US 11175127

I'll search for this specific patent number across USPTO sources and CAFC dockets.

Initial searches returned irrelevant matches (note one result was EP application 11175127, a different jurisdiction and number—not the US patent). Let me run more targeted queries including CAFC dockets.

US Patent 11,175,127 B2 — Analyst Summary

Sources: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11175127](/patent/US11175127)/en), Justia Patents (https://patents.justia.com/patent/11175127), Patents-Review (US2020/0393239 A1). Failed/negative searches noted below.

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1. Bibliographic Data

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2. Abstract (as issued)

Examples of a method include maintaining a large area thin film at a predetermined angle with respect to a spatially non-scanning infrared (IR) radiation source. The large area thin film reflects infrared radiation and at least a portion of the large area thin film is electrically conductive. The predetermined angle is selected from an angle ranging from about 0° to about 45°. Examples of the method include, while maintaining the large area thin film at the predetermined angle, directly illuminating the large area thin film with infrared radiation from the spatially non-scanning infrared radiation source, and thermal imaging reflected infrared radiation from the large area thin film by an infrared imaging system having an optical axis positioned at a fixed angle with respect to the large area thin film. The fixed angle is selected from an angle ranging from about 0° to about 45°.

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3. Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — Method (broadest method claim; reflectance/thermal-imaging route)

1. Hold a large area thin film at a fixed angle of 0°–45° relative to a spatially non-scanning IR source — i.e., a stationary, area-filling IR emitter (not a scanned beam), which here must include a heat-conductive sheet with an IR-emitting coating on it.
   • The film must reflect IR and have at least a part that is electrically conductive.
2. While holding that angle, directly illuminate the film with IR from that source (no lenses/mirrors/collimators between source and sample).
3. Thermally image the reflected IR with an IR imaging device whose optical axis sits at a fixed 0°–45° to the film.

So: shine a big, stationary warm plate at a conductive thin film; a camera captures the reflected IR pattern; brightness/contrast maps to film thickness and uniformity.

Claim 7 — Method (aperture/"through-the-source" route)

1. Hold a sample with a large area thin film at 0° to a spatially non-scanning IR source that again comprises a heat-conductive sheet plus IR-emitting coating.
   • Film reflects IR; part is electrically conductive; and the source's IR source width is ≥ 2× the film's object width (source much larger than the sample).
2. Directly illuminate the film at that angle.
3. Through an aperture defined in the source itself, form an optical image of the reflected IR at an imaging system that looks back through that hole.

So: a large source plate sits parallel to and facing the sample, with a hole in it; the camera peers through the plate's own aperture to see the sample's reflected IR. This is the "0° / back-reflection" configuration.

Claim 15 — Infrared imaging system (apparatus)
[Claim 15 is the apparatus claim corresponding to the third aspect in the specification; the Justia excerpt I retrieved listed claims 1–14, so the exact final numbering of the system independent claim is a minor point of residual uncertainty, though the specification clearly recites it as a third aspect.]

• A sample stage to hold a large area IR-reflecting, partly electrically conductive thin film.
• A spatially non-scanning IR source at ~0° to the stage, with (i) an aperture through it and (ii) an IR source width ≥ 2× the film's object width.
• An IR imaging system positioned to receive reflected IR through the aperture.

Dependent-claim themes (context): identifying uniform vs. uneven thickness regions from the thermal image (cl. 2/9); selecting source width from angle and object width (cl. 3); film area ~6.5 cm² to ~8 m² and thickness up to ~10 µm or a monolayer (cl. 4/10); film and substrate both visibly transparent but distinguishable in IR (cl. 5/11); film selected from PEDOT:PSS, polypyrrole, polyaniline (cl. 6/12); repositioning + stitching multiple images into a complete image (cl. 13); background correction for the aperture "blind spot" (cl. 14); fan cooling; and the electric-heating-pad / aluminum heat-conductive sheet / high-emissivity silicone coating construction.

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4. CAFC 2026 Docket Check — Negative Result

I found no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket, appeal, or decision referencing US 11,175,127. Searches for the number in a CAFC/appellate context returned unrelated matters (e.g., AGI SureTrack LLC v. Farmers Edge Inc., Nos. 24-1730/-1830, involving U.S. Patents 11,126,937; 10,963,825; etc. — different numbers — and ClearPlay, Inc. v. DISH Network L.L.C., No. 23-2134). I cannot affirmatively state that no such proceeding exists; I can only report that my searches did not surface one. Treat "no CAFC activity located" as an absence of evidence, not proof of absence.

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5. Disambiguation Warning (Important — literal identifiers)

My first broad queries returned two items that must not be conflated with this U.S. patent:

• "EP 11175127 A" — this is a European application number (dating to 2007, in the EP 2 438 594/2 437 064 "biomarker for liver inflammation" family). Different jurisdiction, different number format, unrelated subject matter. It is not US 11,175,127.
• Australian Patent Office / PCT search-report and various thin-film spectroscopy documents surfaced only incidentally by keyword.

Only US 11,175,127 B2 (Illumina) matches the requested identifier.

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6. Confidence Notes

• Bibliographic data, abstract, and claim language above are grounded in the authoritative full patent text plus corroborating Google Patents/Justia pages — high confidence.
• The identity of the third independent (apparatus) claim as claim 15 is inferred from the specification's "third aspect" and the claim range; the retrieved Justia page truncated at claim 14, so I flag this as likely but not directly verified. All substantive apparatus limitations are directly quoted from the specification, so the substance is not uncertain.
• Total claim count and any intervening dependent claims between 14 and the apparatus claim were not fully retrieved.
• The CAFC result is a negative search finding only.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 11175127. Let me run several targeted searches.

Initial searches returned unrelated results. Let me search patent litigation databases specifically.

No hits yet. Let me try more specific searches against litigation databases and the patent's title.

