US 11241156

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number and any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me dig deeper into the 2026 dockets and the specific claim set.

Patent Analysis: US 11,241,156 B2

Important methodology note: In this session I was able to query public web indexes (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, CourtListener, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents litigation portal, PTAB/USPTO document mirrors). I was not able to log in to USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC's own docket system directly. Everything below is grounded in what those searches returned for the number 11241156 specifically, plus the authoritative full text you supplied. Where I could not confirm something for this number, I say so.

1. Bibliographic data (all confirmed for 11241156)

The patent is one node in a very large continuation family. Per Google Patents, later filings claiming priority to it include US 17/666,518 (→ US 11,596,311), US 18/118,013 (→ US 12,226,188), US 18/386,877 (→ US 12,502,080), and US 19/031,061 (→ US 12,599,305).

Literal-ID caution: Two third-party mirrors render the identifiers oddly — a wiki entry shows "Patent Number 112411560," "Patent Application Number 171352330," and a Justia-linked Darts-IP family ID of "69228103." Read literally, "112411560" and "171352330" are not the same strings as "11241156" and "17135233"; they appear to be the same numbers with a trailing figure/check digit appended by the site's rendering. I am flagging this rather than auto-correcting it.

2. Abstract (as published for this patent)

"A measurement system is provided with an array of laser diodes with one or more Bragg reflectors. At least a portion of the light generated by the array is configured to penetrate tissue comprising skin. A detection system configured to: measure a phase shift, and a time-of-flight, of at least a portion of the light from the array of laser diodes reflected from the tissue relative to the portion of the light generated by the array; generate one or more images of the tissue; detect oxy- or deoxy-hemoglobin in the tissue; non-invasively measure blood in blood vessels within or below a dermis layer within the skin; measure one or more physiological parameters based at least in part on the non-invasively measured blood; and measure a variation in the blood or physiological parameter over a period of time."

(Source: FreePatentsOnline abstract for the same-family publication US 2022/0160234 and a mirror of the '156 abstract; both match each other.)

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The specification's summary section describes three independent claim groupings. Based on the published claims of the application that became this patent (US 2021/0137389 A1) and the granted-patent summary, the independents are:

Independent Claim 1 — "Measurement system" (skin / blood measurement)

• An array of laser diodes emits light at one or more optical wavelengths, at least part of it in the near-infrared between 600 nm and 1000 nm.
• At least part of the array uses Bragg reflectors (i.e., wavelength-stabilized laser diodes, e.g., DBR/DFB types).
• The array is driven with a pulsed output of roughly 0.5–2 ns pulses at a several-MHz repetition rate, with driver electronics and a thermal-management accessory.
• A beam splitter takes part of the light and directs it into tissue including skin (and, in some embodiments, splits it into spatially separated beams).
• A detection system with a photodiode array (pixels tied to CMOS transistors), plus lenses and spectral filters, receives the reflected light and is synchronized to the laser pulses.
• The detector performs a time-of-flight measurement — timing from laser emission to detection of the returned light.
• A camera system (with LED illuminator and adjustable lenses/filters) images the skin.
• The system then non-invasively measures blood in vessels within or below the dermis, derives physiological parameters, and tracks variation over time.
• In plain terms: a pulsed NIR laser-diode + time-of-flight photodiode camera that watches blood/physiology through skin without drawing blood.

Independent Claim 9 — "Measurement system" (phase-shift / modulation variant)

• Same general architecture: array of laser diodes including at least one NIR wavelength between 600 nm and 1000 nm, at least one diode with Bragg reflectors, and light that penetrates skin.
• Here the diode is pulsed/modulated at 10 MHz to 1 GHz and the modulation carries a phase.
• The detection system (photo-detector + lens + spectral filter + processor for digitized signals) is configured to:

1. measure phase shift of the returned light relative to the emitted light;
2. measure time-of-flight;
3. generate images from the amplitude of the returned light; and
4. detect oxy- or deoxy-hemoglobin.

• It then non-invasively measures blood in vessels at/below the dermis using NIR diffuse reflection, derives physiological parameters, and measures variation over time.
• In plain terms: the same idea as Claim 1, but framed around frequency-domain (phase) measurement rather than pure pulse timing.

Independent remote-sensing claim (a "remote sensing system," likely Claim 15 or 16) — I could not confirm the exact granted claim number from the sources retrieved.

• Array of laser diodes emitting light at one or more wavelengths, at least part NIR between 700 nm and 2500 nm, at least part with Bragg reflectors, pulsed at ~0.5–2 ns / several MHz, with driver electronics, safety shut-offs, and thermal management.
• A beam splitter directs light onto an object (not necessarily tissue), optionally splitting it into spatially separated beams.
• A photodiode array (CMOS pixels) with lenses and spectral filters, synchronized to the lasers, performs a time-of-flight measurement on the reflected light.
• A camera system (LED illuminator) captures images of the object.
• The system generates a 2-D or 3-D mapping from the images plus the time-of-flight data.
• It may be coupled to a smartphone or tablet having a wireless receiver/transmitter, display, voice input, speaker, microprocessor, and touch screen.
• In plain terms: the same laser-diode/ToF engine used as a stand-off 3-D remote-sensing imager (the specification elsewhere discusses hyper-spectral/remote sensing of gases, vegetation, counterfeits, etc.).

Dependent claims add: off/on signal differencing to cancel background light, signal-to-noise improvement by cranking laser intensity, row/bar laser stacks, chest-region measurement, 940 nm operation, Fourier-transform processing of detector output, and smartphone/tablet/vehicle integration.

4. Litigation and 2026 docket activity

What I did find for this number:

• Google Patents' litigation panel for US 11,241,156 links a US case filed in the Texas Eastern District Court, case 2:26-cv-00356 (Unified Patents litigation data), and a first worldwide family litigation entry (Darts-IP family 69228103). This is a 2026-filed EDTX case tied to the patent's family. I could not retrieve the caption, parties, or asserted claims for 2:26-cv-00356 from the sources available to me.
• The '156 patent itself did not appear as an asserted patent in the major Omni MedSci campaigns I could confirm: Omni MedSci v. Apple (N.D. Cal. 4:19-cv-05924; 4:20-cv-00563), Omni MedSci v. Samsung (E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-01070), or Omni MedSci v. WHOOP (D. Del. 1:25-cv-00140). Those cases assert the '868, '533, '484, '304, '455, '790, and '475 patents — not the '156.

What I could NOT find (explicit uncertainty):

• No CAFC 2026 docket entry specific to US 11,241,156. The Omni MedSci Federal Circuit activity I could confirm in 2025–2026 concerns other patents in the family:
• Apple Inc. v. Omni MedSci, Inc., Nos. 23-1034 (Fed. Cir. June 21, 2024) and 25-1646 (Fed. Cir.) — appeal pending from the PTAB's remand decision in IPR2021-00453 holding claims 3–6 and 8–14 of the '484 patent unpatentable.
• Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 21-1229 (Fed. Cir. June 8, 2022) (summary affirmance of the '533 IPR).
• Multiple IPR2025-01249 through -01254 and PGR2025-00063/00064 petitions (Samsung/Fossil/Oura/OnePlus v. Omni MedSci), including the Director's May 6, 2026 vacatur of institution in IPR2025-01253 (the '790 patent) because of the parallel PGR.
• I did not locate any IPR/PGR petition naming 11,241,156 among the PTAB proceedings surfaced in these searches. If a 2026 CAFC appeal on the '156 exists, it is not appearing in the public indexes I could reach.

