US 11300405

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number and any related 2026 litigation.

Let me check for litigation and PTAB activity specifically.

Let me retrieve the exact claim text to accurately summarize the independent claims.

US Patent 11,300,405 B2 — Analyst Summary

Important scope note first: My searches of Google Patents, Justia Patents, and general web/CAFC-adjacent sources returned no district-court litigation, no CAFC 2026 docket entry, and no PTAB proceeding involving U.S. Patent No. 11,300,405. The only hits were the patent itself, its international family members, and one clearly unrelated SEC EDGAR accession-style identifier ("11300405") that has nothing to do with this patent. I could not access a paywalled docket database directly, so I cannot rule out a pending suit with absolute certainty, but I found no affirmative evidence of one. The factual data below is drawn from the authoritative patent text you supplied plus Google Patents / Justia records.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"An overlay metrology system may include an illumination sub-system, a collection sub-system and a controller. The illumination sub-system may include one or more illumination optics configured to direct an illumination beam to an overlay target on a sample as the sample is scanned along a stage-scan direction by a translation stage, where the overlay target includes one or more cells having a grating-over-grating structure with periodicity along the stage-scan direction. The collection sub-system may include an objective lens, a first photodetector located in a pupil plane at a location of overlap between 0-order diffraction and +1-order diffraction, and a second photodetector located in a pupil plane at a location of overlap between 0-order diffraction and −1-order diffraction. The controller may receive time-varying interference signals from the first and second photodetectors and determine an overlay error between the first and second layers of the sample along the stage-scan direction."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has four independent claims in the granted version (claims 1, 5, 12, and 16), each covering a different system configuration. Note: the independent-claim text below is reconstructed from the patent's Summary section, the granted-claim excerpts surfaced on Justia, and the corresponding claims of the pre-grant publication US 2022/0034652 A1; where I quote exact wording it is from the publication's parallel claim set. Treat the claim numbering/wording as high-confidence but verify against the official USPTO grant copy for litigation purposes.

Claim 1 — Single-beam, 1D scanning overlay system (the core claim)
An overlay metrology system with: (a) an illumination sub-system (source + optics) that directs a beam onto an overlay target while the sample is continuously scanned along a stage-scan direction, the target having cells whose grating-over-grating structure is periodic along that same scan direction, with first-layer and second-layer grating features overlapping; (b) a collection sub-system with an objective lens and two photodetectors placed in the pupil plane, one in the region where the 0-order and +1-order diffraction overlap, the other where the 0-order and −1-order overlap; and (c) a controller that reads time-varying interference signals from those two detectors as the target is scanned and derives the overlay error between the two layers along the scan direction. In plain terms: instead of stopping the stage and imaging a static target, you scan the wafer and watch two pupil-plane spots "flicker" (interference fringes); the relative behavior of the +1 and −1 signals reveals overlay.

Claim 5 — Dual-beam, two-direction (2D) overlay system, diagonal geometry
Adds a first and second illumination channel/beam. The overlay target has first cells periodic along a first direction and second cells periodic along a second, orthogonal direction, with the stage-scan direction angled (diagonal) to both. The two beams illuminate different cells offset perpendicular to the scan direction, and there are two corresponding detection channels (each with its own pair of 0/+1 and 0/−1 overlap photodetectors). The controller computes overlay in both the first and second directions from the time-varying signals. In plain terms: one scan captures 2D overlay by interrogating X- and Y-oriented targets simultaneously with two angled beams.

Claim 12 — Beam-scanning (scan-mirror) variant
The illumination sub-system includes a scan mirror that sweeps the beam along a beam-scan direction across the target while the sample is translated along a stage-scan direction orthogonal to it. The target's periodicity (the "measurement direction") may align with either the beam-scan or the stage-scan direction. The same two pupil-plane photodetectors and controller determine overlay along the measurement direction.

Claim 16 — Dual-beam + beam-scanner combination
Combines the dual-beam geometry of claim 5 (first/second cells periodic along orthogonal first/second directions, with the stage-scan direction corresponding to one of them) with beam-scanners that sweep the two beams along a beam-scan direction orthogonal to the stage-scan direction while the sample advances. Two detection channels feed a controller that determines overlay in both the first and second directions.

Representative dependent claims add: phase-locked photodetectors locked to the interference-frequency with phase-locking extraction of intensity/phase (claim 6); orthogonal polarizations of the two beams (claim 7); different wavelengths (claim 8); spatially coherent illumination (claims 9, 15); cell layout/distribution along scan or diagonal directions (claims 10, 11); and a spot elongated orthogonal to the measurement direction for target-noise averaging (claim 14).

Technical gist and why it matters

The invention moves scatterometry overlay from a "move-and-measure" (static) regime into a continuous scanning regime using a non-imaging pupil-plane detection scheme: two fast photodetectors sit at the 0/+1 and 0/−1 overlap regions and capture oscillating interference signals as the grating-over-grating target translates. Because the detectors are fast (the spec mentions ≳1 GHz bandwidth enabling ~10 cm/s scans on 1 µm-pitch targets) and only fixed pupil angles are collected, the approach avoids stage settle time, is relatively insensitive to target edge effects (enabling smaller targets), and preserves a large light budget. The patent expressly frames itself as extending the static-sample techniques of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0004439 (diffraction-based overlay scatterometry) into scanning mode, and notes combinability with image-plane scanning scatterometry (U.S. App. Ser. No. 17/140,999).

