US 6771686

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number.

Let me check the USPTO records and any litigation history.

Let me do one more targeted check for any litigation or CAFC/PTAB activity involving this specific patent.

US Patent 6,771,686 — Analyst Summary

Caveat on scope: My searches returned the patent's own full text and family data (Google Patents, EPO register, USPTO-report) but no CAFC 2026 docket entry and no PTAB/litigation record naming this patent. The only third-party 2026 CAFC result (Spero v. Mercedes-Benz, Nos. 2025-1306 etc.) is unrelated. I found no evidence of any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal involving 6,771,686; I cannot confirm a negative, but nothing supports active 2026 CAFC activity. Treat litigation status as "no activity found," not "none exists."

Bibliographic Data

Abstract (as issued)

"By dividing at least the part of the correction optics of at least one row of emitter elements, i.e. the part acting as the fast axis collimator, into several segments, the degradation of beam quality at the focus, especially the widening of the focus, which is caused by the nonconformities between the diode laser bars, or between the row of emitter elements, and the correction optics, can be effectively prevented."

Plain-Language Overview

Problem: Diode-laser bars emit a highly divergent "fast axis" beam and a broader "slow axis" beam. A single, unbroken fast-axis collimator (FAC) must be aligned across the whole bar. Manufacturing tolerances and mounting deformation between the bar and the FAC cause beam misalignment, which widens the focused spot and degrades beam quality at the focus (see fig. 6, distribution 8″′).

Core idea: Segment the correction optics — at minimum the portion acting as the fast-axis collimator — into multiple pieces arranged along the slow axis, and adjust each segment individually relative to the emitter row. Each segment then only has to be correct over a short length of bar, so uncorrectable tolerance effects shrink dramatically. The patent also discloses combining slow-axis and fast-axis collimation into single lens bodies (one lens element per emitter) and various stacking/beam-combining architectures.

Independent Claims (plain language)

The patent has 44 claims with four independent claims: 1, 41, 43, and 44. All four are apparatus claims to a laser diode arrangement.

Claim 1 — The segmented, individually-adjustable FAC
A laser diode arrangement comprising (a) at least one row of light-emitting emitter elements spaced apart along a slow axis (X); (b) at least one correction optics extending in the slow axis, spaced from the emitter row along the beam direction, that acts as both a fast-axis collimator and a slow-axis collimator; wherein (c) the correction optics are segmented at least in the part acting as the fast-axis collimator into a plurality of segments following one another along the slow axis; and (d) those fast-axis segments are individually adjusted and fixed independently of one another relative to the emitter row.

This is the broadest, most commercially significant claim — the independent-adjustment/fixing limitation is the crux.

Claim 41 — Segmentation plus per-emitter slow-axis lens elements
Same general arrangement (emitter row; correction optics acting as fast- and slow-axis collimator; segmented at least in the fast-axis part), but the characterizing feature is different: the part acting as the slow-axis collimator comprises multiple lens elements that optically behave as cylinder lenses whose axes lie in the fast axis (Y), adjoin one another along the slow axis, and are each assigned to one emitter element. Notably, claim 41 does not itself recite independent adjustability — that is added by dependent claim 42.

Claim 43 — Integrated fast+slow collimator lens elements
A laser diode arrangement with an emitter row and correction optics formed by a plurality of lens elements adjoining one another along the slow axis, wherein each lens element itself performs both collimation functions: its entry side has a lens surface acting as the fast-axis collimator (cylinder surface with axis in the slow axis) and its exit side has a lens surface acting as the slow-axis collimator (cylinder surface with axis in the fast axis).

Claim 44 — 90° cross-coupling of two emitter rows
A laser diode arrangement with at least two emitter rows, each with its own correction optics acting as fast- and slow-axis collimator, wherein the two emitter rows are offset by 90° on a coupling element to combine their beams into a common beam cluster. (Note: the printed text reads "beam plaster" — evidently an OCR/typographical rendering of "beam cluster.") This claim targets the wavelength-/polarization-multiplexing embodiments of FIGS. 9–12.

Notable Dependent Claims (context)

• Sec. 3/43-type detail: entry-side cylinder lens (fast axis) + exit-side cylinder lens (slow axis) on one body (claims 2–3).
• Monolithic construction of the multi-lens correction optics (claim 5); one lens element per emitter (claim 6).
• 2–5× segmentation (claim 17); segment gap/connection area placed between two emitters, ideally at the midpoint (claim 18).
• Occupation density < 10% for the emitter row (claim 39) — enabling one slow-axis element per emitter.
• Stacking variants: rows offset in fast axis in a stack (claim 26), stacks offset in slow axis (claim 31), interdigitated stack planes (claim 32), and coupling/deflection elements to merge stacks (claim 25).

Confirming Sources

• Full patent text and claims: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6771686/en
• EP family member (EP 1081819 A3) confirming title, applicant "Laserline Gesellschaft für Entwicklung und Vertrieb von Diodenlasern GmbH," inventors Krause/Ullmann, priority DE 19939750 (1999-08-21): EPO publication PDF linked from search results.
• The patent is cited as prior art (category "Y") in WO 2007/018567 A1 (Applied Materials), confirming its existence and public availability as of 2004-08-03.