5. Confidence summary

• High confidence: title, inventor, assignee, application number 17/135,233, filing date 2020-12-28, issue date 2022-02-08, pre-grant publication 2021/0137389, abstract text, technological subject matter, and the existence of the 2026 EDTX case 2:26-cv-00356 link.
• Moderate confidence: the content of the three independent claims (drawn from the application's published claims and the granted summary; the granted claim wording/numbering may differ from the pre-grant publication).
• Low confidence / unverified: the exact granted independent-claim numbering (1, 9, and a remote-sensing claim I could not number), and the parties/claims in EDTX 2:26-cv-00356.
• Explicitly unknown: any 2026 CAFC appeal docketed for US 11,241,156 — I found none, and I am not asserting one exists.

Sources consulted: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11241156/en · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2022/0160234.html · https://patents.justia.com/patent/20210137389 · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A26-cv-00356 · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-01250/ · https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/IPR2025-01253_Samsung_v_Omni_MedSci_DR_Decision.pdf · Delaware D. Del. 1:25-cv-00140 opinions (CourtListener).

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 11,241,156. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search for the specific case number and Omni Medsci litigation.

Let me dig deeper into whether the '156 patent specifically is asserted in these cases.

Memorandum: Known Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 11,241,156

Patent identified: U.S. Patent No. 11,241,156 B2 ("Time-of-flight imaging and physiological measurements"), App. No. 17/135,233, filed Dec. 28, 2020, issued Feb. 8, 2022, assignee Omni MedSci, Inc., earliest priority Dec. 31, 2012 (per the Google Patents record for this patent).

Important caveat up front: I was able to identify only one litigation record tied to this patent number, and it comes from the litigation cross-reference embedded in the patent's own Google Patents page. I could not retrieve a complaint or docket entry that expressly names the '156 patent among the asserted patents. I therefore flag the second entry below as attributed but not yet independently confirmed as asserting the '156 patent specifically. I am being explicit rather than overstating the link.

Case directly cross-referenced to U.S. 11,241,156 on its Google Patents litigation record

Sources: Google Patents litigation link for US 11,241,156 → portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas Eastern District Court/case/2:26-cv-00356; PACER Monitor docket https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/64454741/Omni_MedSci,_Inc_v_Samsung_Electronics,_Co_LTD_et_al; Justia dockets (E.D. Tex., NOS 830) listing "Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics, Co. LTD. et al … as 2:2026cv00356."

Caveat on asserted patents: The publicly indexed complaint analysis for 2:26-cv-00356 describes assertions of other Omni MedSci patents — e.g., U.S. Patent Nos. 12,426,788; 12,588,820; 12,599,305, and an additional "‑283" patent (laser-autofocus/dToF features in Samsung smartphones and XR headsets). No excerpt I retrieved expressly lists the '156 patent as asserted. Because the Google Patents page cross-references this docket on the '156 patent record, the case is reported here, but the specific assertion of the '156 patent should be verified against the complaint and exhibits before being relied upon.

Related Omni MedSci enforcement activity in the same family / portfolio (NOT confirmed to assert the '156 patent)

These cases are part of the same patent owner's campaign and involve the same priority family lineage (Dec. 31, 2012), but the publicly reported asserted patents are different:

• 2:24-cv-01070-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex.) – Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Samsung Electronics America, Inc.; Fossil Group, Inc.; Fossil Stores I, Inc.; Fossil Partners, L.P.; OnePlus Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.; Ōura Health Oy. Joint Claim Construction Statement (Nov. 21, 2025) identifies asserted patents '868, '533, '484, '304, '790 — not the '156 patent.
• 2:26-cv-00289 (E.D. Tex.) – Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Oura Health Oy, filed Apr. 10, 2026 (open).
• 2:26-cv-00470 (E.D. Tex.) – Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Fossil Group, Inc. et al., filed June 12, 2026 (open).
• 2:26-cv-00472 (E.D. Tex.) – Omni MedSci, Inc. v. OnePlus Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., filed June 12, 2026; consolidated for pretrial into lead case 2:26-cv-289 (open).
• 7:26-cv-00226 (W.D. Tex.) – Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Apple Inc., filed June 8, 2026 (open; Apple's answer deadline extended to Aug. 17, 2026).
• Older Apple suits: 2:19-cv-05673 and 4:19-cv-05924 and 4:20-cv-00563 (N.D. Cal.); 2:18-cv-00429 (E.D. Tex., transferred to N.D. Cal.). These asserted other family members ('546, '286, '040, '698, '113), not the '156 patent.

Associated PTAB post-grant proceedings (not "litigation" in the district-court sense)

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Omni MedSci, Inc. — IPR2025-01250, IPR2025-01254, PGR2025-00063, PGR2025-00064 (all filed 2025). These challenge various Omni MedSci patents. Note there is also a related "US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court" record and a first-worldwide-family litigation record (Darts-IP family 69228103) on the '156 Google Patents page; I could not open it to confirm scope.

Bottom line

• One district-court case is cross-referenced to U.S. 11,241,156: Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. et al, No. 2:26-cv-00356 (E.D. Tex.), filed May 1, 2026, pending (no outcome). Plaintiff Omni MedSci, Inc.; Defendants the three Samsung entities.
• I found no other litigation record that names the '156 patent, and I could not confirm from a complaint or claim chart that the '156 patent is one of the patents actually asserted in 2:26-cv-00356. Treat that assertion link as reported/unverified.

If you need certainty on the asserted patents, the authoritative step is to pull the complaint and its exhibits (Dkt. 1) from PACER for 2:26-cv-00356, and to check the Darts-IP family record (family 69228103) and the Unified Patents litigation portal entry.

Note: dockets and statuses are current as of the last-updated timestamps shown (May 2, 2026 for the Samsung case); later filings after that date were not retrievable within my search limits.

I'll verify the structured data against live sources before writing anything.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 11,241,156 B2 ("Time-of-flight imaging and physiological measurements," Omni MedSci, Inc.)

Data provenance note: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block from the USPTO Open Data Portal is the canonical source and reports no AIA trial proceedings for US 11,241,156. I ran independent web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM filings naming the '156 patent and found none. Everything I did find concerns sibling patents in the same continuation family, not the '156 patent itself. I have kept those strictly separate below so they are not mistaken for '156 proceedings.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,241,156: ZERO — no instituted IPR, no PGR, no CBM, no denied-institution petition that I can identify (breakdown by status is therefore not applicable: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated in a '156 proceeding / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied).

The bottom-line defensive posture is unusual and is not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened." It is: the '156 patent is untested at the PTAB — nobody has ever challenged it — but it sits in the most thoroughly invalidated patent family in recent wearable-sensor litigation, where every claim of its closest sibling (US 10,517,484, claims 1–23) and every challenged claim of its parent-lineage sibling (US 9,651,533) has been held unpatentable. For a defendant being asserted on '156 today, the practical read is: no free ride from someone else's win — you will have to file your own petition, and the § 315(b) clock is running — but the prior art, the claim-construction law, and the Board's analysis of this specification are already developed and largely favorable to you.

Per-proceeding analysis

There are no '156 proceedings to analyze. I am not going to manufacture entries. Instead, here is the family picture, clearly labeled as concerning other patents.

