US 11041779

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number, including any litigation activity.

Let me refine my searches with more targeted queries.

Let me search for any litigation or appeal activity involving this patent.

Summary of US Patent 11041779

Sourcing note: I was able to confirm bibliographic and content details from the USPTO/Google Patents full-text record and corroborating patent aggregators. My searches did not return any CAFC (Federal Circuit) 2026 docket entries or pending litigation naming this patent. I therefore report the patent's bibliographic data with high confidence and litigation status as unknown / none found, rather than asserting there is no litigation.

Bibliographic Data (confirmed)

Abstract

A monitoring system for a facility automatically determines the presence of leaks in a compressed gas system. It uses information from sensors in the compressed gas system to determine whether there is a constant flow of gas indicative of a leak. Flow measurements from the sensors are processed to determine minimum gas flow amounts for a series of time windows; these are averaged to generate an average minimum gas flow amount. If the average minimum gas flow amount is greater than a threshold, a variance of the minimum gas flow amounts is determined. If the variance is less than a variance threshold, the average minimum gas flow amount is determined to correspond to a leak.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

The patent has 22 claims. The independent claims (as either method or system claims) are:

1. Method for determining gas leakage from a compressed gas system in a facility (claim 1)

• Identify a portion of the compressed gas system, and at least one sensor within it.
• Measure a flow-of-compressed-gas parameter many times to produce multiple measured parameters.
• Divide those measurements into time windows, each containing two or more measurements.
• For each window, select a gas flow based on comparing the measurements in that window (e.g., the minimum).
• Generate a gas flow parameter from the selected values across windows.
• Determine the gas leakage for the identified portion based on that gas flow parameter.

In short: measure flow repeatedly, bucket the readings into windows, pick a representative (lowest) value per window, combine them, and use the result to quantify leakage in that part of the system.

5. Method for determining gas leakage (claim 5)

• Identify a portion of the system and a sensor in it; take multiple flow measurements.
• Calculate leakage based on those measurements by: dividing them into time windows; determining a minimum gas flow per window; calculating an average minimum gas flow across windows; and determining the leakage from that average minimum.
• This is essentially the "average of per-window minimums" approach, without the extra window-comparison recitation of claim 1.

6. Control system for a facility (claim 6)

• A network of nodes, a plurality of sensors measuring compressed-gas flow in areas of the system, and a server that receives the measurements.
• The server (processor + memory with stored instructions) is programmed to: divide measurements into time windows; determine a minimum flow per window; calculate an average minimum flow; and determine a gas leak based on the average minimum flow.

14. Method for determining a gas leak in a compressed gas system of a facility (claim 14)

• Measure a flow parameter with a sensor repeatedly.
• Divide the measurements into time windows (each with at least one measurement).
• Determine a minimum gas flow per window.
• Calculate an average minimum gas flow across windows.
• Determine whether a gas leak is present based on the average minimum gas flow.
• Note: Dependent claims 15–18 add comparison to a threshold and a second variance-based threshold check; claims 19–20 add a predetermined measurement time period and window correlation; claim 21 specifies equally spaced windows; claim 22 adds leak-location determination.

Dependent-Claim Highlights (context for the independent claims)

• Claim 2: Distinguishes sensors at an "edge" of the portion vs. intermediate (upstream) sensors; windows include measurements from both — reflecting the patent's Equation 1 (edge sensors) and Equation 2 (intermediate sensors, subtracting downstream flows) distinction.
• Claims 3–4: Average gas flow calculation and minimum-gas-flow selection.
• Claims 7–13: User notification, threshold comparison, variance determination, variance-vs-second-threshold logic, leak present when variance is below the second threshold, integration with a lighting control or asset tracking system, and leak-location determination.

Litigation / CAFC Status

My searches did not surface any Federal Circuit 2026 docket entry, district court case, or PTAB proceeding involving US 11041779. The Google Patents "Cited By" list for this patent shows only later patent documents (e.g., US 11582058 B2, US 20240044345 A1, CN 113446519 A, US 20240310233 A1), not litigation events. I do not have authoritative confirmation that this patent is or is not involved in any 2026 CAFC appeal or USPTO proceeding; if such activity exists, it was not returned by the searches available to me. I recommend verifying directly against the CAFC docket (PACER/CM-ECF) and USPTO Patent Center/PTAB records using application number 16/128,025.

Uncertainty Flags

• Litigation/appeal status: not confirmed by the sources retrieved.
• Inventor middle initials and city assignments come from an aggregator (idiyas) corroborating the Google Patents record; the core bibliographic data (title, assignee, dates, application number) is consistent across the patent record and secondary sources.
• "Adjusted expiration 2039-07-12" is the platform's assumption and is not a legal conclusion about enforceability or term.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11041779 across patent litigation databases and court records.

Let me search more specifically for litigation involving this patent and its owner.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 11,041,779

Bottom line: I found no known litigation (district court, ITC, PTAB, or Federal Circuit) involving U.S. Patent No. 11,041,779.

What I searched

• Google Patents page for US11041779B1 (authoritative text you supplied) — its "Cited By" and "Citations" sections are populated, but there is no "Litigation" section and no litigation references anywhere on the record.
• Unified Patents litigation portal / PTAB caselist (portal.unifiedpatents.com) — no hits for this patent number.
• General web searches for the patent number plus "litigation," "lawsuit," "district court," "IPR," "PTAB," "CAFC," and "infringement" — no case involving 11041779.
• Owner-specific searches for Synapse Wireless, Inc. as a plaintiff or defendant asserting/defending this patent — none found.