Uncertainty notes: (1) I did not obtain a primary USPTO PatentCenter "legal status/assignment" page directly — the expired-lifetime status, adjusted 2021-01-03 expiration date, and assignee data come from Google Patents and EPO records; (2) no CAFC 2026 docket entry for this patent number was found in my searches; if you require a definitive litigation check, a direct PACER/CAFC docket query on the exact number would be needed.

I'll search litigation-specific sources for this exact patent number.

Let me run more targeted queries on litigation-specific databases.

Let me check a few more litigation-focused sources directly.

Litigation Search Result: US Patent 6,771,686

Bottom line: No litigation is known involving US Patent 6,771,686. My targeted searches of litigation-covering sources (Justia Dockets, CourtListener, PACER Monitor, RPX/insight, general web indices of district-court and PTAB filings) returned no case — district court, ITC, PTAB, or Federal Circuit — in which US 6,771,686 is named as an asserted patent, a patent-in-suit, or the subject of a validity challenge. This is consistent with the "no activity found" caveat carried forward from the earlier summary section; it does not repeat that section's bibliographic work, and I found no contradiction with it.

Cases examined and excluded (same party names, different patents)

To avoid a false positive, I ran down every 2025–2026 result mentioning "Laserline." None involves 6,771,686:

Both are "Laserline"-named but neither implicates the '686 patent. I note the former is a plaintiff-vs-Laserline case (Blue 425 is the patent owner, Laserline is the accused infringer), so even by party-name association it does not reflect 6,771,686 being enforced.

Why absence of litigation is plausible here

• The patent is expired. Google Patents lists it "Expired – Lifetime" with an adjusted expiration of 2021-01-03. An expired patent cannot support a forward-looking injunction and is a weak damages vehicle, which materially reduces the incentive to assert it.
• No PTAB activity would be expected post-expiration. IPRs are generally unavailable once a patent has expired (no claims to amend/construed for surviving scope), so the absence of an IPR/CBM record is unremarkable rather than surprising.
• The assignee, Laserline Gesellschaft für Entwicklung und Vertrieb von Diodenlasern mbH, does appear as a litigant in 2025–2026, but as a defendant on newer blue-laser patents — showing the company litigates, yet still not on the '686.

Confidence and limitations

• Confidence that no case names 6,771,686: moderately high. Multiple litigation databases and indices returned zero hits on the exact number, and the only near-matches were affirmatively traced to other patent numbers.
• Caveat: My searches are web-index-based; I did not directly load a live Unified Patents Portal caselist, a PACER docket query, or a CAFC docket query filtered on the exact number (my remaining queries on those sources returned no matching records before the search budget was exhausted). A definitive negative would require a direct PACER/CAFC/Unified-Patents query on the exact number "6771686."
• Per the operating rule, I have not auto-corrected any identifier. All numbers ("6771686," "6,771,686," the case numbers, and the other patent numbers) are reported literally as returned.

Status summary for the record: Known litigation involving US 6,771,686 — none found. = No plaintiff, no defendant, no jurisdiction, no case number, no outcome, because no such case appears in the sources searched.

I'll verify the structured data ("no AIA trials on file") against live sources before writing.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US Patent 6,771,686

Verification performed: I ran targeted web searches against PTAB E2E / USPTO PTACTS document indexes, CourtListener, and general docket sources using the patent number and assignee. Every hit tied to "6,771,686" was either (a) this patent's own text, (b) an unrelated chromosome coordinate string in a bioRxiv dataset, or (c) district-court matters involving different patents. No IPR, PGR, or CBM paper bearing this patent number surfaced.

Proceedings overview

There are no AIA trial proceedings on file for US 6,771,686 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs, no Federal Circuit appeal of any PTAB decision (because there is no decision to appeal). The canonical USPTO Open Data Portal block returns an empty proceeding list, and my independent searches corroborate that absence. The defensive posture for a defendant is therefore not "this patent has been hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "claim 1 is dead." It is: the patent is untested at the PTAB and, critically, expired — its adjusted expiration was 2021-01-03, so the practical defense is a damages-window and laches/§ 286 limitation argument, not an IPR.

Proceedings on file

None. No proceeding numbers exist to report, and I will not manufacture any. The sections in your template that call for an FWD disposition, judge panel, settlement terms, and appeal docket have no content because no such event occurred.

Adjacent matters I did find (not PTAB proceedings — flagged so they are not mistaken for AIA trials)

EPO/DE family prosecution — not an AIA trial

• DE 19939750 C2 / A1 and EP 1081819 A2/A3 → B1 (grant publication 2008-04-09; DE 50015086 D1 grant 2008-05-21). This is ordinary foreign prosecution of the same invention, not a validity challenge.
• A near-miss to avoid conflating: EPO Board decision T 1341/05 (3.4.02, 2007-07-10) concerns Laserline's EP 0 984 312 (application 99116255.3, "Laserdiodenanordnung"), a different Laserline patent/appeal. Do not cite it as a proceeding on 6,771,686.

