US 11059459

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

Let me search specifically for litigation/docket records and USPTO records for this patent.

Let me run a couple of final targeted checks for any PTAB/IPR or district-court activity.

Summary — US Patent No. 11059459

Important scope note first: My searches returned no record of any CAFC litigation, IPR/PTAB proceeding, or district-court case involving U.S. Patent 11,059,459 as of the current date. One search hit was for US 9,314,599 B2 — a different patent (the similar-looking number was an artifact of formatting). I am not treating that as this patent, and I found no docket activity to report. The absence of hits in general web search is not proof that no proceeding exists; TPACTS/PTAB and PACER/PatentCenter are the authoritative sources and I could not query them directly in this session. Flagging that as an explicit uncertainty.

Everything below is grounded in the full patent text supplied (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-24), which is the authoritative source for this record.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"The invention relates to a device for cleaning an optical sensor (2) of an optical detection system for a motor vehicle, said device comprising an assembly for guiding and distributing a cleaning fluid and a drying fluid. Electric motor-driven means (9) are used to move said fluid-guiding and fluid-distributing assembly in a linear movement between a working position in which the fluids can be distributed over an outer surface of the optical sensor (2) and an idle position. Said invention is applicable to motor vehicles."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the cleaning device itself. A device that cleans an optical sensor of a motor-vehicle optical detection system. It has (a) an assembly that guides and distributes two fluids — a cleaning fluid and a drying fluid; and (b) an electric motor that moves that fluid assembly linearly (in a straight-line translation, not a swing or pivot) between two positions: a working position where the fluids can be sprayed onto the exterior surface of the sensor, and an idle position. Two things do the heavy lifting in this claim: the fluid assembly handles both a cleaning fluid and a drying fluid, and the movement between positions is a linear motor-driven motion. No structure for mounting the motor is recited in claim 1; the claim is essentially the motor-plus-fluid-assembly combination with linear displacement.

Claim 14 — the system. An optical detection system for motor vehicles comprising at least one optical sensor plus the cleaning device of claim 1 for cleaning that sensor. It is the device claim wrapped into a complete sensor system.

Dependent claims (for completeness)

• 2: The electric motor has an output drive shaft fastened to the fluid assembly and configured to move linearly.
• 3: The motor is a linear actuator, and the output drive shaft is the actuator's output rod.
• 4: The motor is a rotary motor, and the output drive shaft is a rack actuated by a rod fastened to the motor rotor.
• 5: The fluid assembly (with at least one connecting end-piece per fluid, distribution pipes, and spray nozzle(s)) sits in a casing configured to cooperate with the drive shaft.
• 6: The casing has three functional zones: a drive-shaft fixing zone, a distribution part carrying the nozzle(s), and a supply part carrying the connection end-piece(s) and pipe(s).
• 7–8: The fixing zone is an extension offset from the pipe passage — specifically offset on the same side of the casing as the spray nozzle(s) — so fluid flow isn't obstructed by the fixing notch or the shaft.
• 9–11: The fixing zone has a notch whose shape and dimensions match the drive shaft's cross-section; the notch may be blind and/or rectangular (a rectangular shaft-in-notch arrangement that also prevents the casing from rotating about the sliding axis).
• 12: The motor is a stepper motor (permits controlling travel to just the working-to-idle distance).
• 13: Alternatively, a DC motor with end-of-travel abutments corresponding to the working and idle positions.

Points worth flagging

• Literal-text discrepancy (not corrected): Claim 4 recites a rack "actuated by a rod fastened to a rotor of said motor," whereas the description describes "a rack actuated by a pinion fastened to a rotor." I am reporting both as written rather than harmonizing them.
• Nozzles/positions: The spec places the cleaning-liquid nozzles (5) and drying-fluid nozzles (6) adjacent to each other on the same casing face at one longitudinal end, with the fluid connection end-pieces (3, 4) at the opposite end; the idle position can be retracted into a vehicle body element.
• Citations: Eleven references are cited as prior art, including DE 10 2005 021671 A1 (BMW), US 2009/0250533 A1 and US 2013/0092758 A1 (Denso), WO 2015/120866 A1 (Kautex Textron), US 2016/0103316 A1 and US 2017/0021809 A1 (Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage), and US 10,144,394 B1 (Uber). Cited-by includes a Ford Global Technologies application (US 2022/0065745 A1 / US 11,913,852 B2) and Waymo patents (US 11,305,740 B2; US 10,933,842 B2).

Bottom line on the docket question

I found no CAFC 2026 (or other) docket entry, IPR, or litigation for US 11,059,459 in the search results available to me. I cannot state with high confidence that none exists — I could not query TPACTS, PACER, or USPTO PatentCenter directly. If you need a litigation-definitive answer, those primary sources should be checked by patent number 11,059,459 and by the asserted patent's family members (EP 3429896 B1, CN 108698570 B, JP 2019-509932 A, KR 2018-0120693 A).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11059459.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation databases.

Bottom line

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,059,459 was found. I also found no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) naming the patent. The available record is consistent with the patent being held by its owner and never asserted in a publicly docketed U.S. case.

I want to be explicit about the limits of this answer: my searches were run against general web/court-document indexes (Google Patents, CourtListener/recap, archived PACER dockets surfaced by search, Unified Patents and PTAB-related materials). I could not complete a direct query of the Unified Patents litigation caselist page, PACER itself, or a commercial docket service (e.g., Docket Navigator, Lex Machina). A negative result from this kind of search is strong but not dispositive — a case filed very recently, a case in state court, a foreign proceeding, or a case where the patent number is only mentioned in an attachment could be missed.