Summary of Findings

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,175,127 could be identified in the sources searched.

I was unable to find any district court action, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or Federal Circuit appeal in which U.S. Patent No. 11,175,127 ("System and method for large sample analysis of thin film," assigned to Illumina, Inc.) is asserted or challenged.

Searches performed

Notes on adjacent/confusable identifiers (per your strict-literal-interpretation rule)

Several search results contained numbers similar to but not identical to the patent number. I did not treat these as matches:

• EP 11175127 A — a European application number (carried into EP 2437064 B1, "Biomarker for liver inflammation"). Different authority, different subject matter.
• Nos. 11-127 and 11-128 (U.S. Supreme Court brief, Tessera/ITC) — these are docket numbers, not patent numbers.
• U.S. Patent No. 11,257,272 (Artificial Intelligence Industry Association v. Geisel Software, No. 1:25-cv-07387-PKC (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 23, 2026)) — different patent.
• The Illumina v. Element Biosciences litigations (D. Del. 1:25-cv-00602; 1:25-cv-01175) and Ravgen v. Illumina (D. Del. 1:25-cv-00452-adjacent docket) assert entirely different Illumina- and third-party-owned patents.

Contextual observations (not litigation findings)

• The patent's current assignee is Illumina, Inc. (per the patent record; inventors Fuhrmann, Merkel, and Delattre). Illumina is an active litigant in sequencing and digital-fluidics technology, so the absence of litigation here is notable but not surprising — this patent appears to be a manufacturing/inspection quality-control tool (IR reflectance imaging of large-area thin films) rather than a product-asserted patent.
• The patent is in force, with an anticipated expiration of 2038-11-09.

Important limitations / caveats

• Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. My searches were conducted via general web/patent aggregators (Google Patents, CourtListener/Recap excerpts, Unified Patents portal pages, Docket Alarm, DrugPatentWatch, JUVE Patent, news/firm alerts). I was not able to execute a live, directly-queryable search of PACER, Docket Navigator, or the Unified Patents litigation caselist filtered on this patent number — the tool responses returned generic or unrelated content rather than a filable case list for 11,175,127.
• Complaints asserting this patent could exist but not be indexed (e.g., very recent filings, sealed cases, or cases where the number was not OCR-extracted).
• To confirm with high confidence, I recommend querying:
  • PACER / CourtListener RECAP for complaints citing "11,175,127"
  • USPTO Patent Center "Litigation" tab and PTAB dockets for this patent
  • Unified Patents litigation caselist (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist)

Bottom line

Based on the available search results, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,175,127 — no plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or status can be reported because no case was found. If you need a definitive negative, that should be verified against PACER/Docket Navigator directly, which I could not query live here.

I'll verify the structured ODP finding against live web sources before concluding.

Let me run a couple more targeted queries to be thorough.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,175,127: zero (0). The structured USPTO Open Data Portal block governing this task reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding for this patent, and my independent web searches (detailed below) surfaced none — so there is no status breakdown to report (no active trials, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, no institution denials). The defensive posture this gives a defendant is the opposite of "hardened": every claim of US 11,175,127 is untested and unadjudicated, no claim has ever been construed or canceled by the Board, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone — so an IPR filed today starts from a clean slate with the full prior-art universe available.

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding template that follows is intentionally empty. I am not populating it with any case number, petitioner, or panel, because doing so would require fabrication.

(No proceedings to report)

The specified format calls for one ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} block per proceeding. There are none to list. Accordingly:

• No Final Written Decision exists for this patent. There is therefore no claim-level verdict to quote, no independent claim canceled, no dependent claim sustained.
• No institution decision exists. There is no panel, no ground, no § 102/§ 103/§ 112 theory on the public record for this patent.
• No settlement / termination exists.
• No Federal Circuit appeal of any FWD exists. (This is consistent with, and independently confirms, the earlier CAFC search reported in this file, which likewise found no appellate activity — note that the CAFC section's negative finding on CAFC appeals in 2026 and this PTAB negative finding are two different searches that happen to agree.)

One cross-reference flag: the earlier "Patent summary" section in this file flagged residual uncertainty about whether the third (apparatus) independent claim is numbered claim 15 and stated that claims 1–14 were retrieved verbatim. That uncertainty cannot be resolved by looking at PTAB records, because PTAB records for this patent do not exist. No claim numbering has ever been litigated institutionally. I am not attempting to correct or re-verify the claim set here; I simply note that no PTAB document exists that could confirm or contradict the claim count.

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Verification trail

Confusable identifiers I did not treat as matches (per the strict-literal rule): IPR2020-01125 and IPR2021-01271/-01272 (Illumina proceedings against Columbia University and Ravgen on entirely different patents), IPR2018-00291/-00318/-00322/-00385/-00797 (Columbia-life-sciences patents), and IPR2024-00626/-00627 (patent 11,805,267 B2). None involves 11,175,127. Likewise, the "EP 11175127 A" hit noted in the earlier sections of this file is a European number in a liver-inflammation family and is not this patent.

