US 11402473

Patent Overview: US11402473B1 — "Photonic Integrated Circuit Illuminator"

Bibliographic data (as listed): US Patent US11402473B1; application US16/882,025; inventors Zhaoming Zhu, Michael Hall, and Qing Chao; original assignee Facebook Technologies LLC, current assignee Meta Platforms Technologies LLC; priority date 2018-05-09; filing date 2020-05-22; publication/grant date 2022-08-02; listed status Active, with anticipated expiration 2039-01-17.

Purpose: The disclosure relates to photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and, more specifically, to a PIC configured as an illuminator. An illuminator is described as a source of visible or non-visible light (e.g., near infra-red) usable in applications such as depth sensing, and integrable into mobile platforms including mobile phones, headsets, head mounted displays (HMDs), and glasses for artificial reality applications. Size, weight, and power consumption are noted as important to such integration.

Plain-language scope: The apparatus comprises a PIC including a laser source and at least one waveguide. The waveguide has optical turning features (described as including optical gratings) and propagates light from the laser source along a first axis parallel to the PIC's top surface. The turning features divert that light into collimated beams that propagate along a second axis to exit the waveguide and top surface; in one described configuration the second axis is perpendicular to the top surface. A diffractive optical element (DOE) positioned over the top surface along the second axis diffracts the collimated beams. The DOE may form structured light with pre-determined patterns for image-based depth sensing, or project a blanket of diffused light for time-of-flight measurement. The laser source may have a light emitting surface perpendicular to the top surface and emit light through it into the waveguide. A grating spacing along the first axis may be set based on a target beam width. The waveguide may be one of multiple waveguides arranged along a third axis perpendicular to the first axis and parallel to the top surface.

Limit of this excerpt: The supplied text is marked as excerpted, with content omitted; it does not establish the full claim set, complete written description, figures, or embodiments beyond those quoted.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11402473](/patent/US11402473)/en

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11402473.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me try more specific litigation-focused searches.

Litigation Search Results for US Patent No. 11,402,473

Summary: I found no known litigation involving US Patent No. 11,402,473.

What I searched

I ran multiple targeted queries across publicly indexed litigation and patent sources, including:

• US patent 11402473 litigation
• "11402473" OR "11,402,473" combined with Meta / Facebook / infringement / district court complaint
• Unified Patents / RPX-style litigation aggregator terms
• Inventor names (Zhaoming Zhu, Michael Hall, Qing Chao) tied to "illuminator" litigation

What the searches returned

Every hit that literally contained the string "11402473" was a false positive for an unrelated matter, not the US patent:

Results that discussed patent litigation involving Meta/Facebook (e.g., MasterObjects v. Facebook, Haptix Solutions LLC v. Meta Platforms, EasyWeb Innovations v. Meta Platforms, Tir Technologies v. Meta Platforms) concerned entirely different patents and do not name US 11,402,473 as an asserted patent. A query combining the patent number with Meta/Facebook infringement returned no results at all.

Conclusion

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

Based on the searches performed, no district court complaints, CAFC appeals, ITC actions, or PTAB proceedings tied to US Patent No. 11,402,473 were located.

Important caveats (read literally, per your instructions)

1. This is not a certified negative. PACER and Docket Navigator/Lex Machina are paywalled and not fully indexed by general web search; a case could exist that my queries did not surface. I was also cut off after a limited number of searches.
2. The patent is a fairly recent Meta asset — US 11,402,473 issued 2022-08-02 (from application 16/882,025; a continuation of Ser. No. 16/250,640, filed 2019-01-17, claiming priority to provisional 62/669,301 filed 2018-05-09), currently assigned to Meta Platforms Technologies LLC. A relatively recent issue date and an operating-company (non-PAE) owner make it less likely to appear in high-volume assertion campaigns.
3. I did not locate any IPR/PGR, reexamination, or ITC proceeding either, but the same indexing limitations apply.

If you want a definitive answer, I'd recommend running the patent number directly in Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, Unified Patents' litigation portal, and PACER's nationwide case search, none of which were fully reachable via the queries I was able to run. I can attempt additional targeted searches if you can lift the step limit.

I'll verify the structured block's default ("no PTAB activity") against public sources before writing anything.

No hits on the first pass. Let me run a few more targeted checks, including for any related-family proceedings and litigation that could spawn IPRs.

Two more checks: the parent patent in the family, and any Meta assertion campaign that could have drawn IPRs.

PTAB Analysis — US 11,402,473 B1 ("Photonic Integrated Circuit Illuminator")

Verification note (read first): The structured input states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. I attempted to corroborate that with independent web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM filings naming US 11,402,473, its application number 16/882,025, its parent US 10,698,086, and its assignee (Facebook Technologies / Meta Platforms Technologies). Every hit returned was unrelated (other parties' IPRs, unrelated reexaminations, unrelated owner/petitioner pairings). I therefore report the absence of PTAB activity as accurate to the best of my verification, with the limits of that verification flagged below.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 11,402,473: 0 — zero active, zero with claims invalidated, zero with claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials; consequently there is no PTAB-based defensive posture to inherit and no § 315(e) estoppel already locked in against any petitioner. Any defendant facing assertion today is writing on a blank slate at the Board, which is favorable procedurally but means there is no free-standing invalidation to lean on and no FWD to cite in a stay motion.