Uncertainty / caveats

• Litigation: No CAFC 2026 docket, district-court case, or PTAB record for 11,300,405 was found; this is a negative finding, not a guarantee (I did not query a subscription docket service).
• Exact granted-claim wording: claim 1's verbatim grant text was not displayed in the sources I could reach; the summary above is reconstructed from the Summary section and the parallel publication claims, so confirm against the official USPTO copy before relying on exact language.
• Bibliographic fields (dates, assignee, family) are consistent across the authoritative patent text and Google Patents/Justia.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11300405 across patent litigation databases.

Initial results reference unrelated patents. Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Let me search additional litigation-specific sources.

Litigation Search Results for US Patent 11,300,405

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving US Patent 11,300,405.

What I searched and what came back

I ran multiple targeted queries against patent-litigation-oriented sources (Unified Patents litigation portal, PTAB/PTActs document repositories, and general web indexes keyed to the exact number "11300405" / "11,300,405"). Every hit was a false positive for a different patent number. Specifically:

Direct answer on the requested fields

• Plaintiff(s): None identified
• Defendant(s): None identified
• Jurisdiction: N/A
• Case number: N/A
• Filing date: N/A
• Outcome / status: N/A

Context on the patent (why no litigation is plausible)

The patent is US 11,300,405 B2, "Grey-mode scanning scatterometry overlay metrology," inventors Amnon Manassen and Andrew V. Hill, assigned to KLA Corporation. It was filed Feb. 17, 2021, granted April 12, 2022, claims priority to Aug. 3, 2020 (Provisionals 63/060,576 and 63/144,205), and has an anticipated expiration of Feb. 17, 2041. It is directed to semiconductor overlay metrology hardware/methods — a field where KLA (a metrology-tool supplier) is typically a patent plaintiff, and where there have not been widespread assertion campaigns of this particular patent family.

Important caveats / confidence level

1. This is not a guarantee of no litigation. My searches were limited and I was not able to fully execute deep queries against PACER, the CAFC docket, or the Unified Patents caselist directly (tool step limits were reached). A definitive "no litigation" answer requires a structured docket search.
2. Patent issued only in April 2022, so any suit would necessarily post-date that.
3. The search environment's false-positive matches on other "…00405"-style identifiers mean results should be treated cautiously.

Recommended next steps to confirm: run a docket-level search using Docket Navigator or Lex Machina filtered to US 11,300,405; query PACER's national case search; and check the Unified Patents litigation caselist (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation) using the patent number as the sole filter. If those return nothing, the conclusion would be that no litigation has been filed on this patent as of the search date.

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

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,300,405: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block from the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent web searches (Google Patents family/legal-events pages, Justia, PTAB-oriented queries, and litigation/PTAB cross-queries on the patent number and on KLA as patent owner) surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, termination, or Federal Circuit appeal involving this patent.

Bottom line for someone on the receiving end of an assertion: there is no PTAB outcome to lean on. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been sustained, and no petitioner has been estopped. Every claim that issued remains untested at the Board — the patent has not been "hardened" by surviving an IPR, but it also has not been narrowed by one. That cuts both ways: you get a clean slate on grounds and claim scope, but you also get no free roadmap from a prior petitioner's expert declarations, and no institution decision or FWD to cite in a § 315(b)/discretionary-denial or stay argument.

No proceedings to report

There is no proceeding to enumerate. I am not going to manufacture a docket number, panel, or FWD to fill this template — per the constraint against fabrication, the honest output here is the absence itself.

What I verified, and how

Confidence and its limits

• High confidence that no AIA trial proceeding has reached a Final Written Decision or been instituted on this patent — those are docket-level public events and would surface.
• Moderate confidence that no petition has ever been filed. Recently filed petitions that ODP hasn't ingested are the failure mode, and a very recent, low-profile filing could evade web indexing.
• I could not query PTAB E2E, Docket Navigator, Westlaw, or the Federal Circuit docket directly in this session. If you need a belt-and-suspenders confirmation before relying on this, that is where to look: ptacts.uspto.gov PTAB E2E search on patent number 11300405, and the "Trial Proceedings" tab of the patent's Global Dossier / PatentCenter page.

Why the silence is unsurprising here

This is worth stating plainly, because it changes how you read the absence. US 11,300,405 is assigned to KLA Corporation — a multi-billion-dollar operating company that sells the metrology tools themselves, not a non-practicing entity. The patent issued 2022-04-12 from an application filed 2021-02-17 with a 2020-08-03 priority date, and its anticipated expiration runs to 2041-02-17.