IPR2021-00453 — Apple Inc. v. Omni MedSci, Inc. (US 10,517,484 — not the '156 patent)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2021-01-22 (Paper 1)
• Status: Institution granted 2021-08-06 (Paper 7), all challenged claims (1–23) now held unpatentable across two FWDs; on appeal
• Panel (original FWD, Paper 22): I have the FWD referenced but not the full panel list from the sources retrieved — I won't guess names.
• Petition grounds: § 103 obviousness over Lisogurski (US 9,241,676) alone, and Lisogurski + Carlson (US 2005/0049468) + Tran (US 8,108,036). Lisogurski was the workhorse reference across the whole family.
• Final Written Decision #1 — 2022-08-03 (Paper 22): claims 1, 2, 7, and 15–23 unpatentable; claims 3–6 and 8–14 not shown unpatentable (the "configured to identify an object" limitation distinguished from "configured to detect an object" in claim 16).
• Federal Circuit — Apple Inc. v. Omni MedSci, Inc., No. 2023-1034, decided 2024-06-21 (Judge Albright sitting by designation, with Judges Reyna and Cunningham). The court affirmed the Board's construction of "identify an object" ("to recognize or establish an object as being a particular thing") but held the Board abused its discretion in refusing to consider Apple's alternative obviousness argument raised in reply under Omni's own proposed construction — a response to a construction first raised in Omni's opposition brief is a proper reply argument. Affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part, remanded. Opinion.
• Final Written Decision #2 (on remand) — 2025-02-14 (Paper 26): claims 3–6 and 8–14 unpatentable, and because all other claims had previously been held unpatentable, the Board determined claims 1–23 unpatentable.
• Appeal: Omni noticed appeal 2025-04-11; Fed. Cir. No. 25-1646, pending.
• Defensive value for '156: This is the single most useful body of work for a '156 defendant. It supplies (a) a working § 103 combination over Lisogurski/Carlson/Tran against this exact specification, and (b) binding Federal Circuit claim-construction law on "identify" vs. "detect an object." But it does not cancel a single claim of '156, and § 315(e)(2) estoppel from it binds Apple and its privies only, and only as to the '484 patent.

IPR2019-00916 — Apple Inc. v. Omni MedSci, Inc. (US 9,651,533 — not the '156 patent)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-04-10 (Paper 1); a parallel petition, IPR2019-00913, was filed the same day and terminated.
• Status: FWD issued; all challenged claims canceled; Federal Circuit affirmed
• Institution: granted 2019-10-18 (Paper 16)
• Challenged claims: 5, 7–10, 13, and 15–17 — all held unpatentable as obvious (FWD, Paper 39, 2020-10-14).
• Appeal: Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 21-1229 — summary affirmance, 2022-06-08, 2022 WL 2062168.
• Defensive value: The '533 is the grandparent-line sibling. Important caveat flagged by the district court in the WHOOP case: the '533 IPR did not address claims 11 or 12 of the '533, which are the claims Omni actually asserts today. So "the '533 is dead" is only half true.

Other family proceedings (context, not '156)

Note on the settled Apple proceedings (IPR2019-00914, IPR2019-00917): termination was expressly "pursuant to settlement." The terms are confidential and not in the sources I retrieved. Do not read those settlements as any admission or concession about the underlying merits.

Note on the Director Review decision: In IPR2025-01253 (Samsung v. Omni MedSci), the Director vacated a grant of institution and denied the IPR, because a patent cannot be simultaneously IPR-eligible (pre-AIA) and PGR-eligible (AIA), and PGR2026-00003 had established AIA status for the '790. This is the Law360 story about the Board "no longer conducting an IPR ... now that there will be a separate post-grant review." It concerns the '790 patent, not '156.

Strategic summary

Claim status on '156 — CANCELED / SUSTAINED / UNTESTED. For US 11,241,156 itself: every claim is UNTESTED. No PTAB panel has ever construed or adjudicated a single claim of this patent. I did not have the granted claim set in the material provided to me, so I will not state claim numbers or independent/dependent counts for '156 — anyone relying on that should pull the patent text directly. What can be said with confidence is that no claim of '156 has been canceled, and no claim has been confirmed, because there has been no trial. By contrast, in the immediate family: US 10,517,484 claims 1–23 (all claims) are unpatentable per the remand FWD of 2025-02-14 (pending appeal, 25-1646), and US 9,651,533 claims 5, 7–10, 13, 15–17 are unpatentable, affirmed 2022-06-08.

Estoppel landscape for a defendant sued on '156. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is patent-specific and party-specific. The estoppel flowing from IPR2021-00453 ('484) and IPR2019-00916 ('533) binds Apple and its privies — and Apple is not free to re-run Lisogurski/Carlson/Tran against the '484. It does not estop Samsung, WHOOP, Fossil, Oura, OnePlus, or any new defendant from raising those references against '156. Conversely, those petitioners are also not estopped on '156, because they have never petitioned on it. For a defendant now facing '156, the prior-art field is wide open, subject to (i) the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of the complaint alleging infringement of '156, (ii) § 325(d) discretion (the Office has seen Lisogurski/Carlson/Tran repeatedly, which cuts both ways — it can trigger discretionary denial, but it also means the Board knows the art), and (iii) the Fintiv-style discretion framework as it now stands post-Revvo/Tesla (Samsung and Omni have been actively briefing these issues in IPR2025-01250). One genuinely interesting angle: Samsung has argued in the '790 PGR that Omni is collaterally estopped from relitigating unpatentability of limitations identical or substantially identical to those already adjudicated (citing Samsung Elecs. Co. v. Netlist, Inc., IPR2025-00002, Paper 17 (2025-05-15)). That is an offensive use of issue preclusion against the patent owner. It is weaker against '156 than against the '533/'484 siblings, because the '156 claims add time-of-flight / phase-shift / TOF-imaging limitations that are not in the adjudicated claims — so "substantially identical limitations" is a harder sell. Expect a defendant to argue it anyway, and expect Omni to argue the TOF limitations are the whole point of the patent.

Pattern signals. (1) No petitioner has ever targeted '156, despite Omni asserting it against Samsung in the 2024 EDTX case and (per a 2026-08-26 Korean report) in a new EDTX Marshall action asserting eight Omni TOF patents including 11,241,156 — the gap is conspicuous given Apple's history of filing paired IPRs on basically every other family member. (2) The family is a serial-victim pattern: Apple filed at least eleven 2019–2021 petitions across '040, '286, '533, '698, '546, '299, and '484; two of those were denied institution and two settled. (3) The 2025–2026 wave is a coordinated multi-defendant effort: Samsung + Samsung America + Fossil Group/Stores/Partners + Oura Health + OnePlus filed a ranked set of IPRs (01249–01254) and PGRs (00063–00064) with overlapping RPIs, plus conditional IPR/PGR pairs for the same patent (a hedging tactic for the AIA/pre-AIA priority question that has become a recurring feature here). (4) Unified Patents appears only as a data host (portal.unifiedpatents.com), not as a petitioner — I found no evidence of a defensive aggregator in the chain for this family. (5) Omni appeals aggressively and has a winning record on claim construction: it defended "identify an object" successfully at the Federal Circuit in 23-1034, but lost on the procedural point.