Because there are no proceedings, the requested per-proceeding template would be entirely fabricated if populated. Instead, below is a proceedings-section replacement with the verified null result, followed by a substitute analysis built from the patent's face and family that is actually useful to a defendant.

No AIA trial proceeding on file — null result

• Type: N/A (no IPR, PGR, or CBM identified)
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No proceedings returned by USPTO ODP as of the most recent ingest; not contradicted by any public source I could locate
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — no FWD exists for this patent, so no claim has been canceled, confirmed, or held unpatentable by the Board
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: No PTAB appeal to the Federal Circuit identified. (I did not run a CAFC docket sweep for this patent number; searches surfaced only unrelated appeals.)
• Defensive value: Nothing is canceled but nothing is estopped either — you may file an IPR on any ground without worrying about another petitioner's estoppel, and without a contrary FWD to distinguish.

Verification limits (stated plainly): (1) I could not confirm whether the patent has ever been asserted in district court — no litigation involving US 11,402,473 surfaced in my searches, but absence of a hit is weaker evidence than a positive docket check, and I did not query PACER/CourtListener directly for this patent number. (2) I did not verify absence of ex parte reexamination or reissue; the ODP block covers AIA trials, and my searches surfaced no reexam for this patent, but I would not treat that as conclusive. (3) PTAB E2E and the USPTO PatentCenter are the authoritative checkpoints and should be re-run at filing time — recently filed petitions can post to E2E before aggregators index them.

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What the patent's own face tells you (substitute for claim-outcome analysis)

Since no FWD supplies claim-level outcomes, the operative "claim status" facts come from the prosecution record:

• All 19 claims are UNTESTED and live. Nothing has been canceled by the Board or by a certificate of cancellation. The patent issued 2022-08-02 with 19 claims.
• The challenged-art window is a 2018 priority date. The patent is a continuation of Ser. No. 16/250,640 (filed 2019-01-17, now US 10,698,086) and claims benefit of Provisional Ser. No. 62/669,301, filed 2018-05-09. For AIA § 102/§ 103 purposes, the effective filing date for subject matter supported by the provisional is 2018-05-09; anything you intend to rely on should predate that, or you must be prepared to litigate whether the provisional supports the specific claim limitations (a classic and often productive IPR attack on a continuation with a broadened claim).
• The continuation broadened claim 1 relative to the parent — that is your best § 112 hook. Parent US 10,698,086 claim 1 requires "a diffractive optical element (DOE) … configured to diffract the collimated light beams." The '473 patent's claim 1 instead recites "an optical element … configured to: (i) set an optical property of the collimated light beams and (ii) output the collimated light beams having the optical property" — a genus that on its face reaches non-diffractive optics (claim 13 even claims "a light diffuser panel"). The specification's disclosure of "setting an optical property" is presented through DOE-type optics. Whether the '473 claim 1 genus is supported by the 2018 provisional and by the parent's specification under § 112(a) is a written-description question worth developing, and it is not a ground available in IPR — it lives in district court or in a PGR (now time-barred; see below). (This is my analysis of the claim text, not a holding of any tribunal.)
• Term runs from the parent, not from the '473 grant. The printed patent carries a "terminal disclaimer" notice, and Google Patents lists anticipated expiration 2039-01-17 — i.e., 20 years from the Jan. 17, 2019 parent filing. Because of the terminal disclaimer, the '473 is not a vehicle for extending term beyond the parent's expiry; invalidity of the '473 alone won't give you tail-end protection against the '086 parent, and vice versa.
• The family is the real exposure surface. A defendant should treat US 10,698,086 (parent, 17 claims) and US 11,402,473 (continuation, 19 claims) as a pair. Family members are commonly the source of sequential assertions, and each is separately IPR-eligible.

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Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. There is no cancellation record. All 19 claims of US 11,402,473 stand untested before the Board, as do the claims of its parent US 10,698,086. The relevant defensive asymmetry is that you get no free narrowing — you cannot tell a plaintiff that "claims 1–5 have been canceled," because they have not been. Any validity challenge must be built from scratch out of prior art and the prosecution history.

Estoppel landscape — wide open. Because no petitioner has ever been through an IPR on this patent, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. Practically that means: (a) there is no well-trodden ground set that a prior petitioner already exhausted and lost; (b) there is no established Board claim construction (no FWD-driven Phillips construction to design around); and (c) a defendant's § 315(b) one-year clock is measured only from its own service of an infringement complaint, with no joinder or serial-petition calculus imposed by an earlier filer. Conversely, if you file and lose, you will be the one creating the estoppel — with a single-subject-matter patent family, that is a real cost to price in before filing.

Procedural gap analysis. The patent granted 2022-08-02. The PGR window closed 2023-05-02, so § 112 and § 101 grounds are no longer available at the Board — you are limited to IPR on § 102/§ 103 grounds based on patents and printed publications. That is a meaningful limitation here, because the strongest attack on a broadening continuation is frequently the § 112 written-description/priority attack, which now must be litigated in district court (or, for the parent, would similarly be time-barred). The remaining Board vehicle is IPR, available subject only to your own § 315(b) bar.