Two consequences:

1. The usual NPE dynamic ("well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs") doesn't apply in the same way, because KLA's enforcement posture is portfolio-defensive against competitors (ASML, Onto Innovation, Nova, Applied Materials), and competitor-to-competitor metrology disputes are typically fought as trade-secret + patent cross-licensing matters rather than serial IPR campaigns.
2. KLA is actively building out the scanner-based SCOL family this patent belongs to. The patent itself incorporates by reference and cites related KLA scanning-overlay filings, and the specification explicitly ties the disclosure to companion applications (e.g., U.S. App. Ser. No. 17/119,536 filed 2020-12-11; Ser. Nos. 17/708,958, 17/709,104, and 17/709,200 filed 2022-03-30; Ser. No. 18/099,798 filed 2023-01-20, per the family discussion in the EP4511613A4 / US2022/0034652 lineage). Expect a thicket, not a single asserted patent. If you are evaluating freedom-to-operate in scanning scatterometry overlay, the risk assessment belongs at the family level, not at this patent number.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 11,300,405 has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. The claims at issue cover, in the independent-claim architecture reflected in the published specification: a system with an illumination sub-system directing a beam to a grating-over-grating overlay target as the sample is scanned along a stage-scan direction (periodicity aligned to the scan), a collection sub-system with an objective lens plus a first photodetector in the pupil plane at the 0-order/+1-order overlap and a second photodetector at the 0-order/−1-order overlap, and a controller that extracts overlay error from the two time-varying interference signals (independent claim 1 and dependents); a two-illumination-channel / two-detection-channel variant for 2D overlay with diagonally oriented cells (claim 5 and dependents 6–11, including phase-locked photodetectors, orthogonal polarizations, differing wavelengths, coherent illumination, and cell-distribution geometries); and a scan-mirror/beam-scan variant where the measurement direction tracks either the beam-scan or stage-scan direction (claim 12 and dependents). Because no tribunal has construed these terms, claim-scope risk is entirely open — including the pivot terms "location of overlap between 0-order diffraction … and +1-order diffraction" and "time-varying interference signals," which are the kind of functional, system-architecture limitations that institution-stage claim construction challenges can attack.

Estoppel landscape: clean. Because there are no petitioners, no one is subject to § 315(e)(2) estoppel on this patent. Any defendant contemplating an IPR faces no prior-petitioner estoppel and no § 315(b) one-year bar unless and until KLA serves a complaint — the clock starts from service of a district-court complaint alleging infringement, not from the date the patent issued. Practically, this means the full universe of patents-and-printed-publications art under §§ 102/103 is available to a first petitioner, including the dense KLA/ASML/Therma-Wave/Nova overlay-metrology prior art that the examiner's family members themselves cited (e.g., US 2019/0310080 A1 and US 2004/0245439 A1 appeared as Y-references against related KLA cases). One caveat: the specification affirmatively incorporates U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0004439 (DIFFRACTION BASED OVERLAY SCATTEROMETRY) and characterizes the disclosed scanning approach as an extension of that static pupil-imaging teaching to a scanning regime. That admission — that the static pupil-plane analysis was already known — is a natural starting point for an obviousness theory, and it is the single most useful thing a first petitioner gets for free from the face of this patent.

Pattern signals: (a) Same-petitioner multiplicity: none — no petitioner exists. (b) Patent-owner PTAB appeal aggressiveness: no appeals, because no FWDs to appeal. (c) Defensive aggregator: no Unified Patents, RPX, or other aggregator involvement found, which again fits the operating-company-owner profile — aggregators challenge NPE patents, not tools owned by the incumbent metrology vendor. (d) Portfolio pattern: KLA is filing serially in this space (a steady stream of scanning-SCOL and moiré/self-calibrating-overlay applications through 2022–2024), so the strategic question for a competitor is not "can I kill 11,300,405?" but "how many siblings does it have, and which one gets asserted?"

Recommended next steps

• Confirm from the primary source before acting. Run patent number 11300405 through PTAB E2E at ptacts.uspto.gov (Trial Proceedings search) and through the "Trial Proceedings" tab on the patent's USPTO PatentCenter / Global Dossier page. My conclusion that zero proceedings exist is well-supported but I could not hit those databases directly in this session. Note the ODP ingest lag the prompt itself flags — a petition filed in the last few weeks could be missing from the structured data.
• If you are a defendant with an active demand letter or complaint from KLA: there is no FWD to link or quote, so you cannot cite a claim-cancellation disposition. Your invalidity posture must be built from scratch — the patent's own incorporation-by-reference of US 2019/0004439 is your best § 103 springboard, paired with the KLA/ASML overlay-metrology art cited against sibling family members.
• If you are weighing a first IPR petition: filing a petition is what creates the estoppel that binds you later under § 315(e)(2) — grounds you raise or reasonably could have raised become unavailable in the district-court case. Because no one has previously petitioned, you are the party that will define the ground set for everyone downstream, including possible joiners. Budget for a strong first petition, and consider whether a stay posture is better obtained by petitioning early relative to the § 315(b) service date.
• Watch the sibling filings. The disclosure ties this patent to a family of scanning-SCOL applications (Ser. Nos. 17/119,536; 17/708,958; 17/709,104; 17/709,200; 18/099,798, per the family discussion in the EP4511613A4/US2022/0034652 lineage). Continuations issuing from those applications will extend the enforceable horizon past this patent's 2041-02-17 expiry and can cover the same accused product with different claim language. Track issuances.
• Do not treat the absence of PTAB activity as clearance. It means no one has yet challenged this patent at the Board. Given KLA's operating-company profile and the pace of its filings in this space, the more likely trigger for an IPR is a real competitor dispute maturing into litigation — and the first thing a defendant in that dispute will do is file one.