Caveat on method: I could not execute a live, directly-queryable API call to the USPTO Open Data Portal trial proceedings dataset or a filtered PTAB E2E "Patent Number" trial search from this environment. The default therefore rests on the canonical structured block plus the consistently negative web searches above. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence for very recent filings; if you need a certified negative, query PTAB E2E's trial search and the Patent Center "Legal Events / Litigation" tab directly.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. None of the claims of US 11,175,127 has been canceled, narrowed, or even adjudicated at the Board. The full as-issued claim set — the method claims directed to holding a large-area IR-reflecting, partly conductive thin film at 0°–45° to a spatially non-scanning IR source with direct illumination and thermal imaging (claim 1), the aperture/"through-the-source" 0° method with IR source width ≥ 2× object width (claim 7), the apparatus claim covering the stage-plus-apertured-source-plus-camera arrangement, and their dependents — remains untested. There is no "surviving claims" list to give you, because survival implies a prior attack, and there has not been one.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR was instituted and no FWD ever issued, § 315(e)(2) estoppel has not attached to any party, including Illumina and including any privy that considered filing. For a defendant being asserted today, there is no closed set of grounds. You are free to file an IPR on any § 102 or § 103 ground with art that predates the 2017-11-13 priority date, unconstrained by anything a prior petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised. Two practical consequences: (1) there is also no § 325(d) "same art already before the Office" problem created by a prior IPR — though be aware that art cited in the original prosecution of the PCT/national-phase application still exists and could invite a § 325(d) discretionary denial argument by the patent owner; and (2) because no IPR was filed, you are not looking at a record built by someone else — you get to build your own.

Timing and statutory availability. The patent issued 2021-11-16. The PGR window (9 months post-grant) closed 2022-08-16 and is now unavailable. CBM is effectively foreclosed: the claims are directed to infrared reflectance measurement of thin films, not to a "financial product or service" or a covered business method, so CBM eligibility fails at the threshold. IPR is the sole remaining AIA route, and it is available at any time for the life of the patent — but for an already-sued defendant, the § 315(b) one-year clock runs from service of the complaint, so that deadline is the operative constraint, not the patent's 2038-11-09 expiration.

Pattern signals. Illumina is a very heavy PTAB participant in both directions — as petitioner (e.g., the Illumina v. Columbia and Illumina v. Ravgen IPR families) and as patent owner defending its sequencing patents — so this is a sophisticated, well-counseled patent owner that knows how to defend at the Board. Notably, however, the absence of any IPR against this particular patent despite that litigation posture is a meaningful signal: this patent does not appear to have been asserted anywhere (consistent with the litigation section of this file, which found no suits), so no defendant has had a § 315(b) trigger to file. There is no evidence of a defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in this chain; Unified's activity is concentrated in consumer electronics and streaming, not life-sciences instrumentation, which makes an aggregator-sponsored IPR unlikely here. The subject matter — IR reflectance QC of large-area transparent conductive coatings, with working examples on "top plates from electrowetting system cartridge[s]" — reads as an in-manufacturing inspection/quality-control tool for Illumina's own production lines rather than a product-assertion patent, which further explains the empty PTAB docket.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not expect a shortcut. There is no FWD to link to and no claim to quote, because no AIA trial has ever been instituted on US 11,175,127. If a demand letter cites this patent, all claims remain live and presumptively valid.
2. Confirm the negative on a queryable system before relying on it. Search PTAB E2E trial search by patent number (https://ptacts.uspto.gov), the Patent Center "Legal Events / Litigation" tab, and CourtListener RECAP for complaints or FWDs citing the patent (https://www.courtlistener.com). Also check the USPTO ODP trial-proceedings dataset directly. Report any hit back into this file for a competing section to be generated.
3. If you are a defendant and intend to file, note the operative milestones: the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of a complaint; the Board's three-month statutory target for the institution decision (37 C.F.R. § 42.108 / § 324(c)); and the § 316(a)(11) 1-year trial deadline running from the institution date, extendable for good cause. Because there is no prior AIA record, expect the patent owner to raise § 325(d) as to art cited during original prosecution, and prepare the "materially different art / materially different argument" showing up front.
4. Build the invalidity case with the 2017-11-13 priority date in mind. The specification's own admissions are useful ammunition: it concedes that specular-reflectance imaging with visible wavelengths was already used in art, archaeology, and quality control, and that PEDOT:PSS's strong far-IR reflectivity was known — it frames the invention as overcoming "heretofore insurmountable" engineering obstacles for large-area far-IR imaging. That framing is worth testing against mid-IR thermography and large-area NDT/IR-inspection art predating the priority date.
5. Watch for late-filed proceedings. If a complaint asserting 11,175,127 is filed in the near term, a § 315(b)-triggered IPR would follow. Any IPR petition or institution decision post-dating the ODP ingest should be surfaced and reconciled against this file, which would then need revision.

Bottom line: No PTAB activity exists on US 11,175,127. The patent is unasserted at the Board and, so far as the available record shows, unasserted in court. Its claims are therefore fully intact and entirely vulnerable to a first-mover IPR — no estoppel, no adverse claim constructions, no cancelled claims, and no Board-created record standing in a defendant's way.

I'll research the assignment/ownership records for US 11,175,127.

Let me try more targeted searches on the assignment record and Illumina's corporate history.

Let me try to access the USPTO assignment records and Google Patents legal events directly.

I hit the tool-call limit while querying the USPTO Assignment Center index. Here is the analysis built on what I retrieved, with an explicit note on the one gap.

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Reconstructing the Ownership Chain — US 11,175,127 B2

Method note / limitation up front. I was unable to execute a live, directly-queryable search of USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) — the tool responses for this patent number returned unrelated records (EP 11175127; Jodi Schwendimann's RE41,623 chain; Capella Photonics; Illumina flow-cell assignments to other applications). I therefore could not extract the reel/frame or the correspondent of record for the assignment below. I am not fabricating a reel/frame number. The one recorded assignment I can document comes from the Google Patents legal-events listing on the authoritative patent page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US11175127/en). Any reel/frame below marked "not retrieved" must be confirmed at Assignment Center before being relied on.

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Inventors

Pattern assessment: The named inventors are Illumina personnel prosecuting as a routine employee-assignment, consistent with the assignee field on the issued patent. No evidence of "all inventors departing within 12 months of filing." I could not verify individual departure dates (no LinkedIn/press hits surfaced), so I mark this unclear rather than "not present" — I lack the employment-history data to make a call, and departure investigations of this type are not something I can confirm from the retrieved record.

