US 10053765

I'll search for this patent's records and any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me run additional targeted searches for litigation and PTAB activity.

One more check for any appellate/litigation record under the assignee name.

US Patent 10,053,765 — Analyst Summary

1. Where this information comes from / confidence

My primary source is the authoritative full patent text supplied to me (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10053765](/patent/US10053765)/en, fetched 2026‑09‑27), which includes the complete claim set, bibliographic data, and legal events. Web searches were run against publicly indexed USPTO/PTAB material and open web sources; no CAFC 2026 docket entry and no PTAB proceeding involving this patent were located. I am flagging that explicitly rather than inferring litigation.

⚠️ Identifier-collision warning (important). Searches for the string 10053765 return several unrelated matches, and one is a genuine trap:

Per your strict rule, I have not auto-corrected any of these; I am simply distinguishing them from the granted patent number 10,053,765.

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2. Bibliographic data for US 10,053,765 B2

Litigation / CAFC check: I found no CAFC 2026 docket, no district-court docket, and no PTAB (IPR/PGR) record naming US 10,053,765. The only forward citation is US12394687B2 (Samsung, 2025). Treat the absence of litigation records as "not found" rather than "confirmed none" — I could not query Docket Navigator/LexMachina directly, only the open web.

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3. Abstract (as issued)

"Provided is an apparatus and a method of spray-coating solid powder on a substrate disposed in a coating chamber which is in a vacuum state, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for coating solid powder, which are configured such that a gas sucked from an atmospheric pressure gas, together with a gas supplied from a gas supply unit, can be used as a carrier gas for transporting the solid powder."

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4. The problem and the core technical idea

The background identifies five prior-art approaches (designated "Prior Art 1–5" in the specification): U.S. Pat. No. 7,153,567 (Toto, AD method), EP2264222 / KR 10‑1228004, U.S. Pat. No. 6,759,085 (Sulzer Metco, low-pressure cold spray), US 2011/0104369, and KR 10‑1065271 / US 2013/0192519. The patent's stated criticisms are consistent across all five: powder feed is irregular because the powder reservoir sits under vacuum, and — specifically as to Prior Art 5 — the carrier-gas spray speed "is not controlled only by the flow rate of air sucked."

The asserted invention combines two gas sources: (a) atmospheric-pressure gas sucked into the transport pipe by the negative pressure of the evacuated coating chamber, and (b) gas supplied under control by a gas supply unit. Together they form the carrier gas. The supplied-gas leg becomes a second, independent control knob over transport-pipe pressure/temperature and hence spray velocity. A second distinguishing feature is the three-section, stepped-diameter geometry of both the transport pipe and the gas supply pipe.

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5. Independent claims — plain-language overview

Claim 1 — Apparatus

A solid-powder coating apparatus has six elements:

1. A transport pipe — the channel that carries the solid powder.
2. A gas supply pipe — the flow channel for gas from a gas supply unit.
3. A spray nozzle — attached to the outlet end of the transport pipe or the gas supply pipe.
4. A coating chamber — encloses the spray nozzle.
5. A solid powder feeding unit — feeds powder that is stored in an atmospheric-pressure environment into the transport pipe.
6. A pressure control unit — sets the internal pressure of the coating chamber.

Operation: the pressure control unit pulls the chamber to negative pressure; that negative pressure sucks atmospheric gas into the transport pipe; the sucked gas plus the unit-supplied gas together act as the carrier gas that moves the powder.

The structural limitation: both the transport pipe and the gas supply pipe are each divided into three sequential sections (first, second, third), whose diameters must satisfy any one of three conditions:

• (1) first section = second section = third section (uniform bore);
• (2) first section ≥ third section ≥ second section (a "waist" is the second section, with the first the widest);
• (3) third section ≥ first section ≥ second section (the third section is the widest, the second again the narrowest).

graph LR
  A["Atmospheric-air inlet /<br/>powder feeder (atm. pressure)"] --> B["Transport pipe<br/>§1 → §2 → §3"]
  G["Gas supply unit 20"] --> C["Gas supply pipe<br/>§1 → §2 → §3"]
  B --> N["Spray nozzle 30<br/>(subsonic / sonic / supersonic)"]
  C --> N
  N --> V["Coating chamber 40<br/>(vacuum, contains substrate 5)"]
  V --> P["Pressure control unit 50<br/>(vacuum pump)"]

Note: each pipe's three sections must independently satisfy one of diameter conditions (1)–(3); the two pipes need not use the same condition.

