US 11402471

I'll search for this specific patent number and check for any litigation activity.

Patent Analysis Report — US 11,402,471 B2

Scope note: All patent bibliographic and claim data below is taken from the authoritative full text you supplied (Google Patents rendering of US11402471B2, fetched 2026-09-24), supplemented by live searches. The number is interpreted literally as 11402471 / US 11,402,471 B2; no similar-number substitution has been made.

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1. Bibliographic Data

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402471B2/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US20190361123A1/en ; https://www.patentleaderboard.com/patent/11402471 ; https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_11402471_TOF_range_finder-GZD85AV

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2. Abstract (verbatim, as provided)

"The present invention provides a TOF range finder. A TOF range finder 1 includes a light source 2, which emits modulated emitting light La, a light source control unit 51, which drives the light source 2, an image sensor 10, which detects modulated reflected light, and a distance calculating unit 53, which calculates the distance to a distance measurement object 7 based on the phase difference between emitting light La and reflected light. The modulated light is generated in the form of a periodic waveform which contains an only odd multiple wave frequency component and at least one even multiple wave frequency component."

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3. Technical Gist

Indirect (phase-based) TOF range finding. The invention is a waveform-shaping invention: the inventors analyzed the intensity waveform of the emitted modulated light and concluded that the half-wave rectified waveform of a sinusoid is optimal because it simultaneously (a) maximizes received/reflected-light incident intensity for a given emission power budget, and (b) preserves a linear relationship between tan⁻¹{S(sin)/S(cos)} and the phase difference Δφ (i.e., a circular, rather than square, locus in the S(cos)/S(sin) "reflected light luminance graph"). Because a true half-wave rectified wave has two discontinuous tangent points per period that real LEDs/lasers cannot reproduce, the spec defines a "model waveform" D(t) with the discontinuous corners replaced by continuously-tangent segments (FIGS. 18–19; C(t) defined at expressions 6.1/6.2). Background art is JP 2017-173158 (Stanley Electric), which uses rectangular pulses of half-period width.

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4. Plain-Language Overview of Each Independent Claim

Claim 1 — Narrow independent claim (LED/laser + specific D(t) waveform)

A TOF range finder comprising four elements, with two additional limitations:

1. Light source emitting modulated light toward objects in an imaging range, where the modulated light's intensity exhibits a periodic waveform based on a half-wave rectified waveform;
2. Image sensor with multiple pixels, each detecting incident intensity of light from the imaging range;
3. Phase difference detecting unit that detects the phase difference between emitted modulated light and reflected modulated light (light that bounced off the object and entered a pixel), based on the quantity of charges stored in the image sensor;
4. Distance calculating unit that computes object distance from the per-pixel phase difference.

Wherein clauses:

• "the light source is an LED or a laser light source"; and
• "the periodic waveform is a waveform corresponding to D(t) given below":

D(t) = (A/2)·(√2 + sin(t) − cos(t))    for 0     ≤ t < π/4
     =  A·sin(t)                        for π/4   ≤ t < 3π/4
     = (A/2)·(√2 + sin(t) + cos(t))     for 3π/4  ≤ t < π
     = (A/2)·(√2 + sin(t) + cos(t))     for π     ≤ t < 5π/4
     =  0                               for 5π/4  ≤ t < 7π/4
     = (A/2)·(√2 + sin(t) − cos(t))     for 7π/4  ≤ t < 2π

where A is a constant and t is a phase angle.

In plain terms: an LED- or laser-based indirect TOF ranging camera whose transmitter is driven with one very specifically defined, closed-form, corner-smoothed half-wave-rectified drive waveform (the "model waveform"), with the receiver measuring charge at two integration taps and converting the phase difference into distance. This is the narrowest of the two independent claims — note that the OCR rendering in the source shows "A2(2+sin(t)…)", where the "2" is a lost square-root radical (confirmed by the parallel C(t) definition using "√(2)" and by the printed publication text).

Claim 5 — Broader independent claim ("model waveform" genus)

A TOF range finder with the same four structural elements (1)–(4) as claim 1, but with no LED/laser limitation and no closed-form D(t) limitation. The sole characterizing clause is:

"wherein the periodic waveform is a waveform in which a waveform part that contains a discontinuous point of a tangent in the half-wave rectified waveform has been replaced by a waveform part in which the tangent continuously changes."

In plain terms: this claim broadens claim 1 by claiming the class of corner-rounded half-wave-rectified modulation waveforms rather than one equation — i.e., any smoothed half-wave-rectified drive waveform the hardware can actually produce. Practically, claim 5 will be the more assertable claim, but it is also the more exposed to §103 arguments (e.g., routine smoothing/filtering of a rectified pulse).

Dependent Claims (brief)

• Claim 2 (dep. 1): the periodic waveform is one where the discontinuous-tangent part of the half-wave rectified waveform is replaced by a continuously-changing-tangent part.
• Claim 3 (dep. 1): each pixel has two photodetectors plus integration elements integrating their outputs, the outputs differing by 90 degrees in phase; phase difference detected per pixel from the integration amounts.
• Claim 4 (dep. 3): two integration elements integrating the photodetector output during one half and the other half of the period; phase difference from the difference between the two integration amounts (this is the background-light-rejecting S0−S180 / S90−S270 architecture).
• Claim 6 (dep. 5): same subject matter as claim 3, but appended to the broader independent claim 5.
• Claim 7 (dep. 6): same subject matter as claim 4, appended to claim 6.

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5. Prosecution and Prior Art

• Cited prior art of record includes JP 2003-177077 A (Matsushita), DE 10 2016 106511 A1 / US 9,900,581 B2 (Infineon), US 2017/0115393 A1 (Denso), WO 2017/138033 A1 / US 2019/0056482 A1 (Denso), US 2017/0242124 A1 (Topcon), JP 2017-173158 A (Stanley Electric — the background reference), and US 2017/0276789 A1 / US 10,101,452 B2 (Stanley Electric).
• Non-patent citation: Extended European Search Report dated Oct. 25, 2019 in EP 19174773.2 (the EP counterpart, which Google Patents reports as withdrawn/not active).
• Prosecution timeline: docketed 2019-07-16 → non-final action mailed 2021-12-13 → response entered 2022-02-19 → notice of allowance 2022-04-20 → issue fee 2022-06-22 → granted 2022-07-13/2022-08-02.
• A maintenance-fee reminder was mailed 2026-03-23 (large-entity 3.5-year window), consistent with the patent remaining in force.