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Original assignee

Illumina, Inc. — the entity named on the face of the issued patent, recorded as both original and current assignee.

• Primary line of business: genomics — DNA sequencing instruments, consumables, and array/flow-cell technology. The patent's own working examples reference "a top plate from an electrowetting system cartridge," i.e., Illumina's digital-microfluidics (Advanced Liquid Logic lineage) manufacturing line. The patent is a manufacturing quality-control / in-line inspection tool, not a product-defining claim set.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Not directly. This patent covers the inspection system and method used to characterize conductive transparent thin films (PEDOT:PSS, polypyrrole, polyaniline) applied to electrowetting cartridge top plates. The claimed subject matter is process/measurement equipment — an internal QC capability — not the cartridge itself. So Illumina ships products made using the method, but does not appear to commercialize the claimed IR imaging system as a standalone product.
• Current status: Operating. Illumina is a NASDAQ-listed company (ILMN), San Diego, CA (5200 Illumina Way per the record). No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no acquisition of Illumina itself surfaced.

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Assignment timeline

Only one recorded assignment exists in the sources I could retrieve:

• Executed: not retrieved (date not surfaced in the fetched record) / recorded 2020-02-21 — Reel not retrieved / Frame not retrieved
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: FUHRMANN, Alexander; MERKEL, Timothy J.; DELATTRE, Cyril (all three named inventors)
  • Assignee: ILLUMINA, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — the assignment/recordation notice data (attorney name, firm, address) was not exposed in any indexed source I reached. I cannot flag recurrence without it.
  • Context: Original acquisition — the standard inventor-to-employer assignment perfecting title in the national-phase application (US 16/616,843, § 371 of PCT/US2018/060150). This is a routine first link, not a reorg, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

No post-issuance assignments, security agreements, mergers, name changes, or releases were found. Per the docket-conflict note in the previously generated sections, there is also no litigation, ITC action, or PTAB proceeding naming this patent. That combination — a single inventor-to-company assignment, no downstream transfers, no assertions — is itself the finding: the original assignee still owns the patent outright, and there is no chain to analyze for NPE behavior.

Caution: Because the 2020-02-21 record is the only legal event of type "assignment" on the Google Patents timeline, I cannot rule out a record that exists at Assignment Center but was not indexed externally. The negative is a negative search finding, not proof.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11175127
    2017 : Priority application filed by inventors
    2018 : PCT application filed
    2019 : US national phase entered
    2020 : Inventors assign to Illumina Inc
    2021 : Patent issued
    2038 : Anticipated expiration

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — only the original assignment is recorded.

Reasoning: the chain consists of exactly one link — the inventors' assignment to Illumina, Inc., recorded 2020-02-21, with no reel/frame or correspondent retrievable from the sources I could reach, and no subsequent conveyance of any kind. Under the definitions given, a chain with "only the original assignment" is expressly the Insufficient data category. Substantively, though, the silence is benign rather than suspicious: the current assignee is the original operating company, no NPE signal is present, and the previously documented absence of any litigation or PTAB challenge is consistent with a patent held as an internal manufacturing-QC asset rather than an assertion vehicle — not an NPE or troll pattern. If you need the reel/frame and correspondent nailed down, the 2020-02-21 record must be pulled directly from USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) searching by patent number 11,175,127 or application 16/616,843, which my tools could not query live.

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Verification links

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 11175127 / 16/616,843)
• Legacy Assignment Search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events (source of the 2020-02-21 entry): https://patents.google.com/patent/US11175127/en

Residual uncertainty log

1. Reel/frame and correspondent of the single assignment: not retrieved — flagged, not guessed.
2. Execution date of that assignment: not retrieved — only the recording date (2020-02-21) is documented.
3. Whether any unindexed Assignment Center record exists beyond the Google Patents legal-events listing: cannot exclude, but none surfaced.

I'll research the cited prior art references for US 11,175,127, focusing on the patent's own citation records (USPTO "References Cited," Google Patents cited-by/citations, and the international search report from PCT/US2018/060150).

Let me try to access the patent's citation records directly.

Let me look for the patent's front-page "References Cited" via the PDF and the PCT publication, which would carry the ISR citations.

Prior-Art / Patent-Citation Analysis — US 11,175,127 B2

Bottom line up front: I was unable to retrieve the actual "References Cited" (front-page (56)) list for US 11,175,127 B2, and therefore cannot responsibly identify the patent's own cited prior art or map it to § 102. Below I explain exactly why, flag confusable identifiers that must not be mistaken for citations, and lay out a verification path. I have deliberately not fabricated citations. Where I can only offer field-based candidates, they are labeled as such and are not the patent's citation list.

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1. Why the citation list could not be produced

(a) The authoritative full text I was given omits the (56) block.
The Google Patents text supplied as authoritative jumps from the Classification list directly into the "Definitions"/description. On the actual Google Patents page, the front-page "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" / "Cited By" tables are rendered as separate structured tables that were not captured in the extracted text. US patents' cited-art lists live in exactly that (56) field, so the source I was told to prefer does not contain the data being requested. (Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11175127/en)

(b) The tools returned no filable citation record for this number.
Searches targeting US11175127 citations / references cited, "11,175,127" Illumina prior art, and the PCT (PCT/US2018/060150, published as WO 2019/094699) returned only summaries of the specification (the same INTRODUCTION text) and unrelated documents hit incidentally by keywords such as "thin film," "reflectance," and "Illumina." No USPTO Patent Center, FPO, Espacenet INPADOC, or Google Patents citation-table content for 11,175,127 was retrievable in the results.

(c) I could not run a direct, structured query against the USPTO database. The available tool is a web search; it did not return a queryable Patent Center "References Cited" page for this patent. So the request to "search the USPTO database for the specific patent number 11175127" was executed only as a web search, which is a weaker instrument. I flag this as a limitation, not a confirmation that no citations exist — every US patent has a (56) list, so this patent certainly has one; I simply could not retrieve it.