Drafting note (literal reading): In the specification's MODE FOR INVENTION text, condition (2) is repeatedly misprinted as "first section ≥ third section ≥ third section" (e.g., in the FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 passages), whereas the claims and the SUMMARY consistently recite "first section ≥ third section ≥ second section." The claims govern; I read condition (2) as first ≥ third ≥ second.

Claim 16 — Method

A solid-powder coating method performed with such an apparatus. The apparatus preamble requires:

• a transport pipe and a gas supply pipe that communicate with each other, each in three sequential sections satisfying condition (1), (2), or (3) as above; and
• a coating chamber containing a spray nozzle connected to the end of the transport pipe or the gas supply pipe.

The characterizing step: a carrier gas — a mixture of (i) gas sucked into the transport pipe by the negative pressure generated in the coating chamber and (ii) gas supplied from the gas supply unit to the gas supply pipe — transports solid powder that was introduced into the transport pipe from an atmospheric-pressure environment, such that the powder is sprayed through the nozzle and coated onto a substrate disposed in the vacuum-state coating chamber.

Method-vs-apparatus caveat: as literally written, claim 16's characterizing clause contains a drafting infirmity — it recites gas "supplied from a gas supply unit to the gas supply unit" (rather than to the gas supply pipe). I am reporting it as written and not correcting it.

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6. Dependent-claim landscape (brief, for context)

• Apparatus dependents (2–15): atmospheric-pressure opening of the transport pipe (2); one or more powder feeding units (3) and atmospheric-pressure feeding of stored powder (4); gas flow-rate control unit "configured to control a temperature of the supplied gas" (5) and a separate gas temperature control unit (6); real-time pressure–temperature measurement unit (7); nozzle position control unit, optionally an arm movable linearly/curvilinearly/rotatively (8–9); substrate stand, optionally on such an arm (10–11); coating-chamber temperature control unit (12); powder collector (13); tapered transition section (10d) in the transport pipe (14); and a fourth tapered section in the gas supply pipe (15).
• Method dependents (17–21): controlling supplied-gas flow rate to control transport-pipe/gas-pipe internal pressure as a function of carrier-gas spray speed (17); supplied-gas temperature between 0 °C and 600 °C (18); controlling carrier-gas temperature as a function of spray speed (19); sucked gas selected from oxygen, nitrogen, argon, helium, hydrogen, air (20); supplied gas selected from the same group (21).
• Specification-stated performance targets (not claim limitations): coating-thickness deviation of ±500 nm, substrates up to 2 m × 2 m, three-dimensional substrates, and carrier gas at subsonic or supersonic speed. The specification cites its own earlier KR 10‑0991723 roll-to-roll apparatus for continuous deposition.

Note the internal inconsistency in the dependent apparatus claims that I will not smooth over: claim 5 is captioned a flow-rate control unit but its body recites controlling temperature; claim 6 separately claims a temperature control unit. Under a literal reading, claims 5 and 6 are not cleanly redundant, but the mismatch is a known style of drafting defect.

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7. Explicit uncertainties

1. No CAFC 2026 or district-court activity confirmed. My search tools returned nothing on point. This is a "not found," not a verified negative.
2. No PTAB record for this patent was found; PTAB hits for the string "10053765" belong to Flexiworld's serial 10/053,765 and must not be attributed to this patent.
3. Assignee spelling differs between sources (FEMVIX CORP vs. FEMVIC CORP). I report both literally.
4. The 10d / 15d tapered section is claimed only as a dependent feature (claims 14–15) and is described as an optional transition; I have not independently verified its depiction in the drawing figures, which were not machine-readable in the source text.
5. Adjusted expiration 2035‑04‑01 is Google Patents' assumption (including any terminal disclaimer/PTA), not a legal conclusion.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10053765 across patent litigation databases.

The generic number search is returning noise (e.g., application 10/053,765 to Flexiworld, an unrelated UK company number, etc.). Let me narrow to the actual patent owner and technology.

Let me query litigation-specific databases directly.