Sources consulted: Google Patents US11300405B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US11300405B2/en), Justia patent page for 11300405 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/11300405), patents.google.com family/legal-events data for US11300405B2, and the family discussion in EP4511613A4 / US2022/0034652. No USPTO PTAB E2E or CourtListener record was retrieved for this patent because none appears to exist.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11300405 using live sources.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records.

I ran the assignment-side searches against the primary sources and cross-references. Here is the reconstruction.

Inventors

Unusual patterns: none detected. Both inventors were employees of the assignee at filing, and both remain active KLA inventors on later‑filed KLA applications (through at least 2024–2025). There is no "all inventors left within 12 months" signal — that pre‑fire‑sale tell is not present.

Gap: The patent names only two inventors on its face; I did not independently re‑verify inventor residency/employer beyond the assignee‑of‑record and publication data.

Original assignee

KLA Corporation (Milpitas, CA) — named as assignee on the issued patent, on the pre‑grant publication US20220034652A1, and on all foreign family members (WO2022031565A1, EP4154064A4, TWI862860B, CN115943350B, KR102820252B1).

• Primary line of business: semiconductor process control and yield management — defect inspection, metrology (including overlay metrology), and data analytics for wafer fabs.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. The claims are directed to an overlay metrology system (pupil‑plane photodetectors at 0/±1 diffraction overlap, scanning stage, controller computing overlay error). Overlay metrology tools are a core KLA product line (ATL / SpectraShape‑class systems). This is a tool‑implementation patent, not a standards/licensing patent.
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded (Nasdaq: KLAC); formed from the 2019 combination of KLA‑Tencor Corporation and Orbotech; the KLA‑Tencor → KLA Corporation change was a corporate name change, not a divestiture. Not in bankruptcy, not dissolved, not acquired.
• Note: KLA‑Tencor historically recorded inventor assignments under KLA‑TENCOR CORPORATION; the name on this patent is the post‑2019 KLA Corporation.

Assignment timeline

Important caveat on the reel/frame: I could reach the patent's public legal‑events record (which documents the assignment) but could not retrieve the USPTO reel/frame number for this specific patent in this session — Assignment Center / the legacy assignment search did not return a record keyed to US 11,300,405 or application 17/178,089 in the results I could retrieve. I am therefore reporting the one event that is documented, and explicitly marking the reel/frame as unverified rather than inventing one.

• Executed: not stated in available sources (likely on or around the 2020‑08‑03 / 2021‑02‑01 provisional dates or the 2021‑02‑17 non‑provisional filing) / recorded 2021‑06‑18 — Reel not verified (reel/frame not retrievable this session)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest — "see document for details")
  • Assignor: Manassen, Amnon; Hill, Andrew V. (individually, as joint inventors)
  • Assignee: KLA CORPORATION, Milpitas, California
  • Correspondent: Not verified for this record. Recurrence flag: KLA's assignment recordations are routinely filed by Joseph S. Spano, Spano Law Group, 851 Burlway Road, Suite 407, Burlingame, CA 94010 — observed as correspondent/submitter on KLA‑Tencor assignment Reel 043404/Frame 0609 (recorded 2017‑08‑25, app. 15/649,843). Spano Law Group is KLA's outside patent prosecution counsel, not an NPE recording agent, so recurrence here would not be a troll tell.
  • Context: Routine inventor→employer assignment perfecting chain of title for a KLA employee invention. Not an acquisition, not a fire‑sale, not a transfer to an asserter.

Post‑issuance record: No assignments recorded after the inventor→KLA link. No transfer to any LLC, holding company, or licensing vehicle appears in the 2022–2026 period. On the record available to me, KLA Corporation still owns US 11,300,405 outright.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11300405
    2020 : Priority provisional filed
    2021 : Non provisional filed by KLA
         : Inventors assign to KLA Corporation
    2022 : Patent issued
    2026 : Still held by KLA Corporation

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only recorded conveyance is inventor → KLA Corporation (recorded 2021‑06‑18). No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" successor appears; no single‑purpose Delaware/Texas LLC; no registered‑agent service address. Reel/frame for this link unverified.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No Acacia, Marathon Patent Group, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Spangenberg entity appears at any point. The sole assignee is KLA Corporation, an operating semiconductor‑equipment maker that does not appear on RPX/Unified NPE asserter directories.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present (structurally impossible on this chain). A one‑link chain cannot show recurrence. The nearest data point is that KLA uses Joseph S. Spano / Spano Law Group, Burlingame CA as its recurring recording correspondent (seen on KLA‑Tencor Reel 043404/Frame 0609, recorded 2017‑08‑25). Even if Spano filed this recordation, he is operating‑company prosecution counsel, so it is not a repeat‑NPE‑attorney signal. The correspondent on the 2021‑06‑18 entry itself is unverified.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Zero post‑issuance transfers within 24 months of issuance (2022‑04‑12), and indeed none through 2026.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. I found no infringement suit naming US 11,300,405, and there is no assignment timed within 6 months of any suit (there is no assignment at all after June 2021).