Important disambiguations (numbers I did NOT find, per your strict-ID rule)

• US 10,136,179 and US 10,104,425 — asserted by Innovation Sciences LLC in ITC Investigation 337-TA-____ (complaint filed Aug. 9, 2019). These are different patents, not 11,041,779.
• US 11,007,179, US 10,188,632, etc. — patents in the Allergan USA v. MSN Laboratories litigation (D. Del. 1:19-cv-01727). The "11,007,179" hit is a different patent from a different field (pharma) and is not 11,041,779.
• US 8,605,794 — VideoLabs/Unified Patents Federal Circuit matter (2026). Unrelated.
• US 11,150,779-type near-matches in browser/UI tech (Better Browsing v. Acer) — not this patent.

Related but distinct litigation involving the patent owner (context only)

• Endeavor MeshTech, Inc. v. Synapse Wireless, Inc. — N.D. Ala., filed March 25, 2015 (an Endeavor IP subsidiary). This suit involved an entirely different patent family (e.g., US 7,379,981; US 8,700,749; US 8,855,019) directed to wireless mesh-network configuration, and it predates the 2018 priority/filing of the '779 patent. It is not litigation over US 11,041,779.

Outcome/status for US 11,041,779

Not applicable — no case identified. The patent is recorded as active, with an adjusted expiration of July 12, 2039 (per the Google Patents record). It appears to be unasserted in any court or agency proceeding as of the sources checked.

Caveats on completeness

You asked specifically for PACER/CAFC confirmation. I was unable to complete exhaustive direct PACER/CAFC docket queries within this session, so I cannot give a 100% negative certification for every district. Based on the patent-litigation aggregators (Unified Patents, Google Patents' litigation data, and general court-record searches), the evidence strongly indicates this patent has not been asserted in any litigation to date. If you need a definitive negative clearance, the recommended next step is a paid Docket Navigator / Lex Machina / RPX run keyed to the exact patent number 11,041,779 (and a PACER "party name" search for Synapse Wireless, Inc. across all districts).

I want to be explicit: I did not find a single litigation record for this patent, and I am not going to fabricate plaintiff/defendant/case-number data to fill that gap.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted web searches before finalizing.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks before finalizing.

Proceedings overview

US 11,041,779 has zero AIA trial proceedings on file — a total count of 0 (0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials).

The canonical structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block contains no proceedings, and my web checks (PTAB E2E/PTAB Decisions, Google Patents litigation & proceeding data, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents-style aggregators, and general "11041779 IPR/PGR/" searches) surfaced nothing naming this patent. I am reporting that as the substantive answer rather than manufacturing proceeding numbers: there is no IPR, PGR, or CBM to tell a defendant about.

Bottom line for a defendant: No claim of the '779 patent has been canceled, narrowed by the Board, or even construed. The patent is untested — not "hardened" and not "killed." Every one of claims 1–22 is live and unchallenged. That cuts both ways: the patent owner has no adverse PTAB record to hide, but also no litigation-tested claim construction, no FWD estoppel against anyone, and no Board-sanctioned validity finding. A defendant facing assertion today must build its invalidity case from scratch in district court (or its own petition), and can treat the entire claim set as fair game.

Because no proceeding exists, the per-proceeding template cannot be honestly populated. Instead, below I give the disambiguation record (so you know I looked at the right patent) and a full defensive analysis of the absence.

---

Search record and disambiguations (why there is nothing to report)

Numbers I deliberately did NOT treat as this patent (your strict-literal-ID rule):

• US 11,093,417 B2 — Netlist/Samsung-Micron, IPR2023-00454 (and IPR2023-00455 on US 9,858,215). Different patent, different field (memory buffers). Appeared repeatedly because of near-matching digits.
• US 10,779,080 — Jawbone/Meta, IPR2024-00350. Not this patent.
• US 11,443,344 — Google petition, not this patent.
• Also not this patent: US 10,136,179 / US 10,104,425 (Innovation Sciences ITC matter), US 11,007,179 (Allergan pharma).

Related but distinct owner history: Endeavor MeshTech, Inc. v. Synapse Wireless, Inc. (N.D. Ala., filed 2015-03-25) concerned mesh-network-configuration patents of a wholly different family and predates this patent's 2018-09-11 filing. It is not a PTAB proceeding on the '779 patent and has no estoppel effect on it.

Important disambiguation in the patent's own papers: the specification cites commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,970,871; 9,619,989; 9,374,874; and the Google record cites U.S. Pat. No. 8,885,513 — all Synapse Wireless. Do not confuse those family members with US 11,041,779; none is the patent at issue, and none appears in any AIA proceeding record I retrieved for it.

Procedural windows specific to this patent (verified dates)

• Grant: 2021-06-22 → PGR window closed on/about 2022-03-22 (9 months post-grant, § 321(c)). PGR is no longer available.
• CBM: unavailable — the transitional CBM program sunset for petitions filed after 2020-09-16 (the '779 patent would also face a "technological invention" hurdle given its sensor/flow-measurement subject matter).
• IPR: the only available AIA vehicle, and it remains open. Absent service of a complaint alleging infringement, there is no § 315(b) one-year bar on any party today.
• Appeal: no FWD exists, therefore no appeal to the Federal Circuit exists. Nothing is pending at the CAFC on this patent.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status: 1–22 ALL UNTESTED. No claim of US 11,041,779 has been canceled, confirmed, or construed in any AIA trial. The independent claim set is:

• Claim 1 — method: identify a portion of the system and a sensor; measure flow repeatedly; divide measurements into time windows containing two or more measurements; select a gas flow per window based on comparing the measurements; generate a gas flow parameter; determine leakage.
• Claim 5 — method: windowing + minimum gas flow per window + average minimum + leakage from that average.
• Claim 6 — control system: nodes + sensors + server programmed to window, take per-window minimums, average them, and determine a leak.
• Claim 14 — method for determining whether a leak is present from the average minimum gas flow (claims 15–18 add the two-stage threshold + variance logic; 19–21 add the predetermined period / correlated / equally-spaced windows; 22 adds leak location).

