, yielding the same 0°/90° output geometry. The physics (Malus's law; waveplate 2β−α rotation) are fully deterministic, so success is not merely "reasonably expected" — it is essentially arithmetic.
4. The patent's own equations confirm obviousness, not invention. ¶ on FIG. 12 shows that holding γ = 2β−α gives the first direction and γ = 2β−α+π/2 gives the second. These are closed-form consequences of the components chosen, not an unexpected result.
5. "Distance by measuring propagation time" (claim 6) is one of a list of admitted alternatives — the specification itself recites TOF, Phase Shift, optical comb, white confocal, astigmatism, knife-edge, and conoscopic holography. Selecting TOF (or the FMCW/SS-OCT already used in PTL 1-style instruments) is a plain design choice with predictable results (MPEP § 2144.04).
6. Birefringent plate + mirror (claim 8) — the second recited alternative — is likewise conventional: a birefringence plate that shifts the optical path as a function of polarization state, plus a mirror on the shifted path, is a well-known beam-steering pair. The patent itself notes the polarization/emission-direction relationship is simply "opposite" between the PBS and birefringent-plate implementations. Choosing among these is a KSR "design choice."

Conclusion — Ground 1: Claims 1, 3, 5, 6, and 8 are each rendered obvious by JP-A-2007-271601 in view of the general knowledge in polarization beam-steering (as evidenced by US 8,773,645, EP 1 191 316 A1, and JP 5162889).

3. Ground 2 — Ground 1 + a liquid-crystal polarization switch → claim 10

Claim 10 adds a "polarization switching unit" upstream of the polarization state control unit. The specification itself describes this as a polarization stabilization device 301 plus a linear polarization switching switch 302 ("a function of rotating the direction of the linearly polarized light… by π/2… by applying a voltage to the built-in liquid crystal element") and states these "can be realized by a combination of a normal polarization state analyzer and a polarization state generator."

That is a specification admission that the additional element is conventional. Voltage-driven liquid-crystal polarization rotators/switches were well known (JP 5162889 B2; EP 1 191 316 A1), and the claimed benefit — fast, non-mechanical switching (~0.1 ms vs. ~100 ms for a servomotor, as the patent quantifies) — is the known benefit of electro-optic switching over mechanical switching. Claim 10 is obvious.

4. Ground 3 — Ground 1 + a conventional multi-axis gantry → claim 9

Claim 9 recites a three-dimensional shape measuring apparatus using the claim-1 device, with "a moving mechanism that moves the optical path switching element in multiple directions including a longitudinal direction, a lateral direction, and a depth direction." The patent's own FIG. 6 describes an XZ-axis moving mechanism 251 on a Y-axis moving mechanism 252, and states this "has a normal axis configuration used in a three-dimensional measuring apparatus." Three-orthogonal-axis gantries are the baseline of CMM/metrology practice (and are shown in EP 2 790 033 B1 for large-part shape measurement, and reflected in WO 2014/020660 A1's rotating-cylinder probe). Combining a known 3-axis stage with the beam-steering probe of Ground 1 is an obvious aggregation of known elements performing their known functions. Claim 9 is obvious.

5. Ground 4 — Ground 1 + conventional condenser/probe-tip practice → claims 13 and 15

• Claim 13 (a condenser lens in each emission direction, each condensing to a predetermined focal length) is routine optical design. Placing a focusing lens in each of two orthogonal exit paths and selecting focal lengths to match two different object distances is a predictable application of known optics; the patent even offers the alternative of a common lens between the switching element and the object (its FIG. 17 "front" configuration) as a mere manufacturing simplification.
• Claim 15 (a removable/exchangeable measurement-probe tip end unit containing the switching element and a condenser lens) is conventional metrology practice — interchangeable styli/tips are standard on coordinate measuring machines, and the patent itself justifies exchangeability for focal-length adjustment ("by exchanging the measurement probe tip end unit 164 according to a hole diameter of the object T") and for field repair. Providing a known probe as a replaceable module with a restrained optical registration is a predictable design expedient (MPEP § 2144.04).

Claims 13 and 15 are obvious over Ground 1 in view of such conventional practice.

6. Objective indicia (secondary considerations)

No evidence of unexpected results, long-felt unmet need, industry praise, copying, or licensing is present in the record I reviewed. The sole asserted advantage — "miniaturiz[ing] of the measuring unit" by eliminating the mirror-drive volume — is the predictable, inherent consequence of replacing a moving mirror with a static polarization switch, i.e., the result the KSR rationale predicts rather than an unexpected result. Without a nexus between any secondary indicium and the claimed subject matter, none of the Graham secondary factors overcomes the prima facie case.

7. Summary table

8. Weaknesses and caveats in this analysis

• Claim-set uncertainty. As flagged in §0, I do not have the granted claims verbatim from the authoritative source; claims 2, 4, 7, 11, 12, 14 (and any independent claims among them) are unexamined here. If a granted independent claim recites a specific control relationship (e.g., the exact γ = 2β−α ± π/2 feedback law), the obviousness case is still strong but should be briefed claim-by-claim against the granted text.
• Reference dates. Publication dates for JP 5162889 B2 and EP 2 790 033 B1 are asserted from search metadata and should be confirmed on Espacenet/Google Patents before being relied on as §102/§103 art.
• EP 2 790 033 B1 assignee unverified. Its provenance (potentially the applicant's own corporate family) affects whether it qualifies as prior art; treat the citation as provisional until verified.
• No litigation/validity challenge data (consistent with the prior litigation section) means there is no adversary construction of the claims to test the above. The present analysis is the analyst's prima facie reading only and is not a legal opinion.

Bottom line: The claimed subject matter is a predictable recombination of known optical elements — a polarization beam-steering element and its polarization controller (all long known) applied to the known problem of changing measurement-light direction in an optical distance/shape measuring instrument disclosed in JP-A-2007-271601 — to obtain the known benefit of eliminating a moving mirror and thereby miniaturizing the probe. Under KSR and MPEP § 2143–2144, claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, and 15 appear obvious under § 103.