District-court matters (patents other than 6,771,686)

• Blue 425 LLC v. Laserline Inc., et al., No. 2:25-cv-13168 (E.D. Mich.) — asserts U.S. 10,940,562 and 11,612,957 against Laserline's LDMblue/LDFblue systems. Different patent numbers entirely.
• LaserLine Mfg., Inc. v. Burns, No. 3:26-cv-00406 (N.D. Tex.) — a paint-striping laser guidance case involving an unrelated "LaserLine Mfg." entity; not the German diode-laser patent owner.
• Neither case implicates 6,771,686, and no IPR was filed by any defendant in either as of my searches.

Strategic summary

Claim status — everything UNTESTED. All 44 claims, including independent claims 1, 41, 43 and 44, stand exactly as issued. No claim of 6,771,686 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. There is no FWD to quote and none to link. Anyone telling you "the claims are invalidated at the PTAB" has confused this patent with something else — possibly the Virentem/Enounce line of Google/YouTube IPRs (IPR2019-01237 et seq.) or the Vermeer v. Kubota family, both of which surfaced in my searches and have nothing to do with this patent.

Estoppel landscape — empty, but moot. Because there has never been a petitioner, § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds nobody, and no prior-art ground is foreclosed. In a vacuum that would leave IPR on the table as a defensive tool. Here it does not, because of expiration: with the adjusted expiration of 2021-01-03 and a statutory maximum 17-year-from-issue term (2004-08-03) also long past, the patent cannot be infringed going forward. Any assertion today could only reach past damages within the six-year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286 — and even that window closed in early 2027 on the outermost reading, with much of it already time-barred. An IPR against an expired patent is permitted but rarely worth the fee, because there is no forward injunction to enjoin and the invalidity defense is fully available in district court with no estoppel downside.

Pattern signals — none. No serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, Open Invention Network) appears in any docket touching this patent number. The patent owner (Laserline GmbH / Laserline Gesellschaft für Entwicklung und Vertrieb von Diodenlasern mbH) has not pursued any PTAB appeal for this patent, since it has never been a party to a PTAB trial on it. Its IP enforcement energy in the U.S. docket appears to be directed at newer patents (the 562/957 blue-laser matters).

Recommended next steps

1. If you have received a demand letter citing 6,771,686: the first response is not an IPR petition — it is a § 286 damages-window letter pointing out that the patent expired 2021-01-03, that the accused products cannot infringe in the future, and that any recovery is limited to infringing sales within six years before the complaint. Pull the plaintiff's own docket to check whether it has asserted this patent at all (my searches found no such assertion).
2. If you are contemplating an IPR anyway (e.g., to defeat a past-damages claim cheaply or to create a written invalidity record): confirm current Director-level institution practice first. As of the 2025-10-16 Squires memorandum, the Director decides institution in all IPR/PGR proceedings after a bifurcated discretionary/merits screen, and the October 2025 proposed rules would bar IPRs against patents that have already survived a validity challenge or are subject to a parallel validity proceeding reaching decision first. On this patent there is no such history, but the "settled expectations" factor (2025-03-26 memo; e.g., Dabico v. AXA Power, IPR2025-00408) weighs heavily against institution for an expired, 20-year-old, long-in-force patent — genuinely adverse to any petitioner here.
3. Do not represent that a PTAB outcome exists. If an adversary or a licensing counterparty claims claims of this patent were canceled or confirmed at the Board, ask for the proceeding number and the FWD. There isn't one.
4. If you need a belt-and-suspenders confirmation, run a direct query in PTAB E2E / USPTO PTACTS and a PACER/CAFC docket check on the exact number. My searches are strong evidence of absence but cannot logically prove a universal negative; the ODP structured data is the authoritative source and it is empty.

Citation note: No PTAB opinion, FWD, or CAFC opinion is cited above, because none exists for this patent. The only authoritative link for the proceeding list is the USPTO Open Data Portal record for US 6,771,686 (empty), consistent with the full-text source at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6771686/en, which shows no "PTAB Proceedings" or "Federal Circuit" entries.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent.

Assignment / Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,771,686

Sourcing caveat (read first): I was unable to load the live USPTO Assignment Center result page (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) or its JSON API within my search budget — the queries returned the patent's own text, EPO family documents, and third-party news, but not the Assignment Center record itself. What follows is grounded in (a) the assignment data embedded in the patent's own Google Patents legal-events block and (b) the EPO/DE family records. Where a field (notably the correspondent of record) could not be recovered, I say so rather than guess. A definitive pull requires a direct query on the exact number "6771686" at the Assignment Center.

Inventors

Pattern check: No unusual departure pattern. Both inventors assigned their rights to the employer-of-record within weeks of the U.S. filing (see timeline) and both appear on later Laserline filings — i.e., they stayed with the company rather than departing near filing. This is the ordinary "employee inventors assign to employer" posture, not a pre-fire-sale exodus.

Original assignee

Laserline Gesellschaft für Entwicklung und Vertrieb von Diodenlasern mbH (Mülheim-Kärlich near Koblenz, Germany), founded 1997.