Summary answer

No litigation asserting or otherwise involving U.S. Patent No. 10,053,765 was found. Based on the searches I was able to run, I found no district court complaint, no ITC Section 337 investigation, no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), no CAFC appeal, and no foreign (e.g., Korean) enforcement action in which US 10,053,765 is the patent-in-suit or an asserted patent.

Patent identification (confirmed from the authoritative full text)

Due‑diligence performed and what it showed

I searched for the litigation-relevant identifiers (patent number, application number, assignee, inventor names) against patent‑litigation coverage. The results:

1. No docket hits for the patent. No result referenced US 10,053,765 (or app. 14/903,201) as a patent‑in‑suit, and no FEMVIX/Kim enforcement action surfaced. The Google Patents record itself lists only one "Cited By" entry — US 12,394,687 B2 (Samsung Electronics, 2025‑08‑19) — which is a patent citation, not litigation.

2. Prominent false positives to avoid confusion (important given the "do not auto‑correct identifiers" rule). The number string "10053765" appears in several unrelated contexts, none of which is this patent:

• U.S. Application 10/053,765 (Flexiworld Technologies / William Ho Chang) — this is an application number, not patent number 10,053,765, and it surfaced repeatedly (e.g., in IPR2022‑00775, Unified Patents, LLC v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., which challenged US 9,836,257, and cited the prosecution history of app. 10/053,765). That is a different party, different technology (wireless printing), and different patent.
• A UK Companies House entity number (10053765), a Georgia LLC control number (10053765), an Italian product code (10053765), and DE 10053765 A1 (a German bicycle-weather-protection device) — all unrelated.
• Note the substantive overlap trap: Prior Art 5 in the specification is US 2013/0192519 / KR 10‑1065271 (Ok Ryul Kim), also FEMVIX‑family, and Prior Art 4 is US 2011/0104369 (also Ok Ryul Kim). Those are cited prior art, not litigation.

Caveat on confidence

My searches were general web/patent‑aggregator searches plus PTAB/ITC‑adjacent documents; they were not a comprehensive query of a subscription litigation database (Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, PACER full‑text, or the Unified Patents litigation caselist behind a search form). Accordingly, my negative finding should be read as:

• High confidence that US 10,053,765 has never been a famously litigated patent (no reported decisions, no PTAB trial, no ITC investigation, no appellate activity).
• Moderate confidence that no litigation exists at all, since a small, low‑volume suit (e.g., a Korean domestic action, or a recently filed U.S. complaint not yet indexed) could fall outside the sources I could reach.

If you need a legally defensible negative, the definitive next steps would be: (a) a PACER "party name" search for FEMVIX CORP, Ok Ryul Kim, and Ok Min Kim; (b) a Docket Navigator / Lex Machina patent‑number query on 10,053,765; and (c) a KIPRIS/IP Trial search for the Korean family members (KR101447890B1, KR101568287B1).

Bottom line for the record: As of today (April 26, 2026), I found no known litigation involving US 10,053,765, and I have flagged the several misleadingly similar identifiers so they are not mistaken for cases about this patent.

I'll verify the structured-source finding with targeted searches before reporting a negative.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 10,053,765: 0. Breakdown: 0 active; 0 with claims invalidated; 0 with claims sustained; 0 settled; 0 institution denied. The canonical structured source in this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file") returns an empty set for this patent, and my independent web checks surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM anywhere in the docket-adjacent literature.

Bottom line defensive posture: this is not a hardened patent and not a gutted one — it is an untested one. No claim of US 10,053,765 has ever been construed by the Board, no claim has been canceled, and no petitioner has ever been estopped. All 21 issued claims — including apparatus claim 1 and method claim 16, the two independent claims — remain live and presumptively valid, but carry zero PTAB track record in either direction. If you are a defendant, you have no free win sitting in the PTAB record, but you also face no adverse FWD; if you are evaluating a petition, you would be the first mover, and the § 315(b) one-year clock has not started because (per the litigation section of this analysis) no complaint asserting this patent has been served.

Per-proceeding entries are omitted: the format calls for one block per proceeding, and there are none to describe. I will not manufacture proceeding numbers to fill the template.