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — not present. KLA is solvent and operating; no Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no in‑proceedings patent sale.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company → NPE transfer exists; KLA retained title. No SEC disclosure, Patent Progress, or EFF coverage surfaces this patent.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. (Distinguish from the inverse case: the patent was never transferred to a defensive aggregator; it simply stayed with its operating owner.)

Unclear / un-attributable cross‑reference: A 2021‑02‑26 SEC PRE 14C filing (CIK 933691, accession 0000933691‑21‑000082) surfaced in a vendor index carrying the token "11300405." The filing predates issuance and is not attributed to this patent; I treat it as an index artifact rather than an ownership event, and it does not change any signal above.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain consists of exactly one recorded conveyance — the joint inventors' assignment of interest to KLA Corporation, recorded 2021‑06‑18 — with no subsequent transfer to any entity, and the patent remains with KLA as of 2026. KLA is a large, publicly traded operating company whose commercial overlay metrology tools embody the claimed subject matter, so none of the eight NPE signals is present and the ownership profile is categorically inconsistent with an NPE holding. One caveat: no litigation asserting this particular patent was found, so the "assertion" prong of that label is unverified — the defensible reading is operating‑company ownership, non‑asserting to date.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center search (legacy mirror: assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html); patent record: patents.google.com/patent/US11300405B2.

Honesty flags: the reel/frame number and the correspondent of record for the single assignment were not verifiable in this session — do not treat them as confirmed. Everything else above is grounded in the patent's own legal‑events/publication record or a cited source.

I'll research the prior-art references cited on the face of US 11,300,405. Let me run targeted searches.

I found a citation table. Let me pin down the actual front-page references cited in US 11,300,405 itself, distinct from references that cite it.

Let me retrieve the front-page "(56) References Cited" list for US 11,300,405 directly.

Prior-art analysis — US 11,300,405 B2

Retrieval note and its limits (read first). I ran this against live sources keyed to the exact number 11300405 / US11300405B2 (Google Patents record for the '405 patent, its PDF, and the citation tables on related KLA metrology pages). I did not obtain the literal front-page "(56) References Cited" block of the grant PDF; my queries for that block returned the (56) blocks of other patents (US10823818, US10327767, US9815027, WO2014190335A1, etc.), which are false positives and are excluded. I also exhausted my search-step budget before I could re-query. Consequently, the document list below is grounded in the Google Patents citation table associated with the US 11,300,405 record, which I flag as attributed but not independently re-verified against the USPTO print. Where a title was truncated in the source, I say so rather than guess. Verifying against USPTO Patent Public Search (patft/PPUBS) and the PatentCenter "References Cited" tab is the one step that closes this gap.

A. Patent documents cited of record (9 documents)

All nine pre-date the '405 patent's effective filing date (priority 2020-08-03; non-provisional filed 2021-02-17), so each is facially available as prior art under AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) (published before the effective filing date) and/or § 102(a)(2) (effectively filed before it, published later).

Single closest cited item on the face of the disclosure itself: US 2009/0262362 A1, Interferometer for overlay measurements — the '405 Google Patents record surfaces this publication as citing/being associated with the '405 disclosure. An interferometric overlay-measurement instrument is the nearest cited-art analogue to the '405's "time-varying interference signals" concept. Title and dates only; the text was not retrieved, so no § 102 mapping is asserted.

B. References the specification itself incorporates by reference (arguably the most material prior art)

These are not just citations — the applicant affirmatively directs the reader to them, which makes them the strongest § 103 springboards (see the earlier Strategic Summary's estoppel point):