Conclusion under the strict rule: Absence of a retrieved citation list is absence of evidence, not evidence that the patent has no citations. I must not invent dates, numbers, or § 102 mappings.

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2. Documents that surfaced but are NOT citations of 11,175,127 (do not conflate)

These appeared in keyword searches and are the kind of items that could be falsely reported as "cited references." They are incidental matches, not confirmed (56) entries:

Confusable identifiers (per the strict literal rule, not the same thing):

• EP 11175127 A — a European application number (liver-inflammation biomarker family, e.g., EP 2437064). Different authority and subject matter; not US 11,175,127.
• "the '127 patent" in IPR — an IPR petition hosted on PTACTS repeatedly refers to a "'127 patent" concerning sequencing adapters/barcoding (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549429](/patent/1549429)/...). That is a different patent (a sequencing-chemistry '127), not the Illumina IR-imaging '127. Do not treat it as 11,175,127.
• Documents in Illumina v. Element Biosciences (D. Del. 1:25-cv-00602) reference US 12,251,702 and other numbers — none is 11,175,127 (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70272259/26/1/illumina-inc-v-element-biosciences-inc/).

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3. What a proper citation/§ 102 analysis should look like (framework)

Once the (56) list and the PCT/US2018/060150 ISR (which typically cites the most material art and carries examiner "X/Y" relevance codes) are in hand, each reference should be tabulated as:

Key § 102 gates to apply to this patent (priority 2017-11-13):

• A reference anticipates only if it discloses all limitations of the claim as a whole. For claim 1: holding a large-area, IR-reflecting, at-least-partly-electrically-conductive thin film at 0°–45° to a spatially non-scanning (area-emitting, non-scanned-beam) IR source; direct illumination (no lenses/mirrors/collimators); and thermal imaging of the reflected IR with the camera optical axis at 0°–45° — and (per the issued claim) the source being a heat-conductive sheet + IR-emitting coating (per your prior summary of claim 1's construction).
• For claim 7 / claim 15: + aperture through the source itself, IR source width ≥ 2× object width, and imaging back through the aperture.
• Under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) and AIA § 102(b)(2), only art before 2017-11-13 (or the effective filing date) is prior art, subject to exception provisions. A reference must be enabled and must disclose the elements arranged as claimed, not merely each element somewhere.

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4. Field-based prior-art candidates (clearly labeled: NOT the patent's citation list, and unverified)

Because I could not obtain the real citation list, the following are analyst hypotheses about where anticipating art would likely be found, not asserted citations and not § 102-mapped to specific claims:

• Specular-reflectance imaging in the IR for coating/thickness — the specification itself concedes "[s]pecular Reflectance imaging with visible wavelengths is used in art, archeology and also quality control," framing visible-wavelength specular reflectance as known art. Any pre-2017 reference applying specular reflectance to coating inspection is a § 102 candidate against the broad method concept (but likely not against the IR-specific + aperture-through-source limitations).
• IR thermography for coating/film non-destructive inspection (flash/active thermography, IR imaging of conductive coatings).
• Large-area / whole-field IR reflectance measurement systems and IR-based sheet-resistance/conductivity correlation (note Fig. 11 of the patent correlates IR reflectivity to conductance — a § 102/§ 103 pressure point if such correlation was known).
• Sources in CPC G01N21/35, G01N21/3563, G01N21/8422 (+2021/8427), G01B11/06 (+0625), and G01J5/ — the classes where examiners would have searched.

I cannot provide names, numbers, or dates for these candidates without fabricating; that must await the actual search.

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5. Recommended verification path (to obtain the real citations)

1. USPTO Patent Center → US 11,175,127 → References Cited and the file-wrapper International Search Report for PCT/US2018/060150.
2. FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/11175127.html) and Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/11175127) "Patent Citations" / "Cited By" tabs.
3. Espacenet / INPADOC → the WO 2019/094699 record → Cited documents in the ISR/WO with X/Y/A codes.
4. Google Patents US11175127 → "Patent citations / Cited by / Similar documents" tables (the structured tables omitted from the text I was given).

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6. Confidence statement

• High confidence: the patent's bibliographic data, specification, and claim themes (as summarized earlier), and that (a) the authoritative text provided omits the (56) block, and (b) my searches did not surface a filable citation list for 11,175,127.
• Explicitly unknown: the identities, dates, and § 102 relevance of the patent's actual cited references. I have not identified them and will not guess, because doing so would violate the strict "do not fabricate identifiers / interpret literally" instruction.
• Correction to flag: if any downstream section implies the "127 patent" IPR (PTACTS) or EP 11175127 relates to US 11,175,127, that is a misidentification — the true match is only US 11,175,127 B2 (Illumina).

If you can supply the patent's (56) list (or let me pull it from FPO/Patent Center), I will produce the full per-reference table with dates and § 102 claim-by-claim mappings.

I'll research prior art relevant to this patent's claims before analyzing obviousness.

Let me research the specific prior-art references cited in the international search report for this patent family.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,175,127 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent: U.S. 11,175,127 B2, "System and method for large sample analysis of thin film" (Illumina, Inc.; Fuhrmann, Merkel, Delattre)
Effective filing / priority: Nov. 13, 2017 → AIA § 102/§ 103 applies
Analyst date: April 26, 2026

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0. Correction to the earlier-generated section (flagging a contradiction, per instructions)

The prior summary stated: "The identity of the third independent (apparatus) claim as claim 15 is inferred … likely but not directly verified." The authoritative full text (Google Patents claims listing, "(22)" claims) shows the apparatus independent claim is claim 16, not 15. Claim 15 is instead a dependent method claim (background correction for the aperture "blind spot"). I flag this because it changes the claim numbering used below. The earlier summary's provisional "15" should be read as "16."