What the record does show for this patent

Per the patent document supplied (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11059459](/patent/US11059459)/en):

• Patent: US 11,059,459 B2, "Device for cleaning an optical detection system for a motor vehicle"
• Inventors: Frédéric Giraud; Marcel Trebouet
• Current/Original assignee: Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage SAS (France)
• Application: US 16/084,538 (national stage of PCT/EP2017/055455)
• Priority: 2016-03-14 (FR 1652128); Filed: 2017-03-08; Granted: 2021-07-13
• Legal status: Active; adjusted expiration 2037-10-18; 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2025-01-01
• Family: EP3429896B1, CN108698570B, JP2019509932A, KR20180120693A, BR112018016315A2, MX2018011084A, RU2018136074A, WO2017157739A1, FR3048664B1
• Google Patents "Cited By": only Ford Global Technologies (US 2022/0065745 A1 → US 11,913,852 B2, "Sensor system cleaning with valve testing") — i.e., later patent documents citing it, not litigation
• "Families Citing this family": Waymo (US 11,305,740; US 10,933,842), Nuro (US 12,269,437), and CN110920570B — again citations, not suits
• Non-patent citations: only the ISR and Written Opinion from PCT/EP2017/055455 (dated May 16, 2017)

What I searched and what I found

Important caution on search noise: the number "11059459" collides with unrelated strings (a Hong Kong phone-number lookup site, a medical-device recall record). Likewise, similar-looking patent numbers appeared in results (e.g., 10,951,359; 7,551,599; 11,305,740; 10,933,842). None of these are US 11,059,459, and I have not treated them as such.

Recommended next steps to confirm a true negative

If you need a defensible clearance-style negative, verify against these sources directly, since each is authoritative for a different slice of activity:

1. PACER / CourtListener RECAP — search the patent number in the full-text docket field (not just case names) across all district courts, plus the Federal Circuit.
2. Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (the caselist is organized by patent; search "11059459").
3. PTAB — https://ptacts.uspto.gov / USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board EndPoint, search by patent number for IPR, PGR, CBM, and derivation proceedings.
4. USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records — confirm no assignments to an entity other than Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage (an assignment to a monetization entity would be a leading indicator of future assertion). The recorded assignment (2018-10-03, Reel/Frame 047047/0192) is to VALEO SYSTEMES D'ESSUYAGE.
5. Foreign proceedings — the patent has live family members, particularly EP3429896B1 (Active) and CN108698570B (Active), and JP2019509932A (Pending). European or Chinese enforcement/opposition activity would not appear in U.S. dockets and would need a separate check (EPO Register / opposition file, CNIPA).

If you'd like, I can draft the specific search strings to run in PACER's "Party" and "Full text" fields, or prepare a short memo recording the negative search result with the date and databases checked for your file.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 11,059,459: 0. The structured USPTO Open Data Portal block provided in this prompt returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and targeted web searches (see "What I checked," below) surfaced none either — no petition naming US 11,059,459, no Patent Owner Preliminary Response, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal from a PTAB decision on this patent. Breakdown by status is therefore: active — 0; claims invalidated — 0; claims sustained — 0; settled — 0; institution denied — 0.

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to work with, in either direction. This is not the "patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened" scenario, and it is not the "claims 1–5 are canceled" scenario. It is the third scenario: the patent's validity has never been tested at the Board, so claims 1–14 all remain live and untested, and there is no institution decision, FWD, or estoppel finding you can cite to a court, a licensing counterparty, or the patent owner.

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Proceedings

No proceedings to report. Because the required output is proceeding-by-proceeding, I am stating the negative explicitly rather than omitting the section:

None — no AIA trial proceeding has been filed against US 11,059,459

• Type: n/a (no IPR, PGR, or CBM on file)
• Filed: n/a
• Status: n/a — the canonical structured source (USPTO ODP) lists no AIA trial proceedings; web search corroborates
• Judge panel: n/a — no panel has ever been assigned
• Petition grounds: n/a — no claims have been challenged under § 102, § 103, or § 112 at the Board
• Institution decision: n/a
• Final Written Decision: n/a — accordingly, no claim of US 11,059,459 has been canceled, confirmed, or held unpatentable by the PTAB
• Settlement / termination: n/a
• Appeal: n/a — no FWD, therefore no CAFC appeal from an FWD (I also found no CAFC appeal of any kind involving this patent)
• Defensive value: Zero precedential or evidentiary value. You cannot build an IPR-based defense on the Board's prior work because there is none; conversely, the patent owner cannot point to a PTAB affirmance as a validity endorsement. The patent's ~11 years of remaining term (adjusted expiration 2037-10-18) means the window for a future challenge is wide open — nothing has been spent.

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What I checked (and the limits of that check)

• Canonical source: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this prompt (USPTO ODP) — zero AIA trials. Per your operating instructions, that is the default answer.
• Web searches run: queries combining 11059459 / 11,059,459 with IPR, PTAB, petition, Valeo, and district-court complaint; plus a search for "Valeo Systemes d'Essuyage" cleaning-device IPRs. Results returned other Valeo PTAB matters (e.g., Valeo's own petitions as petitioner in the Magna Electronics and Schaeffler cases) and unrelated '459 patents in pharma litigations — not this patent. Those hits are false positives on the number string; I have not treated any of them as a proceeding against US 11,059,459.
• What I could not do: I could not query PTAB E2E / the PTAB API directly in this session, and I did not exhaustively search CourtListener or Docket Navigator. So I cannot rule out (a) a very recently filed petition that ODP has not yet indexed, or (b) a terminated-before-institution petition (a § 42.107 abandonment or a pre-institution settlement) that shows up only in E2E. If any of those exist, they would be low-impact: no institution means no estoppel and no claim-level holding. Verify at PTAB E2E and CourtListener before relying on this in a brief. I also found no district-court complaint asserting this patent in the searches run — but absence of a search hit is not proof of absence of litigation.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. All fourteen claims are alive: independent claim 1 (a device for cleaning an optical sensor comprising a fluid guiding/distributing assembly plus "an electric motor for moving the assembly with a linear movement" between working and idle positions), dependent claims 2–13 (output drive shaft fastened to the assembly; linear actuator or rotary-motor-with-rack variants; casing with fixing zone / distribution part / supply part; the offset fixing zone; blind rectangular notch; stepper motor; DC motor with end-of-travel abutments), and independent claim 14 (an optical detection system comprising at least one optical sensor plus the claim 1 device). Canceled: none. Sustained: none. Untested: all of 1–14. Note for any future petitioner: claim 14 is independent but incorporates the claim 1 device by reference ("the device as claimed in claim 1"), so a challenge that kills claim 1 creates a follow-on problem for claim 14 rather than neatly severing it — a cancellation of claim 1 without addressing claim 14 invites a § 112(b) "not understood" argument, but that is a district-court issue, not something the Board will do for you.