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Cross-check and false-positive log

Because the number string is unusually collision-prone, here is what I affirmatively ruled out:

Ambiguity trap to flag: the patent text calls U.S. Pat. No. 7,153,567 "Prior Art 1" and U.S. Pat. No. 6,759,085 "Prior Art 3," but the Google Patents citations list shows the Toto patent as US 7,153,567 (granted 2006-12-26) — consistent. However, the front-matter citation table in this record labels the same document "US7153567B1" in one place and "US 7,153,567" in another. Treat US 7,153,567 as correct; do not cite "US 7,153,567" and "US 7,153,557" interchangeably in a petition exhibit list.

Contradiction flagged with the prior section: the litigation summary in this analysis is signed "as of today (April 26, 2026)," while the operating date for this task is 2026-09-27. The five-month gap does not change the PTAB conclusion (the ODP set is empty and nothing appeared in later-filed literature), but the negative-clearance statement should be re-run at the later date before it is relied on in a filing.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: 100% UNTESTED. Not one of claims 1–21 has been challenged, construed, canceled, or confirmed at the PTAB. There is no narrowing to report and no surviving-claim set to enumerate, because the claims have never been amended or cancelled by certificate. Claim 1 (apparatus: transport pipe + gas supply pipe + nozzle + coating chamber + atmospheric-pressure powder feed + pressure control, with the three-section diameter conditions (1)/(2)/(3)) and claim 16 (the method counterpart) stand exactly as issued on 2018-08-21. Dependent claims 2–15 (opening to atmosphere, multiple feeders, gas flow-rate/temperature control, pressure-temperature measurement unit, position control arm, substrate stand, chamber temperature control, collector, tapered 10d/15d transition sections) and 17–21 (gas flow-rate/pressure control, 0–600 °C supplied-gas range, carrier-gas temperature control, gas species selection) are equally untested. Note that claims 5 and 6 are textually near-duplicates (both recite control of the supplied gas temperature, one calling itself a "flow rate control unit") — a § 112(b) indefiniteness / claim-differentiation soft spot a petitioner could probe, though it is not a PTAB ground for apparatus claims unless raised under § 112 in a PGR (available only within 9 months of grant, long expired) or in district court.

Estoppel landscape: empty. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estops no one. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no "raised or reasonably could have raised" bar. Every prior-art ground — including the five references the applicant distinguished on the face of the patent (US 7,153,567; EP2264222; US 6,759,085; US 2011/0104369; US 2013/0192519/KR 10-1065271) plus the full § 102/§ 103 universe of patents and printed publications not before the examiner — is available to a first petitioner. Conversely, § 325(d) is the real risk: the examiner already considered and distinguished the five above-named references, so a petition built primarily on them invites discretionary denial as "substantially the same prior art, previously presented." The viable petition path is art the examiner never saw — most plausibly pre-2013 Laval/de-Laval nozzle and supersonic-transport disclosures, and multi-section variable-diameter pneumatic-conveying art — aimed at the three-section diameter-condition limitation, which is the claim's most distinctive and most attackable element.

Pattern signals: none. No petitioner has filed on this patent once, let alone multiple times. The patent owner (FEMVIX CORP, a small-entity Korean semiconductor-component coater; inventors Ok Ryul Kim and Ok Min Kim) has never appeared before the Board as a patent owner and has never appealed a PTAB decision to the Federal Circuit in connection with this patent. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain — Unified Patents' only near-collision is the unrelated Flexiworld matter. There is likewise no known ex parte reexamination of this patent (moderate confidence on that point; my searches were general-literature searches, not a direct reexam-database query). The overall picture is a small-entity patent that has never been commercially asserted at a scale that attracts PTAB attention, against a petitioner-bar landscape where — per current USPTO statistics — IPR filings are at an all-time low and ex parte reexamination has become the dominant validity-challenge channel.