A second, substantive point: the issued claim 1 contains a limitation the specification's SUMMARY "first aspect" does not recite — namely that the "spatially non-scanning infrared radiation source compris[es] a heat conductive sheet and a coating disposed on the heat conductive sheet, the coating having an IR radiation emitting surface." That limitation is present in claims 1, 7, and 16 as issued. This looks like a narrowing amendment during prosecution, and it becomes the crux of the § 103 analysis because it is the one feature not plainly shown in the reflector/thin-film-measurement art. (The earlier summary already anticipated this: "which here must include a heat-conductive sheet with an IR-emitting coating on it.")

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1. Legal framework

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), I consider: (a) the scope and content of the prior art; (b) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (c) the level of ordinary skill; and (d) secondary considerations. Under KSR, a claimed combination is obvious where the elements were known in the field, the combination is of known techniques to yield predictable results, or it is a "mere obvious-to-try" arrangement of a finite number of identified, predictable solutions. A claim directed to optimizing a known parameter range (e.g., a 0°–45° angle, a ≥2× source-to-object width ratio) is prima facie obvious under In re Aller / In re Boesch absent a showing of criticality.

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA): a B.S. in physics, optics, materials science, or electrical engineering (or equivalent) with ~2–5 years' experience in optical inspection of thin films, or an M.S./Ph.D. with less experience. The prior art itself defines the field as including (i) thin-film thickness/reflectometry metrology, (ii) IR thermography and large-area IR imaging, and (iii) conductive-polymer (PEDOT:PSS) optics. A PHOSITA is presumed to know all of these as combinable prior art references in the same field of endeavor or reasonably pertinent (In re Clay).

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2. The claims to be analyzed (as issued)

Claim 1 — maintaining a large-area thin film at 0°–45° to a spatially non-scanning IR source that comprises a heat-conductive sheet + a coating on it having an IR-emitting surface; film reflects IR and is partly electrically conductive; directly illuminating the film with IR from that source; thermally imaging the reflected IR with an IR imaging device whose optical axis is at a fixed 0°–45°.

Claim 7 — 0° configuration; source width ≥ 2× object width; directly illuminating; and, through an aperture in the source, forming an optical image of reflected IR at an imaging system looking back through that aperture. (Claim 7 also recites the heat-conductive sheet + coating.)

Claim 16 (apparatus) — sample stage; spatially non-scanning IR source at ~0° having (i) an aperture, (ii) IR source width ≥ 2× object width, (iii) a heat-conductive sheet, and (iv) a coating with an IR-emitting surface; IR imaging device positioned to receive reflected IR through the aperture.

Dependents: cl. 2/9 (identify uniform vs. uneven thickness regions); cl. 3 (select source width from angle + object width); cl. 4/10 (area 6.5 cm²–8 m²; monolayer or ≤ ~10 µm); cl. 5/11 (film and substrate both visibly transparent yet distinguishable in IR); cl. 6/12 (film = PEDOT:PSS, polypyrrole, polyaniline); cl. 13 (reposition + stitch); cl. 14 (background correction for aperture blind spot); cl. 17 (fan cooling); cl. 18–19 (electric heating pad; Al/Cu/cast-iron/brass/steel sheet; silicone coating; emissivity ≥ 0.5); cl. 21–22.

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3. The prior art identified

3.1 References cited by the EPO against the same disclosure (highest probative value)

The EPO search report for the family member EP 3710813 A4 (published 2021-08-04) cites the following against WO2019094813A1 / EP 3710813, i.e., the identical specification:

The "[XI]" designation means the EPO regarded these as particularly relevant (X) for at least some claims — i.e., an examiner already determined that this art materially bears on patentability of this exact disclosure. That is significant: it removes any argument that these references are non-analogous art.

3.2 Reflected-IR / thin-film metrology art (teaching "reflected infrared radiation")

• US 4,027,161 — Minimizing wave interference effects on the measurement of thin films having specular surfaces using infrared radiation. Expressly measures thin films with specular surfaces using IR; directs IR at a broad spectrum of incidence angles; uses an enclosing reflective configuration; the source and detector heads are opposed at a fixed geometry; the film may be on a substrate and measured from one side (its FIG. 4). Directly on point for "infrared radiation reflected by a specular thin film."
• US 3,426,201 — IR ellipsometry to measure film thickness from reflected infrared radiation; unpolarized IR directed at the film at a defined angle of incidence; combined reflected beam analyzed. Establishes the long-known principle that a thin film's reflected-IR intensity/phase is an index of thickness.
• US 4,787,749 — film thickness from spectral reflection factor; irradiation and photodetection portions opposed to the sample surface; object positioned to an extremum of received light. Teaches the source/sample/detector geometric arrangement and reflection-based thickness sensing.
• US 5,396,080 — monitoring thickness and uniformity of a coating using intensity of reflected light at discrete wavelengths; a microprocessor raises an alarm and automatically adjusts the spray head reciprocating speed — the exact thickness↔spray-speed relationship the '127 patent reproduces in its FIG. 6.
• WO 2001/020252 (Schmitt et al.) — optical measurement of layers/surface properties; spatial filter means interposed between source and workpiece, defining at least one aperture; a detector-side aperture that passes only radiation reflected from the illuminated area while suppressing backside ghost reflections; works with an infrared source; incident angles in the range 15°–75°. This is the closest art on the "aperture in the light path aligned with the reflected beam" idea.
• WO 2002/04885 (Filmetrics) — high-speed thickness mapping of patterned thin films by spectral reflectance imaging — supports large-area, image-based (not point-scanning) film-thickness mapping.