Dependents 2, 3, 7–13, and 15–22 further specify the edge-vs-intermediate sensor split (claim 2; specification Equations 1 and 2), the averaging step (claim 3), the minimum-flow selection (claim 4), notification (claim 7), the threshold → variance → second-threshold cascade (claims 8–11, 15–18), lighting/asset-tracking network reuse (claim 12), and leak location (claims 13, 22). None of these has been litigated before the Board.

Estoppel landscape — clean slate. Because no IPR/PGR has reached a final written decision, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered by nobody. There is no prior-art ground that is "off the table" because a petitioner already raised (or reasonably could have raised) it. A defendant today may raise any § 102/§ 103 ground it can support, in district court or in its own petition, subject only to the ordinary § 325(d) discretion (art already before the Examiner) and § 315(a)/(b) personal bars. Conversely, if you file first and lose, you personally carry estoppel — which is a reason to de-risk the petition before filing.

Pattern signals.

• No petition ever filed — including none by a defensive aggregator. There is no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar entity in the chain; no third-party joinder; no multiple-petitioner dynamic.
• No Patent Owner appeals — nothing to appeal.
• Why the silence matters. Well-asserted patents attract IPRs; this one appears to have been held as a defensive/portfolio asset by an operating company (Synapse Wireless, a lighting/IoT controls vendor) rather than asserted in a wide campaign. The absence of proceedings therefore correlates with a low assertion profile, not with proven validity. Treat "no IPRs" as evidence of non-assertion, not as evidence the claims are strong.

Where the claim set is exposed (candidate attack surfaces — framing, not conclusions). The specification itself concedes that "leaks can be typically characterized as occurrences of continuous flow, whereas normal use is generally characterized as pulsed flow," and the claims reduce to windowing sensor samples, taking a per-window minimum, and averaging. Before the 2018-09-11 filing, the compressed-air leak-detection art was crowded (the '779 record's own citations include ultrasonic/acoustic leak detectors and earlier flow-based leak detectors such as US 3,799,197; US 3,839,900; US 4,571,986; US 4,625,545; US 5,866,803; and, closer in time, US 2012/0247189 A1 (Eutectic Solutions — "measuring the size of a leak in a pneumatic air circuit")). Those references are a starting point for § 103 combinations, and the "average of per-window minimums" statistical step is a plainly algorithmic one that invites an obviousness argument. Claim 1's functional "selecting a gas flow ... based on a comparison" also presents a § 112(b) definiteness question (what selection rule is required, beyond claim 4's minimum?) — worth probing, but do not assume it will carry.

---

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant/recipient of a demand letter citing this patent: there is no FWD to cite and no canceled claim to lean on. Your invalidity case must be independently developed. Do not represent to a court that any claim has been invalidated or narrowed — it has not.
2. Verify the negative directly, not just via aggregators. Run PTAB E2E search for the patent number and a keyword search for the patent owner: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ (Petitions/Trials search), plus https://www.uspto.gov/ptab/decisions. For the docket side, CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%2211%2C041%2C779%22. Attribute any result to the exact number 11,041,779.
3. IPR is your only AIA vehicle, and it is open right now. No § 315(b) clock has started because (per my searches) no complaint against you has been identified. A petition filed before any infringement action puts you in the driver's seat; if you are later served, the § 315(b) one-year clock begins and runs to 12 months from service of the complaint.
4. Sequence matters. If a parallel district court case exists or is filed, a § 314(a)/Fintiv-hardening stipulation (not to pursue in the district court the same grounds or grounds that reasonably could have been raised) plus a Sotera-style parallel stipulation is the standard move to improve institution odds — but file the petition first so you are not foot-faulted by the § 315(a) civil-action bar.
5. Focus the petition on the independent claims (1, 5, 6, 14), then sweep dependents. Claim 6's system framing and claim 14's "whether a leak is present" framing are broader and easier targets than claim 1; a well-constructed § 103 combination over pre-2018 flow-monitoring/leak-detection art is the natural theory. Build the record on printed publications only (IPR is limited to patents and printed publications under § 311(b)) — public-use or system-prior-art theories belong in district court, not the Board.
6. If no proceeding is filed and none is needed: say so plainly to your client. The absence of any PTAB history is itself the finding — the patent is unasserted and un-adjudicated, its whole 22-claim set is live, and it can be attacked de novo.

Uncertainty flags. (a) The structured PTAB block reports no proceedings as of its last ingest; a very recently filed petition might not yet be indexed, which is why I recommend the direct E2E check. (b) I found no litigation naming this patent, so I cannot state whether a § 315(b) clock is running against any particular party. (c) "Adjusted expiration 2039-07-12" is a platform assumption, not a legal conclusion. (d) My characterization of candidate prior art is directional — I did not perform a full invalidity search and am not asserting any specific ground would succeed.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent, starting with USPTO Assignment Center data and cross-referencing ownership signals.

Let me dig deeper into the recorded assignment details and the assignee's corporate status.

Let me look for the specific reel/frame and verify the assignee's corporate history.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 11,041,779 B1

Method note: I attempted to query USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) and its legacy index (assignment.uspto.gov) keyed to patent number 11,041,779 and application 16/128,025. Direct record retrieval was not completed in this session, so the reel/frame numbers below are not confirmed by me and I will not fabricate them. The assignment event is corroborated by the Google Patents legal-events timeline supplied in the authoritative record. Treat reel/frame fields as open items for direct USPTO verification.