Estoppel landscape. There is no estoppel of any kind — 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) is triggered only by a petitioner that obtains an FWD, and there has been no petitioner and no FWD. Practically, that means: (i) no third party's prior-art grounds are foreclosed against you, and (ii) you get a full, unfettered first bite — every § 102/§ 103 ground, every reference, and a § 112 challenge are all still available. Two structural gates do apply: this is a post-AIA patent (PCT filed 2017-03-08, FR priority 2016-03-14), so the PGR window closed nine months after issuance (2021-07-13 → 2022-04-13) and the CBM transitional program sunset on 2020-09-16 — IPR and ex parte reexamination are the only post-grant routes left. Watch your own § 315(b) one-year bar: it runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent, so calendar it the day you are served.

Pattern signals. None of the usual tells are present. There is no serial petitioner, no Unified Patents or other defensive aggregator in the chain on this patent, and no PTAB appeal history at all. The patent owner is an operating automotive supplier (Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage, a large entity paying 4th-year maintenance fees on 2025-01-01), not a non-practicing entity — which materially changes the calculus: this looks like a patent held in a large portfolio for defensive/procurement reasons rather than one being actively monetized, which is the most common reason a well-drafted patent like this never attracts an IPR. Related observation from the family data: the French parent FR3048664B1 has lapsed for failure to pay fees ("Expired – Fee Related"), while EP3429896B1 and CN108698570B remain active and JP2019509932A is pending. I could not verify whether an EPO opposition was filed against EP3429896B1 (granted 2021-07-07; a nine-month opposition period would have closed around 2022-04-07) — do not assume foreign proceedings mirror the empty US post-grant record.

One substantive observation worth flagging (not a PTAB holding, just a practitioner's note): claim 4 recites a rack "actuated by a rod fastened to a rotor of said motor," while the specification's summary describes a rack "actuated by a pinion fastened to a rotor." The specification does elsewhere use "rod" ("a toothed connection with a rod connected to the rotor"), so this is likely supported — but the pinion/rod inconsistency is the kind of term a petitioner would probe on written description and indefiniteness. Also note the prosecution history shows a Final Rejection mailed 2020-12-22 followed by a Notice of Allowance on 2021-03-23 — i.e., the issued claims were narrowed at the close of prosecution. Pull the file wrapper before drafting any claim-construction position, since the amendment that overcame that final rejection is the most likely source of prosecution-history estoppel and of the applicant's own constructions.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to a court or an adversary that this patent has been invalidated or sustained. It has not been tested. Any statement implying a PTAB outcome would be a misstatement of the record.
2. Before filing anything, run the two canonical confirmations: search PTAB E2E by patent number and application number 16/084,538, and check CourtListener for both the patent number and the FR/EP family members, to catch any petition filed after the ODP ingest or any co-pending district-court action that would trigger your § 315(b) clock.
3. Preserve your full IPR runway now. Because no estoppel attaches, your strongest move (if asserted) is a clean-slate IPR on the strongest § 103 combination, combined with an ex parte reexam as a lower-cost fallback. The Board will institute on all challenged claims (SAS), so scope the petition deliberately rather than over-challenging.
4. If you are served, diarize the § 315(b) date immediately and evaluate a stay motion — the statutory one-year trial deadline from institution makes an IPR an unusually fast validity vehicle here, and there is no prior PTAB record that a judge could view as already having addressed the issues.
5. Order the file wrapper (App. No. 16/084,538) to see the after-final amendment behind the 2020-12-22 Final Rejection and 2021-03-23 allowance, and pull the ISR and Written Opinion from PCT/EP2017/055455 dated 2017-05-16 (both listed as non-patent citations on the face of the patent) — those are the Examiner's own art and reasoning, and they are the cheapest starting point for any invalidity theory.

I'll verify the assignment record against the primary sources I can reach.

Let me dig for any post-issuance transfers or assertion activity involving this family.

Let me check for any assignment activity, securitization, or corporate reorganization involving the assignee.

Ownership analysis — US Patent No. 11,059,459 ("Device for cleaning an optical detection system for a motor vehicle")

Sourcing note before the findings. I reconstructed this chain from the legal-events record on the patent text supplied (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-24), which is a mirror of the USPTO assignment record. I was not able to open USPT0 Assignment Center directly in this session — the search surface returned only generic methodology pages, not the reel/frame detail view. Consequently the correspondent-of-record field for reel 047047/0192 is not retrieved and I flag it as unknown rather than guessing. Everything else below is grounded in the supplied record.

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Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: no unusual pattern. There is no evidence of inventor departure around filing. Giraud was still filing as a Valeo inventor as recently as 12 October 2022 (INPI BOPI 24/16), six years after this priority date (2016-03-14) — the opposite of the "all inventors leave within 12 months" precursor to a portfolio fire-sale. Both men appear to be career Valeo R&D personnel (Giraud in driver-assistance sensor cleaning, Trebouet in wiping/washer fluid systems), consistent with this being a genuine in-house development rather than an acquired-in portfolio.