C. Bottom-line § 102 assessment

1. No cited reference, on its face, anticipates independent claim 1. Claim 1's novelty anchor is the combination of (i) continuous translation of the sample along a stage-scan direction and (ii) two pupil-plane photodetectors placed at the 0/+1 and 0/−1 overlap regions producing time-varying interference signals from which the controller derives overlay. The cited set splits cleanly: the KLA overlay/scatterometry documents (US 11,073,768; US 10,401,738; US 11,118,903; US 7,808,638; US 2019/0004439) supply the target, illumination and pupil-plane analysis elements for static measurements; US 2007/0146693 supplies high-speed multi-channel capture; US 6,710,876 supplies optical-phase measurement. None of the retrieved documents was shown to disclose the scan-induced oscillating interference signal at the 0/±1 pupil overlap as the overlay-metric source.
2. The "scanning + time-varying signal" pairing is where a § 102 case would have to land, and none of the nine cited documents, as titled/dated, supplies it. That is consistent with why the examiner granted the claims — but it also means the cited art is best deployed under § 103, led by the applicant's own admission that US 2019/0004439 taught the static pupil-plane overlap analysis.
3. Dependent-claim exposure is higher than independent-claim exposure. Claims drawn to multi-channel/dual-beam architectures (cl. 5, 16), polarization and wavelength multiplexing (cl. 7, 8), fast/phase-locked detection (cl. 6), elongated-illumination spot (cl. 14), and cell-distribution geometries (cl. 10, 11) each have a plausible single-reference or two-reference § 102/§ 103 counterpart in the list above (items 2, 6, 7 and 9 in particular).
4. Two of the nine cited documents (items 4 and 8) I could not characterize, and the "(56)" block itself was not retrieved verbatim. Do not treat the mapping above as complete or as an anticipation opinion.

D. Verification steps I recommend (to close the gaps I could not)

• Pull the grant PDF front page directly at https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c3/76/17/31e31c53efe208/US11300405.pdf and read the literal "(56) References Cited" columns — this confirms the nine items and adds/removes any I mis-attributed.
• Cross-check in USPTO Patent Public Search (PPUBS) → "Referenced By / References Cited", and in PatentCenter → References Cited, for the authoritative examiner-cited list and any Non-Patent Literature (none were retrieved here).
• Retrieve the full texts of US 7,782,452 B2, US 10,782,616 B2, US 11,162,897 B2 and US 2009/0262362 A1 before asserting any § 102 position on them — I have titles/dates only for three of these, and no text for any.
• For the § 103 storyline, start from US 2019/0004439 A1 (expressly incorporated) combined with the scanning-target art (US 11,073,768 / Ser. No. 16/598,146).

Honesty flags: (i) the citation list is attributed to the '405 record from Google Patents but was not confirmed against the USPTO print; (ii) two titles and two descriptions are marked unverified and must not be relied on; (iii) I have asserted no anticipation, only relevance ranges, because I did not read the full texts of the references — under § 102 that limitation is dispositive.

I'll ground this in the actual prior-art record for this patent before analyzing. Let me pull the cited references.

Good haul. Let me firm up the two most important secondary references before analyzing.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,300,405 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Analyst note on method and limitations. This is a paper validity analysis, not a litigation opinion. Two constraints carry through:

1. I am working from the prior-art record surfaced for this patent family (Google Patents citation/citing tables, the ISR citations in sibling KLA family members, and the references the patent itself names), plus the reference texts I could fetch. Where I did not verify a reference's disclosure directly, I say so.
2. The granted claim text was not fully displayed in the sources I could reach; the element mapping below uses the independent-claim language reconstructed in the earlier summary (from the Summary section and parallel publication US 2022/0034652 A1). Claim numbering and substance are high-confidence; exact wording should be confirmed against the USPTO grant copy.

1. The legal frame

The application's effective filing date is 2020-08-03 (provisional 63/060,576), so AIA § 102/103 governs. The controlling standard is KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a claimed combination is obvious where the elements were known, the combination does no more than yield predictable results, and there was an articulated reason (design incentive, market force, "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way," or "obvious to try") to make it. Notably, § 103 is not limited to the specific problem the inventor set out to solve.

Critically, none of the references below is excepted by common ownership. Section 102(b)(2)(C)'s common-ownership carve-out applies only to § 102(a)(2) art. Every reference I rely on is a § 102(a)(1) printed publication or issued patent published more than one year before the 2020-08-03 critical date, so KLA's ownership of them is legally irrelevant to their prior-art status.

2. The patent's own admissions do most of the work

This is the single most important observation for a § 103 analysis, and it is unusual in how explicit it is. US 11,300,405's specification repeatedly characterizes the claimed subject matter as adapting known static-sample techniques to a scanning regime, which is the textbook KSR "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way" fact pattern:

Under KSR and Southwire v. Cerro Wire, a specification that recites a benefit as flowing from known techniques, or as also applicable to pre-existing architectures, is powerful evidence that the limitation is not inventive.

3. The prior-art landscape

Not prior art (flagging to prevent error): U.S. Ser. No. 17/140,999 (filed 2021‑01‑04) and U.S. Ser. No. 17/142,783 (filed 2021‑01‑06), both named/incorporated in the '405, were filed after the 2020‑08‑03 effective filing date and therefore have no § 102(a)(2) reach; on their face they also share inventors/assignee. They are useful for claim-construction context but cannot be used in a § 103 rejection.

4. Ground 1 — Claim 1 (primary ground): REF‑1 in view of REF‑2

Statutory basis: § 103 over REF‑1 + REF‑2. (REF‑3, REF‑4 as secondary.)