Pattern signals. None available: no repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner), no patent-owner PTAB appeal history on this patent, and no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) engagement detected. The absence of any IPR, combined with no litigation surfacing in my searches, is consistent with three scenarios that you should distinguish early: (1) the patent has not been asserted, so nobody has had standing-driven incentive to file; (2) it has been asserted but defendants elected to fight in court (or were dissuaded by Fintiv-era discretionary denial and short trial schedules); or (3) the owner uses the family defensively/cross-licensing rather than offensively. Note that a well-asserted patent of this vintage in a hot technology area (PIC-based depth-sensing illuminators) would ordinarily have attracted an IPR by now — the absence is itself a data point suggesting the patent has not been a repeat assertion weapon. That is inference, not a verified fact.

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Recommended next steps

1. Re-verify the null result at filing time, not from memory. Run the patent number through PTAB E2E (https://e2e.uspto.gov/) and the USPTO PatentCenter (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) before you commit to a strategy. Newly filed petitions and reexamination requests can appear there before aggregator sites index them, and the ODP ingest in the structured block is not real-time. I could not produce a link to any specific FWD, institution decision, or CAFC opinion because none exists for this patent — do not let anyone put a document in front of you purporting to be one without checking its patent number against the sources above.
2. Confirm whether you have been served, and when. No PTAB activity means your § 315(b) one-year clock has not been triggered by anyone else's filing. If you have been served with a complaint asserting the '473, calendar the one-year deadline immediately; it is the only hard date bearing on your IPR options.
3. Attack the priority chain first, on paper. Before spending on an IPR, test whether the provisional (62/669,301, filed 2018-05-09) actually supports the '473's broadened claim 1 genus ("optical element … set an optical property"). If it does not, the effective filing date slips toward 2019-01-17 and a materially larger prior-art window opens for both § 102 and § 103. This is the single highest-leverage analytical step and costs a fraction of a petition.
4. Map the whole family before filing anything. US 10,698,086 and US 11,402,473 are asserted as a unit in practice even where only one is pleaded. A petition that invalidates the '473 but leaves the '086 intact may simply move the plaintiff's case to the sibling. Because of the terminal disclaimer, both expire 2039-01-17 — you need a strategy that clears the family, not one claim set.
5. Preserve district-court-only defenses. With the PGR window closed since 2023-05-02, keep your § 112(a) written-description/priority and § 101 theories in the district court case; they are not available to you at the Board. If you obtain a stay, make sure those theories are preserved in a manner the court can take up after the IPR, rather than being squeezed out by estoppel-adjacent arguments.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11402473 across the sources specified.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and reel/frame data.

US 11,402,473 B1 — "Photonic Integrated Circuit Illuminator"

Assignor/ownership chain analysis

Method note / limitation: My tooling gives me live web search only — I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center patent-number view directly (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) to pull raw reel/frame images. I reconstructed the chain from Google Patents legal events, the printed patent front page, USPTO.report, and a Plainsite-hosted assignment record. Where a reel/frame is not verifiable, I say so rather than guessing.

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Inventors

All three list Redmond/Seattle-area residences consistent with Meta's Reality Labs hardware sites, and the application was filed with Facebook Technologies, LLC as both applicant and assignee (front page, (71)/(73)). The Google Patents legal record shows a single assignment of assignors' interest from CHAO, QING; HALL, MICHAEL; ZHU, ZHAOMING → FACEBOOK TECHNOLOGIES, LLC dated 2020‑05‑22.

Departure pattern: none. All three are long-tenured, high-volume Meta inventors — e.g., Zhu ~32 issued patents and Chao ~36 issued patents, all still assigned to Meta as of the Patent Leaderboard data through Dec 2025 (patentleaderboard.com/meta/zhaoming-zhu/328718, /meta/qing-chao/106650). There is no "inventors exit within 12 months" red flag, and no fire-sale signature.

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Original assignee

Facebook Technologies, LLC, Menlo Park, CA (front page (71)/(73); Google Patents "Original Assignee: Facebook Technologies LLC").

• Primary line of business: the AR/VR hardware subsidiary of Facebook, Inc./Meta Platforms, Inc. — the entity behind Oculus/Meta Quest headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
• Product embodiment: Meta's Reality Labs ships consumer headsets and glasses that use active depth-sensing/illumination assemblies of the general type claimed (the specification itself frames the illuminator as a component of a near-eye display's depth camera assembly, FIGS. 1A–7, and touts form-factor/power advantages for exactly that use). I have not confirmed that any specific shipping product practices granted claim 1 — that is a claim-charting question, not an assignment-record fact.
• Current status: operating. The entity is the surviving name-changed successor of Facebook Technologies, LLC, now Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC (1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA). Parent Meta Platforms, Inc. is a public operating company (NASDAQ: META). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or wind-down.

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Assignment timeline

The chain is short and consists of one inventor assignment plus one change of name. Both are reflected in Google Patents legal events for US 11,402,473; the raw reel/frame for the inventor assignment was not surfaced by my sources, and the change-of-name reel/frame is only partially corroborated (see caveat below).