---

Inventors

Pattern note: All three inventors are Huntsville-metro Alabama residents, consistent with a single-site employer (Synapse Wireless is headquartered in Huntsville) rather than a distributed/captive R&D arrangement. No evidence of mass inventor departure within 12 months of the 2018-09-11 filing was found — Synapse continued filing related applications through 2021 under the same assignee (e.g., US 11,197,224; US 10,680,899; US 10,985,984), which is the opposite of a portfolio fire-sale precursor. I found no data indicating any inventor left the assignee, so I do not assert one.

---

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Synapse Wireless, Inc., of Huntsville, Alabama (current assignee listed on the record as "Synapse Wireless Inc").
• Primary line of business: Industrial/commercial IoT — wireless mesh networking ("SNAP®" network OS) and networked lighting controls / energy management (the "SimplySnap" platform). The patented subject matter (compressed-gas/pneumatic leak detection using flow sensors) is an adjacency to this sensing/lighting-control platform, not the company's core product line.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Synapse is an operating company with products in commerce (SimplySnap controllers, DIM10 and TL7-DALI-DC lighting controllers, Combo Sensor Controller, Sense 4-20 sensor interface; 2M+ edge devices installed; distributor listings at Arrow, DigiKey, Future Electronics). I did not find a distinct commercial "compressed-air leak detection" SKU, so whether the specific claims are embodied in a shipping product is unclear — but the assignee is plainly not a non-practicing shell.
• Current status (operating): Operating. It was a subsidiary of McWane, Inc. (large privately held Alabama conglomerate) and, per a January 2026 announcement, Westward Partners and SMB Climate acquired majority interest in Synapse Wireless and EdgePower in December 2025 (transaction announced 2026-01-07). So the corporate parent changed from a family holding company to private-equity/climate-fund ownership in late 2025. Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.

---

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of recorded assignments. One assignment is reflected in the authoritative record.

• 2018-09-11 (executed) / recorded 2018-09-11 — Reel/Frame not confirmed in this session
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Coleman D. Bagwell; Daniel Josiah Barnes; James Alexander Mabry (all individual inventors)
  • Assignee: Synapse Wireless, Inc. (Huntsville, AL)
  • Correspondent: Not captured — the correspondent-of-record field was not retrievable in this session. I will not invent an attorney/firm name. Recommended action: pull this field from Assignment Center, because it anchors the "repeat correspondent" NPE signal.
  • Context: Standard inventor→employer assignment, executed on the same day as the application filing — a routine corporate-employment assignment, not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

No post-issuance assignments were found. The only owner the patent has ever had is the original assignee, Synapse Wireless, Inc. If Assignment Center returns further records (e.g., a 2025 recording tied to the Westward/SMB Climate majority acquisition, or an internal transfer to a Synapse IP-holding subsidiary), those would be new findings relative to everything retrieved here — the December 2025 change of control is the single event most likely to generate a follow-on assignment record, and it is worth checking whether the patents were re-titled to a new holding entity.

---

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11041779
    2018 : Application filed by inventors
         : Inventors assign to Synapse Wireless
    2021 : Patent issued June 22
    2025 : Synapse majority acquired by Westward Partners and SMB Climate

---

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No recorded assignment moves the patent from Synapse to a licensing-only "IP / Holdings / Ventures" entity. The sole recorded assignee is an operating IoT/lighting company with commercial products.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No link to Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff. The prior sections already found no assertion activity.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / unevaluable. There is only one recorded assignment, and the correspondent field could not be captured here. With a single-link chain, the recurrence test cannot be run. This is the one signal that must be resolved by reading the correspondent off the actual reel/frame.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. No chained LLC-to-LLC transfers; zero recorded transfers after the 2018-09-11 employment assignment.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No litigation naming this patent was found (per the earlier litigation section), so there is no assignment timed within 6 months before a first suit.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Synapse was identified; the 2025 event is a going-concern majority buyout by investment funds, not a bankruptcy sale.
7. Privateering — Not present. No evidence that Synapse transferred the patent to an NPE to assert against competitors; Synapse retains ownership.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

---

Verdict

Insufficient data — the record reflects only the original assignment (inventors → Synapse Wireless, Inc., executed and recorded 2018-09-11, reel/frame not confirmed this session), with no NPE-pattern link to evaluate: no shell transfer, no known asserter, no cascading transfers, no pre-litigation transfer, no bankruptcy sale, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint. What the data does affirm is that the patent has remained continuously owned by an operating company (Synapse Wireless), whose products include networked lighting/energy-management hardware — the opposite of the classic NPE footprint. The only unresolved item that could change this picture is the correspondent of record and whether the December 2025 change of control generated a later assignment; both should be confirmed directly.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 11,041,779 / app 16/128,025) and the legacy index https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

Caveats: Reel/frame numbers and the correspondent-of-record are not confirmed and must be read from Assignment Center; I did not fabricate them. The "2039-07-12 adjusted expiration" is the platform's own assumption, not a legal term determination.

I'll research the prior art references cited against US 11041779. Let me search for authoritative details on the most technically relevant references.

Let me research the remaining key references, particularly the older flow-based leak detectors and the Synapse-assigned family members.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,041,779 B1

Scope note (strict-ID): I treated the patent number literally as 11,041,779 (application 16/128,025, filed 2018‑09‑11, priority 2018‑09‑11). All 22 references in the "Patent Citations" table of the authoritative Google Patents record are listed below with the dates exactly as the record shows them. No reference was renamed or substituted. I did not auto-correct the recorded inventor name "A Eukuda" for US 3,791,197 A even though a related Fukuda-family document appears under "Akira Fukuda" — the citation is reproduced literally as the record gives it.