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Recommended next steps

For a defendant being asserted against:

1. There is no PTAB record to leverage. Do not represent to a court or client that any claim is invalidated — none is. Confine validity arguments to district court, a newly filed IPR, or (given current institution-rate conditions) an ex parte reexamination request, which the owner cannot contest ex parte and which now accounts for roughly three-quarters of post-grant validity filings.
2. The § 315(b) clock is your gating item. No known complaint asserting this patent exists, so no one-year bar has been triggered. Confirm with a PACER party search on FEMVIX CORP, Ok Ryul Kim, and Ok Min Kim, and check KIPRIS for Korean enforcement of KR101447890B1 / KR101568287B1. If a complaint was served on you more than a year ago, you are time-barred from IPR — reexam becomes the only PTAB-adjacent path.
3. Pre-position art under § 325(d). Build the invalidity case on references the examiner did not consider. Audit the detailed description against the claim: application notes that the diameter relationship "can be determined according to Bernoulli's theorem," which frames the three-section limitation as a routine engineering optimization — a strong § 103 obviousness narrative if you can find a single reference teaching staged pipe diameters in a powder-transport nozzle feed.
4. Exploit the file-history weak spots — claims 5/6 duplication and the fact that the method claims 16 and 20/21 differ largely in gas-species lists.

For the patent owner:
5. The absence of any IPR is a genuine asset — the patent carries an unblemished presumption of validity and no adverse prosecution-history statements. Preserve that: avoid creating § 112 or estoppel exposure, and if you assert the patent, expect the defendant to file an IPR and a parallel reexam concurrently, and be prepared to defend both.

Confirmatory tools (the links I would cite for a clean record):

• PTAB E2E / PTAB Center search on the patent number: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/
• USPTO Patent Center for application 14/903,201 (documents tab, for any reexam certificate): https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/
• CourtListener full-text query for "10,053,765" and for party FEMVIX: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%2210%2C053%2C765%22
• Google Patents family/legal-events page, which shows no post-grant events: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10053765B2](/patent/US10053765B2)/en

Confidence statement (required, per the no-fabrication rule): I am high-confidence that no AIA trial proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) exists or has ever existed on US 10,053,765 — the structured ODP set is empty and independent searching found nothing. I am moderate-confidence on the absence of ex parte reexamination and on the absence of any unreported recent filing, since I could not directly query the CRU reexam database or PACER. Do not cite this negative as a legal certainty without the Patent Center and PACER confirmations above.

Caveat repeated for the record: the litigation section of this analysis is dated 2026-04-26 whereas this task operates at 2026-09-27; re-verify the negative before relying on it.

I'll attempt to pull the recorded-assignment details (correspondent of record, exact assignee string) that the authoritative patent text truncates.

Two useful threads surfaced (FEMVIX's ongoing filings and its agency of record). Let me test the NPE-relevant questions directly.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 10,053,765 B2

Scope note / method. The output below is built from the authoritative full patent text you supplied (which reproduces the Google Patents "Legal Events" ledger, including the recorded reel/frame), cross-checked against third-party assignment/ownership indices (ipqwery, onscope, patentguru, patents-review) and Korean corporate-registry aggregators. I could not directly query the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ is a JavaScript application that does not expose records to my search tools); no API access to PEDS/ODP either. Where a field (notably the assignment correspondent) is not recoverable from the authoritative text, I say so rather than infer it.

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Inventors

Both inventors are the co-founders/principals of the assignee, not hired engineers. Two observations:

1. No "inventor departure" pattern. The classic fire-sale tell — all inventors leaving the original assignee within 12 months of filing — is absent. Both Kims remain named inventors on FEMVIX filings filed 2018, 2022 and 2023 and remain co-owners of record (see below). They are the same two individuals continuously for 12+ years.
2. Unusual co-ownership, not an assignment-out. FEMVIX's patents are consistently titled in the name of FEMVIX + Ok Min Kim + Ok Ryul Kim jointly (visible on US 10,081,871; US 10,347,520; US 8,936,830; TWI581330B; JP2018129539A; KR102522277B1; WO2023182747A1), and third-party owner indices list all three as owners of US 10,053,765 as well. This is a founder-retained co-ownership structure, i.e. the opposite of an inventor-to-corporation divestiture.

⚠️ Flagged inconsistency. Google Patents' header for US 10,053,765 shows Current Assignee = FEMVIX CORP (only), while its own 2016-01-07 legal event lists three "Owner name" entries on the same reel/frame (KIM, OK RYUL / FEMVIX CORP. / KIM, OK MIN), and ipqwery/onscope list all three as owners. Either the record is a co-assignment to all three, or the databases index parties differently. This is the one field I would verify at the Assignment Center before relying on it.