1. 2020‑05‑22 (executed/recorded per Google Patents legal events) — Reel/Frame not surfaced in accessible sources

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
   • Assignor: Qing Chao; Michael Hall; Zhaoming Zhu
   • Assignee: Facebook Technologies, LLC, Menlo Park, CA
   • Correspondent: not determinable from the sources I could reach. For context, the patent's prosecution attorney of record is Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP (front page (74)); sibling applications in the same corporate family list Fenwick & West LLP / "Facebook/Fenwick," Mountain View, CA. Neither is an NPE-linked correspondent, and I cannot attribute either to the recording itself.
   • Context: routine employee-to-employer assignment on filing of the continuation — ordinary corporate ownership, not a transfer.

2. 2022‑07‑27 (Google Patents "assigned" event) — Change of Name

   • Conveyance: Change of Name (no change in beneficial ownership)
   • Assignor: Facebook Technologies, LLC
   • Assignee: Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC
   • Correspondent: not determinable from the sources I could reach.
   • Context: internal corporate re-brand (Facebook → Meta); the name change took effect 2022‑03‑18. A related batch recording is indexed by Plainsite as reel 64803/689 (executed 2022‑03‑18, recorded 2023‑09‑01, assignee address 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park) — but I could not confirm that this specific reel/frame entry covers US 11,402,473, and its 2023 recording date conflicts with the 2022‑07‑27 event Google lists for this patent. Treat the 64803/689 attribution as unverified.

No other recorded assignments. There is no link to any licensing LLC, no security interest, no merger, no release, and no transfer to an NPE/asserter. If the Assignment Center shows additional entries beyond these two, they post-date my accessible data.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402473
    2018 : Provisional 62669301 filed
    2019 : Parent app 16250640 filed
    2020 : Continuation app 16882025 filed
         : Assigned to Facebook Technologies LLC
    2022 : Patent issued as US 11402473
         : Renamed Meta Platforms Technologies LLC
    2024 : Still owned and maintained by Meta

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignee with an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere in the chain. The only assignees are Facebook Technologies, LLC and its name-changed successor Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC — both operating subsidiaries of a public company, not single-purpose LLCs, and neither uses a registered-agent service address (Meta's recorded address is 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA).

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither assignee matches any entity on the named NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, etc.). No Unified Patents or RPX plaintiff listing surfaced for this patent or its owners.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present / not assessable. Only one correspondent firm is even visible (Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP as prosecuting counsel; Fenwick & West on sibling filings). A single appearance in a normal operating-company chain is explicitly not a finding, and no recording-level correspondent was retrievable for either event. No recurring "lawyer behind the shell LLCs" pattern exists because there are no shell LLCs.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Two events over ~26 months, and the second is a name change, not a change in beneficial ownership. No chained LLCs, no shared registered-agent address, no common-principal structure.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2022 event is a change of name, not a transfer timed to a filing. I found no infringement suit naming this patent, and no assignment within 6 months of any such suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11, no distressed sale; the original assignee remains solvent and part of a public company.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer from the operating company to a third-party NPE asserting on Meta's behalf.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present (inverse also inapplicable). The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN, so the patent has not been neutralized by a defensive aggregator — it simply remains with its original corporate owner. Note Meta (via Facebook) is itself a LOT Network member, but that does not change the recorded ownership shown here.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with one caveat.

Justification: The record shows only an inventor→Facebook Technologies, LLC assignment (Google Patents legal event dated 2020‑05‑22) followed by a change of name to Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC (2022). The current owner is the AR/VR hardware subsidiary of a public, product-shipping operating company, and none of the eight NPE signals is present — no shell-LLC transfer, no known asserter, no cascading chains, no bankruptcy, no defensive-aggregator termination. The literal "asserting against competitors" prong is unverified: I found no infringement suit asserting this patent, so read the verdict as operating-company ownership with product embodiment, not as confirmed litigation activity.

Verify directly at:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 11402473)
• Legacy Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402473/en
• USPTO.report grant page — https://uspto.report/patent/grant/11,402,473
• (Unverified change-of-name batch) Plainsite — https://www.plainsite.org/patents/assignment.html?id=[11961365](/patent/11961365)

Caveats, stated plainly: the reel/frame for the 2020 inventor assignment was not retrievable with my tooling, and the reel 64803/689 change-of-name record's coverage of this specific patent is unconfirmed. If the Assignment Center returns reel/frame numbers, they should be inserted above and the 64803/689 caveat resolved.

I'll research US Patent 11402473 and its prior-art citations. Let me run several targeted searches.

I found the patent's front page starting to list references. Let me get the complete "(56) References Cited" list.

Executive summary

I located the target patent and partially retrieved its examiner-cited "(56) References Cited" list directly from the USPTO-hosted full-page image of the patent (US011402473B1). Important limitation up front: the search interface returned only a portion of the citations block — the U.S. patent list is elided in the retrieved excerpt (a leading "…" precedes the first entry I could read). I therefore can confirm some references to a high degree of confidence, and I must flag the remainder as not verifiable from the sources retrieved, rather than guess. I have not auto-corrected any number, date, or identifier; all are reported literally as retrieved.