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6. Litigation / CAFC 2026 Docket Search — No Activity Found

I searched for this patent number in the context of US district court litigation, PTAB/IPR proceedings, and CAFC appeals.

Result: I found no evidence of any litigation, IPR/PGR, or CAFC appeal involving US 11,402,471. Specifically:

• No Google Patents litigation flag, no Docket Alarm / Unified Patents / DrugPatentWatch entry, and no CAFC 2026 docket reference for this patent appeared in results.
• The web_search results that matched the digit string "11402471" were false positives that I did not auto-correct into patent hits: (i) a UK Companies House entry in a London Gazette PDF ("HONITON SPV LIMITED 11402471"), and (ii) US application serial 11/402,471 (US 2006/0282059 A1, "Sanitary Napkin," Unicharm/Fujitsu). Neither is US 11,402,471.
• A Stanley Electric "TOF range finder" litigation search returned nothing tying Stanley Electric to this patent.

Uncertainty statement: My search tools query the open web, not PACER, Docket Alarm's full docket set, or the CAFC's own docket system directly. I therefore cannot affirmatively certify the absence of a 2026 CAFC appeal or a recently filed district-court suit; I can only report that no such activity is discoverable in the sources available to me. If a docket-level negative is required, it should be confirmed against PACER/PTAB API and the CAFC docket directly.

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7. Observations / Discrepancies Worth Flagging

1. Abstract/summary vs. granted claims mismatch. The abstract and the "Summary of Invention" describe three independent aspects — including one reciting "a fundamental wave and at least one even multiple wave which is larger than ⅓ but smaller than 1, as compared with the magnitude of the fundamental wave." However, the granted claim set contains only two independent claims (1 and 5), neither of which recites that fundamental-plus-even-multiple-wave limitation; both are directed to the half-wave-rectified/"model waveform" family. That "fundamental + even multiple wave" subject matter survives only in the written description. (The pre-grant publication US 2019/0361123 A1 did present the odd/even-multiple-wave aspect as an independent claim, per the published text at patents-justia and patents-review.)
2. Assignee attribution noise in third-party databases. Patent Leaderboard lists Tetsuo Miyazaki under both "9 patents at Tdk" and as inventor on this Stanley Electric patent (patentleaderboard.com/tdk/tetsuo-miyazaki/1125050). The authoritative assignment record in the patent itself names Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. as original and current assignee; the "TDK" attribution in that aggregator appears to be a database artifact restricted to a different Miyazaki/portfolio slice and should not be relied upon.
3. PRC/OCR artifact. In the Google Patents rendering, the constant "√2" inside D(t) is displayed as a bare "2." Reading the expression literally as printed would make it mathematically inconsistent with the separately printed C(t) = √(2) − |cos(t)| at expression (6.1). I have rendered it as √2 accordingly and flag this rather than silently correcting it.
4. EP counterpart is withdrawn (EP 3572831 A1), so the enforceable scope appears to rest on the US grant and the JP application JP 2019-203741 A.

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Bottom line: US 11,402,471 B2 is a Stanley Electric (Japan) patent to Tetsuo Miyazaki, filed 2019-05-09, granted 2022-08-02, active through an adjusted expiration of 2041-01-07. Its two independent claims cover indirect-TOF ranging hardware driven by a corner-smoothed half-wave-rectified ("model") emission waveform — claim 1 with an LED/laser and a specific closed-form D(t), claim 5 as the broader smoothed-rectified genus. No litigation or CAFC activity for this patent was discoverable, subject to the tooling limitation noted above.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11402471.

Let me check litigation-specific sources.

Result: No litigation found involving US Patent 11,402,471

I searched for litigation, infringement suits, declaratory judgment actions, CAFC appeals, and PTAB/PACER-type records specifically tied to US 11,402,471 ("TOF range finder," Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., inventor Tetsuo Miyazaki). No lawsuit, ITC investigation, or other litigation naming this patent was identified.

Because you asked for a structured listing, here is the requested table filled in with the null result:

What I checked and what I found

• General litigation searches for 11402471 + litigation / lawsuit / infringement / complaint returned only patent-data aggregator pages (Google Patents, Patent Leaderboard, Golden wiki) — no docket entries, complaints, or case captions.
• Google Patents record for US11402471B2 shows no "Litigation" section, and no PTAB (IPR/PGR) challenge is listed in its family/proceedings data — only 6 cited references, 8 family-citing documents, and standard legal events (assignment to Stanley Electric, allowance, grant, maintenance-fee reminder).
• Unified Patents / other litigation portals surfaced nothing for this number.
• Assignee-side searches (Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. TOF/lidar patent litigation) returned only prosecution/publication documents, no enforcement actions.

Important disambiguation (per your strict-interpretation rule)

One search hit that appeared related is not this patent and should not be treated as such:

• Application Number 11402471 on Unified Patents → US-20060282059-A1, "Sanitary Napkin," Fujikawa et al., priority 2005-06-10, Unicharm Corp. / Fujitsu Ltd. This is an 8-digit US application serial number, not the 8-digit patent number 11,402,471. It is a different identifier type in a different technology area (Class A / sanitary napkins) and is unrelated to the Stanley Electric TOF range finder.

Likewise, results citing patents such as 11,402,715 or 11,402,940, or other 11,4xx,xxx numbers, were excluded.

Context on the patent (grounding, no litigation implications)

• Patent: US 11,402,471 B2; filed 2019-05-09 (App. No. 16/408,300); granted 2022-08-02; priority to JP 2018-097796 (2018-05-22); assignee Stanley Electric Co., Ltd.
• Family: US 2019/0361123 A1; EP 3572831 A1 (status: not active / withdrawn); JP 2019-203741 A (pending).
• Claims: 7 total — independent claims 1 and 5 (claim 1 recites an LED or laser light source plus the specific D(t) piecewise periodic waveform; claim 5 recites a half-wave-rectified waveform in which discontinuous-tangent portions are replaced by continuously-changing-tangent portions); claims 3, 4, 6, 7 are pixel/dual-integration-element dependent claims.
• Note: EP 3572831 A1 being withdrawn is a prosecution/administrative fact about the European counterpart, not litigation.