3.3 IR-emitter construction and conductive-polymer optics

• US 4,716,293 — IR emission spectroscopy of thin films on metal; heated sample and a black-body reference; and, notably, a small hole through the ellipsoidal mirror so the operator can sight on the sample to be analyzed. Teaches both (a) a large-area heated IR source and (b) an aperture defined through the IR-collecting/emitting optic to permit an opposed viewing path.
• US 2006/0240324 A1 — conducting polymers poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), polypyrrole, polyaniline; expressly addresses reflectivity/emissivity of these polymers in the infrared (30–630 cm⁻¹) and conductivity. This is the reference that makes the "electrically conductive / PEDOT-class film" limitation old.
• WO 2008/054549 — deposition of PEDOT:PSS conductive-polymer films (IR-assisted), showing PEDOT:PSS films were a known, mass-produced transparent conductor.
• High-emissivity silicone coatings on aluminum/steel heated plates are standard commercial artifacts (the patent itself uses an off-the-shelf product, "Hi-Temp Silicone Coating" by Design Engineering Inc., grabable at a consumer auto-parts site — evidence of the routine nature of this element).

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4. Element-by-element mapping and combinations

Combination 1 — for Claim 1 (and claims 2, 3, 4, 6, 17–19)

Primary: US 4,027,161 (IR reflectance of specular thin films) or US 3,426,201 (IR reflectance of thin films), in view of US 2008/0317090 (Tralshawala) or another large-area IR-imaging reference, in view of US 2006/0240324 (conducting polymers).

Motivation to combine: All references are in the same field (non-contact IR inspection of films/coatings) and address the same problem — rapidly assessing thickness/uniformity of a film over a large area without contact. Tralshawala expressly teaches the speed advantage of IR imaging "if testing objects of large surface area," which is precisely the problem the '127 patent sets out to solve ("Existing methods have not been capable of quickly characterizing large samples"). US 4,027,161 supplies the reflected-IR film-measurement principle; US 2006/0240324 supplies the conductive-polymer-class film. A PHOSITA seeking a large-area film-thickness quality-control tool would combine an area IR camera (Tralshawala) with a known IR-reflectance thin-film measurement principle (US 4,027,161 / US 3,426,201) and apply it to the known transparent-conductive-film material (US 2006/0240324 / WO 2008/054549). Result: the '127 method. This is a classic KSR "known elements combined to yield predictable results" case.

Combination 2 — for Claim 7 (aperture / 0° / ≥2× source width)

Primary: WO 2001/020252 (aperture/spatial-filter arrangement in a reflective layer-measurement system, operable in IR) in view of US 4,716,293 (hole through the IR mirror for an opposed viewing path) and US 2008/0317090 / US 2012/0050537 (large-area IR imaging).

Motivation to combine: A PHOSITA who must image a sample that is co-planar with and larger than the IR source has a known problem: the camera cannot be placed between the sample and the source. The known solution in the art is to put a hole/aperture through the emitting/collecting optic and look back through it (US 4,716,293; WO 2001/020252). Combining that with a large-area diffuse IR emitter yields claim 7. The motivation is the predictable geometric necessity of a coaxial/on-axis viewing path — a "design incentive" expressly recognized in KSR.

Combination 3 — for Claim 16 (apparatus)

Same references: a sample stage (standard in US 4,787,749 / WO 2001/020252 workpiece support), source at 0° with aperture + ≥2× width, heat-conductive sheet + emissivity coating (US 4,716,293 + routine emitter design), IR camera receiving reflected IR through the aperture (Tralshawala camera + US 4,716,293 hole). The apparatus claim adds nothing beyond the method claims implemented as hardware.

Dependent-claim specific notes

• Cl. 2/9 (identify uniform vs. uneven thickness from the image): US 5,396,080 (monitors "thickness and uniformity of thickness" from reflected light and flags out-of-tolerance regions) and WO 2002/04885 (thickness mapping) both teach this. Predictable result of imaging reflectance.
• Cl. 3 & cl. 7's ≥2× width, cl. 4/10 area and ≤10 µm thickness, cl. 1/7's 0°–45°: pure range/geometry optimization — In re Aller, In re Boesch. The specification itself concedes the ranges encompass broad sub-ranges without criticality (e.g., "6.5 cm² to 8 m² … individual values … about 1.5 m² …") and defines the terms functionally.
• Cl. 5/11 (both film and substrate visibly transparent but IR-distinguishable): This is an inherent property of PEDOT:PSS on a visibly clear plastic (the patent states the substrate "absorbs IR light with little to no reflection" and PEDOT:PSS "is highly reflective in the far IR … but not in the visible"). A discovered inherent property of a known material pair does not impart patentability (In re Napier; In re Best). US 2006/0240324/WO 2008/054549 supply the material; the transparency-IR contrast follows from physics the patent acknowledges.
• Cl. 6/12 (PEDOT:PSS, polypyrrole, polyaniline): US 2006/0240324 literally names all three and relates their IR reflectivity to conductivity.
• Cl. 13 (reposition + stitch) and cl. 14 (blind-spot background correction): The patent's own specification treats these as routine post-processing — stitching overlapping images (the patent used "custom written MATLAB code") and background/dark correction are standard imaging practices (cf. the "Background" term in the patent's Total-Reflectivity formula and the standard dark/background subtraction in US 2008/0317090-style thermography and US 4,716,293's black-body reference). Predictable, conventional data-handling.
• Cl. 17 (fan cooling): A fan to keep a sample at ambient while a hot lamp/plate faces it is an obvious thermal-management measure — predictable.
• Cl. 18–19 (electric heating pad; Al/Cu/cast-iron/brass/steel sheet; silicone coating; emissivity ≥0.5): US 4,716,293 (heated source + reference); high-emissivity silicone-on-aluminum IR emitters are commodity items (the patent's own working example buys an off-the-shelf silicone spray). Emissivity ≥0.5 is an inherent/typical property of a black high-emissivity silicone coating.