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1. Patent identification (verified)

Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a5/1e/80/016c37b921d054/US11402473.pdf (USPTO full-page images) and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/11,402,473.

The claimed subject matter (for the mapping in §3) is:

• Claim 1 — apparatus: a PIC with a laser source and at least one waveguide having optical turning features; waveguide propagates light along a first axis parallel to the top surface; turning features divert light to a second axis as collimated beams exiting the waveguide and top surface; a DOE over the top surface along the second axis diffracts/outputs the collimated beams.
• Dependent claims — light-emitting surface perpendicular to the PIC top surface; DOE forming structured light; DOE forming a blanket of diffuse light; second axis perpendicular to the top surface; turning features as optical gratings; grating-to-grating spacing set by target beam width; plurality of waveguides along a third axis forming a 2-D array; waveguide spacing set by target beam width; star coupler; adjustable angle between top surface and second axis; plurality of phase shifters; phase-shifter controller; Silicon substrate; laser source of Groups III, IV, or V materials.
• Independent apparatus claim — illuminator (PIC + DOE) + optical sensor + controller for depth determination.
• Independent method claim — control laser → propagate → divert to collimated beams → diffract at DOE → project output light.

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2. References cited — what the retrieved front page actually shows

The (56) block as retrieved reads (abridged by the source, not by me):

U.S. Patent Documents

• US 9,341,786 B1 — 5/2016 — Gamache et al.
• US 10,409,074 B2* — 9/2019 — Bohn — CPC G06F 3/0304

Foreign Patent Documents

• CA 2995292 A1* — 8/2018 — CPC G02B 6/12004
• EP 3521879 A1* — 8/2019 — CPC G02B 6/4206
• GB 2545912 A* — 7/2017 — CPC G01B 9/02051

Other Publications

• "No. 16/250,640, Notice of Allowance dated Feb. 24, 2020, 8 pages."

References I could NOT verify: the excerpt contains an elision immediately before US 9,341,786, indicating one or more additional U.S. patent documents sit earlier in the "U.S." column that were not returned. I cannot supply those numbers without fabricating them. Likewise, any additional foreign documents or non-patent literature (other than the Notice of Allowance) were not surfaced.

Caveat to carry into §3: asterisks (*) in the front-page list mark references cited by the examiner, and examiner citations are frequently cited as background under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)/(b) or as part of an obviousness combination under § 103 — not necessarily as anticipatory art. A § 102 rejection requires that a single reference disclose every element of a claim; the citations below are therefore best described as anticipation candidates requiring full-text comparison, not established anticipation.

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3. Per-reference assessment (with explicit confidence levels)

3.1 US 9,341,786 B1 — Gamache et al., issued May 10, 2016

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 9,341,786 B1, granted 2016 (May), inventors Gamache et al.
• Brief description: Not verifiable from the retrieved sources. I cannot confirm the title, assignee, or disclosure content with confidence, and I will not substitute recollection for evidence.
• Potential § 102 exposure: Because I could not verify its disclosure, I cannot responsibly map it to any claim. My working hypothesis only — based on the surrounding class context of the invented subject matter (G01S 7/481x / G02B 6/00) — is that it is a laser-illumination reference; if so, the most exposed claims would be claim 1 and the dependent claims reciting DOE-based structured-light projection. This must be confirmed against the reference text before any assertion.

3.2 US 10,409,074 B2 — Bohn, issued September 10, 2019

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 10,409,074 B2, granted Sept. 2019, inventor Bohn; classified G06F 3/0304.
• Brief description: The G06F 3/0304 classification denotes input arrangements for transferring data to be processed in a computer, using optical means (i.e., optical position/gesture input), which is consistent with a head-mounted/near-eye display with optical (depth/gesture) sensing disclosure. I did not retrieve the reference's abstract or claims, so this is a classification-based inference, not a verified description.
• Potential § 102 exposure: As an optical-sensing-in-an-HMD reference, its natural mapping is against the independent apparatus claim (illuminator → optical sensor → controller → depth determination), and against the structured-light/blanket-light dependent claims if it discloses a projection illuminator. It is unlikely by classification alone to disclose the specific PIC/on-chip-waveguide-with-turning-features architecture of claim 1. Confidence: low–moderate. Note also the date tension: issued Sept. 2019 but the target's priority date is May 9, 2018 — its availability as prior art therefore depends on the earlier priority of its own application (per § 102(a)(2), its effective filing date would need to predate the target's priority date), which I could not check.

3.3 CA 2995292 A1 — published August 2018 — G02B 6/12004

• Full citation: Canadian Patent Application 2,995,292 A1, published Aug. 2018.
• Brief description: G02B 6/12004 sits in the "integrated optical circuits / photonic integrated circuit" hierarchy. That placement makes it a plausible PIC / integrated-optics reference and hence the most architecture-relevant of the foreign citations.
• Potential § 102 exposure: If it teaches an integrated-optics platform with on-chip waveguides and out-coupling features, it is the leading candidate against claim 1 and the PIC-structure dependent claims (Silicon substrate; Groups III/IV/V laser source; optical gratings; spacing-based beam-width control). Confidence: low–moderate — content unverified. Date note: published Aug. 2018, after the May 9, 2018 priority date; whether it qualifies depends on its own filing date and the applicable § 102 provision.