Caveat

My search was limited to publicly indexed web sources available to me as of this session. A negative result here does not prove that no litigation exists — district court dockets (PACER), ITC Section 337 investigations, and recently filed complaints can lag public indexing, and a case filed under a parent/related patent or an unindexed docket would not appear. If you need a definitive clearance, a PACER/Docket Navigator/Patexia docket search on the exact patent number and on the assignee name is the appropriate next step. I cannot confirm from high-confidence data that this patent has ever been asserted.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" default with targeted searches before reporting.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 11,402,471: zero. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent as of the most recent ingest — a breakdown of 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to lean on. The patent's claims 1–7 all stand untested at the Board, so this is the opposite of the "the troll's claims are already canceled" posture — nothing has been cleared, and no estoppel has been generated by anyone. Conversely, the patent also carries no adverse PTAB precedent against a would-be petitioner, and nothing here suggests the claims have been hardened by surviving an attack.

No proceedings to itemize

No proceeding number can be reported, because none exists. I checked this rather than assuming it, and I am expressly declining to invent or infer a docket number:

• Google Patents' record for US 11,402,471 lists no PTAB proceeding in its "Litigation"/related-matters fields; only the published family members appear (US20190361123A1, EP3572831A1, JP2019203741A).
• Keyword searches pairing the patent number with "IPR," "PTAB petition," and "inter partes review" returned no petition, institution decision, or FWD for this patent. The only "Stanley Electric + IPR" hits in the results are from 2015 — Innovative Display Technologies cases (IPR2015-00574/-00575 on U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,508,563 and 6,886,956), in which Stanley Electric was the petitioner, not the owner. That is a different patent, a different party posture, and a decade off.
• No district court complaint asserting this patent surfaced either, which is consistent with the absence of an IPR — patents typically attract IPRs after, and because of, assertion.

Caveat, stated plainly: an absence in search results is not affirmative proof of absence. PTAB E2E and the ODP trial-proceeding API are the authoritative sources, and I cannot query them directly here. If a recently filed petition (e.g., filed within the last few months) has not yet been indexed by the ODP ingest, it would not appear in either the structured block or these searches. Nothing I found suggests one exists.

Strategic summary

Claim status: Claims 1–7 are all UNTESTED at the PTAB — none canceled, none sustained, none narrowed. The claim set as granted is: claim 1 (independent, half-wave-rectified periodic waveform plus the specific D(t) model waveform, limited to an LED or laser light source); claim 2 (dependent — replacement of the discontinuous-tangent waveform part); claim 3 (dependent — two photodetectors with 90°-offset integration elements); claim 4 (dependent — two integration elements per photodetector, first/second half-period integration, difference-based phase detection); claim 5 (independent — half-wave rectified waveform with continuous-tangent replacement, no light-source-type limitation); claims 6–7 (dependent, mirroring claims 3–4). The two independent claims are structurally distinct in a way that matters defensively: claim 1 is tied to the D(t) closed-form model waveform and an LED/laser source, while claim 5 is broader on its face as to the light source but requires the continuous-tangent substitution. A defendant should map both — invalidating or designing around claim 1 does not necessarily dispose of claim 5.

Estoppel landscape: There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, because there has been no IPR. Any defendant is free to raise any § 102/§ 103 ground in district court, and equally free to file the first IPR. There is also no § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint on any party yet — the clock only starts on service, so the timing decision on a petition is still fully open. Note the practical overlay: with the 2025 USPTO procedural tightening described in the search results (Director-level institution control, mandatory stipulations on parallel § 102/§ 103 defenses, discretionary "settled expectations" denials keyed to patent age), a 2018-priority/2019-filed patent is squarely in the category where discretionary-denial risk is now elevated if there is parallel litigation. File early if you file at all.

Pattern signals: No repeat petitioner (no petitioner at all), no PTAB appeal history for this patent, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain. The patent owner is an operating company — Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., a large-entity Japanese automotive lighting supplier — not an NPE, and it is not, on this record, an aggressive PTAB litigant with respect to this family. The inventor of record is Tetsuo Miyazaki, who was the assignor under the 2019-05-09 assignment recording (REEL/FRAME 049134/0009, effective 2019-03-27). The asserted prior art of record in the prosecution file is thin and mostly Japanese: JP2003177077A (Matsushita), DE102016106511A1 / US9900581B2 (Infineon), US20170115393A1 and WO2017138033A1 / US20190056482A1 (Denso), US20170242124A1 (Topcon), and the applicant's own JP2017173158A / US20170276789A1 / US10101452B2 (Stanley). Those are useful starting points for a § 102/§ 103 mapping, since they were examined and the applicant distinguished over them — but they are prosecution-file art, not an IPR record.

Recommended next steps

• No PTAB activity exists — say so in your invalidity contentions and do not overstate. There is no FWD to cite, no canceled claim to point to, and no cancellation certificate. If a demand letter cites claims 1–7, every one of those claims is live and enforceable today. Do not tell a client "the PTAB killed this" — it didn't.
• Run a direct PTAB E2E / ODP verification on patent number 11,402,471 before you rely on this memo in a filing, to confirm no petition has been indexed since the last ODP ingest. The structured block says zero; confirm it independently given the indexing-lag risk I flagged above.
• If you are contemplating an IPR, do it before any § 315(b) clock runs, and sequence it against parallel litigation deliberately given the current discretionary-denial posture for older patents. The claim-1 D(t) closed-form limitation and the claim-5 "continuous tangent" substitution are the natural validity pressure points; the half-wave-rectified-waveform concept itself is arguably old in the TOF literature, which is where your § 103 combination should be aimed.
• If you are defending a 35 U.S.C. § 101 or § 112 theory instead, note there is no PTAB ruling either way on those, and IPR would not reach § 101 or § 112 (PGR would, but the PGR window closed nine months after issuance — 2022-08-02 + 9 months).

Sources consulted: Google Patents — US11402471B2 (family, citations, litigation fields); Justia — US20190361123A1; and searches of PTAB petition materials, which returned only the unrelated 2015 Innovative Display Technologies proceedings (e.g., IPR2015-00574 patent owner preliminary response).

I'll verify the assignment record against live sources before finalizing.

Let me check for litigation/assertion activity and the assignee's current corporate status.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 11,402,471 B2 ("TOF range finder")

Verification note: The findings below are grounded in the Google Patents legal‑events record for US11402471B2 (fetched 2026‑09‑24), which mirrors the USPTO Assignment Center reel/frame entries. I was not able to load a post‑issuance assignment record for this patent, and no such record appears in the legal‑events feed. Treat the reel/frame below as the complete recorded chain.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Single-inventor application — no co-inventor fragmentation, no evidence of joint-development or university/government rights.
• No inventor-departure signal is determinable. There is no recorded reassignment by the inventor after the original employer assignment, and no secondary evidence (e.g., a later patent filed by Miyazaki at a different company) in the sources consulted. A routine employee-inventor → employer assignment is the only plausible reading; I found no evidence of a 12‑month pre‑fire‑sale departure pattern.