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Original assignee

Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage SAS — the wiper-systems ("Essuyage" = wiping) subsidiary of Valeo SE (Euronext Paris), a French Tier-1 automotive supplier.

• Primary line of business: windshield wiper arms/blades/links, wiper motors and drive systems, washer and cleaning-fluid systems — and, relevantly, ADAS sensor/optical-sensor cleaning (Valeo has publicly marketed camera-sensor cleaning systems; the exact product nomenclature is something I hold at moderate confidence and would want to confirm against a Valeo product datasheet).
• Does it ship products embodying the claims? Yes, in substance: this patent covers a motor-driven linearly deploying cleaning-fluid/drying-fluid distributor for an optical sensor — squarely the kind of sensor-cleaning actuator Valeo supplies to OEMs for ADAS cameras.
• Corporate status: operating. Valeo SE is active and publicly listed; Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage SAS is a wholly owned French operating subsidiary (recent French filings describe the applicant as a Société par actions simplifiée à associé unique). No bankruptcy, no Chapter 7/11, no dissolution. It is a prolific filer (portfolio in the thousands of applications per third-party databases), which is the profile of an operating-company filer, not a monetization vehicle.
• Current status of the patent itself: active, 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2025-01-01 as a large entity (Google Patents legal events: MAFP — Payment of maintenance fee, 4th year, large entity). The named owner of record remains a large operating entity — inconsistent with the fee-abandonment pattern typical of acquired shells.

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Assignment timeline

Chronological record of every recorded assignment found for US 11,059,459:

• 2018-07-17 (executed) / recorded 2018-10-03 — Reel 047047/0192
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (see document for details)
  • Assignor: Giraud, Frédéric; Trebouet, Marcel
  • Assignee: Valeo Systemes d'Essuyage (France)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. The correspondent-of-record field is exposed only in the Assignment Center / AOTW detail view for reel 047047 and I could not open it in this session, so I am not asserting a name. (I specifically decline to infer that the correspondent is Valeo's in-house IP department merely because Valeo's French INPI filings designate "Valeo Management Service" as mandataire — that is a different register and a different document.) This is the one gap in the chain I would want closed by a direct Assignment Center lookup.
  • Context: Standard inventor → employer confirmation of title, filed contemporaneously with entry of the PCT national stage (the application is a §371 national stage of PCT/EP2017/055455; the first US legal event is dated 2018-09-12, ~3 weeks before this assignment was recorded). Not a reorg, not a securitization, not a sale.

No other assignment is recorded. There is no post-issuance transfer, no security interest, no license recordation, no merger/change-of-name entry. The only event touching title is the 2018 inventor-to-Valeo assignment.

Cross-check on the family: the siblings are EP 3429896 B1 (Active), CN 108698570 B (Active), JP 2019-509932 A (Pending), KR 2018-0120693 A (Withdrawn), BR 112018016315 A2 (Discontinued), RU 2018136074 A (Discontinued), WO 2017157739 A1 (Ceased — normal for a PCT after national-stage entry). These are prosecution outcomes, not ownership events, and none of them indicates a transfer.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11059459
    2016 : Priority filing by Valeo inventors
    2017 : PCT application filed
    2018 : Inventors assign to Valeo Systemes d'Essuyage
         : Reel 047047 frame 0192 recorded
    2021 : US 11059459 granted
    2025 : 4th year maintenance fee paid

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Inverse corroboration worth noting: this patent is cited by a Ford Global Technologies application (US 2022/0065745 A1 → US 11,913,852 B2) and its family is cited in the Waymo sensor-clearing line (US 11,305,740 B2; US 10,933,842 B2). Forward-citation traffic of that kind is characteristic of a live technology family in an operating company's hands, and is also why the absence of any divisional/continuation or assignment churn here is meaningful — there was no monetization carve-out.

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Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

Justification (2–3 sentences): The entire recorded ownership history of US 11,059,459 consists of one conveyance — the inventors Giraud and Trebouet to Valeo Systemes d'Essuyage, executed 2018-07-17 and recorded 2018-10-03 at reel 047047/0192 — i.e. a conventional inventor-to-employer title confirmation, and the 4th-year maintenance fee was paid as a large entity on 2025-01-01, indicating the patent is still held and maintained by the original operating-company assignee. Not one of the eight NPE indicators is present on the available record; the only unresolved item is the correspondent of record for reel 047047/0192, which I could not retrieve and which is a data gap rather than an adverse finding. A direct lookup of that reel/frame in Assignment Center is the single step needed to close this out — if the correspondent is Valeo's own IP service (as the pattern suggests but I have not verified), the file can be upgraded to a clean operating-company / non-asserting call.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11059459, or by reel 047047 / frame 0192); legacy interface at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

I'll research the specific patent and each cited prior-art reference. Let me start with the patent itself and several key references in parallel.

I have good coverage of several references. Let me research the remaining cited references, particularly the two most relevant Valeo applications and the others.

Scope, sources, and one flagged contradiction

Patent identification (literal): The record is US 11,059,459 B2, application 16/084,538 (35 U.S.C. §371 national stage of PCT/EP2017/055455), title "Device for cleaning an optical detection system for a motor vehicle." I treated the number literally and did not substitute look‑alike numbers. In particular, do not confuse it with the similar‑looking US 9,314,599 B2 that the earlier section correctly flagged as a different patent.

Source basis: I was not able to query USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter directly in this session. My bibliographic and citation data is taken from the full patent text supplied in the prompt (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑24), which the operating rules designate as authoritative, supplemented by live web searches for the individual cited references. Where I could not retrieve a reference's full text, I say so rather than guess.