Recommended next steps

• Do not tell your client the '156 patent is invalidated, and do not tell them it is hardened. Neither is true. Link them to the FWD that matters — IPR2021-00453 Paper 26 (2025-02-14), holding "claims 1–23 [of the '484 patent] are unpatentable" — and be explicit that this is a different patent. The opinion is available via Apple Inc. v. Omni MedSci, Inc., No. 2023-1034 (Fed. Cir. 2024-06-21).
• Calendar the § 315(b) deadline immediately. The one-year clock for '156 runs from service of the complaint asserting '156. If Omni served a complaint in the EDTX Marshall action reported in August 2026 (Google Patents litigation data points to an EDTX case numbered 2:26-cv-00356), you are already inside the window. Note: the proceedings list in the Google Patents record and the Korean press account of the 2026 filing should both be verified against the docket before you rely on them — I could not independently confirm the case number against PACER/CourtListener.
• Check AIA vs. pre-AIA status before choosing IPR vs. PGR. With a 2020-12-28 filing date but a priority claim to 2012-12-31, Omni has taken the position in co-pending litigation that these patents are not AIA patents — which is exactly what Samsung relied on in filing conditional IPR/PGR pairs. The Director's PGR2026-00003 decision shows this is now being litigated in real time and that Omni's characterization is not binding. Separately, the '156 patent issued 2022-02-08, so the nine-month PGR window under § 321(c) closed 2022-11-08 — PGR is off the table for '156 unless Omni successfully re-characterizes it as AIA and some other exception applies. Realistically: IPR is your vehicle.
• Consider filing now, not later. There is a real first-mover advantage here. No one has petitioned on '156; the Board has not construed a single '156 limitation; Apple's construction win ("identify an object") is on the books and helps you frame grounds; and the Lisogurski/Carlson/Tran combination is already validated by two FWDs on this specification. The countervailing risk is § 325(d) — the Office has seen this art many times, so your petition must articulate what is new about the '156 claims (the TOF/phase-shift limitations and the laser-diode-array-with-Bragg-reflector elements) and why the prior Board treatment does not dispose of them.
• If a defendant has already filed on '156 and it is not indexed in ODP: the ODP ingest lags. Re-run the PTAB E2E / PTAB Center search for "11241156" and for the petitioner's name before finalizing an estoppel analysis, and treat any proceeding filed within the last few months as unindexed rather than non-existent.
• If you are looking for the "absence is a signal" argument: here it genuinely cuts against the patent owner in the family-wide sense (every close sibling has been challenged and largely killed) but for the patent owner on the '156 specifically (this one has been left alone). The district court in Delaware has already credited the family-wide narrative when considering a stay — see the WHOOP stay opinion at D. Del. 25-cv-140, D.I. 61, which notes that "every claim arising from the '533 patent family that has been challenged has been found unpatentable." Expect Omni to resist that narrative for '156 by emphasizing the TOF limitations.

Caveats I want to be explicit about: (1) I did not retrieve a claim-by-claim listing of granted '156 claims; any claim-number discussion above is limited to sibling patents where the FWD text was available. (2) I could not confirm the docket numbers or dispositions of IPR2019-00912 / IPR2019-00915 ('698) or the Federal Circuit outcome of Omni's appeal in IPR2020-00175. (3) The "2:26-cv-00356" litigation reference comes from Google Patents' litigation metadata and should be verified. (4) Everything in the family table concerns patents other than US 11,241,156.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11,241,156 across the sources specified.

Let me search for the specific reel/frame records and correspondent details.

Let me search for the specific reel/frame numbers and the recorded correspondent for Omni MedSci assignments.

Assignment Record Analysis — US 11,241,156 B2

Scope and limitation up front. I could not complete an interactive query of USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) in this session — that interface requires a live query session I don't have. Everything below is reconstructed from (a) the Google Patents legal-events ("reassignment") entries for this number, (b) the patent's own front-page/prosecution correspondence data as reproduced in PTAB file-history exhibits, and (c) the Federal Circuit and district-court records in Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Apple Inc., which litigated exactly this ownership chain. I did not obtain reel/frame numbers for any assignment in this chain, and I have not fabricated them. Where a field is unverified I say so rather than filling it.

Cross-reference note. This builds on the two prior sections. One thing to flag: the earlier sections catalogued identifier-misrendering artifacts ("112411560", "171352330"). A further instance surfaced here — the aggregator agri.nais.net.cn indexes 申请号 (application no.) "US11241156" against an unrelated patent (Moffitt et al., brain-stimulation cannula, US 8,271,094). That is a database keying error on a third-party mirror, not an assignment and not a transfer of this patent. Disregard it.

Inventors

Mohammed N. Islam — sole named inventor. There are no co-inventors on the '156, and none on the family's other members (the litigation record repeatedly describes each patent as naming "a sole inventor, Dr. Mohammed Islam").

Employer at the time of filing (2020-12-28): University of Michigan, College of Engineering. Per the 2018 complaint in Omni MedSci v. Apple (E.D. Tex. 2:18-cv-00134), Dr. Islam is "a tenured Professor of Optics and Photonics in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering," holding a joint appointment at the UM Medical School's Cardiovascular Center since November 2011. He is simultaneously the founder and principal of Omni MedSci, Inc. (the assignee) — i.e., he was dual-hatted at filing.

Unusual-pattern check. The classic "all inventors depart the assignee within 12 months" precursor is not present and cannot be present — the sole inventor is the assignee's principal. He has not left. The genuinely unusual pattern here is the inverse: the inventor's employer (UM) claimed ownership of the inventions and litigated it. In 2013 UM's Office of Technology Transfer refused Dr. Islam's request for a release, concluding UM owned the IP because "Medical school funds were expended—via the CVC/Cardiovascular Medicine/Department of Internal Medicine to support Dr. Islam's space costs, as well as administrative time." Dr. Islam did not pursue UM's internal appeal. UM later filed an amicus brief in the Federal Circuit asserting ownership. That is a standing/title cloud over the inventor→Omni link that matters more than any post-issuance transfer, and it is discussed below.

Original assignee

Omni MedSci, Inc. — a Michigan corporation, principal place of business 1718 Newport Creek Drive, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103 (per the 2018 complaint). It is both the original assignee and the current assignee; Google Patents lists "Omni Medsci, Inc." as original and current for this number.

• Primary line of business: development and commercialization of optical/photonic and laser technology, principally laser-based non-invasive medical measurement devices. Per the complaint, Omni MedSci "is part of the Omni family of companies, which create, develop, and commercialize Dr. Islam's optical technology in various fields. The Omni companies also develop and provide unique optical products to the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community."
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence found. The claims of the '156 are directed to a time-of-flight laser-diode/photodiode physiological-measurement system with skin penetration. I found no publicly marketed Omni MedSci product implementing that claim set. Omni's public footprint in this record is patent prosecution and enforcement, plus the DoD/intelligence-supply description above. Treat "ships an embodying product" as unverified, not disproven.
• Current status: operating, privately held. No SEC 10-K/8-K filings found — Omni MedSci does not appear to be an SEC registrant, so no public-company assignment disclosures exist to cross-check. No record of acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded-linkage events are attributable to this patent's chain. Both are inventor → Omni MedSci conveyances; there is no post-issuance transfer, and the beneficial owner has been unchanged since 2013.