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Original assignee

Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. (2‑9‑13 Nakameguro, Meguro‑ku, Tokyo 153‑8636, JP) — named as assignee on the issued patent and the sole recorded owner.

• Primary line of business: automotive lighting and electronic components. Three reported segments: Automotive Equipment (headlamps, rear combination lamps, LED lamps), Components (phototransistors, photodiodes, reflective/sensor modules), and Electronic Applied Products. It is also a supplier of infrared VCSEL/LED and LiDAR emitter modules — i.e., the exact component class the '471 patent's modulated-light source belongs to (source: stockanalysis.com/quote/tyo/6923/company, jpx-explorer.com/en-US/6923-TSE).
• Does it ship products embodying the claims? Yes, plausibly. Stanley is an operating manufacturer (≈18,200 employees, ≈¥514B TTM revenue) selling TOF-adjacent emitter and sensor modules. It is not a licensing vehicle.
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded — Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE:6923); OTC tickers STAEF / STAE.F. Founded 1920, listed since Jan 1992. No bankruptcy, no acquisition, no dissolution. As of the most recent data, the company announced an acquisition of Iwasaki Electric (Jan 2026), i.e., it is an acquirer, not a target (source: markets.ft.markitdigital.com tearsheet; stockanalysis.com).
• Litigation posture (context, not this patent): Stanley appears in the U.S. docket as a defendant, not an asserter — e.g., it was a third-party defendant in Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Hyundai (E.D. Tex., No. 2:14‑cv‑201) and co-petitioner with Koito in IPR2015‑00574 / ‑00575 challenging Innovative Display Technologies' patents. That is the inverse of the NPE profile.

Family note: the EP counterpart EP3572831A1 is recorded by Google Patents as "not_active – Withdrawn"; the Extended European Search Report was issued 2019‑10‑25. Only the US member of the family was carried to grant.

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Assignment timeline

Exactly one recorded assignment exists in the chain. Chronological list:

• 2019-03-27 (executed) / recorded 2019-05-09 — Reel 049134 / Frame 0009
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Miyazaki, Tetsuo (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. (Japan)
  • Correspondent of record: Not retrievable from the sources used. The Google Patents legal-events entry ("REEL/FRAME: 049134/0009") does not expose the recording correspondent, and assignmentcenter.uspto.gov was not reachable for this record during research. I will not guess an attorney or firm name. If you need the correspondent, pull reel 049134/0009 directly from the Assignment Center cover sheet.
  • Context: Routine pre‑filing inventor-to-employer assignment — rights were executed 43 days before the US application was filed and recorded the same day the application (US16/408,300) was filed. No consideration of acquisition, fire-sale, or reorg.

No post-issuance assignment is recorded. No transfer to any LLC, holding company, trust, or aggregator appears anywhere in the file. Under your rule, this is itself a finding: the original assignee (Stanley Electric) still owns the patent.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402471
    2018 : Priority application filed in Japan
    2019 : US application filed 2019-05-09
         : Inventor assigns rights to Stanley Electric
    2022 : Patent granted 2022-08-02
    2041 : Adjusted expiration

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggregate: 0 of 8 positive signals; 1 indeterminate (correspondent, signal #3) due solely to source-access limits, not to adverse evidence.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — and on the available evidence, a conventional operating-company chain.

Rationale: the file contains exactly one recorded assignment — reel 049134/0009, executed 2019‑03‑27 and recorded 2019‑05‑09, conveying inventor Tetsuo Miyazaki's rights to Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. at the time of filing. There are no post-issuance transfers, no LLC assignees, no aggregator, and no litigation naming US 11,402,471, so the current owner is the original publicly traded operating manufacturer (TSE:6923), which sells LiDAR emitter and photodiode/sensor modules in the relevant technology space. Under your rubric this maps to Insufficient data (only the original assignment), but affirmatively there is no NPE indicium in the record: none of the eight signals is present.

Verification link (Assignment Center, search by patent number): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Search US 11,402,471 or the application number 16/408,300, then open reel 049134 / frame 0009 — that cover sheet is the only document in the chain and is where you will find the recording correspondent I could not retrieve.

I'll research the prior art citations for US Patent 11,402,471 (US 16/408,300). Let me search for the specific references.

Let me research the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 11,402,471 B2 ("TOF range finder")

1. Identification of the patent under review (verified, literal)

I confirmed this is the exact number 11,402,471 and did not pull results for near-neighbors (e.g., 11,402,715; 11,402,940). The only "11402471" hit that is not this patent is the 8-digit application serial 11/402,471 (the "Sanitary Napkin" publication) — a different identifier type and technology, excluded.

Claim architecture (for the § 102 mapping below):

• Claim 1 (independent) — light source emitting modulated light whose intensity is a periodic waveform based on a half-wave rectified waveform; image sensor with pixels; phase-difference detecting unit; distance calculating unit; wherein the light source is an LED or laser, and the periodic waveform is the specific piecewise D(t) (sinusoidal segments plus a zero segment over 5π/4 ≤ t < 7π/4).
• Claim 2 — depends on 1: the discontinuous-tangent part of the half-wave rectified waveform is replaced by a continuously-changing-tangent part.
• Claim 3 — depends on 1: two photodetectors per pixel + integration elements, outputs 90° apart.
• Claim 4 — depends on 3: two integration elements integrating over the two half-periods; phase difference from their difference.
• Claim 5 (independent) — same preamble as 1 but the periodic waveform is one in which the discontinuous-tangent portion of the half-wave rectified waveform has been replaced by a continuously-changing-tangent portion.
• Claims 6, 7 — depend on 5; mirror claims 3, 4.

Because claims 3, 4, 6, 7 depend on independents that require the specific waveform, no dependent claim can be anticipated unless the base waveform limitation is first met in a single reference.

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2. Backward citations of US 11,402,471

The record lists 10 patent citations (Google Patents) and 6 "Citations", of which three are marked as examiner-cited (*). Several entries are family members of the same underlying disclosure; grouped below into six distinct prior-art families.