Why a POSITA would combine. The combination is not a hindsight reconstruction; it is the stated program of the patent itself. The '405's Background identifies stage settle time as the throughput bottleneck and asks for a cure. REF‑2 is a same-field (±1 order overlay metrology) reference that already teaches taking the overlay measurement while the target moves relative to the illumination spot, and does so for an expressly stated reason (compensating stage position error per-measurement rather than by wafer-level calibration). REF‑1 supplies the complete grating-over-grating physics, the 0-order-as-common-reference architecture, and the recognition that overlay manifests as an asymmetry between the +1 and −1 orders. Combining them yields nothing more than each reference's own expected result: overlay measured continuously rather than after a settle. That is the KSR "predictable results" case.

Substitution of camera-with-two-photodetectors. Replacing REF‑1's 2D pupil image capture with two fixed detector positions at the 0/+1 and 0/−1 overlap regions is (a) taught by REF‑3 ("a plurality of detector elements each arranged to detect one of the plurality of measured optical signals"), (b) enabled by REF‑4's deliberate 0/first-order overlap geometry, and (c) admitted by the '405 to be beneficial ("the non-imaging configuration enables the use of fast photodetectors suitable for fast scan speeds"). Substitution of a known element to obtain a predictable advantage is squarely obvious. MPEP 2144.04.

Anticipation caveat. REF‑2 alone comes uncomfortably close to claim 1: illumination sub-system + stage-scanned target + pupil-plane ±1st-order detection + overlay determined from the position-dependent signals. The likely distinguishing features are (i) REF‑2's dark-field modes block the 0 order, and (ii) the claimed overlap location of the two photodetectors. If the assignee's construction of "location of overlap between 0-order diffraction … and +1-order diffraction" is broad, a § 102 argument over REF‑2 warrants separate development. I flag it as arguable, not concluded.

5. Ground 2 — Claim 1 (alternative): REF‑3 + REF‑4 + REF‑2

If REF‑1 is somehow disqualified (e.g., an inventorship or incorporation-by-reference argument), the same claim falls to REF‑3 + REF‑4 + REF‑2: REF‑3 supplies grating-over-grating SCOL with discrete pupil-plane detectors and a phase-based overlay algorithm; REF‑4 supplies the deliberate 0/first-order overlap interference geometry; REF‑2 supplies the scan-while-measuring step. All three are same-field, and REF‑3 and REF‑4 are same-assignee KLA references, which cuts against any "the combination was not accessible" argument (a POSITA in semiconductor overlay metrology would routinely consult the incumbent vendor's own patent literature).

6. Ground 3 — Claim 5 (dual-beam, 2D, diagonal geometry)

Additional elements and their support:

• Two illumination channels on different cells within one field of view: REF‑6 (multiple/pairs of illumination beams, simultaneous application, apodization to separate their diffraction images); REF‑5 (varying illumination parameters); and the '405's own admission that simultaneous multi-cell illumination is beneficial even for static targets.
• First cells periodic along X and second cells periodic along Y in one target: REF‑1's four-cell X1/X2/Y1/Y2 targets; REF‑3's first/second structures with predefined offsets. A four-cell X+Y SCOL target is elementary in this art.
• Two detection channels (each with a 0/+1 and 0/−1 detector pair): REF‑3's multiple discrete pupil detectors; beamsplitter-based channel duplication is routine optical engineering and is the '405's own FIG. 1B architecture.
• Stage-scan direction angled (diagonal) to both X and Y: this is the one element with the least direct antecedent in the references I verified. REF‑2 disjointly teaches that a scan traverses a target containing multiple gratings, and REF‑7 (KLA's scanning-metrology target work) is directed to exactly this problem — but REF‑7 is not clean art. Caveat: the diagonal-cell-geometry limitation is the strongest candidate for a non-obviousness argument on claim 5, and it is also where a petitioner would most want art I have not seen.
• Controller determines overlay in both directions: REF‑1 (X and Y cells in a common target), REF‑3.

Motivation: 2D overlay from a single scan is a pure throughput/efficiency objective — the same objective the patent's Background adopts as its own. Obtaining two known measurements from one pass is a predictable, design-incentive-driven combination.

7. Ground 4 — Claim 12 (scan mirror; beam-scan orthogonal to stage-scan)

Claim 12's inventive core — a scan mirror sweeping the beam along a beam-scan direction orthogonal to the stage-scan direction, with the measurement direction corresponding to either the beam-scan or the stage-scan direction — is directly addressed by REF‑2, which teaches both alternatives side by side: "FIGS. 15a and 15b respectively illustrate scanning an illumination spot across a target and conversely scanning a target across an illumination spot," and its FIG. 13 flow measures while "scanning in x-direction fully through the illumination spot." A galvanometer/piezo/MEMS tip-tilt mirror for beam scanning is ubiquitous in wafer inspection and overlay tools, and the '405 itself lists these as "any technique known in the art" and describes placing the deflector at a pupil plane common to illumination and collection (a known pupil-plane scanner). The objective lens, the two overlap photodetectors, and the controller are supplied by Ground 1.

Ground: REF‑2 (+REF‑1, REF‑3, REF‑4) anticipates or renders obvious claim 12; the orthogonal beam-scan/stage-scan pairing is disclosed in the alternative in REF‑2.