Method note: The authoritative patent record supplies the complete citation list and dates. I retrieved full text for several of the most technically relevant references. I reached my search budget before independently verifying the full text of a few references (e.g., US 4,571,986 A; US 4,625,545 A; US 2013/0318917 A1; US 2018/0180224 A1). For those I rely on the record's metadata and flag them as such.

---

A. The 22 cited references (as recorded)

* = cited by the examiner per the record's legend. The unmarked items (1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 14, 21) appear to be applicant-submitted IDS references — notably, three of them (12, 14, 21) are the applicant's own Synapse Wireless patents.

Note on Tiers below: References whose recorded prior-art date is later than the patent's 2018‑09‑11 priority (only #22, and the certificate-of-correction timing of some grants) can only be § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2) art to the extent of their earlier effective filings; I flag this where relevant.

---

B. Tier 1 — Most relevant references (same problem space: gas-flow leak detection)

These are the references an examiner or litigant would focus on, because each deals with inferring a leak from gas-flow measurements — the core of independent claims 1, 5, 6, and 14.

1. US 5,866,803 A — "Gas leakage detection system"

• Citation / dates: US 5,866,803 A; prior-art date 1995‑12‑28; published 1999‑02‑02; assignee Agency of Industrial Science and Technology. Examiner-cited.
• Description (verified from full text): Ties a main gas meter and multiple branch meters to a flow path. Reads meters at a set interval T (e.g., 1 hour), computes the gas-volume difference (a_s − b_s) and a "meter reading difference ratio" P. Compares P to a first reference ratio (P_AVE + ΔR) where P_AVE is an average value "found in advance by learning" and ΔR is an error range; leakage is declared when P exceeds the reference and a_s ≠ 0. Sets an alarm.
• § 102 relevance: This is the closest single reference on the "compare an aggregate flow metric to a learned average-plus-threshold and declare a leak" concept. It maps to dependent claims 15–16 (compare average to a threshold; declare leak when above it) and arguably to the general "determine whether a gas leak is present based on measured flow" gist of claim 14.
  • But it does not anticipate claims 1, 5, 6, or 14: it does not divide measurements into time windows, does not take a minimum per window, and does not compute an average of minimums. Its aggregate is a ratio of meter differences, not a mean-of-minimums. It is § 103 art, not § 102 art, for the independent claims.

2. US 2009/0223129 A1 — "Method and device for determining a gas leak"

• Citation / dates: US 2009/0223129 A1; prior-art date 2006‑02‑22; published 2009‑09‑10; assignee Clevergaz Sprl. Examiner-cited.
• Description (verified from full text): Uses a "dynamic bank" (buffer chamber + control valve) to impose artificial flow-rate variations. A leak is signaled when, during valve closure, no zero/near-zero flow is detected over a period and/or a constant or non-varying flow is detected (variation < 5%/10%/15% over a period), or a non-zero flow persists over a period. Leakage tolerance levels (e.g., ≤12 l/h) are stated.
• § 102 relevance: Directly supports the patent's core premise that "constant flow = leak." It maps to the concept behind claim 16 ("leak is present … in response to [flow] being greater than the threshold") and to dependent variance-type logic (variation-below-a-percentage threshold). It does not anticipate claims 1/5/6/14 — no time-windowing, no per-window minimum, no averaging. § 103 art.

3. US 2009/0013765 A1 — "Gas leak detection apparatus and method"

• Citation / dates: US 2009/0013765 A1; prior-art date 2007‑07‑09; published 2009‑01‑15; assignee Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (granted as US 7,987,698 B2). Examiner-cited.
• Description (verified): Measures instantaneous flow volume and pressure in a gas line; extracts "characteristics" (flow/time-differential, variable vs. flat portions, average value, gradient); compares against a stored characteristics table to distinguish a leak from appliance use; warns on leak. Emphasizes detecting a leak during occurrence and continuation of flow.
• § 102 relevance: Relevant to the "analyze a flow signal over time to decide leak vs. normal use" framework (claims 1 and 14 broadly). It uses pattern/characteristics matching, not time windows + min + average + variance. Does not anticipate the independent claims. § 103 art; also useful context for the "normal use is pulsed vs. leak is continuous" distinction.

4. US 2012/0247189 A1 — "Method of measuring the size of a leak in a pneumatic air circuit…"

• Citation / dates: US 2012/0247189 A1; prior-art date 2011‑03‑30; published 2012‑10‑04; assignee Eutectic Solutions Inc. Applicant-cited (unmarked).
• Description (verified): A flow-meter-based leak-detection device for pneumatic circuits (air-brake systems). The operator watches the flow settle and takes the lowest significant flow reading as the actual leak size — i.e., it uses a minimum flow value to quantify leakage.
• § 102 relevance: Materially closer than most, because it uses a flow meter and a lowest/minimum flow value as the leak measure. It maps toward the "determine the leakage from the flow reading" idea of claim 5 and to claim 4's "minimum gas flow" selection concept.
  • It does not anticipate claim 5 or 14: no time windows, no average of per-window minimums, no automated variance check. It is manual, single-point, and aimed at truck air-brake certification. § 103 art (its use of a settled lowest flow reading, combined with a windowing/averaging reference such as US 5,866,803, is the strongest obviousness combination against the independent claims).

---

C. Tier 2 — Related leak-detection references (different modality or narrower scope)

These are leak detectors but not flow-windowing/min-averaging systems; they are secondary § 103 art or background.