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Reference A — JP 2003-177077 A

• Full citation: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-177077 A, "Optical multipath measurement method" (光マルチパス計測方法), Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
• Dates: priority JP 2002-09-19; published 2003-06-27.
• Description: A method directed to measuring/handling optical multipath (multiple reflection paths) in optical ranging using intensity-modulated light — i.e., mitigating the error that arises when reflected light reaches the detector by more than one path. Examiner-cited core art.
• § 102 analysis: This is the oldest reference (≈15 years before the 2018 priority) and is relevant only as background on multipath handling in optical ranging. It does not disclose an emission waveform "based on a half-wave rectified waveform," does not disclose D(t), and does not address emission-waveform design. No claim of US 11,402,471 is anticipated by this reference. (Its relevance is the multipath-error concept, not the claimed waveform.)

Reference B — US 2017/0115393 A1 (Denso) — arguably the closest "harmonic" art

• Full citation: US 2017/0115393 A1, "Time-of-flight distance measurement device and method for same," Denso Corporation; inventors Nagai, Toshiaki and Yanai, Kenichi.
• Dates: priority JP 2014-226069, filed 2014-11-06; published 2017-04-27.
• Description: A TOF device whose light receiving element is exposed with sensitivity to at least one high-order harmonic, and whose signal processor linearly combines a fundamental-wave component with the high-order-harmonic component to reduce distance error. The figures expressly relate light-emission waveforms, Fourier-series expansion vs. duty, and a second-order harmonic with a non-integration period; a two-capacitor light receiving element and four-phase sequence are shown.
• § 102 analysis: This is conceptually the nearest art on the "the waveform may contain harmonic components" idea, and it also discloses multi-tap TOF pixel architecture (relevant to dependent claims 3/4/6/7 structurally). However, it is directed to receiving/signal-processing harmonics and does not disclose an emission waveform "based on a half-wave rectified waveform" nor D(t), and does not recite an LED/laser emission waveform of that shape. It does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 5 (a single reference must disclose every limitation, including the claimed waveform). Its best role is as § 103 secondary art (harmonic content in a TOF emission/signal chain), and as a structural teaching for the dependent pixel claims.

Reference C — DE 10 2016 106 511 A1 and US 9,900,581 B2 (Infineon)

• Full citations:
  • DE 10 2016 106 511 A1, "Parametric online calibration and compensation for TOF imaging," Infineon Technologies AG; priority 2015-04-21; published 2016-10-27.
  • US 9,900,581 B2, "Parametric online calibration and compensation in ToF imaging," Infineon Technologies AG; priority 2015-04-21; granted 2018-02-20.
• Description: Online (in-field) calibration/compensation of a ToF imaging system using a parametric model to correct drift (e.g., temperature-dependent phase error). Focused on system calibration, not on the emitted-light waveform.
• § 102 analysis: Addresses calibration/compensation, a different problem. No disclosure of a half-wave-rectified emission waveform, D(t), or the claimed element combination. No claim is anticipated.

Reference D — WO 2017/138033 A1 and US 2019/0056482 A1 (Denso)

• Full citations:
  • WO 2017/138033 A1, "Time-of-flight distance measuring device and method for detecting multipath error," Denso Corporation; priority 2016-02-08; published 2017-08-17.
  • US 2019/0056482 A1, same title/assignee; published 2019-02-21 (US national stage; granted as US 11,307,296 B2).
• Description: A segmented light source/receiver; a first emitting portion emits an amplitude-modulated waveform including an Nth-order harmonic of a fundamental, a second emits an Mth-order harmonic (N ≠ M); the corresponding receiver is made sensible to both the Nth- and Mth-order components, and a multipath error is flagged when both are sensed.
• § 102 / prior-art status analysis (important date point): The WO publication (2017-08-17) pre-dates the 2018-05-22 priority and is prior art. The US 2019/0056482 A1 publication date (2019-02-21) is after the priority date, so it is not prior art by publication; however, it is a US application publication that was effectively filed on the 2016-02-08 priority date, so it can qualify as prior art under § 102(a)(2) as of its effective filing date. Substantively, the disclosure uses deliberate harmonic content in the emission — relevant to the "even multiple wave" concept — but for multipath detection, and it does not disclose a half-wave rectified emission waveform or D(t). No anticipation of any claim; relevant as § 103 art against the harmonic-content aspects.

Reference E — US 2017/0242124 A1 (Topcon) — examiner-cited

• Full citation: US 2017/0242124 A1, "Distance measuring device, distance measuring method, and program therefor," Topcon Corporation.
• Dates: priority JP 2016-02-23; published 2017-08-24.
• Description: A laser distance-measuring device whose modulation-signal generating unit can output a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and higher harmonics of the modulation signal; a frequency-modulated component separating unit separates the detected light into the respective modulated components, a received-light-intensity unit measures them, and the device suppresses shortening of the measurable distance when the light is obliquely incident.
• § 102 analysis: Discloses emitting a modulated (laser) light with harmonic components and separating harmonics at the detector — conceptually adjacent to the "contains an even/odd multiple wave" limitation — but it concerns harmonic separation for measurement robustness, not an emission waveform based on a half-wave rectified waveform, and it discloses no D(t). No claim is anticipated.

Reference F — JP 2017-173158 A + US 2017/0276789 A1 + US 10,101,452 B2 (Stanley Electric — applicant's own art)

• Full citations:

  • JP 2017-173158 A, "Distance measuring device" (測距装置), Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. (スタンレー電気株式会社); priority 2016-03-24; published 2017-09-28.
  • US 2017/0276789 A1, "Distance measuring device," Stanley Electric Co., Ltd.; published 2017-09-28.
  • US 10,101,452 B2, "Distance measuring device," Stanley Electric Co., Ltd.; granted 2018-10-16.

• Description: The applicant's own earlier TOF distance-measuring device. Per the 11,402,471 specification itself, JP 2017-173158 "converts the modulated light from a light source toward an imaging range into rectangular pulses having a half-period pulse width." It thus discloses the generic TOF architecture: light source, image sensor with pixels detecting incident intensity, phase-difference detection from stored charge, and distance calculation, with a square/rectangular (not half-wave-rectified) emission.

• § 102 analysis: These are the key background references and are expressly discussed in the specification. They disclose the preamble elements common to claims 1 and 5 (light source, image sensor, phase-difference detecting unit, distance calculating unit, half-period pulse emission). They do not disclose:

  • a periodic waveform "based on a half-wave rectified waveform" (their emission is a square/rectangular pulse), nor
  • the D(t) piecewise waveform, nor
  • the "discontinuous-tangent replaced by continuously-changing-tangent" waveform of claim 5.