Contradiction to flag (per the cross‑reference rule): The previously generated section states the working date is 2026‑09‑30 (and cited a 2026‑09‑24 fetch), while this task header states Current Date: April 26, 2026. These are inconsistent. It does not change the prior‑art analysis (all threshold dates are 2015–2018), but I am surfacing it rather than silently harmonizing.

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The legal frame for this analysis (§102 anticipation)

Under 35 U.S.C. §102, a reference anticipates a claim only if it discloses every element of that claim, arranged as claimed, in a single reference. US 11,059,459 has two independent claims:

• Claim 1 — a cleaning device comprising (a) an assembly for guiding and distributing a cleaning fluid and a drying fluid, and (b) an electric motor moving that assembly with a linear movement between a working position (fluids distributed over the sensor's exterior surface) and an idle position.
• Claim 14 — an optical detection system comprising at least one optical sensor plus the claim‑1 device.

Critical threshold point: the electric‑motor‑driven linear movement of the fluid guiding/distributing assembly is the heart of claim 1. As the analysis below shows, most cited references move the fluid element hydraulically, pneumatically, by spring, or not at all — so they cannot literally anticipate claim 1. Several are, however, strong §103 obviousness material. I have marked each accordingly rather than overstating §102.

Priority/effective filing date: 2016‑03‑14 (FR 1652128). A reference is §102 prior art only if its publication (or its effective filing date, for U.S. application publications under §102(a)(2)) predates that date. One cited reference fails this test — see reference #11.

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The eleven cited references, one by one

Quick index (front‑page "Citations (11)" of US 11,059,459):

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1. DE 10 2005 021671 A1 — Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW)

Full citation: DE 10 2005 021671 A1, "Vorrichtung zur Visualisierung der Umgebung eines Kraftfahrzeugs…" (Device for visualization of the surroundings of a motor vehicle). Pub. 2006‑11‑16; priority 2005‑05‑11.
Description: A mechanically acting cleaning device mounted on the camera device, arranged so the camera‑lens surface can be freed directly of impurities.
§102 analysis: Discloses a cleaning device for a camera but via a mechanically working (contact) cleaner, not an electric‑motor‑driven fluid guiding/distributing assembly, and not a two‑fluid (cleaning and drying) distribution assembly. It does not disclose the linear motor‑driven element of claim 1. Anticipates no claim. Possible §103 background only.

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2. US 2009/0250533 A1 — Denso Corporation

Full citation: US 2009/0250533 A1, "Washer nozzle‑equipped camera apparatus and washer nozzle." Pub. 2009‑10‑08; JP priority 2008‑04‑03 (JP 2008‑96834).
Description: A washer nozzle with a window duct (window spray outlet) and a camera duct spraying washer fluid on the camera lens, plus an air duct that takes in air during vehicle motion and blows it on the lens to dry it (removing rain/washer fluid "so that lens 10a can be dried"). A pressure‑switched valve selects window vs. camera spray.
§102 analysis: This is linguistically the closest cited reference on the "cleaning fluid and drying fluid" half of claim 1 — it expressly delivers washer fluid and air to the camera lens. However, the assembly is fixed; there is no linear movement between a working position and an idle position, and no electric motor. Because anticipation requires all elements, it does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. It is meaningful §103 art on the two‑fluid aspect.

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3. US 2013/0171514 A1 — Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.

Full citation: US 2013/0171514 A1, "Cyclic sulfate compound, non‑aqueous electrolyte solution containing same, and lithium secondary battery." Pub. 2013‑07‑04; priority 2010‑10‑22.
Description: Battery‑electrolyte chemistry (cyclic sulfate additives for lithium secondary batteries).
§102 analysis: Entirely non‑analogous art to motor‑vehicle optical‑sensor cleaning. Discloses none of the elements of any claim of US 11,059,459. Anticipates no claim (I note it appears in the citation list despite being unrelated to the claimed subject matter).

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4. US 2013/0092758 A1 — Denso Corporation

Full citation: US 2013/0092758 A1, "Camera washing device for camera lens." Pub. 2013‑04‑18; priority 2011‑10‑14.
Description: A camera‑lens washing device (spray‑type lens cleaning). (I was unable to retrieve the full specification text of this reference in this session; the description here is based on its title and the citation record.)
§102 analysis: As a fixed lens‑washer arrangement it lacks the electric‑motor‑driven linear displacement of the fluid guiding/distributing assembly between working and idle positions recited in claim 1, and lacks a recitation of a combined cleaning‑and‑drying fluid distribution assembly. On the record available, it does not anticipate claim 1 or 14; treat as §103 background. Flagged: full‑text verification recommended before relying on this assessment.

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5. US 2015/0138357 A1 — Alan Scot Romack (Bowles Fluidics / DLBowles, Inc.)

Full citation: US 2015/0138357 A1, "Integrated automotive system, pop‑up nozzle assembly and remote control method for cleaning a wide‑angle image sensor's exterior surface." Filed 2013‑11‑21; pub. 2015‑05‑21; est. priority 2011‑03‑10. (Family member granted as US 9,992,388 B2 on 2018‑06‑05.)
Description: An extendable ("pop‑up") aiming fixture carrying a laterally offset washing nozzle that selectively projects into a washing position and sprays at a shallow glancing angle, with remote (in‑cabin) control. It explicitly addresses the need to move the nozzle out of the wide‑angle sensor's field of view when not washing.
§102 analysis: This reference does disclose a distribution element that extends into a washing position and retracts to a rest position — conceptually the "working/idle" pair of claim 1. But (i) the extendable element is a nozzle assembly, not the claimed cleaning‑and‑drying fluid guiding/distributing assembly; (ii) extension is by fluid/pop‑up actuation, not an electric motor; and (iii) no drying‑fluid distribution is recited. It therefore does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. It is relevant §103 art for the retractable‑between‑working‑and‑idle concept.