• Primary line of business: Development and manufacture of high-power diode laser systems (blue and infrared wavelengths), used in materials machining, medical technology, and solid-state laser pumping — precisely the field of the patent.
• Ships a product embodying the claims: Yes. Laserline states more than 7,500 high-power diode lasers installed worldwide, with output powers up to 60 kW; it is one of the recognized market leaders in the diode-laser segment. The patent's segmented fast-/slow-axis collimation architecture is core diode-laser-stack beam-shaping technology.
• Current status: Operating, privately held, and acquisitive. In 2024 it took a 70% majority stake in WBC Photonics (Boston; MBO of former Panasonic subsidiary TeraDiode) to add blue industrial diode lasers. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or Shell-transfer history found.

Name-collision warning (do not conflate): A search surfaced an M&A record, "Laserline GmbH … Übernahme durch CeWe Color," Sitz Scheringstr. 1, 13355 Berlin, industry Druckereien (printing), Geschäftsführer Martin Stedler. That is a different, unrelated Berlin printing company. It is not the assignee here and does not represent an ownership change of this patent.

Assignment timeline

Chronological record of every assignment retrievable for US 6,771,686:

• 2000-09-28 / 2000-09-29 (executed — signing dates) / recorded 2000-11-21 — Reel 011250 / 0106
  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: ULLMANN, CHRISTOPH; KRAUSE, VOLKER (the two named inventors)
  • Assignee: LASERLINE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ENTWICKLUNG UND VERTRIEB (von Diodenlasern mbH)
  • Correspondent: Not recovered. The indexed Google Patents legal-events entry exposes the reel/frame (011250/0106) and signing dates (2000-09-28 to 2000-09-29) but not the recording attorney/agent name; the Assignment Center correspondent field could not be pulled. Flag: this is the single point I could not verify — a direct Assignment Center lookup is required to fill the correspondent.
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-employer assignment (obligation-to-assign on filing), not an acquisition, fire-sale, or third-party transfer.

Post-issuance assignments: NONE found. There is no recorded change of name, security agreement, merger, license, release, correction, or transfer-to-asserter for this patent. The Google Patents legal-events block from issuance (2004-08-03) forward shows only routine maintenance-fee activity and the terminal adjusted-expiration entry:

Finding: the chain terminates at the original operating-company assignee, which still owns the patent. Per the task instruction, because there are no post-issuance records, I note that plainly: this patent never left its original owner, and that absence is itself the finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6771686
    1999 : Priority DE 19939750 filed
    2000 : US application filed 18 Aug
         : Inventors assign to Laserline
    2004 : Patent issued 3 Aug
    2008 : Maintenance fee paid
    2021 : Patent expired 3 Jan

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only assignment (Reel 011250/0106) runs to an operating manufacturer, not to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" LLC. No single-purpose Delaware/Texas entity, no registered-agent service address, appears anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, MPHJ, or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff. The sole assignee is a German operating diode-laser maker.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not assessable. Only one assignment exists, so recurrence is logically impossible — but the correspondent name itself was not recoverable from my sources (Reel 011250/0106 shows dates and parties, not the recording attorney). A single appearance would not be a "finding" even if obtained; I flag it only because the field is a genuine data gap.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Zero consecutive transfers; no chained LLCs in any window, let alone <24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No assignment within 6 months of any suit; indeed no infringement suit naming this patent exists (consistent with the earlier Litigation and PTAB sections' "no activity found").

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Assignee never filed Chapter 7/11; no proceedings sale of the patent found. (Contrast Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid scenarios.)

7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer to any NPE asserting on Laserline's behalf; the patent stayed in-house and is expired.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at the original operating company.

Verdict

Insufficient data (taxonomy mapping: "only the original assignment") — with a clear substantive read that no NPE pattern exists.

Justification: the entire recorded chain is a single, ordinary inventor-to-employer assignment executed 2000-09-28/29 and recorded 2000-11-21 at Reel 011250/0106, running from Ullmann and Krause to Laserline Gesellschaft für Entwicklung und Vertrieb von Diodenlasern mbH — an operating, product-shipping manufacturer — with no post-issuance assignments and no assertion history. None of the eight NPE signals is present on the available evidence. I select "Insufficient data" rather than "Operating-company assertion" only because the taxonomy's latter bucket requires the owner to be suing actual competitors on this patent, which it is not (the patent expired 2021-01-03 and has never been asserted); the substance, however, is that this is a clean, never-transferred operating-company patent.

Residual gap to close: the correspondent of record for Reel 011250/0106 was not retrievable here; confirm it and re-confirm the absence of any later recording via a direct query at the USPTO Assignment Center:
https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 6771686; mirror index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Citation note: All identifiers are reported literally as returned; nothing was auto-corrected. The reel/frame (011250/0106) and signing dates (2000-09-28 to 2000-09-29) come from the patent's Google Patents legal-events block (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6771686/en); the assignee/product status comes from Laserline corporate statements and EPO family records.

I'll search the USPTO database and prior-art records for US Patent 6,771,686 and its cited references.

Let me pull details on the remaining cited references.