3.4 EP 3521879 A1 — published August 2019 — G02B 6/4206

• Full citation: European Patent Application 3,521,879 A1, published Aug. 2019.
• Brief description: G02B 6/4206 falls in "coupling of light from a waveguide/fibre to free space or another element," i.e., out-coupling of guided light — conceptually adjacent to the "optical turning features divert light out of the waveguide to the second axis" limitation.
• Potential § 102 exposure: Plausible against the light-diversion/out-coupling limitations of claim 1 and the grating-spacing dependent claims. Confidence: low. Also note the post-priority publication date (Aug. 2019) relative to the May 9, 2018 priority date; its prior-art effect would hinge on an earlier effective filing date (e.g., a PCT filing), which I could not verify.

3.5 GB 2545912 A — published July 2017 — G01B 9/02051

• Full citation: UK Patent Application 2,545,912 A, published July 2017.
• Brief description: G01B 9/02051 relates to interferometric measurement techniques.
• Potential § 102 exposure: Interferometry does not align with any claim of US 11,402,473 on its face; the citations of this type are typically § 102(a)(1)/(2) background or § 103 context for metrology, not anticipation of the PIC-illuminator claims. Potential exposure: minimal. Confidence in this characterization: moderate (based on classification), but the reference content is unverified.

3.6 Non-patent "Other Publications"

• Notice of Allowance dated Feb. 24, 2020 for U.S. Appl. No. 16/250,640 — this is the parent application (now US 10,698,086). It is a prosecution document, not prior art, and for this continuation it functions as the "safe-harbor"/support evidence for the claims. It carries no § 102 exposure.

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4. Summary table

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5. What I could not do, and the exact next steps to close it

I could not retrieve the complete (56) list, nor the full text/abstracts of the cited references, within the search steps available. Consequently, I cannot certify that any reference anticipates (rather than merely relates to) a claim — 35 U.S.C. § 102 requires a single reference disclosing every element of the claim as arranged.

To finish this analysis with high confidence, the authoritative sources to pull are:

1. USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter for application 16/882,025 and its PTO-892 "Notice of References Cited" — this gives the complete and exact examiner citation list (including the U.S. entries elided in my retrieved excerpt).
2. Global Dossier for application 16/882,025 and the parent 16/250,640 — to capture the full prosecution history and any § 102/§ 103 rejections.
3. Espacenet / Google Patents "References Cited" for US 11,402,473 — to cross-check the foreign documents and any NPL.
4. Full PDFs of each reference to run a proper element-by-element § 102 chart against claims 1–19.

If you can supply the full front page (or the PTO-892) I will complete the claim-by-claim anticipation chart, including which specific claim elements each reference does and does not disclose.

I'll start by pulling the prior-art citations associated with this patent so the analysis is grounded in actual references rather than assumptions.

Important note before I proceed: the page text you supplied (the Google Patents fetch) contains a "Prior art keywords" line (light, axis, pic, light beams, optical) and a prior art date (2018-05-09), but it does not contain a list of cited prior-art references (no "Cited By" / "Citations" table was included in the fetch, and the description was truncated at FIG. 6D). So I need to retrieve that citation data before I can name specific references.

I now have the reference list from the patent's face (the "(56) References Cited" section). Let me characterize the key references so I can build grounded combinations.

Preliminary: what "the prior art section of this page" actually contains

Before giving the §103 analysis, I have to flag a sourcing problem — it changes what I can state with confidence.

The Google Patents fetch you supplied contains:

• a "Prior art keywords" line: light, axis, pic, light beams, optical; and
• a prior art date of 2018-05-09.

It does not contain a citations/"References Cited" table, and the description was truncated mid‑FIG. 6D. So there are no named prior‑art references in the page text itself to work from. To avoid fabricating references, I pulled the actual "(56) References Cited" list from the granted patent PDF, which is the authoritative prior art of record:

(Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a5/1e/80/016c37b921d054/[US11402473](/patent/US11402473).pdf)

Important disclosure about my own confidence: I was able to verify the substance of only a subset of these. US 9,341,786 B1 I confirmed directly (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9341786). For the rest I infer relevance from their CPC classes (G02B 6/42xx = photonic chip optical coupling; H01S 5/02 = semiconductor laser packaging; G09G 3/02 = display drive) and from how examiners have used Gamache '786 in other cases. I have not verified the disclosures of Mentovich '833, Klamkin '118, Paquet '400, Mamidipudi '256, Bohn '074, Mansour '135, Huebner '337, Hajati '569, Menezo '491, or the Pierer filings. Conclusions that depend on them are flagged below. I also must note the search tool returned a hit for a different document (US 2007/0202400 A1, Yoshida) when I queried "2016/0202400 A1 Paquet" — I did not treat that as the reference.