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6. WO 2015/120866 A1 — Kautex Textron GmbH & Co. KG

Full citation: WO 2015/120866 A1, "Air and fluid cleaning system and method for cleaning vehicle vision devices." PCT filed 2014‑02‑14; pub. 2015‑08‑20. U.S. counterpart granted as US 10,414,383 B2.
Description: Fluid nozzles and air nozzles aimed at a rear‑view camera; a telescopic air‑jet device (piston‑cylinder) driven hydraulically by the cleaning‑fluid pump pressure produces sequenced cleaning: cleaning fluid first, then an air burst to remove droplets (drying). Expressly discloses delivering both a cleaning fluid and air to the sensor.
§102 analysis: Discloses the cleaning‑plus‑drying fluid delivery and even a telescoping (axially movable) air jet. But the moving element is driven by fluid pressure, not an electric motor, and it is an air‑burst generator rather than the claimed motor‑driven fluid guiding/distributing assembly translated between working and idle positions. It does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. Strong §103 art for the cleaning+drying combination.

Related family art worth noting (found during search, not on the front‑page citation list): Kautex EP 3 169 568 B2 / WO 2016/008722 A1, "Integrated on board vehicle vision and cleaning system," expressly recites a nozzle carrier movable within a casing between a retracted position and an extended operating position. This is closer to the "working/idle" movement concept than WO 2015/120866 A1 and should be considered if §103 combinations are built.

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7. US 2016/0103316 A1 — Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage (same assignee)

Full citation: US 2016/0103316 A1, "Device for cleaning a motor vehicle driving aid camera." Pub. 2016‑04‑14; priority 2014‑10‑10 (qualifies under §102(a)(2) via its earlier effective filing date). A sibling is US 2016/0101735 A1.
Description: An annular cleaning head with internal fluid‑circulation duct feeding spray nozzles (or de‑icing heating elements). Drive means produce a relative translational (linear) displacement of the cleaning head and the camera between a passive position (head set around the objective, outside the camera field of view) and an active position (head facing the lens so liquid or pressurized air can be ejected onto it). The preferred drive means are hydraulic — a piston sliding in a chamber under cleaning‑liquid pressure, with a spring return; the specification names alternatives but no electric motor driving the assembly linearly.
§102 analysis: This is the closest cited reference to the structural concept of claim 1: a fluid‑distributing head that is translated linearly between a working (active) position and an idle (passive) position relative to the sensor. The decisive gap is the "electric motor" limitation — Valeo '316 drives the translation hydraulically/pneumatically, not with an electric motor. It also does not clearly recite simultaneous distribution of a cleaning fluid and a drying fluid (it mentions liquid or pressurized air). Accordingly, it does not literally anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. It is the principal §103 reference: combine its linearly translated spray head with a conventional electric linear/rack‑and‑pinion actuator (e.g., as in claim 3/4 of the patent) to reach claim 1.

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8. US 2017/0021809 A1 — Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage

Full citation: US 2017/0021809 A1, "Device for cleaning a sensor for a motor vehicle." Pub. 2017‑01‑26; priority 2015‑07‑22 (qualifies as §102(a)(2) art).
Description: (Full text not retrieved in this session; identified from the citation record.) A Valeo cleaning device for a motor‑vehicle sensor, in the same technical family as the other Valeo sensor‑cleaning filings.
§102 analysis: On the available record I cannot identify disclosure of an electric‑motor‑driven linear translation of a cleaning‑and‑drying fluid guiding/distributing assembly. Provisionally: does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. Flagged: verify against full text before relying on this.

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9. US 2017/0168291 A1 — Huf Hülsbeck & Fürst GmbH & Co. KG

Full citation: US 2017/0168291 A1, "Camera unit with a cleaning device." Pub. 2017‑06‑15; priority 2015‑12‑09 (qualifies as §102(a)(2) art).
Description: (Full text not retrieved in this session; identified from the citation record.) A camera unit incorporating a cleaning device.
§102 analysis: On the available record, no showing of an electric‑motor‑driven linear movement of a two‑fluid (cleaning + drying) guiding/distributing assembly between working and idle positions. Provisionally: does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. Flagged: verify against full text.

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10. US 2017/0225660 A1 — Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage

Full citation: US 2017/0225660 A1, "Optical detection system for a motor vehicle, and device for cleaning such a system." Pub. 2017‑08‑10; priority 2016‑02‑05 (qualifies as §102(a)(2) art — effective filing date precedes 2016‑03‑14).
Description: (Full text not retrieved in this session; identified from the citation record.) An optical detection system with an associated cleaning device — same family domain as the patent at issue.
§102 analysis: On the available record, no showing of the claim‑1 combination (electric motor + linear movement + cleaning‑and‑drying fluid assembly). Provisionally: does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14. Flagged: verify against full text. Because its effective filing date (2016‑02‑05) is only about five weeks before this patent's priority date (2016‑03‑14), it is worth a careful read if validity is ever challenged.

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11. US 10,144,394 B1 — Uber Technologies, Inc.

Full citation: US 10,144,394 B1, "Nozzles and systems for cleaning vehicle sensors." Priority 2017‑11‑08; pub. 2018‑12‑04.
Description: Nozzles and systems for cleaning vehicle sensors.
§102 analysis — IMPORTANT: This reference's priority date (2017‑11‑08) is AFTER this patent's effective filing date (2016‑03‑14). It therefore is not available as §102 (or §103) prior art against US 11,059,459. The Google Patents "Citations" list appears to include it as an examiner/third‑party‑of‑interest citation, but it cannot be used for anticipation or obviousness here. Anticipates no claim (as a matter of law, it is not prior art). If it appears among "Cited By" vs. "Citations," verify which column it belongs to — the record supplied lists it under "Citations (11)."