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5. The hardest limitation, and why it is still likely obvious

The only claim element not squarely shown in the reflectance-metrology art as a unitary source is the specific recited source construction: heat-conductive sheet + coating having an IR-emitting surface (claims 1, 7, 16). Even this element decomposes into known parts combined for predictable function:

• Heated plate as an IR source — US 4,716,293 (heated sample + black-body reference); ubiquitous in IR systems.
• Heat-conductive metal sheet to spread/dissipate heat uniformly — simple thermodynamics well known; the specification itself says the sheet's only function is to "distribute … heat evenly."
• High-emissivity coating (silicone, ε>0.8) to convert the heated sheet into an efficient IR radiator — standard blackbody-emitter practice; the patent's working example uses a commercial product.

Under KSR, combining these to make a large, spatially uniform, high-emissivity planar IR emitter is the paradigm of an "obvious to try" arrangement of a finite number of identified emitter designs, with a reasonable expectation of success (better uniformity → better images, which is exactly what the patent claims as its advantage: "the large size … may improve uniformity of the images"). No unexpected result is asserted beyond uniformity/efficiency, which follows directly from emitter size and emissivity.

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6. Secondary considerations

The record as I can see it contains no evidence of secondary considerations (no commercial-success, long-felt-need, failure-of-others, licensing, or industry-praise evidence tied to these claims). The patent's discussion of the problem (transparency makes large-area films hard to inspect; optical/electron microscopy impractical) establishes a recognized need, which cuts in favor of obviousness (motivation) rather than against it. Unless the applicant can show that the claimed source construction or the 0°/aperture geometry produced an unexpected result (e.g., quantitative reflectivity–conductance correlation that the prior art could not achieve), the Graham factor (d) does not rebut the prima facie case. The patent's own Working Example 1 even reports that its first (45°) design was "sensitive to the angle" — i.e., the eventual success is attributed to routine geometry optimization, not to a surprising discovery.

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7. Conclusion

Overall: The claims of US 11,175,127 appear prima facie obvious under § 103 over the EPO-cited art (US 2008/0317090, US 2012/0050537, US 7,462,809, DE 19832833, US 2015/0339830, US 7,605,924) combined with the well-established reflected-IR thin-film measurement art (US 4,027,161, US 3,426,201, US 4,787,749, US 5,396,080, WO 2001/020252, WO 2002/04885) and the conductive-polymer IR-optics art (US 2006/0240324, WO 2008/054549). The strongest candidate primary reference for a rejection is the IR thin-film reflectance/measurement art, with the large-area IR imaging references supplying the "image the reflected IR over a large area" teaching and a separately-cited or applicant-admitted heated high-emissivity emitter supplying the source-construction limitation.

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8. Confidence, caveats, and what would need verification

High confidence:

• The claim text, the presence of the heat-conductive-sheet/coating limitation in claims 1, 7, and 16, and the apparatus claim being claim 16 (authoritative Google Patents claim listing).
• That the EPO cited US 2008/0317090, US 2012/0050537, US 7,462,809, DE 19832833, US 2015/0339830 (all "[XI]") and US 7,605,924 ("[I]") against this exact disclosure (EP 3710813 A4 / WO2019094813A1 search report). These are therefore at minimum pertinent art.
• The general teachings of US 4,027,161, US 3,426,201, US 4,787,749, US 5,396,080, WO 2001/020252, WO 2002/04885, US 4,716,293, US 2006/0240324 as summarized above (grounded in retrieved text).

Lower confidence / explicitly flagged:

• I was unable to retrieve the full specifications of US 2012/0050537 (Ringermacher), US 7,462,809 (DiMarzio), DE 19832833 (Fraunhofer), US 2015/0339830 (Heissenstein), and US 7,605,924 (Howard) before the tool limit was reached. I therefore describe what the search report tells me they are cited for (thermographic NDE / IR measurement of layers and coatings) but I have not independently verified their precise disclosures. Any rigorous IPR-grade claim chart must open each of these and cite specific paragraphs/figures. Do not treat the element mappings for those five as verified.
• I do not know whether the cited references individually or in combination were overcome during U.S. prosecution (the file wrapper / reasons-for-allowance was not retrieved), so I cannot say whether the examiner already considered and distinguished any particular combination. Verify via USPTO Patent Center (IFW) / the "Reasons for Allowance" and any Examiner's Answer. That is likely the single most probative document for a real § 103 challenge.
• Because these are AIAs (post-March-2013) claims, confirm each reference's § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) status and dates.
• No prior art asserting the combined source-construction (heat-conductive sheet + coating + aperture + ≥2× width + on-axis camera) as a unit was found; the § 103 case is therefore a combination/Optimization case, not an anticipation case — which matters for how a PTAB or court would weigh the motivation-to-combine evidence.

Sources consulted

• US 11,175,127 B2 full text & claims (22) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US11175127/en
• EP 3710813 A4 search report / cited references — https://data.epo.org/gpi/EP3710813A4-SYSTEM-AND-METHOD-FOR-LARGE-SAMPLE-ANALYSIS-OF-THIN-FILM.html
• US 2008/0317090 A1 (Tralshawala) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080317090
• US 4,027,161 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4027161A](/patent/US4027161A)/en
• US 3,426,201 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US3426201A](/patent/US3426201A)
• US 4,787,749 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/af/f9/9e/035f445ba79ddd/US4787749.pdf
• US 5,396,080 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5396080
• WO 2001/020252 A9 — https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2001020252A9/en
• WO 2002/04885 A1 (Filmetrics) — https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/WO-0204885-A1
• US 4,716,293 — http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/99/38/26/61865766e9d7cc/US4716293.pdf
• US 2006/0240324 A1 (conducting polymers) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060240324
• WO 2008/054549 A2 (PEDOT:PSS) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/fb/97/54/4fc2a46af5c835/WO2008054549A2.pdf