8. Ground 5 — Claim 16 (dual beam + beam scanners)

Claim 16 is the union of the claim‑5 and claim‑12 architectures. Where a claim recites a combination of references each of which provides its own known function, and the combination produces no more than the sum of expected benefits, the claim is obvious. KSR; MPEP 2144.04. The motivation is again throughput: one scan, two directions, continuous motion.

9. Ground chart — dependent claims

10. Consolidated motivation-to-combine statement

For any rejection built on the above, the KSR-compliant rationale is:

1. Problem recognized in the art. The '405's own Background states that translation-stage settle time in move-and-measure operation degrades throughput.
2. Known technique applied to improve similar devices in the same way. REF‑2 already takes ±1-order overlay measurements at fixed pupil locations as a function of target position while the target scans through the spot — in the same technical field, solving the same class of accuracy/throughput problem.
3. Predictable result. The combination yields overlay from a continuously scanned target instead of a static target — no new physical principle, no unexpected property.
4. Design incentive / market force. Overlay sampling density is a direct lever on fab yield and cost-of-ownership; increasing measurements per unit time is an articulated and obvious objective.
5. Known substitutions. 2D camera → two fixed fast photodetectors (REF‑3's multi-detector pupil readout; '405's own admission that the non-imaging configuration is what enables fast detectors); single beam → dual beams (REF‑6; '405's own admission); stage scan → beam scan (REF‑2, FIGS. 15a/15b).
6. Crowded, mature art. The citation record for this family is a dense KLA/ASML SCOL thicket spanning 2004–2020 (REF‑1 through REF‑8). In a crowded art, the KSR "obvious to try" and "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" rationales carry more weight.

11. Anticipated non-obviousness arguments, and why they likely fail

Possible § 112/claim-scope companion issues (not § 103, but relevant to validity posture): "location of overlap between 0-order diffraction … and +1-order diffraction" and "time-varying interference signals" are functional, system-architecture limitations. There is no Phillips-stage construction of them, and for a first petitioner they are attractive institution-stage construction targets.

12. Graham factors / secondary considerations

I found no evidence of any objective indicia: no unexpected results data, no commercial-success or long-felt-need showing, no failure-of-others narrative, no licensing or copying evidence, and no litigation record to mine for an admission (the earlier sections found no suit and no PTAB proceeding on this patent). In the absence of such evidence, the KSR analysis above stands unrebutted. If the assignee were to assert this patent, the nexus question for any commercial-success argument would be sharp, because the accused-tool features would likely trace to the broader scanning-SCOL platform rather than to the specific two-detector architecture.

13. Confidence, gaps, and what to verify

High confidence:

• Claim 1 and claim 12 are vulnerable under § 103 over REF‑1 + REF‑2 (+REF‑3, REF‑4). The motivating problem is stated in the patent; the scan-while-measuring step is verbatim in REF‑2; the grating-over-grating and +/−order-asymmetry physics is verbatim in REF‑1, which the patent itself incorporates.
• The dependent claims directed to PLL extraction (6), orthogonal polarizations (7), coherent illumination (9, 15) and elongated-spot noise averaging (14) are strongly obvious, largely on the strength of the specification's own "known in the art" language plus REF‑3/REF‑4/REF‑6.
• All references relied upon are § 102(a)(1) publications, so the common-ownership exception does not apply.

Moderate / needs verification:

• The exact granted claim text (I worked from the Summary section and the parallel publication).
• Whether REF‑2's pupil-plane flow is practiced with a dark-field configuration in the specific embodiment a rejection would cite — this determines whether claim 1's 0-order overlap is a genuine distinction or merely a design choice.
• REF‑5 (WO 2020/106335 A1) and the four ISR-cited references (REF‑8) — contents not fetched.

Weak spots in the grounds:

• Claim 5's diagonal cell orientation (scan direction angled to both X and Y) has the thinnest direct antecedent in the references I verified. This is where a targeted prior-art search (KLA/ASML diagonal or "rotated" SCOL target literature, 2018–2020) is most likely to change the analysis — and I could not complete that search.
• Claim 16 is a combination claim; its vulnerability depends on claim 5's, so the diagonal-limitation gap propagates.

Explicitly flagged uncertainties (no fabrication): I did not directly verify the contents of US 9,851,300 B1, US 2017/255738 A1, US 2015/036142 A1, US 2017/060001 A1, US 2013/0044331 A1, or WO 2020/106335 A1; I list them only as references surfaced in the ISR/citation record of related KLA family members. US 11,073,768 B2's exact relationship to U.S. Ser. No. 16/598,146 (named in the '405) is plausible but not confirmed, and its prior-art status is clouded by common ownership. U.S. Ser. Nos. 17/140,999 and 17/142,783 are not prior art despite being cited in the patent.

Whether § 103 or § 102 is the right vehicle for claim 1 is genuinely arguable — REF‑2 with REF‑4 may anticipate if "overlap" is construed narrowly enough to be satisfied by the 0/first-order interference geometry. I would plead § 103 as the primary ground and § 102 as a fallback, not the reverse.