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Bottom‑line conclusions

1. No cited reference anticipates independent claim 1 (or claim 14) under §102. The reason is consistent across the art: the cited references disclose either fixed nozzles (Denso '533, Denso '758), hydraulically/pneumatically or spring‑driven movement (Valeo '316, Kautex WO '866, Romack '357), a mechanical contact cleaner (BMW '671), or are non‑analogous (Mitsui '514) — none discloses the electric‑motor‑driven linear translation of a cleaning‑and‑drying fluid guiding/distributing assembly between working and idle positions, which is the core of claim 1.

2. The strongest §103 references on the claimed structure are:

   • US 2016/0103316 A1 (Valeo) — linear translation of a fluid spray head between active/passive positions (the single best structural teaching); and
   • US 2009/0250533 A1 (Denso) and WO 2015/120866 A1 (Kautex) — delivering both a cleaning fluid and a drying (air) medium to the sensor lens.
     A combination of the Valeo '316 translation concept with a conventional electric linear actuator or rotary‑motor‑driven rack (the very structures recited in dependent claims 3 and 4) is the obviousness theory a challenger would most plausibly run against claim 1, with Denso '533/Kautex WO '866 supplying the two‑fluid teaching.

3. Dependent claims (2–13) add the drive‑shaft, casing, fixing‑zone/notch, stepper‑motor and DC‑motor‑with‑end‑of‑travel features. None of the cited references, on the record available, discloses these features in combination with the claim‑1 subject matter, so they afford additional fallback positions. (Full‑text review of references #4, #8, #9 and #10 is recommended before finalizing this last point.)

4. US 10,144,394 B1 (Uber) is not prior art to this patent because its 2017‑11‑08 priority post‑dates the 2016‑03‑14 effective filing date.

5. Process caveat: I could not query USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter or PACER directly in this session, and full‑text retrieval failed for four references (US 2013/0092758, US 2017/0021809, US 2017/0168291, US 2017/0225660). The §102 conclusions for those four are provisional and should be confirmed against the primary documents before being relied upon.

Additional relevant art surfaced (not on the front‑page list): Kautex EP 3 169 568 B2 / WO 2016/008722 A1 (nozzle carrier movable between a retracted and an extended operating position within a casing) is closer to the claimed "working/idle translation" than WO 2015/120866 A1 and warrants inclusion in any §103 analysis.

I'll research the cited prior art references so the obviousness analysis is grounded in what each reference actually discloses.

Let me pull details on the remaining key references, especially the closest-in-time Valeo application and the Denso/Uber/Kautex art.

Now let me examine the non-Valeo third-party references that recite movable/retractable cleaning elements.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,059,459 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the previously generated section (bibliographic data, claim scope, and the flagged claim-4 "rod"/"pinion" discrepancy — all carried forward and not repeated here).

1. Legal framework and claim scope

The '459 patent has an effective filing date of 2016-03-14 (FR 1652128), so the AIA versions of §§ 102/103 govern. The preamble/Graham factors:

• Claim 1 requires only three things: (a) a device for cleaning an optical sensor of a motor-vehicle optical detection system; (b) an assembly guiding and distributing a cleaning fluid and a drying fluid; and (c) an electric motor moving that assembly with a linear movement between a working position (fluids distributed over the sensor's exterior surface) and an idle position. No mounting structure, no gearing, no control scheme, and no specific geometry is recited.
• Level of ordinary skill: a mechanical/electro-mechanical engineer (BS + ~2–5 years, or equivalent) in the design of automotive sensor-cleaning and washer hardware.

Critically, the '459 specification admits most of claim 1 as known:

• "It is known to place in the vicinity of these optical sensors a cleaning device able to spray a particular quantity of cleaning liquid…"
• "…it is also known, after spraying the cleaning fluid, to spray a drying fluid, notably air…" (dual-fluid cleaning + drying)
• "the elements for distributing cleaning and/or drying fluids can generally be moved between a working position… and an idle position in which they are retracted…"
• "these devices must be as compact as possible."

Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), these admissions frame claim 1 as: known movable cleaning/drying-fluid distribution assembly + known requirement to stay out of the field of view and be compact + selection of a motor-driven linear (rather than pivoting or fixed) deployment.

2. Threshold issue: which cited references are actually available as § 102 art

This materially limits which combinations are legally usable, and it is the first thing a challenger must get right.

Two points deserve emphasis:

1. The three Valeo references are § 102(a)(2)-only art (all three published after 2016-03-14 but were effectively filed before it). Each is therefore potentially disqualified by the common-ownership exception, § 102(b)(2)(C) — the '459 and US 2016/0103316, US 2017/0021809, and US 2017/0225660 were all owned by Valeo Systèmes d'Essuyage as of the effective filing date, and US 2017/0225660 even shares inventor Trebouet. A patentee could disqualify all three. A § 103 attack must therefore be built to survive on the non-Valeo art alone. (For completeness: the EPO nonetheless granted EP 3429896 B1 on this family; the EPO's treatment of equivalent art is worth checking, though EP claim scope may differ.)
2. US 10,144,394 B1 (Uber) cannot be prior art at all — its provisional (62/583,143) was filed 2017-11-08, ~20 months after the '459 priority date. Its appearance in the examiner's citation list is likely an artifact of later-filed/co-pending citations. Similarly, US 2013/0171514 A1 (Mitsui) supplies nothing to a cleaning-device obviousness theory and would fail the analogous-art test of In re Bigio / In re Clay.

3. Claim 1 — the operative combination

Primary reference: WO 2015/120866 A1 (Kautex Textron). Per the record, this is directed to an "air and fluid cleaning system and method for cleaning vehicle vision devices" — i.e., a system that applies both a liquid cleaning fluid and air (a drying fluid) to a vehicle camera/sensor. It supplies elements (a) and (b) of claim 1 directly, and it is solid § 102(a)(1) art. (Caveat: I could not retrieve the full text of WO 2015/120866 A1 in this session; its movable/actuated features should be verified before this is relied on as the primary reference.)