US Patent 6,771,686 — Prior-Art Reference Analysis (§ 102)

Verification of the record: The USPTO/Google Patents record for US 6,771,686 B1 (Appl. No. 09/641,570; filed 2000‑08‑18; priority DE 19939750, 1999‑08‑21; granted 2004‑08‑03; "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2021‑01‑03) lists two distinct bodies of cited art, and they must not be conflated:

1. "Patent Citations (9)" — the references cited by the US examiner during prosecution (the list the task asks about).
2. "Family Cites Families (7)" — references cited during prosecution of the DE/EP family members (i.e., EPO/DPMA art, not the US examiner's list).

Per the operating rules, all identifiers below are reproduced literally as they appear in the record; I have not corrected any number, date, or title. The claim numbering follows the patent's own 44‑claim set.

A. US examiner citations ("Patent Citations (9)")

B. Family / EPO citations ("Family Cites Families (7)")

These were cited during prosecution of the DE 19939750 / EP 1 081 819 family, not by the US examiner. They are nevertheless the art the EPO considered closest, and thus the art most likely to be relied on in a § 102/§ 103 challenge.

C. Specification-referenced art (background)

• U.S. Pat. No. 5,802,092 — cited in the '686 specification as the closest known arrangement: a laser diode arrangement whose slow‑axis collimator is formed by a host of cylinder‑lens elements following one another in the slow axis, one element per emitter, with beams adjoining to give a high filling‑factor cluster. (No date independently verified in this session; treat the date cautiously.)
  • § 102 relevance: This is the reference that most directly reads on claims 6, 11, 15, and 20 (per‑emitter cylinder lens elements of the slow‑axis collimator) and on the high‑filling‑factor beam cluster of claim 10. Critically, however, it discloses one continuous fast‑axis collimator, which is precisely the deficiency the '686 invention remedies. It therefore does not anticipate independent claim 1 (no segmentation, no independent adjustment/fixing of FAC segments), and every claim listing above depends from claim 1. This is the reference the examiner must have had in mind as § 103 art.
• The corresponding EP 1 081 819 B1 search report additionally lists EP‑A‑0 984 312, US‑A‑5 369 661, US‑A‑5 216 687, EP‑B‑0 573 375 — none of which is in the US examiner citation list and which, on their face (per the EPO report), are background rather than anticipatory.

D. Bottom line — which claim(s) each reference "potentially anticipates"

• No cited reference anticipates any independent claim (1, 41, 43, or 44). Each independent claim requires a correction optics that acts both as fast‑ and slow‑axis collimator and that is segmented in its fast‑axis portion into plural slow‑axis‑following segments, with the segments individually adjusted and fixed (claim 1) — a combination that appears in none of the cited references. The examiner's citation of these references is consistent with a § 103 obviousness rejection, not a § 102 anticipation rejection.
• Closest references by subject matter, with the claim the relevance attaches to:
  • US 6,337,873 (Jenoptik) → dependent claims 11, 12, 15, 21, 26 (segmented/redirector collimator segments; per‑emitter collimating elements).
  • US 5,802,092 (background) → dependent claims 6, 10, 11, 15, 20 (slow‑axis collimator of per‑emitter cylinder lenses, high filling factor).
  • US 5,986,794 / DE 19705574 (Laserline) → claims 25, 43, 44 (stacked‑plate/cross‑90° beam combination).
  • US 5,784,203 (Beckmann) → claims 25, 44 (stacked angularly offset plates combining an array into a common beam).
• References in the list that are NOT prior art and cannot anticipate anything: US 2002/0025096 A1 (filed 2000‑08‑23; pub. 2002‑02‑28) and US 6,400,512 B1 (filed 2000‑11‑28; pub. 2002‑06‑04) — both post‑date the '686 filing and priority dates.
• References that are prior art only as § 102(e) art (US filing before the '686 US filing 2000‑08‑18): US 6,154,278, US 6,337,873, US 6,137,631, US 6,301,054.
• References that are cleanly pre‑priority § 102(a)/(b) art (pub. before 1999‑08‑21): US 5,784,203, US 5,986,794, US 6,088,170, and the family/EPO references US 5,081,637, JP H04‑97374 U, JP H04‑255280 A, US 5,745,153, DE 19705574 C2, US 5,900,981, DE 19839902 C1.

E. Consistency check against the previously generated sections

No contradiction with the prior bibliographic/litigation/PTAB sections. Two points of note for the record:

1. The earlier summary flagged the DE/EP family (DE 19939750, EP 1081819, DE 50015086) but did not enumerate the citation lists; this section adds the reference‑by‑reference § 102 mapping it did not contain.
2. The earlier sections correctly identified that the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2021‑01‑03) with no litigation or PTAB record found. That context matters here: an expired patent cannot be infringed prospectively, so the practical value of this prior‑art mapping is limited to the § 286 six‑year damages lookback, not to any forward‑looking injunction or IPR.

Caveat on § 102 conclusions: Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 requires a single reference to disclose every claim limitation. My "potential" assignments above identify which claims each reference is relevant to; they are not findings of anticipation of any independent claim. A definitive § 102/§ 103 determination would require the full prosecution history (the examiner's actual rejections and the applicant's amendments/arguments), which is not in the record provided. The claim text is quoted literally, including apparent typographical renderings in the issued claims (e.g., "beam plaster" in claim 44, "a tire" in claim 15).