1) 2013-12-17 (executed) / 2013-12-17 (recorded) — Reel/frame NOT OBTAINED (unverified)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Mohammed N. Islam, individually
• Assignee: Omni MedSci, Inc.
• Correspondent: Not confirmed for the recording. Prosecution correspondence for the entire family runs to Brooks Kushman P.C. / Cheetah Omni MedSci, 1000 Town Center, Twenty Second Floor, Southfield, MI 48075 (attorneys of record include David S. Bir and Andrew B. Turner, Reg. No. 63,121). Flag: Brooks Kushman recurs across the whole Omni portfolio — but it is Omni's ordinary outside prosecution counsel on a single-owner portfolio, not a signature of a multi-LLC NPE network. Recurrence here has low diagnostic value.
• Context: Inventor-to-company assignment of the family's priority filings.
• Caveat: The '156 patent itself issued from application 17/135,233, filed 2020-12-28, which claims priority through PCT/US2013/075767, PCT/US2013/075700, PCT/US2013/075736, US 14/108,986 (→ US 9,164,032) and US 14/109,007 (→ US 9,993,159), all dated 2013-12-17. The 2013 assignment covers that earlier generation of applications; it reaches the '156 only through the priority chain. Federal Circuit and district-court findings of fact explicitly record this step: "On December 17, 2013, Dr. Islam assigned his patent rights to Omni MedSci; the assignments were recorded at the USPTO."

2) 2020-12-28 (recorded; execution date not confirmed — likely on or immediately before this date, contemporaneous with filing) — Reel/frame NOT OBTAINED (unverified)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: ISLAM, Mohammed N.
• Assignee: OMNI MEDSCI, INC.
• Correspondent: Not confirmed for the recording.
• Context: Formal/confirmatory assignment of the newly filed continuation application 17/135,233 to the pre-existing sole owner. Filing date, assignment-recording date, and applicant-of-record date all coincide on 2020-12-28 — there is no interim owner, no escrow, and no change in beneficial ownership.
• Source: Google Patents legal events for US 11,241,156: "2020-12-28 Assigned to OMNI MEDSCI, INC. … Assignors: ISLAM, MOHAMMED N."

Title-cloud event (not a recorded assignment): UM's 2013 ownership determination, confirmed and litigated through 2021. The district court (E.D. Tex., Aug. 14, 2019) and the Federal Circuit (Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Nos. 20-1715, -1716, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 22897, Aug. 2, 2021) held UM Bylaw 3.10 ¶1 ("shall be the property of the University") was at most a promise of a future assignment, not a present automatic transfer, so Dr. Islam's assignment to Omni was effective. Judge Newman dissented. This is a chain-integrity finding, not a transfer: it confirms rather than moves the 2013 link.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11241156
    2012 : Islam files provisionals at end of UM sabbatical
    2013 : Islam assigns rights to Omni MedSci
    2020 : Continuation filed for this patent
         : Islam assigns this application to Omni MedSci
    2022 : Patent issues to Omni MedSci
    2026 : Omni sues Samsung in EDTX

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Because there is no multi-link transfer chain, most of these tests have nothing to operate on. I apply them honestly rather than forcing a finding.

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only assignee is Omni MedSci, Inc., a Michigan operating corporation with a real corporate address (1718 Newport Creek Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48103), founded by the inventor, described in its own pleadings as developing optical products for DoD and the intelligence community. No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere in the chain. No registered-agent-service address. No single-purpose Delaware or Texas LLC. No reel/frame supports a shell transfer because none exists.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee in this chain matches the enumerated lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Omni MedSci is not on those lists. Separate observation, not a transfer finding: Omni MedSci is a high-frequency plaintiff in its own right (Apple, Samsung, Fossil, OnePlus, Ōura — see the Litigation section), and Unified Patents tracks the portfolio defensively. That is litigation-conduct evidence, not assignment-chain evidence, and I do not convert it into an NPE call here. Note this is a genuine tension with the prior "Litigation summary" section, which frames Omni as an active, campaign-style asserter — I am flagging it rather than reconciling it.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present, but low-value. The correspondent/agent of record for the Omni portfolio is Brooks Kushman P.C. / Cheetah Omni MedSci, Southfield, MI (attys David S. Bir; Andrew B. Turner, Reg. No. 63,121). It recurs across every Omni filing, so the recurrence test literally fires — but the test's premise is "the shell LLCs change; the lawyer running them doesn't." Here the LLC never changes. One owner, one law firm. Not an NPE-indicative recurrence.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Zero consecutive chained assignments. One owner since 2013.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2020-12-28 assignment post-dates the first Omni enforcement wave (2018) and is contemporaneous with this application's own filing, not with any suit naming the '156. The 2013 assignment pre-dates the first suit by ~5 years. Nothing was transferred within six months of a filing to clean up standing — and notably, this portfolio's actual standing problem was litigated on the merits of an employment agreement, not papered over by a transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 record for Omni MedSci or Dr. Islam surfaced.

7. Privateering — not present / unclear. The fact pattern is inverted: the inventor formed his own company, holds and asserts through it, and no operating third party transferred in. Omni suing Apple/Samsung is asserted competitor litigation by the technology originator, not privateering by a downstream NPE. Marked not present on the transfer evidence; the "is Omni itself an NPE" question is a conduct question outside this section.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain terminates at Omni MedSci, the original and current assignee. It does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. (Unified Patents' portal indexes Omni's patents and the EDTX case — indexing is not ownership.)

Verdict

Insufficient data — with respect to the assignment-chain question this exercise is built to answer.

Why: The record contains only the original inventor→assignee link (Mohammed N. Islam → Omni MedSci, Inc.), dated 2013-12-17 for the priority generation and recorded 2020-12-28 for this continuation, with no post-issuance assignment of any kind. That is the framework's own stated condition for "Insufficient data … or only the original assignment," and it is the honest call: there is no transfer chain to score for shell-entity, cascading, fire-sale, pre-litigation, or privateering patterns. The practical meaning is that Omni MedSci, Inc. still owns US 11,241,156 — the same entity named on the issued patent.

Two caveats I will not bury. (i) "Insufficient data" is a finding about the transfer chain, not an endorsement of Omni MedSci as a non-NPE. Omni is a serial patent plaintiff with no publicly evidenced product embodying these claims, which a litigator would reasonably characterize as NPE-adjacent conduct — but that is not provable from the assignment record, and I won't dress speculation up as a reel/frame finding. (ii) The real chain-integrity exposure on this patent is not an assignment at all: UM asserted ownership of the inventions, and the chain survived only because the Federal Circuit (Aug. 2, 2021) held UM's bylaws were a promise to assign, not a present assignment. Anyone doing diligence on the '156 should read that decision first — it is the single most material fact about this title.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11241156 or application 17/135,233 — this is where the reel/frame entries and recorded correspondent that I could not retrieve here will appear)
• Legacy assignment search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for this number: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11241156/en
• Title case: Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Nos. 2020-1715, 2020-1716 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 2, 2021)

Open items for a follow-up session with live databases: (1) reel/frame and execution dates for both assignments; (2) recorded correspondent on each assignment (vs. prosecution correspondent); (3) confirm the 2020-12-28 execution date; (4) confirm whether any license or security interest (e.g., a secured financing) has been recorded against the Omni portfolio, which would appear as a distinct conveyance type and is common for small operating companies.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 11,241,156. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me pull the primary citation lists directly from Justia, FreePatentsOnline, and the patent PDF.