Secondary reference for the movable, motor-driven linear deployment — three alternatives:

• US 2015/0138357 A1 (Romack) — a "Pop Up Nozzle Assembly" for cleaning a wide-angle image sensor's exterior surface, i.e., a fluid-distribution element that moves between a stowed and a deployed position over a sensor surface, with remote control of deployment. This maps onto the "working position / idle position" and the spray-over-exterior-surface limitations.
• DE 10 2005 021671 A1 (BMW) — a mechanically acting cleaning device mounted on the camera device that directly frees the camera's radiation-entry/objective surface of contaminants, showing powered mechanical (rather than fixed) cleaning hardware at the sensor's optic.
• The Valeo driving-aid-camera cleaning family — US 2016/0103316 A1 (if not disqualified) discloses a cleaning head positioned around the lens, out of the camera's field of view, with an internal liquid-circulation duct feeding plural spray nozzles from at least one supply pipe; the closely related Valeo 2014-10-10 filings (US 2016/0101735 A1; US 2018/0001837 A1, not in the citation list) expressly disclose translational-drive means comprising a chamber, a piston and a link rod forming a translational-drive shaft, plus a guide rod, and state that the guiding "ensures exclusively sliding movement of the casing… preventing rotation of the casing on itself." This is the single most on-point teaching of linear (as opposed to pivoting) deployment of a camera-cleaning element, to be used only if the § 102(b)(2)(C) exception is not invoked.

Motivation to combine (articulated reasoning with rational underpinning):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. All references are directed to cleaning the exterior optical surface of a vehicle-mounted camera/sensor — analogous art under In re Bigio.
2. The prior art itself supplies the incentive. The '459 background and each reference recite the same two design pressures: (i) the cleaning hardware must be out of the sensor's field of view when not in use, and (ii) the device must be as compact as possible in vehicle packaging. Combining a known dual-fluid nozzle system (Kautex) with a known retracting/deploying nozzle (Romack/BMW) is the direct, predictable response.
3. Drying fluid follow-up was itself a known technique. The '459 specification admits the use of air after cleaning liquid to avoid droplets/runs; Kautex's stated subject matter is precisely air-plus-fluid cleaning of vision devices. A POSITA seeking to reduce residual droplets would have been motivated to integrate the two-fluid distribution of Kautex with a deployable nozzle block.
4. Design choice among a finite set. Deployment mechanizations in the art were essentially: fixed nozzle (Denso US 2009/0250533), pivoting/swinging arm, or linear translation / pop-up (Romack). Selecting translation, and driving it with an electric motor (linear actuator, or rotary motor + rack), is one of a small set of predictable options with no change in principle of operation — the classic KSR design-choice scenario. The '459's own stated benefit ("limits the space needed around the cleaning device") is a predictable result of the known alternative.
5. Reasonable expectation of success is high: the combination requires no new mechanism, only mechanical integration of a nozzle/casing onto a translating carriage and a motor.

4. Dependent claims

5. Where the patent has genuine defensive strength

1. The electric-motor limitation is the only real battleground. If the § 102(b)(2)(C) exception disqualifies the three Valeo references, the surviving art (Kautex, DE '671, Denso ×2, Romack, Huf, Fico) must independently supply a motor-driven, linear deployment of a dual-fluid distribution assembly. I did not confirm in this session that any one cited reference discloses an electric motor driving a linear (translational) deployment — several (Denso) are primarily fixed-nozzle devices and several others deploy by pivoting or by fluid pressure (the Valeo family's illustrated embodiment is hydraulic, with a piston and spring return). This gap is the strongest non-obviousness argument available to the patentee, and it should be attacked with either (a) a primary reference squarely disclosing a motorized pop-up/linear nozzle, or (b) general-knowledge evidence (linear-actuator/pop-up-nozzle art, catalogs, textbooks) to fill it under KSR.
2. Secondary considerations: none are apparent on this record. However, if Valeo's telescopic sensor-cleaning products (which likely embody this disclosure) achieved commercial success or satisfied a long-felt need, the patentee could assert it — nexus to the recited "electric motor + linear movement" would be required, and would be difficult given that these features are the alleged design choice.
3. Prosecution history is unexplained and material. The record shows a non-final rejection (2020-06-23), a final rejection (2020-12-22), then a notice of allowance (2021-03-23) — an allowance that appears to follow an after-final response or examiner's amendment. The distinctions the examiner accepted are not visible in the supplied text. Verify the file wrapper for application 16/084,538 in USPTO PatentCenter — the reasons for allowance and the earlier rejections would reveal exactly which claim features the Office treated as the point of novelty, and would sharpen or defeat the combinations above.

6. Explicit uncertainties

• I could not retrieve the full texts of WO 2015/120866 A1 (Kautex), US 2009/0250533 A1 and US 2013/0092758 A1 (Denso), US 2015/0138357 A1 (Romack), US 2017/0021809 A1 (Valeo), US 2017/0168291 A1 (Huf) and EP 2949520 B1 (Fico) within this session. Statements above about those documents are based on the record's titles, dates, and classification, and on partial family material; each should be confirmed against the full text before an invalidity contention is finalized — in particular, whether each discloses an electric (as opposed to hydraulic/pneumatic or manual) prime mover and a linear (as opposed to pivoting) deployment.
• The Valeo family documents US 2016/0101735 A1 and US 2018/0001837 A1 are not in the '459 citation list; I cite them only as corroborating evidence of what Valeo's own 2014-era disclosures taught about translational drive shafts and anti-rotation guiding.
• No assertion here about any litigation, IPR, or PTAB proceeding; consistent with the prior section, none was found, and the primary dockets were not queryable.