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Original assignee

FEMVIX CORP. (주식회사 펨빅스) — Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea (45, Jeongnamsandan-ro, Jeongnam-myeon; the 2014 filings used a Yongin-si address). Corporate registration 129-86-19672.

• Primary line of business: functional/specialty coating of semiconductor, display and LED manufacturing-equipment parts — specifically the solid-powder / aerosol-deposition ceramic coating technology claimed in this patent. Founded 2008. PitchBook describes it as a developer of materials technology for semiconductor production; Korean registry data list principal products as "기능성 특수코팅" (functional specialty coatings) for semiconductor and display equipment parts.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? The claims (1–15) cover the coating apparatus itself. FEMVIX appears to be an operator of the claimed apparatus / coating service provider rather than an OEM machine vendor — it uses this tooling in-house to coat components it supplies to semiconductor-equipment customers. That is a genuine commercial embodiment, but of the "internal production tool" variety, so I state it as moderate-strength evidence of an operating entity.
• Current status: operating — not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy on any record I found. Korean data: ~15 employees; revenue ≈ KRW 10.68 bn (≈ US$7–8 M), operating profit ≈ KRW 2.15 bn; "외감" (externally audited) small company. Venture-backed (Hanbit Investment, per PitchBook). It continues to prosecute — US 2025/0154657 A1 (plasma-resistant two-layer coating) published 2025-05-15, and a further US grant is indexed as recently as 2026-08-18.
• Assignee address is a real manufacturing address, not a registered-agent service address — an explicit anti-shell datapoint.

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Assignment timeline

Exactly one assignment is recorded against this patent. There is no post-issuance transfer of any kind.

• 2015-12-16 (executed) / recorded 2016-01-07 — Reel 037426 / Frame 0810
  • Conveyance: Assignment (USPTO code AS) — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"
  • Assignor: KIM, Ok Ryul; KIM, Ok Min
  • Assignee: FEMVIX CORP. — with the caveat above that the same reel/frame also indexes both inventors as "owner name," consistent with the joint FEMVIX + founder co-ownership used across this portfolio.
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the authoritative text — the patent record supplies only the reel/frame, not the filing attorney. Circumstantially, FEMVIX's US agency of record on the sibling case US 10,081,871 (same family, same filing window) is Novick, Kim & Lee, PLLC, so that firm is the plausible recording correspondent; I flag this as an inference, not a verified fact. With only one recorded link, the "repeat correspondent" test cannot be run at all.
  • Context: ordinary confirmatory founder-to-company assignment recorded at PCT national-stage entry (effective date precedes the US §371 entry; the 2014-07-10 date in the record is the international filing date of PCT/KR2014/006217, not a US filing). Not a fire-sale, not a reorg, not securitization.

Related administrative (non-assignment) legal events, for completeness:

• 2018-06-01 — petition related to maintenance fees granted (small-entity status). Fee-administration event only; I would not read distress into it.
• 2021-12-28 — 4th-year maintenance fee paid (small entity).
• 2025-11-26 — 8th-year maintenance fee paid (small entity). Adjusted expiration 2035-04-01.

No security agreement, merger, change-of-name, license, or release has been recorded. No assignment has ever moved this patent off FEMVIX/founder ownership.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10053765
    2013 : KR priority filed by FEMVIX founders
    2014 : PCT filed naming FEMVIX as applicant
    2015 : Inventors assign interest to FEMVIX CORP
    2016 : Assignment recorded Reel 037426 Frame 0810
         : US publication 20160153082
    2018 : Patent granted to FEMVIX CORP
    2021 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid
    2023 : New FEMVIX filings with same two inventors
    2025 : Eighth year maintenance fee paid
    2035 : Adjusted expiration

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Secondary look-alike caution (per the earlier litigation section): the string "10053765" recurs in unrelated contexts (US application 10/053,765 / Flexiworld; a German DE 10053765 A1 bicycle device; company-registry numbers). None of those belong in this ownership chain.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — the assignment record consists of only the original founder→company assignment (Reel 037426/0810, effective 2015-12-16, recorded 2016-01-07), and there is no chain to analyze for NPE behaviour.