I have a partial citation list. Let me pin down the authoritative "References Cited" list from the patent's own front page.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,241,156 B2

0. Scope, and what I could and could not verify

Patent confirmed as the target (search result, not auto-corrected): the record returned for the literal query "11241156" is US 11,241,156 B2, "Time-of-flight imaging and physiological measurements," App. No. 17/135,233, filed 2020-12-28, issued 2022-02-08, inventor Mohammed N. Islam, assignee Omni MedSci, Inc. No other patent with that number appeared in any result set. (The wiki.golden.com mirror still renders the identifier as "112411560" / "171352330"; those are different literal strings and I am not treating them as the same identifier — same flag as in the earlier bibliographic section.)

Methodology limitation — please read before relying on §2 and §3 below. I was able to query public web indexes (Google Patents, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, Unified Patents, patentimages PDF mirrors, PTAB document mirrors). I was not able to open USPTO Patent Public Search or PatentCenter directly, and I was not able to retrieve the complete front-page "(56) References Cited" block of the printed patent as a single authoritative document. What follows is assembled from (a) the Justia citation listing keyed to patent number 11241156 and (b) the non-patent-citation entries keyed to the same number. The list below is therefore "as retrieved," not "as verified against the official printed patent." The authoritative check is the (56) block on the face of the granted patent PDF and the IDS/citation records in PatentCenter for App. 17/135,233.

Second flag (date inconsistency). This task states today is April 26, 2026, while the session's system date is 2026-09-28, and the litigation section generated earlier in this analysis cites events dated May 1, 2026, May 2, 2026, June 8, 2026 and June 12, 2026 — all after the task's stated date. I cannot reconcile these; treat the earlier litigation dates as unverified against the stated task date.

1. The non-patent literature cited on US 11,241,156 (confirmed from the Justia record)

These two are the entries I retrieved with the strongest grounding — they appear in the "Non-Patent Citations" block keyed to patent 11241156 (Justia, patents.justia.com/patent/11241156):

Analyst note on the state of the art, not a citation: the to-be-analysed independent claims combine (i) laser-diode arrays with Bragg reflectors, (ii) 0.5–2 ns / multi-MHz pulsed drive or 10 MHz–1 GHz modulation with phase measurement, (iii) photodiode-array detection synchronized to the lasers, and (iv) in-vivo NIR diffuse-reflection measurement of blood/hemoglobin below the dermis. NPL-1 and NPL-2 supply only element (iii)'s ToF principle. They cannot alone anticipate any claim that recites elements (i), (ii) or (iv).

2. U.S. patent documents appearing in the citation list keyed to 11241156

The listing retrieved from Justia for patent 11241156 (US patent documents, ascending by number) is reproduced below. Confidence in the numbers/dates/inventors: moderate-to-high (they come from a citation table keyed to this exact patent number). Confidence in the titles/descriptions: low for most — I did not have search budget to individually open each reference, and I will not fabricate titles. Where I have independent corroboration I say so; otherwise the description field is marked [unverified].

Note (a) — why most rows are "not assessable": § 102 anticipation requires element-by-element identity addressed to the claims. A bare citation list (number/date/inventor) does not permit an anticipation opinion, and I will not manufacture one. Producing a defensible § 102 table requires the full text of each reference and the full granted claim set — neither of which I could pull within search limits for this patent. Anyone relying on this should treat column 5 as blank, not zero.

3. § 102 framework applied to this patent — and the two traps

(a) The priority-date trap. The '156's claims of benefit trace to applications filed 2013-12-17 claiming 2012-12-31 (PCT/US2013/075767, /075700, /075736; US 14/108,986; US 14/109,007), and Google shows an anticipated expiration of 2033-12-17. If the asserted claims are entitled to 2012-12-31, then every reference in §2 dated after 2012-12-31 (e.g., 8,430,310; 8,463,576; 8,475,367; 8,509,882; 8,587,771; 8,649,838; RE44,875; 8,725,226; 8,755,871; 8,767,190; 8,788,002; 8,945,017; 8,948,832; 8,954,135; 9,110,163; 9,142,117) is usable only if the priority claim fails — which is the very battle the PTAB petitions against sibling patents in this family have been fighting. This is the single most important § 102 issue for this patent, more than any individual reference.

(b) The self-collision / family trap. Several entries and much of the surrounding landscape are the inventor's own work (e.g., 8,472,108 Islam; and other Omni MedSci family patents listed on Unified Patents' page for this patent, including US 10,820,807 "Time-of-flight Measurement of Skin or Blood Using Array of Laser Diodes with Bragg Reflectors," US 9,494,567, US 10,136,819, US 10,928,374, US 11,326,...). These are same-family/same-inventor references, not third-party prior art, and cannot be § 102 art against claims entitled to the shared priority date (though they are relevant to § 112 and to priority-chain validity).

(c) Best available § 102 candidates, ranked by claim element covered — not by confidence in anticipation:

1. ToF-depth / phase-measurement claims only: NPL-1 (Miles/Hansard, Nov. 2012) and NPL-2 (Dal Mutto, Jan. 2013). These teach the phase-shift/time-of-flight measurement of returned light by a detector array. Neither teaches tissue penetration, NIR 600–1000 nm, Bragg-reflector laser diodes, or blood/hemoglobin measurement, so they are at most § 102 art against an artificially narrowed claim.
2. Optical-spectroscopy physiological/biometric measurement claims only: US 7,890,158 (Rowe et al.). Teaches specialized optical spectroscopy for biometric determination. Does not reach ToF, phase shift, or the diode-array/ToF architecture.
3. Pulse-oximetry / patient-monitoring physiological-parameter claims only: the Kiani-lineage reference (RE44,875) and the Muhsin/patient-monitor lineage (8,310,336), subject to the timing trap in (a) — RE44,875 is 2014 and therefore post-priority.
4. Wearable/activity monitoring claims only: the Yuen and LeBoeuf references, again subject to the timing trap.

Bottom line on § 102: On the retrieved record, no single cited reference appears to anticipate the independent claims, because each independent claim requires the concurrence of (i) a Bragg-reflector laser-diode array, (ii) a defined pulse/modulation regime, (iii) synchronized photodiode-array ToF detection, and (iv) non-invasive in-vivo blood/hemoglobin measurement. The cited art separates cleanly into a "ToF physics" bucket and a "physiological optics" bucket, with nothing retrieved that bridges them. The realistic defense-side attack is § 103 combination, and the realistic invalidity-side attack is priority/§ 102(b) collateral estoppel via the PTAB proceedings on the sibling patents — not a single anticipating reference.

4. What is still unverified, and the authoritative next steps

Unverified / explicitly unknown:

• Whether the reference list in §2 is the granted patent's (56) References Cited block, an applicant IDS list, or the parent application's citation set. The list is consistent with a references-cited compilation (ascending numeric order, dates spanning 2010–2015) but I could not confirm it against the printed patent.
• The full extent of the list — the retrieved snippet truncated; there may be additional U.S. patent documents, foreign patent documents (EP/JP/WO), and further NPL entries.
• Titles and technical content for ~35 of the ~42 rows, hence no § 102 mapping for them.
• Whether any of the listed references were applied by the examiner in a rejection (the citations may include art cited "for completeness" rather than art relied upon).
• The exact granted claim numbering — flagged as low-confidence in the earlier section, and it directly bounds any anticipation table.

To produce a defensible § 102 table, retrieve:

1. The granted patent PDF (front page (56) block) — e.g. the patentimages mirror for US 11,241,156.
2. USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter for App. 17/135,233 — the full IDS history, examiner-cited references, and any non-final/final rejections, which reveal which references were actually applied.
3. The certified copy of the claim set as granted.
4. Full texts of the specific references identified in §3(c) as the only plausible § 102 candidates.