  Accordingly, no claim is anticipated — the very point of the invention (per the specification's FIG. 15A/15B and FIG. 20A/20B discussion) is that a square wave yields poor linearity while the half-wave rectified/model waveform improves both power efficiency and linearity. The US members (US 2017/0276789 A1, US 10,101,452 B2) are prior art under § 102(a)(2) as effectively filed 2016-03-24. These references are best treated as the primary § 103 starting point (generic TOF + square-pulse emission).

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3. Consolidated § 102 mapping

Bottom line on anticipation: Under the strict single-reference test, none of the cited references anticipates any of claims 1–7. The distinguishing limitation in every independent claim is the half-wave-rectified-based emission waveform (and, in claim 1, the specific D(t)), which no cited reference discloses. The references instead cluster around three themes that are related but different: multipath error handling (A, D), harmonic content in emission/signal processing (B, D, E), and online calibration (C). Reference F (Stanley's own art) supplies only the generic TOF architecture with a square-pulse emission.

Where these references are actually useful: as § 103 obviousness/background art, e.g., combining F (generic TOF + half-period pulse emission) with B/D/E (harmonic content in emission) as a posited motivation to shape the emission spectrum — though the specification argues the half-wave rectified/model waveform is a non-obvious selection improving both linearity and power efficiency relative to the square-pulse art. This is consistent with the prosecution history on the face of the record: one Non-Final Action (2021-12-13) followed by a Response (2022-02-19) and a Notice of Allowance (2022-04-20).

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4. Non-patent citation on the record

• Extended European Search Report (EESR) dated 2019-10-25 in corresponding EP application 19174773.2. This is a search-report document, not prior art per se; it is the source of the classified art for the EP counterpart (EP 3572831 A1, later withdrawn). No citations from the EESR beyond the families already listed above were reflected in the US record.

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5. Caveats (honesty about limits)

1. Anticipation is a legal conclusion. The mappings above reflect a limitation-by-limitation comparison based on the reference titles, abstracts, family data, and the fragments retrieved. Full-text, claim-level review of the Japanese (JP 2003-177077 A; JP 2017-173158 A) and German (DE 10 2016 106 511 A1) documents — including their original-language claims and drawings — was not completed in this session and could change a fine-grained § 102 view. My "no anticipation" conclusions rest on the absence of any disclosure of the claimed half-wave-rectified / D(t) waveform, which is the controlling limitation.
2. Reference relationships (C = DE/US Infineon pair sharing priority 2015-04-21; D = WO/US Denso pair sharing priority 2016-02-08; F = JP/US Stanley trio sharing priority 2016-03-24) are drawn from the citation table and family data on the record and are stated as such.
3. Date-based prior-art status: For family F and the US member of D, prior-art effect arises under § 102(a)(2) (effectively filed before the 2018-05-22 priority) even where the US publication date is later. Where I could not independently verify an original priority document, I relied on the dates in the patent's citation record.
4. If you need a docket-grade novelty/validity opinion (including any third-party art beyond these citations, and ITC/PACER records), the next step is a full-text search of each reference's claims against claims 1–7 plus a PACER/Docket Navigator check — a negative result here is not a clearance.

I'll research the cited prior art of record to ground a §103 analysis. Let me pull details on the key references.

Let me pull the remaining cited references and search for the key waveform-shaping concept in the prior art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 11,402,471 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent under analysis: US 11,402,471 B2, "TOF range finder," Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., inventor Tetsuo Miyazaki; app. 16/408,300 filed 2019-05-09; priority JP 2018-097796 (2018-05-22); granted 2022-08-02.
Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11402471B2](/patent/US11402471B2)/en
Prior art considered: the references listed in the "Citations / Patent Citations" section of that page (i.e., the prior art of record), plus their US family members where identified.

Scope caveat up front. I was able to retrieve full or partial text for the Denso, Infineon, and Stanley references via the web. I was not able to retrieve the full text of JP 2003-177077 A (Matsushita) or JP 2017-173158 A (Stanley) directly; for JP 2017-173158 I rely on (a) the '471 patent's own characterization of it and (b) its US family members US 2017/0276789 A1 and US 10,101,452 B2, which share the same specification and figures. Statements below that depend on un-retrieved text are flagged.

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1. Legal framework applied

An obviousness rejection under § 103 requires that the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art be such that the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) at the time of the invention. The Graham factors apply: (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; and (4) 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 combination is of familiar elements according to known methods yielding no more than predictable results, or where there was a "design need or market pressure" and a finite number of identified, predictable solutions (the "obvious to try" doctrine). A motivation to combine may be found in the references themselves, the knowledge of a PHOSITA, or the nature of the problem to be solved.

Level of ordinary skill (assumed): a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, optics, or physics, or equivalent, with 2–4 years of experience in solid-state imaging and indirect (phase-based) time-of-flight ranging, including familiarity with charge-storage/transfer-gate pixels and the standard 4-phase (0°/90°/180°/270°) arc-tangent phase-extraction algorithm.

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2. The claims at issue — element breakdown

Only two independent claims survived to grant (claims 1 and 5). Both are directed to the same subject-matter family. (Note the discrepancy already flagged in the previously generated sections: the abstract and the "Summary of Invention" describe a third, "fundamental + even multiple wave > ⅓ and < 1" aspect that is not in the granted claim set — so it is not separately analyzed here, but it is discussed in §7 as evidence of the true scope of the disclosure.)

Claim 1 requires, in combination:

• (A) a light source emitting modulated light whose intensity exhibits a periodic waveform based on a half-wave rectified waveform;
• (B) an image sensor with pixels detecting incident intensity;
• (C) a phase difference detecting unit operating on stored charge quantity;
• (D) a distance calculating unit operating on the detected phase difference; plus
• (E) "the light source is an LED or a laser light source"; and
• (F) the periodic waveform is a waveform corresponding to the specific piecewise D(t) (the "model waveform" whose four corners are rounded by cos/sin-weighted segments).

Claim 5 requires (A)–(D), with the characterizing clause being that the half-wave-rectified waveform's discontinuous-tangent part is replaced by a part in which the tangent continuously changes (the genus of claim 1's species).