The substantive evidence is, however, uniformly anti-NPE: the sole recorded assignee is a real, audited, revenue-generating Korean manufacturer of coated semiconductor-equipment parts that has paid every maintenance fee (2021-12-28; 2025-11-26) and is still filing new applications with the same two inventors (US 2025/0154657 A1, filed 2023-03-20). There is no transfer to a licensing entity, no shell intermediary, no known asserter, and no litigation against the patent. The verdict is "insufficient data" only because a single-link chain cannot be scored — not because anything suspicious was found. Verify the co-ownership field and correspondent at the Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, patent number 10053765): search page.

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Two flags for the record:

1. The co-ownership ambiguity at Reel 037426/0810 (FEMVIX alone vs. FEMVIX + both inventors) is a genuine data conflict between Google Patents' header and its own legal-events entry. It matters for standing and for any future licensing analysis.
2. The previously generated Litigation summary is self-dated "April 26, 2026," which contradicts today's date (2026-09-27). Its negative finding on litigation is consistent with everything I found here, but the internal date should be corrected.

I'll verify the patent's identity and citation record against live sources before building the prior-art analysis.

Let me verify the specific cited references so the citation data is accurate.

Prior‑Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,053,765 B2

1. USPTO identity check (number confirmed literally)

I searched the patent number 10053765 as an exact string, and I am reporting only the granted US patent bearing that number — not near‑number hits.

Numbering trap confirmed again in this search (and consistent with the earlier litigation memo): the string "10053765" also appears as U.S. Application 10/053,765 (filed 2002‑01‑18, first named inventor William Ho Chang, art unit 2671/2677, examiner Marcus T. Riley) — a Flexiworld wireless‑printing application, surfaced via a PTAB petition document at ptacts.uspto.gov. That is not US 10,053,765. Per the operating rule I have not conflated them.

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2. The anticipation question is narrow — the claims have eight distinct elements

Because §102 anticipation requires every element in a single reference, it is necessary to reduce claim 1 (and mirrored claim 16) to its elements before mapping art:

Element 1.8 is the point of novelty over everything on the record: not one cited reference discloses a three‑segment stepped‑diameter conduit pair with those relative inequalities. This drives the conclusions below.

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3. The patent citation record (10 U.S./foreign patent citations)

These are the references of record on US 10,053,765 (Google Patents "Patent Citations (10)"). The five the applicant itself discusses in the specification are flagged as Prior Art 1–5.

All ten pre‑date the 2013‑07‑11 priority date, so all are §102(a)‑/§102(b)‑eligible art as of that date. Note that C6, C8, C9, C10 and C7 share FEMVIX / Ok Ryul Kim authorship with the patent itself — they are the applicant's own earlier work, i.e., §102(b)/§103(c)-type art and potential obviousness-type double-patenting comparators, not third-party anticipatory art.

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4. Reference-by-reference §102 analysis

C10 — US 2013/0192519 A1 (Kim) — closest art

• Full citation: US 2013/0192519 A1, "Apparatus for powder coating," pub. 2013‑08‑01, priority 2010‑10‑08; US counterpart of KR 10‑1065271 (C8). https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130192519A1/en
• Disclosure (verified): air inlet unit (10) drawing atmospheric air; a feeder unit (20) metering a fixed amount of powder; a carrier pipe (30); spray nozzle (40) at the end of the carrier pipe; vacuum chamber (50) with ventilation pump (51) and a pressure controller; optional flow‑rate controller (11), air temperature controller (12), and air treatment (13); a block‑type pipe (21) joining the air inlet and feeder; disclosure that pressure at the nozzle outlet is set below atmospheric so no extra pressurized‑gas supplier is needed; subsonic/supersonic nozzle examples (M≈1.5 worked example).
• Element map: discloses 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, and the suction half of 1.7.
• §102 potential: None. It expressly lacks the element 1.2 gas supply pipe/supplied gas and lacks element 1.8 entirely — in fact it teaches away from a supplied‑gas line ("does not need an extra gas supplier"). Cannot anticipate claim 1, claim 16, or any claim depending therefrom.
• Best use: primary §103 reference; the specification itself concedes it is the closest prior art and states its deficiency (spray speed "is not controlled only by the flow rate of air sucked").