---

D. Tier 3 — Assignee family / network-context references (not leak-detection art per se)

Three references are the applicant's own patents and are relevant only to the network/system-architecture claims (claim 6 system context; claim 12 lighting/asset-tracking integration), not to the leak algorithm:

• US 8,885,513 B2 — "Systems and methods for dynamically changing network node behavior," Synapse Wireless, Inc.; 2008‑09‑23 / 2014‑11‑11. Node-configuration art mapping to the network of nodes recitation in claim 6.
• US 9,374,874 B1 — "Lighting control systems and methods," Synapse Wireless, Inc.; 2012‑02‑24 / 2016‑06‑21. Maps to claim 12's "lighting control system" alternative and to the patent's leveraged-lighting-backbone disclosure.
• US 10,049,552 B1 — "Asset tracking systems and methods," Synapse Wireless, Inc.; 2013‑06‑17 / 2018‑08‑14. Maps to claim 12's "asset tracking system" alternative.

None of these discloses the time-window/minimum/average/variance leak computation, so none anticipates claims 1, 5, or 14; they are § 102/§ 103 art only for the system-architecture limitations of claim 6 and the integration alternative of claim 12 (and even there they reflect the applicant's own prior foundation rather than conflicting art).

---

E. Overall § 102 assessment

1. No cited reference appears to fully anticipate any independent claim (1, 5, 6, or 14) as a single reference.
The independent claims require a specific combination:

• (a) repeated flow measurements of a compressed gas system;
• (b) division into time windows;
• (c) a minimum (or selected) flow per window;
• (d) averaging the per-window values; and
• (e) determining the leak from that average (with the variance check in dependent claims).

Of the cited art, US 5,866,803 A discloses averaging/learning + threshold (but not time-window minimums), US 2012/0247189 A1 discloses using a minimum flow to quantify a leak (but not windows or averaging), and US 2009/0223129 A1 discloses the "constant/non-zero flow = leak" predicate (but not windows/minimums/averaging). No single reference contains all of (a)–(e). Each independent claim therefore survives § 102 on the present record.

2. The strongest § 103 (obviousness) case would combine these Tier-1 references — e.g., US 2012/0247189 A1 (flow-meter + lowest-flow leak sizing) in view of US 5,866,803 A (aggregate flow metric + learned average + threshold over timed readings) and/or US 2009/0223129 A1 (constant-flow = leak). That combination supplies most of the algorithmic elements, and would be the focus of any validity challenge.

3. Claim-mapping summary:

• Claims 1 / 5 / 14 (independent method): No § 102 anticipation by any cited reference. § 103 combination = Tier-1 refs above.
• Claim 6 (system): No § 102 anticipation on the leak algorithm; the network-of-nodes limitation is anticipated by the applicant's own US 8,885,513 B2 (and inherent lighting-network art), but the programmed server steps are not.
• Claims 15–16 (avg vs. threshold): US 5,866,803 A is the closest § 102/§ 103 art (learned average + error-range threshold).
• Claims 17–18 (variance threshold): No cited reference discloses a variance/second-threshold test; US 2009/0223129 A1's percentage-variation criterion is the nearest analog (§ 103).
• Claim 12 (lighting/asset-tracking integration): US 9,374,874 B1 and US 10,049,552 B1 (applicant's own) are the relevant art.
• Claims 13 / 22 (leak location): US 9,995,647 B2 (ultrasonic location) is analogous but different modality.

---

F. Caveats and explicit uncertainty

• Unverified full texts: For US 4,571,986 A, US 4,625,545 A, US 2013/0318917 A1, US 2018/0180224 A1, and US 10,792,784 B2 I relied on the record's metadata; I could not retrieve/verify their full text before exhausting my retrieval steps. My § 102 assessments for those are provisional.
• Inventor-name discrepancy: The record lists the inventor of US 3,791,197 A as "A Eukuda." I did not correct this. Related Fukuda-family documents (US 3,792,607 A filed 1971‑08‑07; US 3,793,877 A filed 1972‑05‑05, priority 1971‑11‑12, inventor Akira Fukuda) share the "direct pressure system" title, suggesting a family/OCR relationship, but I make no legal assumption about equivalence.
• Later documents (not prior art): The patent's "Cited By" list (e.g., Atlas Copco US 2024/0044345 A1, "Method for assessing a condition of a pneumatic network"; Ecoplant US 2024/0310233 A1, "Machine learning based detection of compressed air leaks"; CN 113446519 A, pipe-network leakage-degree method) post-dates the 2018 priority and is therefore not § 102 prior art; these are cited only to show the field's later development.
• Legal status: As stated in the earlier summary, I have no confirmed litigation/PTAB/CAFC record for this patent; that remains unverified. This analysis is a technical prior-art mapping, not a legal validity opinion.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,041,779 B1

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — Technical Analyst Assessment

Scope and method. This analysis builds directly on the Prior-Art section already generated for this patent. I do not re-list the 22 cited references or repeat that section's § 102 conclusions. Here I take the references it identified as the technically relevant ones (Tier 1 and Tier 3) and construct § 103 combinations, state the motivation to combine, and state the reasonable expectation of success. Strict-ID rule observed: the reference numbers below are reproduced exactly as the Prior-Art section records them.

Important limitation, stated up front: every Tier-1 reference relied on below (US 5,866,803 A; US 2009/0223129 A1; US 2009/0013765 A1; US 2012/0247189 A1) was already before the examiner — either cited on the face of the patent or submitted in the applicant's IDS. That affects strategy (see § 10, § 325(d)) but not the technical merits. This is a technical obviousness mapping, not a legal validity opinion.

---

1. Legal framework applied

The controlling question under KSR is "whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). The '779 claims are almost entirely data-processing steps applied to a known physical measurement (compressed-gas flow), which places them squarely in the predictable-variation / obvious-to-try zone.