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

Excellent — I found a critical reference. Let me pull the full text of two more key references before writing the analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — US 6,771,686 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Preface / cross-reference. This section builds on the prior bibliographic, litigation and PTAB sections (which establish: priority 1999‑08‑21; filed 2000‑08‑18; issued 2004‑08‑03; assignee Laserline; no litigation or AIA‑trial history; expired 2021‑01‑03). It does not repeat that material. One correction/clarification I must flag: the earlier bibliographic section listed the four independent claims as 1, 41, 43, 44; the full text confirms this. I keep the literal identifiers as printed, including the apparent OCR artifact "beam plaster" in claim 44 (the rest of the specification uses "beam cluster"; I do not auto‑correct it).

Important scope caveat. I did not retrieve full texts for several references of record (US 5,081,637; US 5,745,153; US 5,900,981; US 6,137,631; US 6,301,054; US 6,088,170; US 6,154,278; U.S. 2002/0025096). Statements about those below are limited to their titles, dates, and well‑established subject matter; I do not fabricate specific disclosures for them. Where I assert a disclosure, it is grounded in text I actually retrieved.

1. Legal framework and the claim‑construction pivot

Because the application was filed 2000‑08‑18, pre‑AIA § 103 governs (AIA first‑to‑file provisions applied to applications filed on/after 2013‑03‑16). Two consequences matter enormously here:

1. Pre‑AIA § 102(e)/§ 103(c). A U.S. patent is § 102(e) prior art only if it is "by another" and was filed in the U.S. before the applicant's invention. And pre‑AIA § 103(c) disqualifies, for § 103 purposes, subject matter that qualifies as prior art only under § 102(e)/(f)/(g) and was commonly owned at the time the invention was made.
2. "By another." A reference authored by the same inventive entity is not § 102(a) or § 102(e) prior art at all.

This is not academic — several of the references on this page were authored by the same two inventors (Krause and Ullmann) and owned by the same assignee (Laserline), including the single most on‑point reference for the central feature. That fact reshapes the entire § 103 picture and explains why the patent issued.

The crux limitation (claim 1 element (d), and the reason the patent was allowed) is "said correction optic segments of the fast axis being individually adjusted and fixed independently of one another in relation to the at least one row of emitter elements." Everything else in claim 1 was, by 1999, conventional in high‑power diode‑laser optics. The § 103 question is therefore narrow: would a PHOSITA have been motivated to (i) segment the fast‑axis collimator itself and (ii) mount those segments for independent adjustment/fixing?

2. Prior‑art inventory (references of record on the patent page)

Legend for "availability": evaluated against the '686 priority date 1999‑08‑21 and U.S. filing 2000‑08‑18.

Takeaways that govern the whole analysis:

• The art that actually teaches the winning feature (segmenting the fast‑axis collimator to cure nonconformity/smile) is the applicant's own earlier work (US 6,175,452 / DE 19839902), and it is not § 102/§ 103 prior art here — same inventors ("not by another") and, in any event, its U.S. filing (1999‑09‑02) and its publication (2000‑05‑25) both post‑date the '686 priority date. This is exactly why the examiner could not use it.
• The genuinely third‑party array/collimation art (Beckmann '203, Jenoptik '873, Kodak '153, MIT '637) teaches beam combining and slow‑axis segmentation, not fast‑axis segmentation with independent per‑segment adjustment.

3. Level of ordinary skill

PHOSITA ≈ a person with a bachelor's degree in optics/physics or equivalent and 2–4 years designing high‑power diode‑laser beam‑shaping/collimation optics (fast‑axis and slow‑axis collimation, smile/nonconformity correction, bar/stack architectures). Such a person would know: (a) diode bars emit a highly divergent fast‑axis beam and a lower‑quality slow‑axis beam; (b) FACs are micro‑cylindrical lenses placed a few hundred µm from the facet and actively aligned/adjusted during assembly; (c) SACs may be built as per‑emitter cylindrical‑lens arrays (US 5,802,092); (d) the "smile"/nonconformity phenomenon degrades the focal spot.

4. Claim 1 — element‑by‑element mapping and the strongest combinations

4.1 Element map

4.2 Combination A — US 6,337,873 (Jenoptik) as primary + US 5,986,794 (Laserline) as secondary

What it yields. '873 supplies elements (a), (b) and the concept of segmenting collimation optics (into a "segmented collimation lens system" and a segmented "direction element with a number of different segments equal to the number of emitters"); '794 supplies the notion that fast‑ and slow‑axis collimation can be consolidated/paired in an extended multi‑lens correction optic.

Motivation a challenger would assert (KSR rationales):

• Same field, same problem. Both address shaping/collimating the highly divergent output of a diode‑laser bar/stack for focusing to a common spot.
• Known technique, predictable result. Having already segmented the slow‑axis collimator and the direction element, applying the same segmentation to the fast‑axis collimator would have been "the known technique … applied to a known [structure] ready for improvement."
• Design incentive. Segmenting the collimator reduces the length of bar over which a single optic must maintain conformity — an engineering "size/length" trade‑off a PHOSITA would pursue.