5. Confidence summary for this task

• High: the identifier 11241156 corresponds to US 11,241,156 B2 (no similar-number contamination in results); the two NPL citations (Miles/Hansard et al.; Dal Mutto et al.) and their dates; US 7,890,158's title.
• Moderate: the U.S. patent-document numbers/dates/inventors in the §2 table as a citation list; the conclusion that cited art splits into non-overlapping ToF and physiological-optics buckets.
• Low: the description column for nearly every reference; any specific § 102 mapping.
• Explicitly not asserted: that any cited reference anticipates any claim of US 11,241,156. I found no such reference on the available record, and I am stating that as an absence of evidence, not as proof of validity.

Sources: https://patents.justia.com/patent/11241156 (citation and non-patent-citation listings) · https://patents.google.com/patent/US11241156/en (bibliography, priority chain, expiration) · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7890158-B2 (family/related-art listing for this patent) · https://patents.justia.com/patent/20220160234 (sibling publication, claim text) · HAL/Springer records for the Miles/Hansard and Dal Mutto monographs.

I'll research the specific prior art cited on this patent's page before building the § 103 analysis.

Let me pull the cited references and prosecution art more precisely.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,241,156 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Methodology, scope, and an important contradiction to flag

What I could and could not retrieve. The instruction is to use "the results from the Prior Art section of this page." The machine-readable References Cited table that Google Patents normally renders in that section (U.S. patent documents, foreign documents, and non-patent literature cited during prosecution of App. No. 17/135,233) did not survive into the fetched page text — the body of the page you supplied is almost entirely blank image-placeholder whitespace. I therefore could not read a verified, itemized examiner-cited art list for the '156 itself. I did surface several references linked to the '156 record in third-party citation indexes (Unified Patents, Justia, RXP), and I have the specification's own background/"Definitions" section, which is the page's substantive prior-art discussion. I say plainly below which reference content I can vouch for and which I cannot.

Date contradiction (flagged per instructions). The prior sections state the current date as 2026-09-28 (operating rules) and the litigation section recounts docket events dated May–June 2026 and "last updated ~May 2, 2026," while this task header sets the date as April 26, 2026. Those cannot all be true simultaneously (the May/June 2026 filings post-date an April 26, 2026 "today"). I flag it rather than silently reconciling it. Nothing in the § 103 analysis below turns on the current date.

I build on, and do not repeat, the earlier bibliographic, claim-overview, and litigation sections. Where I refer to the claim set, I use the elements already identified there, now with the granted-family claim language retrieved in this session (the sibling US 10,820,807 / pub. US 2020/0281477 A1 claim text, which mirrors the '156 disclosure, and the US 10,928,374 claim text). I treat the '156 claim numbering as unverified, as the earlier section did.

1. Legal framework and the governing critical date

• Framework. Obviousness under § 103 is assessed under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of the prior art; differences between the prior art and the claims; level of ordinary skill; and secondary considerations. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a combination is obvious where the elements are "known," the improvement is a "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," the technique was "obvious to try," or a "mere substitution of one known element for another." An express teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine (TSM) is sufficient but not necessary.
• Critical date. The '156's earliest priority is 2012-12-31 (via provisional 61/747,487 through the 2013-12-17 PCTs and U.S. Ser. Nos. 14/108,986 and 14/109,007). The application itself was filed 2020-12-28. Under AIA § 3(n)(1), a post-March 16, 2013 application whose claims are fully supported by pre-AIA priority is examined under pre-AIA §§ 102/103. For the analysis below I assume the claims are entitled to the 2012-12-31 date and treat prior art as references published/patented before that date (and, for other prior art, before the 2013-12-17 PCT filing). If any claim is not entitled to that date, the art set only grows and the analysis a fortiori holds.
• PHOSITA. A person of ordinary skill would be a worker with a bachelor's (or higher) degree in electrical/optical engineering or applied physics and ~2–5 years' experience in optical sensing — specifically NIR spectroscopy, laser-diode sources, and/or depth-imaging (time-of-flight) systems — or equivalent. See the analogous level accepted in the parallel Omni IPRs.
• Result-effective/optimization features. Numeric limitations such as 0.5–2 ns pulse duration, "several MHz" repetition rate, 600–1000 nm / 700–1300 nm bands, and 10 MHz–1 GHz modulation are each within In re Aller/In re Boesch optimization territory — i.e., prima facie obvious absent evidence of a critical, unexpected value.

2. The elements that must be accounted for

Collapsing the independent claims (per the earlier section's mapping, corroborated by the sibling claim text):

3. The prior art landscape

3.1 What the page's background itself concedes (the "Definitions"/background section)

The specification's own background expressly characterizes the field as already containing: NIR/SWIR non-invasive blood-constituent measurement (§§ on glucose, hemoglobin, HbA1c, ketones, triglycerides, cholesterol); fiber-based super-continuum sources emitting in 1.4–1.8 µm, 2–2.5 µm, 1–2.4 µm, and 1–1.8 µm bands; dispersive and FTIR spectrometers and hyper-spectral cameras; diffuse reflection spectroscopy; time-of-flight and hyper-spectral remote sensing; stand-off detection of gases/explosives/counterfeits; and frequency- and time-domain optical tissue measurement. This is an admitted-against-interest statement of the state of the art and is directly usable under § 103.

3.2 References surfaced in association with the '156 record (content varies in confidence)

Third-party citation indexes tied these to the '156 record (Unified Patents, Justia/RXP):

⚠️ Do not treat the Omni family members as § 103 art. They share the inventor (Islam) and the 2012-12-31 priority chain; as pre-AIA art they are excluded by the "by others" requirement, and as AIA art by the common-ownership/§ 102(b)(2)(C) exceptions. The earlier "Definitions" list of them is a family listing, not an art list.

3.3 Field prior art that is not disputed to be known (from the general state of the art, keyed to the background admissions)

• Direct and phase-based time-of-flight 3-D imaging. Solid-state ToF range cameras using NIR pulsed/modulated laser-diode illumination and fast CMOS/CCD photodetector arrays, computing distance from emission→return timing or from the phase shift of the modulated return, with amplitude producing an intensity image. Representative: Lange & Seitz, "Solid-state time-of-flight range camera," IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 37(3):390–397 (2001); and the Canesta/Bamji CMOS-compatible 3-D image-sensing patents (e.g., US 6,323,942 B1, Methods for CMOS-Compatible Three-Dimensional Image Sensing Using Quantum Efficiency Modulation). (Confidence: high for the technology; medium for the exact patent number — flagged.)
• Frequency-domain photon migration / phase-modulation NIR tissue spectroscopy. Chance and colleagues (Univ. of Pennsylvania, early 1990s) modulated NIR light at tens to hundreds of MHz, measured the phase shift and amplitude of light re-emitted from tissue, and derived tissue absorption/scattering and oxy-/deoxy-hemoglobin — i.e., the frequency-domain analog of elements C, G, and I. (Confidence: high for the technology/science; I am deliberately not asserting specific Chance patent numbers I cannot verify in this session — flagged.)
• Continuous-wave NIR blood oximetry/analyte measurement. Jobsis, Science 198 (1977) 1264 (NIR monitoring of tissue oxygenation); US 4,655,225 (Dahne/Hewlett-Packard, spectrophotometric non-invasive measurement); US 5,028,787 (Rosenthal, non-invasive glucose). (Confidence: reasonable.)
• DBR/DFB wavelength-stabilized laser diodes. Standard telecom/spectroscopy components since the 1980s; a DBR/DFB diode is the recognized substitute for a Fabry-Perot diode where wavelength stability is wanted.
• SWIR/super-continuum and stand-off spectroscopy. Universally known by the priority date (and expressly admitted in the background).
• Ambient-light cancellation by on/off differencing, high-power diode stacks, and smartphone/vehicle optical integration. Routine engineering.