---

2. Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA)

A POSITA at the 2018-09-11 effective filing date would have:

• a bachelor's degree in mechanical, electrical, chemical, or industrial engineering (or equivalent), and
• 2–4 years' experience with compressed-air / pneumatic systems, industrial instrumentation, or facility energy monitoring, including familiarity with flow sensors, data-acquisition sampling, and basic descriptive statistics (mean, min/max, variance, thresholds).

This is a low-to-moderate skill level. The claimed statistical operations (min, average, variance) are undergraduate-level and the flow-sensing is conventional — which cuts against any argument that the combination was beyond the ordinary artisan.

---

3. Claim construction of the key disputed terms

---

4. The core combination (independent claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 14, 15, 16, 19–21)

Combination C1: US 2012/0247189 A1 (Eutectic) + US 5,866,803 A (Agency of Industrial Science & Technology), optionally with US 2009/0013765 A1 (Toshiba)

This is the primary § 103 theory against the two independent method claims (1, 5, 14).

Element-by-element mapping — claim 5 (the cleanest target):

Claim 1 is met by the same combination: claim 1's "two or more measured parameters" per window simply requires sampling faster than the window length (a POSITA reading meters at interval T would capture multiple samples per window as a matter of routine); "selecting a gas flow … based on a comparison" = Eutectic's lowest-reading selection; "generating a gas flow parameter" = 5,866,803's learned average; "determining leakage" = 5,866,803's threshold + alarm. Claim 3 (average) and claim 4 (minimum) are expressly taught by 5,866,803 (average) and Eutectic (minimum), respectively.

Claim 14 maps identically to claim 5, with the "whether a gas leak is present" determination supplied by 5,866,803's comparison-to-reference-and-alarm. Claims 15–16 (compare average to threshold; leak when above threshold) are the express disclosure of US 5,866,803 A (P vs. P_AVE + ΔR).

---

5. The variance/second-threshold claims (9–11, 17–18)

Combination C2: C1 + US 2009/0223129 A1 (Clevergaz Sprl)

Motivation: the '779 patent itself concedes that the variance check exists to "confirm that the determined average minimum gas flow is the result of a leak and not an anomaly … (e.g., an unusually high minimum gas flow from a time window)." Clevergaz solves the same false-positive problem with the same tool (a variation threshold), in the same field. A POSITA adding Clevergaz's stability test to C1's averaging scheme would do so to filter out transient usage spikes — a predictable improvement with a reasonable expectation of success and no change in hardware.

---

6. Edge-vs-intermediate sensor claim (claim 2) and location claims (13, 22)

Combination C3: US 5,866,803 A + US 2012/0247189 A1 (optionally + US 9,995,647 B2 for location)

• Claim 2 distinguishes an edge sensor from an intermediate/upstream sensor and requires windows spanning both. US 5,866,803 A disposes a main meter upstream of branch meters downstream and computes flow differences between them — structurally the "intermediate point accounting for downstream branches" concept that the '779 patent encodes as its Equation 2 (subtracting downstream minimums). The edge case (patent Equation 1) is Eutectic's single-meter minimum reading.
• Claims 13 / 22 (determine leak location) are met by US 5,866,803 A's branch-by-branch comparison, which identifies which branch carries the excess — location at the branch granularity the '779 claims recite ("a location … based on a location of the sensor"). If a finer location is argued, US 9,995,647 B2 (ultrasonic gas-leak location) is analogous art showing leak-location determination was known (different modality, but location-per-se was not novel).

---

7. The system claim (claim 6) and integration claim (claim 12)

Combination C4: C1 (algorithm) + US 8,885,513 B2 (Synapse Wireless — dynamic node behavior), and for claim 12, + US 9,374,874 B1 (lighting control) / US 10,049,552 B1 (asset tracking)

Motivation (claim 6/12): once the leak-detection algorithm existed, running it on an existing facility sensor-node network with a central server is the ordinary architectural choice. The '779 patent's own "one advantage" statement — that "existing flow sensors in a compressed gas system can be used" — describes use of a pre-existing networked infrastructure, which is precisely what the Synapse references disclose.

⚠️ Common-ownership caveat (flag): all three Synapse references are commonly owned with the '779 application. Under AIA § 102(b)(2)(C), common ownership disqualifies a disclosure relied on as § 102(a)(2) art (US patents/application publications effectively filed earlier). It does not, by its terms, reach § 102(a)(1) art. US 8,885,513 (issued 2014), US 9,374,874 (issued 2016), and US 10,049,552 (issued 2018-08-14) were each patented/published before the 2018-09-11 filing, so they are candidate § 102(a)(1) printed publications and thus survive the common-ownership exception. But a patentee will argue § 102(b)(2)(C) disqualification, and US 10,049,552's August 2018 issue date creates a grace-period question. Treat the Synapse references as supplemental art for the architecture limitations, not as the load-bearing part of the attack. The algorithm alone carries the independent claims; the network limitation is the weak link for a validity challenge.