Why it is weak. Element (c) requires segmentation "at least in a part acting as the fast axis collimator." '873 segments the slow‑axis lens system and a direction element — not the FAC. Nothing in '873 or '794 identifies fast‑axis nonconformity as the failure mode to be cured by segmenting the FAC. Reaching claim 1 requires a further, hindsight‑driven leap, and the motivation to make that specific leap comes only from the inventor's own insight (memorialized in the applicant's own '452/'902). This is precisely the "obvious to try only with the benefit of the inventor's disclosure" situation that fails § 103.

Verdict: Colorable but likely insufficient to invalidate claim 1 as a matter of law. It does not reach (c)+(d) without the applicant's own art.

4.3 Combination B — US 5,802,092 (per‑emitter SAC) + US 5,986,794 (paired/combined FAC‑SAC optics) + the admitted FAC‑alignment problem

What it yields. '092 supplies the idea that the slow‑axis collimator is built as a host of per‑emitter cylinder‑lens elements ("one is assigned to one emitter … beams … directly adjoin one another"), i.e., that a correction optic can be segmented at the granularity of individual emitters. '794 supplies fast+slow cylinder optics in one path.

Motivation asserted: If segmenting the SAC per emitter is beneficial and if FAC alignment tolerances (nonconformity) are known to degrade the spot, a PHOSITA would extend segmentation "up the chain" to the FAC.

Why it is weak / borderline: This is the best third‑party‑only argument, because '092 makes the segmentation of a collimator in the slow axis into discrete per‑emitter elements explicitly known. But claim 1 recites segmentation of the fast‑axis part and independent adjustment/fixing of those fast‑axis segments, which '092 does not teach (its elements are the SAC, oriented with axes in the fast axis — the opposite collimation role). A challenger must bridge from slow‑axis element segmentation to fast‑axis segment segmentation, and no reference of record states the fast axis is the one needing segmentation. The file history (the patent issued over these references) confirms the examiner did not find this bridge.

Verdict: Not sufficient standing alone; requires impermissible hindsight.

4.4 Combination C — the "elephant in the room": US 6,175,452 / DE 19839902

If a challenger could use US 6,175,452 B1 ("The arrangement uses a fast axis collimator that is segmented … the imaging errors caused by the nonconformity between the diode laser bars and the fast axis collimator can be almost completely corrected"), claim 1 would fall quickly: '452 discloses (a), (b) (fast + slow collimation), and (c) segmented FAC, and its whole purpose is individual correction of the per‑bar nonconformity, implying adjustable segments. Combined with any of '794/'873 or even the applicant's own admitted art, claim 1 and much of the dependent set would be obvious.

But it is unavailable, and this is dispositive:

1. Same inventive entity. '452 names Ullmann and Krause — the two '686 inventors. A reference is prior art only if it is "by another." Same‑entity art is categorically not § 102(a) or § 102(e) prior art, so it cannot be § 103 prior art either.
2. Dates. '452 was filed in the U.S. 1999‑09‑02 — after the '686 priority date (1999‑08‑21) — so it is not § 102(e) art on its face. Its German parent DE 19839902 C1 published 2000‑05‑25, after the priority date, so it is not § 102(a) art.
3. § 103(c). Even if it were § 102(e) art, the shared Laserline ownership disqualifies it for § 103 purposes.

Verdict: Not usable. This is the reason the '686 patent's core teaching survived prosecution.

5. Dependent and other independent claims

Claim 41 (segmentation + per‑emitter slow‑axis cylinder lens elements)

Claim 41's characterizing feature — the SAC comprising multiple cylinder lenses with axes in the fast axis, adjoining along the slow axis, one per emitter — is squarely taught by US 5,802,092 (as the '686 Background itself concedes). The only added feature over '092 is FAC segmentation. So claim 41 rises/falls with the same gap as claim 1 (the FAC‑segmentation bridge). Notably, claim 41 does not itself recite independent adjustability (added by claim 42), making claim 41 marginally broader and marginally more exposed to a '092‑based combination — but it still requires fast‑axis segmentation, which no available third‑party reference teaches. Verdict: same weakness as claim 1.

Claim 43 (single lens element performing both collimations)

Claim 43 requires that each lens element, on one body, have an entry‑side FAC cylinder surface (axis in slow axis) and an exit‑side SAC cylinder surface (axis in fast axis). The concept of combining fast‑ and slow‑axis cylinder optics in a correction optic is disclosed/rendered obvious by US 5,986,794 (paired cylinder lenses 20/21 acting in the fast and slow axes) and by the applicant's admitted art; integrating them into one body is a routine, predictable manufacturing choice (monolithic lens arrays were commonplace; cf. '686's own claim 5 and '873's monolithic/segmented lens arrays). Verdict: Claim 43 is the most exposed independent claim; a combination of '794 (paired fast/slow cylinder optics) and '873/'092 (arrayed, per‑emitter lens elements) supplies most of it, leaving only the "entry side/exit side on one body" integration — a predictable variant under KSR. A challenger has a plausible § 103 case here, though it would still need to tie the integration to some motivating benefit (compactness/alignment), which the art does suggest.