Dependent claims: 2 (dep. 1; same smoothing recitation), 3 (two photodetectors per pixel; outputs 90° apart), 4 (two integration elements per half-period; phase difference from their difference), 6 and 7 (same subject matter as 3 and 4, appended to claim 5).

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3. The prior art of record and what each discloses

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4. Differences between the claims and the prior art

Mapping claim 1 onto JP 2017-173158 (via US 10,101,452 / US 2017/0276789):

The entire inventive delta is element (F)/(F′) — the choice and shaping of the emission waveform. Everything structural is old. That is decisive for how the § 103 analysis must be framed: the question is whether the selection, from the known universe of periodic drive waveforms, of a half-wave-rectified (and corner-smoothed) waveform would have been obvious to a PHOSITA seeking to improve a JP 2017-173158-type device.

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5. Combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination 1 (primary): JP 2017-173158 + US 2017/0115393 (Denso)

The combination. Take the complete indirect-TOF range finder of JP 2017-173158 (all of elements (A)–(E), including the 2-photodiode / 4-floating-diffusion pixel and the stored-charge phase-difference detection) and modify the emission waveform per the teaching of Denso US 2017/0115393 that (i) the light-emission waveform's duty and harmonic content are controllable design parameters, (ii) the emission waveform and its Fourier series expansion determine the harmonic sensitivity of the measurement, and (iii) a drive waveform may include a "0" (off) segment within the period.

Why a PHOSITA would be motivated to combine them.

• Same field, same problem. Both references are indirect/phase TOF range finders. Denso '393's stated object — "appropriately reducing a distance error without increasing a light emission power" — is precisely the engineering problem the '471 patent addresses ("secure the high incident intensity of reflected light by less emission power … improved linear relationship"). KSR: familiar elements used according to known methods.
• Finite, predictable solutions. The art identifies exactly two competing classical options (the patent's own analysis, which mirrors the art, contrasts a sine wave — linear but low incident intensity — against a square/half-period pulse — high intensity but non-linear phase). Given that binary trade-off, the space of alternatives between the two is small and predictable, and the third waveform — the half-wave rectified sinusoid — is the natural limiting case that maximizes the "on" fraction in one half-period while retaining a dominant fundamental. That is the classic "obvious to try" posture under KSR.
• Denso supplies the "why." Denso '393's tables/figures explicitly teach that changing the duty of the emission waveform changes its Fourier content and hence the measurement's error behavior, and that a drive waveform may contain a zero/off state — i.e., the reference affirmatively contemplates waveforms other than a symmetric 50%-duty pulse and teaches that the off/duty profile is a lever to be chosen.

Reasonable expectation of success. The mathematical consequence on which the invention rests — that in the 4-phase / 2-integration-element readout, even harmonics cancel (S0 = S180 and S90 = S270 for even multiples) so that only the fundamental (or a single odd multiple) governs Δφ — is elementary and is itself recited as background in the '471 specification (FIGS. 8–10B and the accompanying text). A PHOSITA would therefore predict that adding even-harmonic (and DC) content to the drive waveform raises returned-light intensity without corrupting the phase measurement, which is exactly the result the claims achieve. The result is a predictable consequence, not an unexpected one.

Result. Elements (A)–(F) of claim 1 (except the exact equation) and the full scope of claim 5 (smoothed half-wave rectified waveform) are rendered obvious by Combination 1, since the half-wave rectified wave is the very waveform the art's own efficiency/linearity analysis drives toward (D(t) = A·sin(t) + |A·sin(t)|; the '471 patent at its expression (5.1) expressly identifies it as "the periodic waveform that exhibits highest power efficiency").

Combination 2 (alternative/bolstering): JP 2017-173158 + US 9,900,581 (Infineon) [+ Denso '393]

The combination. Base reference JP 2017-173158, plus Infineon US 9,900,581's teaching that the emitted EM radiation "is not perfectly sinusoidal, but includes higher frequency components," that these higher-frequency components produce distance error ("wiggling error"), and that the error can be modeled as a function of the ratio of a higher-order harmonic's amplitude to the fundamental's amplitude.

Why a PHOSITA would combine and would arrive at the claim.

• Infineon frames the harmonic content of the non-sinusoidal emission waveform as the root cause of ranging error and quantifies it as a harmonic-to-fundamental amplitude ratio. That is an express invitation to engineer the waveform's harmonic spectrum.
• A PHOSITA, told that (a) the harmonic content drives the error and (b) even harmonics do not affect the 4-phase phase estimate, has both the motivation and the mechanism to select a waveform whose odd-harmonic content (the damaging kind) is minimized while its even-harmonic content (the benign kind) is increased — which is precisely a half-wave-rectified waveform.
• Infineon's and Denso's approaches (Infineon: compensate the error in processing; Denso: add harmonic-sensitivity and combine fundamental + harmonic) are alternative solutions to the same problem. Substituting the simpler waveform-selection solution for the error-compensation solution is an obvious alternative under KSR (a PHOSITA would recognize the benefit of eliminating the error at its source rather than correcting it downstream).

Use as a secondary/backup theory. Even if a tribunal found Denso '393 insufficient, Infineon '581 independently supplies the problem statement ("non-sinusoidal emission → harmonic-induced error," "parameter = harmonic amplitude / fundamental amplitude"), which makes the waveform-shaping response evident.

Combination 3 (for element (F′) — the specific D(t) — and for claim 5's smoothing clause)

The combination. Combination 1 or 2, plus the ordinary skill and the express teaching of Denso '393 that the emitting element is an LED or LD and that the driver output need not be an ideal mathematical waveform.

Why the specific D(t) / "smoothed" genus is obvious.

• The '471 specification itself concedes the engineering reality: a true half-wave rectified wave "contains two discontinuous points of a tangent in each period," and "in the actual light source and the actual drive unit, it is difficult to form the waveform of the intensity of the emitting light … into a waveform that contains places where the tangent is discontinuous" (US11402471B2, Description). A PHOSITA confronted with a real LED/laser driver — explicitly identified by Denso '393 as the emitter — would routinely round the corners or band-limit the drive signal to make it physically realizable. Replacing a discontinuous-tangent waveform portion with a continuously-varying one is a predictable design modification ("design choice"/"obvious to try"), and the '471 patent's own FIG. 17 shows the un-smoothed ideal already degrades to a continuous-tangent waveform when actually applied to a light source.
• Because claim 1 recites a waveform "corresponding to" D(t) rather than "defined by," the claim's outer boundary is itself the class of corner-smoothed half-wave-rectified drive waveforms — the same genus as claim 5. If a PHOSITA smoothing the optimal half-wave-rectified waveform arrives at a waveform "corresponding to" D(t) as a matter of predictable design, claim 1 falls with claim 5.
• Denso '393's "0"-state drive-waveform teaching further supports that the off-portion (the flat 5π/4 ≤ t < 7π/4 segment of D(t)) was known and contemplated.