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1. The claims actually at issue

The granted claims differ materially from the "Definitions"/SUMMARY language in your fetched page (which tracks the parent case). Per the granted claim set (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11402473](/patent/11402473)), independent claim 1 is:

a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) with at least one waveguide configured to (i) propagate light transmitted by a light source along a first axis parallel to a surface of the PIC and (ii) convert the light, using turning features, into collimated light beams that propagate along a second axis to exit the waveguide and the surface; and
an optical element, positioned over the surface of the PIC along the second axis, configured to (i) set an optical property of the collimated light beams and (ii) output them.

Two drafting features make claim 1 broad and §103‑vulnerable:

• Claim 1 does not require the light source to be on the PIC ("light transmitted by a light source"). Claim 14 adds "laser source"; claim 16 Groups III/IV/V; claim 15 the edge‑emitting geometry with the emitting facet perpendicular to the PIC surface.
• "Set an optical property" is functionally open‑ended — a grating, a lens, a diffuser, a lens array, or a PLC all arguably "set an optical property" (claims 11–13 enumerate DOE / Fresnel / HOE / binary optics / diffuser panel).

Dependents of interest: 5 (grating spacing set by target beam width), 6 (waveguide array along a third axis → 2‑D array), 7 (waveguide spacing set by target beam width), 8 (phase shifters steering the emission angle), 9 (structured light), 10 (blanket of diffused light). Caveat: the Justia excerpt truncated inside claim 17; I cannot confirm whether claims beyond 17 exist or their exact text.

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2. Critical‑date gate (this is often dispositive, and the (56) list is partly unusable)

Effective filing date is 2018‑05‑09 (provisional 62/669,301; continuation chain from 16/250,640, filed 2019‑01‑17). Because that date is after 2013‑03‑16, AIA §102/§103 apply.

• Qualify under §102(a)(1) (published before 2018‑05‑09): US 9,341,786 B1; US 2013/0208256 A1; US 2015/0171124 A1; US 2016/0202400 A1; US 2017/0363833 A1; US 2018/0081118 A1; GB 2545912 A.
• Do not qualify on their face (published after 2018‑05‑09): CA 2995292 A1, EP 3521879 A1, US 10,409,074 B2, US 2019/0179150, 2019/0196200, 2019/0139337, 2019/0371135, 2020/0026080, 2020/0090569, 2021/0333491.
  • These can still be art only under §102(a)(2), i.e., U.S. patents/application publications with an earlier effective filing date than 2018‑05‑09. Several Pierer/Mansour/Menezo filings plausibly have earlier priority; the foreign documents (CA/EP) cannot be §102(a)(2) art at all, and GB 2545912 A only counts via §102(a)(1) (it predates the critical date).
  • So a challenge built primarily on Menezo '491, CA 2995292, or the post‑2018 publications is date‑fragile unless the earlier effective filing dates are proven.

Practical consequence: the strongest §103 case must lean on Gamache '786, the 2015–2018 U.S. publications, and GB 2545912 A.

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3. Element mapping of claim 1 against a qualifying reference

US 9,341,786 B1 (Gamache, "Optomechanical assembly for a photonic chip") is a close structural match:

Gamache's stated purpose is in‑/out‑coupling of a photonic chip through a planar surface — i.e., the same physical problem as the patent's "light exits the waveguide and the top surface."

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4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Gamache '786 in view of a structured‑light / depth‑sensing illuminator reference (e.g., Mamidipudi '256 or Bohn '074)

Combination: Gamache '786 supplies the PIC + in‑plane waveguide + vertical turning gratings + over‑the‑surface optical element; the secondary reference supplies the known illuminator function of an over‑the‑surface diffractive/patterned optic that "sets an optical property" to produce structured light patterns (claim 9) or a blanket of diffused light (claim 10) for depth sensing.

Motivation (KSR v. Teleflex, 127 S.Ct. 1727 (2007)):

• Same field of endeavor — photonic‑chip light emission and depth‑sensing illumination are both optical‑module arts; examiners have repeatedly reasoned in this exact "same field / same purpose" frame when applying Gamache '786 (see e.g. the Office actions citing it at ptacts.uspto.gov, petitions 1558518/1558519).
• The patent itself concedes the motivation: it states the illuminator is meant to be small, light, and low‑power for mobile/HMD depth sensing, and that a DOE over a light‑emitting surface is the conventional way to project structured light or flood illumination. A POSITA seeking to miniaturize a depth‑sensing illuminator would recognize replacing a VCSEL‑plus‑collimator‑lens stack with an integrated PIC plus DOE as a predictable, beneficial rearrangement — exactly the rationale the specification uses to sell the invention.

Ground 2 — A grating‑out‑coupler PIC reference (Gamache '786, or Mentovich '833 / Klamkin '118 / Menezo '491 if their dates hold) in view of a depth‑sensor reference

Combination: primary PIC reference discloses the in‑plane→out‑of‑plane conversion; secondary reference (Mamidipudi '256 / Bohn '074, both cited on the face) discloses an illuminator + image sensor + controller determining depth from the projected pattern or time‑of‑flight — supplying claim 17's "optical sensor … detection output … controller … determine a depth."

Motivation: depth sensing with patterned/flood illumination is a generic, well‑known use of an IR emitter; applying a known illuminator to a known depth‑sensing system is a "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" (KSR).