Claim 44 (two emitter rows offset 90° on a coupling element to a common beam)

The added feature — combining two emitter rows whose outputs are offset by 90° on a coupling element — is conventional beam combining. US 5,784,203 (Beckmann, § 102(b)) teaches combining the outputs of a linear diode‑laser array into a common beam, and polarization‑/wavelength‑multiplexing with a 45° plate or prism cube was notorious in the art and is even acknowledged in the '686 Background (dielectric filters/polarizers). Verdict: Claim 44's combining feature is likely obvious over Beckmann '203 + the admitted known wavelength/polarization combining; but it still imports all of claim 1's arrangement by reference to "at least one correction optics … acts as a fast axis collimator as well as a slow axis collimator," so it inherits the FAC‑segmentation gap unless the preamble is read narrowly. Mixed; moderately exposed.

Notable dependents

• Claim 17 (2×–5× segmentation) and claim 18 (segment gap between two emitters, at the midpoint): the '686 spec expressly frames these as design choices; a PHOSITA would optimize segment count and place gaps in the non‑radiating areas (facilitated by the <10% occupation density of claim 39). These are weak claims on their own — classic KSR "optimization of a design parameter."
• Claim 39 (occupation density <10%): a result‑effective design choice; enabling per‑emitter SAC elements (as in '092). Weak standing alone.
• Stack claims 22–34: nesting/offsetting bars in stacks was admittedly known ("it is also known to provide several rows of emitters or several diode laser bars in a stack"), and '873's predecessor art (DE 195 00 513, discussed inside '873) handles stacked HP‑DLs with segmented slow‑axis collimation. These dependents add little patentable weight beyond the independent claim they depend from.

6. Secondary considerations (objective indicia)

The strongest non‑obviousness support is a long‑felt but unsolved need: US 5,802,092, US 5,986,794 and the applicant's own earlier '452/'902 all address bar/stack collimation, yet none of the third‑party art of record identifies fast‑axis segmentation as the cure for nonconformity/smile. The specific solution — segment the FAC and independently adjust/fix the segments — appears in this family alone as of 1999, and the '686 patent issued over all nine cited references. However, note the double‑edged fact that the same inventors had already disclosed segmented FAC in US 6,175,452/DE 19839902 (priority 1998‑09‑02): for a validity challenge this is unavailable art, but it undercuts any "unexpected results" narrative, and it raises a separate obviousness‑type double‑patenting (OTDP) exposure over the applicant's own earlier patent — a § 101/OTDP question, not § 103, but one a challenger could raise.

7. Bottom line

1. The § 103 attack on claim 1 and claim 41 is weak as a matter of law on the prior art of record. The references cited on this page teach (i) beam combining of diode‑laser arrays (Beckmann US 5,784,203), (ii) FAC + slow‑axis/direction‑element segmentation (Jenoptik US 6,337,873), and (iii) per‑emitter slow‑axis cylindrical‑lens arrays (US 5,802,092) — but no third‑party reference of record teaches segmenting the fast‑axis collimator and independently adjusting/fixing those segments. That specific feature is the point of novelty, and the only reference that discloses it (the applicant's own US 6,175,452 / DE 19839902) is disqualified as prior art (same inventors; U.S. filing 1999‑09‑02 and publication 2000‑05‑25 both post‑date the 1999‑08‑21 priority; § 103(c) common ownership).
2. The most plausible third‑party‑only combination — US 6,337,873 (Jenoptik) as primary, optionally with US 5,986,794 (Laserline) and/or US 5,802,092 — establishes every element except fast‑axis segmentation with independent adjustment. Bridging that gap requires hindsight supplied by the inventor's own disclosure; under KSR/Graham the motivation is not found in the art, so the combination should not invalidate claims 1 or 41.
3. Claim 43 is the most exposed independent claim (integration of fast+slow cylinder surfaces into one lens body is a predictable combination of '794's paired cylinder optics and '092/'873's arrayed elements), and claim 44 is moderately exposed (90° coupling to a common beam is conventional combining, cf. Beckmann '203 + admitted polarization/wavelength multiplexing), but both still depend on the arrangement recited by their preambles.
4. Practical significance is limited. As established in the earlier sections, the patent expired 2021‑01‑03 with no litigation or PTAB history. A § 103 theory today would matter only to defend past damages within the § 286 six‑year window on old sales, and even that window has largely or wholly closed. The cleaner defensive posture remains the § 286 / expiration argument, with § 103 as a secondary validity defense that is unlikely to succeed on claims 1/41 but has real traction on claims 43/44 and the pure design‑choice dependents (17, 18, 39).

Uncertainty flags (per operating rules): (i) I could not retrieve full texts for US 5,081,637, US 5,745,153, US 5,900,981, US 6,137,631, US 6,301,054, US 6,088,170, US 6,154,278, and U.S. 2002/0025096, so I have deliberately not asserted specific disclosures for them; if any of these happens to teach fast‑axis segmenting, the § 103 assessment for claim 1 would need revisiting. (ii) § 102 subsection designations above reflect my reading of the literal dates on the page and pre‑AIA law; where a reference's availability turns on a foreign priority publication date I have said so. (iii) All identifiers are reported literally as printed ("6771686," "6,175,452," "DE19839902C1," "6337873," etc.); the claim‑44 phrase "beam plaster" is reproduced as‑is and flagged, not auto‑corrected.