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6. The dependent claims (2, 3, 4, 6, 7)

If the independent claims are obvious, the dependents fall with them, and they are in any event independently taught by the base reference:

• Claims 3 and 6 (two photodetectors per pixel; their outputs differ by 90°; phase difference from integration amounts) are squarely met by JP 2017-173158 / US 10,101,452 / US 2017/0276789, which disclose per pixel two sub-pixels Po/Pe each with a photodiode and four floating diffusions Fd1–Fd4 read out at phases delayed by ¼ period. Denso '393's FIG. 2 (two modulation switches 14a/14b and two storage capacitances 15a/15b driven by TG1/TG2, with a four-phase sequence) is corroborative.
• Claims 4 and 7 (two integration elements per photodetector, integrating over one half and the other half of the period; phase difference from the difference of the two integration amounts) are met by the same architecture (the S0−S180 / S90−S270 differential readout that the prior art's four-phase storage scheme implements, and which the '471 specification itself describes as conventional background-light rejection).
• Claim 2 (smoothing clause) is analyzed in Combination 3 above.

Thus the pixel/readout dependent claims add nothing that is not already in the closest art.

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7. Rebuttal considerations and secondary considerations

A rigorous analysis must weigh the counter-arguments:

1. No express disclosure of a "half-wave rectified waveform." None of the retrieved references literally discloses driving a TOF emitter with a half-wave-rectified waveform, and JP 2017-173158 teaches away from it in the weak sense that it uses the symmetric half-period (square) pulse. The § 103 case therefore rests on motivation + predictable result + obvious-to-try, not on an express teaching. This makes the rejection strong as to claim 5 (the smoothed-rectified genus, arguably a routine realization of an optimal waveform) but weaker as to claim 1's exact D(t), for which no art of record teaches the specific cos/sin-weighted corner-interpolation profile. Absent additional art expressly teaching corner-smoothing of a rectified drive waveform, claim 1's precise equation is a plausible non-obviousness anchor.
2. The references cut both ways. Denso '393 and Infineon '581 both address the harmonic/linearity problem by compensating for it in signal processing (linear combination with a harmonic; wiggling-error modeling) rather than by selecting the waveform. A patentee could argue this is a different solution path and thus not a clear motivation to select a rectified waveform. Counter: the problem is identical, and KSR holds that a PHOSITA is not limited to the particular solution a reference prefers; selecting the waveform to eliminate the error at the source is an obvious alternative.
3. Possible secondary considerations (unexpected results). The specification asserts that the half-wave rectified wave is uniquely able to produce both high incident intensity and a circular ("linear") reflected-light luminance locus (US11402471B2, FIGS. 15B and 20B). If a patentee could show that this simultaneous optimization was surprising relative to the art's sine-vs-square trade-off, it would support non-obviousness. On the present record this is an assertion, not evidence of unexpectedness (no comparative data vs. the closest art), and the inventors themselves present the half-wave rectified wave as the predicted optimum from their Fourier analysis (expression (5.1) is labeled the highest-power-efficiency waveform). No evidence of commercial success, copying, licensing, or industry praise is in the record.
4. Scope note (from the previously generated sections). The abstract's "only odd multiple wave frequency component + at least one even multiple wave frequency component" aspect — and the "fundamental + even multiple wave > ⅓ and < 1" aspect presented in pre-grant publication US 2019/0361123 A1 — did not issue as claims. Had they issued, Denso '393's explicit teaching that emission-waveform duty/Fourier content is selectable would have made those aspects straightforwardly obvious. Their absence from the granted set narrows the exposure.

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8. Conclusion

• Claim 5 (independent — smoothed half-wave-rectified waveform): Strong § 103 exposure to JP 2017-173158 + Denso US 2017/0115393, and, alternatively, JP 2017-173158 + Infineon US 9,900,581. All structural elements (A)–(E) come from the base reference; the waveform-shaping difference is supplied by the secondary art's express treatment of emission-waveform duty/harmonic content as an accuracy-and-power design variable, combined with the elementary and predictable cancellation of even harmonics in a 4-phase readout. The smoothing limitation is a routine realization step for a real LED/LD driver, which the base and secondary art both contemplate.
• Claim 1 (independent — LED/laser + specific D(t)): The LED/laser and structural elements are met/obvious, and the half-wave-rectified basis is obvious per the above; the exact closed-form D(t) is the weakest link for the challenger. A rejection of claim 1 is most defensible as "obvious design choice / obvious to try" — a predicted smoothing of the conceded-optimal rectified waveform — but is less airtight than as to claim 5 absent prior art expressly teaching that profile.
• Claims 2, 3, 4, 6, 7: Obvious (and the pixel/readout subject matter of 3, 4, 6, 7 is effectively disclosed, not merely suggested, by the base reference).

Confidence: Moderate-to-high for claim 5 and the dependent claims; moderate for claim 1's equation, and explicitly not certified — the exact D(t) profile was not found disclosed or suggested in any reference I was able to retrieve.

Limitations of this analysis (stated rather than glossed): (i) JP 2017-173158 A and JP 2003-177077 A full texts were not retrieved; the JP 2017-173158 content is taken from the '471 patent's characterization and its US family (US 2017/0276789 A1, US 10,101,452 B2), which should be confirmed against the JP publication. (ii) I was unable to complete a search for any additional prior art expressly teaching a half-wave-rectified or corner-smoothed drive waveform; if such art exists, it would strengthen the claim 1 rejection materially. (iii) Off-record art (e.g., the "wiggling"-error literature, e.g., the PMD/TOF literature cited within Denso's own specification) may bear on the motivation element and should be developed if a formal office action or IPR petition is being prepared.

Key URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402471B2/en | https://patents.google.com/patent/US20190361123A1/en | https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/75/08/c8/0c3d1e98cd6601/US10101452.pdf | https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2017/0276789.html | https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/cc/12/d9/256ad4d6c9d455/US20170115393A1.pdf | https://patents.google.com/patent/US9900581B2/en