Caveat: I could not verify Mamidipudi '256 or Bohn '074's actual content. If Bohn '074 is post‑dated and lacks an earlier effective filing date, it drops out; a U.S. publication/patent from the 2013–2018 window would need to be substituted.

Ground 3 — For claims 6, 7, 8 (2‑D array and phase‑shifted steering)

Combination: a reference teaching a 2‑D array of out‑coupling gratings/emitters with phase control to steer a beam (Mentovich '833 and/or Mansour '135, both cited; note also Intel's WO 2017/165034 "Dynamic beam steering optoelectronic packages," which teaches light source + plural waveguides + plural gratings + plural phase tuners to set beam direction — though it is not in the (56) list).

Motivation: optical phased array beam steering is a recognized technique for scanning a field of view; the patent's own FIG. 6D describes scanning θ₁→θ₂, so the benefit is apparent. Claims 5 and 7 (spacing "configured based on a target beam width") are design‑choice limitations supported at most by the specification's own discussion of interference/destructive‑cancellation between adjacent emitters — a POSITA optimizing emitter pitch to control beam width.

Ground 4 — For claims 14–16 (laser source; edge‑emitter with facet perpendicular to the PIC surface; Groups III/IV/V)

Combination: Gamache '786 (or any hybrid‑integration PIC reference) in view of a III‑V‑on‑silicon laser integration reference (Klamkin '118; Pierer '150/'200/'080 if dated correctly). Hybrid/heterogeneous III‑V laser bonding to a silicon PIC, followed by grating out‑coupling, was a well‑established approach.

Caution beyond dates: claim 15 requires a "light emitting surface perpendicular to the surface of the PIC" — i.e., an edge‑emitting laser whose facet faces sideways into the waveguide. The references cited (Pierer: H01S 5/0235 = laser mounting; Klamkin: G02B 6/4208 = optical coupling) are plausibly directed to this, but I could not confirm any of them expressly disclose the perpendicular‑facet EELD‑to‑PIC geometry. This claim is the weakest link in the (56)‑based case and may require an uncited reference.

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5. Where the §103 case is weakest (what the patentee would argue)

1. "Collimated light beams." Grating out‑couplers as disclosed in Gamache '786 typically emit divergent beams; Gamache's PLC is a coupling/redirection structure, not a collimator. A challenger must show either that the reference's out‑coupling is collimating, or that collimation via apodized/curved/chirped grating design (numerous art references, e.g., GB 2545912 A and the Chen et al. chirped grating paper cited on Gamache's face) was obvious to add. This is the single most contestable element.
2. "Optical element … set an optical property." A patentee could argue this is a functional limitation requiring the element to alter the beam (diffract/pattern), whereas Gamache's PLC largely transports it. Ground 1's use of a DOE reference is designed to close that gap.
3. The post‑dated‑art problem. Roughly half the (56) list (Menezo '491, CA 2995292, EP 3521879, the 2019–2020 Pierer/Mansour/Hajati/Huebner publications) cannot be §102(a)(1) art against a 2018‑05‑09 priority date, and the foreign ones cannot be §102(a)(2) art at all. An IPR petition relying on them would risk a threshold denial.
4. No objective indicia in the record. The patent asserts advantages (elimination of the collimator lens; EELD power efficiency; small form factor) but the record I have contains no nexus evidence, so there is presently little to rebut a prima facie case.

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6. Bottom line

• A prima facie §103 case against claim 1 is plausible using Gamache '786 alone as to structure, if one accepts that a vertical coupling grating "converts light into collimated light beams" — I do not consider that acceptance automatic. The stronger formulation is Gamache '786 + a structured‑light illuminator reference, framed on the predictable‑use / design‑incentive rationales of KSR, supported by the applicant's own admission that compact, low‑power depth‑sensing illuminators for mobile/HMD platforms were the goal.
• Claims 9, 10, 11–13 (structured light / blanket / DOE / Fresnel‑HOE‑binary optics / diffuser panel) are the easiest to invalidate; they recite the conventional outputs of a DOE‑based IR illuminator.
• Claims 6–8 (2‑D array; pitch set by beam width; phase shifters for steering) are vulnerable if a qualifying pre‑2018 U.S. reference teaches a phase‑controlled 2‑D out‑coupler array.
• Claim 15 (edge‑emitter with facet perpendicular to the PIC surface) is the hardest to reach with the (56) art as I can verify it.

Highest‑confidence statement: the structural core of claim 1 (in‑plane waveguide → out‑of‑plane turning features → optical element over the chip surface) is squarely taught by US 9,341,786 B1, which I verified; and the depth‑sensing/illuminator function is the subject of several other cited references. Lowest‑confidence statement: anything I said about Mentovich '833, Klamkin '118, Mamidipudi '256, Bohn '074, Mansour '135, Huebner '337, Hajati '569, Menezo '491, Paquet '400, Temil '124, and the Pierer filings — I inferred these from CPC classes and could not confirm their disclosures, so any ground resting on them should be re‑verified against the documents themselves before being relied on.

If you can supply the full text of the cited references (or the file history Office actions for application 16/250,640 / 16/882,025), I can tighten this into a formal element‑by‑element claim chart with verified citations.