---

8. Motivation to combine — consolidated reasoning

Federal Circuit law requires an articulated reason, not hindsight. Four independent rationales support the combinations above:

1. Same field of endeavor. 5,866,803, Eutectic, Clevergaz, and Toshiba are all directed to detecting/quantifying gas leaks from measured flow or meter data. They are analogous art by field and by problem.
2. Same problem, complementary solutions. C1 pairs the two halves of the claimed computation that no single reference holds: Eutectic = the minimum reading identifies the leak; 5,866,803 = average many timed readings and compare to a learned threshold. A POSITA seeking an automated quantifier of leak size would naturally take Eutectic's manual "lowest steady reading" and run it over 5,866,803's periodic sampling intervals, then average per 5,866,803's own averaging teaching. The result — an averaged series of minima — is the predictable output of combining the two established functions.
3. Eliminating usage transients. The '779 specification's own premise is that normal use is pulsed while leaks are continuous. Taking a per-window minimum isolates the continuous leak component from usage pulses (Eutectic's insight), and averaging across windows smooths sensor noise and infrequent transients (5,866,803's insight). Both are standard signal-conditioning moves.
4. Rejecting anomalies. Clevergaz's percentage-variation test is the known way to reject readings that are not steady-state leaks — providing the variance logic of claims 9–11/17–18 with a clear motivation (reduce false alarms) and predictable result.

Reasonable expectation of success: all steps are deterministic arithmetic (min, mean, variance, comparison) on an unchanged sensor signal. No new sensing modality, no unproven technology. Under 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."

---

9. Secondary considerations (objective indicia)

Net: secondary considerations are weak and largely unsupported on the present record, so they are unlikely to overcome a well-constructed C1/C2 combination.

---

10. Counterarguments, weaknesses, and strategic cautions

1. § 325(d) discretion — the biggest practical obstacle. Every Tier-1 reference (5,866,803; 2009/0223129; 2009/0013765; 2012/0247189) was already before the examiner. A petition built on those references invites discretionary denial for presenting "the same or substantially the same art previously presented." A successful § 103 challenge must either (a) show the examiner materially erred in allowing the claims over this art, or (b) bring in new art (e.g., a printed publication teaching window-wise minimum extraction in an analogous flow-monitoring context) not previously considered.
2. No single-reference anticipation. As the Prior-Art section established, no cited reference discloses the full window→min→average sequence. The attack is therefore combination-dependent, and the motivation language must be tight to survive hindsight review.
3. Patentee's best rebuttal — "min of averages vs. average of mins." 5,866,803 averages a ratio metric; Eutectic uses a single lowest reading. A patentee will argue nothing suggests averaging a plurality of window-wise minima, and that a POSITA could equally have averaged raw samples or used a single settled reading. The counter is KSR's "obvious to try" + the specification's own framing (min per window isolates the leak; average across windows smooths noise) — but expect this to be the central factual dispute.
4. Claim 1's functional "selecting … based on a comparison" presents a § 112(b) indefiniteness question (previously flagged). Indefiniteness is a validity theory independent of § 103 and, if successful, would take down claim 1 for lack of clarity rather than obviousness.
5. Non-analogous-art argument for the system claim (6). The Synapse network references and ultrasonic-location references (US 9,995,647) may be attacked as non-analogous to compressed-gas leak quantification. This is why the network limitation should be treated as secondary and the algorithm as primary.
6. Common ownership of the Synapse references complicates their use (see § 7 caveat).
7. Timing. No litigation has been identified, so no § 315(b) bar is running, and the PGR window closed ~2022-03-22. IPR is the only available AIA vehicle; a § 103 IPR could be filed now, subject to the § 325(d) hurdle above.

---

11. Bottom line

Claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21 — obvious over US 2012/0247189 A1 in view of US 5,866,803 A (min-based leak sizing + periodic-sampled averaging with a learned threshold), with US 2009/0013765 A1 supplying the "distinguish leak from normal use by analyzing flow over time" teaching for claim 1's comparison step. Motivation: same field, same problem, complementary known functions, predictable arithmetic result.

Claims 2, 13, 22 — obvious over the same combination (US 5,866,803 A's main-meter-vs-branch-meter difference structure supplies the edge/intermediate split and branch-level location); location per se is shown by US 9,995,647 B2.

Claims 9, 10, 11, 17, 18 — obvious over the above further in view of US 2009/0223129 A1 (variation-threshold criterion where low variation ⇒ leak), added to reject anomalies.

Claim 6 — obvious over the algorithm references in view of US 8,885,513 B2 (networked sensor nodes + server), subject to the common-ownership caveat.

Claim 12 — obvious over claim 6's combination in view of US 9,374,874 B1 and US 10,049,552 B1, and supported by the '779 specification's own admission that the lighting network is reused as a communication backbone.

Claim 7 (notify a user) is met as a routine design choice and by 5,866,803's alarm; claims 8–11, 15–18 follow from the threshold/variance cascade above.

Overall: the independent claims are vulnerable to a § 103 challenge, because they claim a statistical recipe applied to a well-known physical measurement, and the recipe's components (minimum reading = leak; average many readings; compare to threshold; reject high-variation windows) each appear in pre-2018 compressed-gas leak detection. The principal non-technical obstacle is § 325(d), since the strongest references were already before the examiner; the principal technical dispute will be whether combining Eutectic's minimum with 5,866,803's averaging yields a motivation-supported, predictable "average of per-window minimums," or an unsupported hindsight reconstruction.

---

Uncertainty flags. (a) Full texts of US 4,571,986 A, US 4,625,545 A, US 2013/0318917 A1, US 2018/0180224 A1, and US 10,792,784 B2 were not independently verified in the Prior-Art section; I did not rely on them as primary references here. (b) My mapping of the specific claim language onto US 5,866,803 A's "P vs. P_AVE + ΔR" and Eutectic's "lowest significant flow reading" is based on the Prior-Art section's verified characterizations; a full in-limine chart would require the complete claim-by-claim citations. (c) Whether the commonly-owned Synapse references are disqualified under § 102(b)(2)(C) versus available under § 102(a)(1) is a legal question I flag, not resolve. (d) This is a technical obviousness assessment, not a legal opinion or a prediction of any PTAB or court outcome.