4. Ground 1 — Claims 1 and 9 (skin/blood measurement; phase-and-ToF) are obvious over ToF imaging + frequency-domain tissue spectroscopy + DBR laser diodes

4.1 Element-by-element mapping

4.2 Motivation to combine (why a PHOSITA would have done this)

1. Shared platform / common source-and-detector. Both ToF depth imaging and NIR tissue spectroscopy operate on the same physical principle: launch modulated/pulsed NIR light, detect the return, and extract information from its phase, timing, and amplitude. A PHOSITA seeking depth-resolved ("tomographic") tissue data would naturally add the phase/amplitude extraction already used in ToF cameras — this is a predictable use of a known element (phase/ToF ranging) for its established function (KSR).
2. A recognized problem begging the combination. The background itself identifies "skin[‘s] many spectral artifacts," water/blood interference, and the need for spatial discrimination — exactly the problems that depth-resolved (ToF) spatial gating and multi-wavelength differencing are known to mitigate. This supplies an articulated design incentive.
3. Compactness/consumer integration. The background and specification emphasize portability, smartphones, and vehicle mounting. Building one NIR source/detector module that performs both 3-D imaging and physiological sensing is an obvious efficiency move.
4. KSR rationales squarely applicable: (a) known technique (ToF) used to improve a similar device (NIR tissue measurement) in the same way; (b) substitution of a DBR diode for a conventional FP diode to gain wavelength stability; (c) "obvious to try" the finite number of identified NIR source/detector combinations; (d) result-effective-variable optimization (pulse width, repetition rate, wavelength band) via routine experimentation.

4.3 Reasonable expectation of success

Both constituent technologies were mature and commercially deployed well before 2012 (ToF depth cameras in consoles/automotive; NIR oximetry in pulse oximeters). Coupling a shared NIR source to the two detection modes presents no technological impossibility; the components (CMOS photodiode arrays, spectral filters, MHz–GHz drivers, DBR diodes) were off-the-shelf. Success was predictable.

4.4 Note on claim 9's conjunctive "phase shift and time-of-flight"

Claim 9 requires both a phase-shift measurement and a time-of-flight measurement. This is not a saving distinction: in phase-based (indirect) ToF, the measured phase shift is the time-of-flight expressed modulo the modulation period — the same known measurement satisfies both limitations. Alternatively, a direct-pulse ToF reference (timing) combined with a frequency-domain spectroscopy reference (phase) renders the conjunction obvious. Requiring both known measurements is at most an obvious duplication of known techniques.

5. Ground 2 — The dependent claims

Even if the independents were (contrary to the above) found non-obvious, the dependents add only known refinements:

Each dependent is, at minimum, an obvious design choice or a result-effective optimization — In re Boesch, In re Aller.

6. Ground 3 — The remote-sensing independent claim

Combination: (i) a ToF 3-D imaging/LIDAR reference (pulsed/modulated NIR–SWIR laser-diode array; CMOS photodiode array with lens and spectral filter; synchronized timing/phase; amplitude → image) + (ii) a stand-off/diffuse-reflectance NIR–SWIR spectroscopy reference (the background itself admits SWIR super-continuum reflectance spectroscopy, gas-filter correlation radiometry, hyper-spectral imaging, and FTIR as known) + (iii) a known smartphone/vehicle integration reference.

• Motivation: the background expressly states that SWIR spectroscopy enables "stand-off or remote sensing of materials based on their chemical signature, which may complement other imaging information," and that a SC source "may be able to replace at least in part the sun as an illumination source." That is an express suggestion to combine active NIR/SWIR illumination with imaging. Generating a 2-D/3-D mapping from a ToF measurement is the stated purpose of ToF imaging. Coupling to a smartphone/vehicle is a known deployment.
• Result: the remote-sensing claim adds only the substitution of an "object" for "tissue" and the addition of known safety shut-offs and 2-D/3-D output — a predictable application of the same ToF engine.

7. Secondary considerations / expected counterarguments

• Unexpected results / long-felt need? To date, the family's § 103 record cuts against non-obviousness: in the parallel IPRs, the PTAB found claims of US 9,651,533 (IPR2019-00916) and US 10,517,484 (IPR2021-00453) unpatentable (the '484 decision is on appeal per the earlier section). That is evidence that the family's core NIR-diode/physiological-measurement subject matter is, in the Board's view, obvious.
• But note: I found no IPR, PGR, or district-court claim chart that specifically invalidates or specifically asserts the '156. So the obviousness case here is a prospective, art-based analysis, not a restatement of an adjudicated holding. The earlier section's caveat that the '156's assertion in EDTX 2:26-cv-00356 is reported but unverified stands.
• Potential patentee rejoinder: that combining time-of-flight depth resolution with tissue hemoglobin measurement to produce depth-resolved physiological imaging was not obvious. The rebuttal to that is the shared physics/architecture and the express "complementary imaging" motivation above, plus the absence of any asserted unexpected result or critical value.

8. Bottom line and confidence

• Claim 1 and Claim 9 are, on the art described, prima facie obvious under § 103 over ToF (phase/amplitude) imaging + frequency-domain or CW NIR tissue spectroscopy/oximetry + DBR laser diodes, with the known dependents (differencing, SNR scaling, diode stacks, 940 nm, Fourier processing, phone/vehicle integration) obvious as design choices/optimizations. Rationales: KSR predictable-use, substitution of a known element (DBR diode), obvious-to-try, and result-effective-variable optimization; motivation supplied by the specification's own admitted problems (skin artifacts, need for spatial discrimination, complementarity of chemical and image data).
• The remote-sensing independent claim is obvious over the same ToF engine + admitted stand-off SWIR reflectance spectroscopy + known smartphone/vehicle integration.
• Confidence: Moderate-to-high that the combination-based obviousness theory is sound on the technology; moderate on the specific claim limitations (granted-claim numbering/scope for the '156 is unverified — see the earlier section); low on the precise reference list, because I could not retrieve the patent page's own References Cited table in this session, and I have flagged every reference whose content I could not verify (the WO/EP/2009 items). Any formal invalidity contention would require the examiner-cited art from the '156 file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter) and the art already adjudicated in the parallel Omni IPRs (IPR2019-00916; IPR2021-00453; IPR2020-00175/-00209), which I could not open directly here.

Sources consulted this session: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11241156](/patent/US11241156)/en (page body; Prior-Art table not rendered) · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[7890158](/patent/7890158)-B2 (citation links to US-11241156-B2) · https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US20200281477A1 (sibling claim text) · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9f/50/48/b4f85f8c49c3cb/US10928374.pdf (sibling claim text) · https://wikigolden.com page "US Patent 11241156" (renders "112411560"/"171352330" — not auto-corrected) · the fetched full text of US11241156B2 supplied in the prompt.