C6 — US 2011/0104369 A1 (Kim) — Prior Art 4

• Full citation: US 2011/0104369 A1, "Apparatus and method for continuous powder coating," pub. 2011‑05‑05, priority 2008‑07‑24. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110104369A1/en
• Disclosure: continuous coating in which a uniform amount of powder entrained on carrier air is fed at a constant rate to a carrier pipe and then to a nozzle in a vacuum chamber; extensive background on cold spray and aerosol deposition and their powder‑feeding deficiencies.
• Element map: 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, part of 1.7.
• §102 potential: None for claim 1 (no 1.2, no 1.8). §103 secondary reference.

C3 — US 6,759,085 B2 (Sulzer Metco) — Prior Art 3

• Full citation: US 6,759,085 B2, "Method and apparatus for low pressure cold spraying," pub. 2004‑07‑06, priority 2002‑06‑17. https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6759085B2](/patent/US6759085B2)/en
• Disclosure: low‑pressure cold spray — a powder feeder, a carrier/driving gas supply feeding a nozzle that sprays into a low‑pressure (sub‑atmospheric) chamber onto a substrate.
• Element map: this is the only cited reference that plainly shows a supplied gas line plus a sub‑atmospheric chamber plus a nozzle (elements 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.6 and the "supplied gas" half of 1.7). It fails 1.5 — the specification correctly notes the feeder is kept in a vacuum state during operation, so powder is not fed from an atmospheric‑pressure environment — and fails 1.8.
• §102 potential: None for claim 1. It is the strongest §103 reference for the supplied‑gas element (1.2/1.7), and is the reference an examiner would combine with C6/C10.

C2 — US 7,153,567 B1 (Toto / Akedo) — Prior Art 1

• Full citation: US 7,153,567 B1, "Composite structure and method and apparatus for forming the same," pub. 2006‑12‑26, priority 1999‑10‑12 (PCT/JP2000/007076; JP 11‑289904). https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7153567B1](/patent/US7153567B1)/en
• Disclosure: aerosol deposition (AD) — brittle‑material fine particles aerosolized in a gas in an aerosol generator, ejected through a nozzle and impacted on a substrate in a reduced‑pressure chamber; nozzle position‑control device relative to the substrate; a classifier/shredder for agglomerates; a container with sieve and vibration device.
• Element map: 1.3, 1.4; optional relevance to claims 8/9 (position control) and 3/4 (metered particle storage). Fails 1.2, 1.5, 1.7, 1.8.
• §102 potential: None for claim 1. As the specification argues, its powder chamber sits under vacuum during operation, making powder feed non‑uniform — a teaching‑away for element 1.5.

C5 — KR 10‑1228004 B1 (Toto) — Prior Art 2

• Full citation: KR 10‑1228004 B1 (= PCT/JP2009/054344; EP 2264222, "Composite structure forming method, controlled particles, and composite structure forming system"), pub. 2013‑02‑01, priority 2008‑03‑10. https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2264222A1/en
• Disclosure: controlled particles stored in a storage mechanism, metered, aerosolized, and delivered to a transport pipe.
• Element map: at most 1.1/1.3/1.5 style powder‑delivery concepts.
• §102 potential: None. The specification's own critique (Fig. 16 of EP2264222 → FIG. 7 of the patent) is that the powder ultimately reaches the transport pipe in the same irregular/non‑uniform manner as Prior Art 1.

C8 — KR 10‑1065271 B1 (FEMVIX) — Prior Art 5 (Korean original of C10)

• Full citation: KR 10‑1065271 B1, "Solid Powder Coating Equipment," pub. 2011‑09‑20, priority 2009‑04‑30. https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101065271B1/en
• §102 potential: None — same disclosure as C10; and as the applicant's own earlier patent it is more naturally an ODP comparator than an anticipatory reference.

C9 — KR 2011‑0045489 A (FEMVIX)

• Full citation: KR 2011‑0045489 A, "Apparatus for controlling the pressure around the injection nozzle constantly and solid‑state powder coating equipment using the same," pub. 2011‑05‑04, priority 2009‑10‑27.
• Disclosure: constant control of the pressure around the injection nozzle in solid‑powder coating equipment.
• Element map: bears on element 1.6 (pressure control) and on claim 12 (coating‑chamber temperature control is a different feature), but does not supply 1.2, 1.7's supplied‑gas half, or 1.8.
• §102 potential: None for claim 1. Useful §103 reference on the pressure‑control element; also an own‑work/ODP comparator.

C7 — KR 10‑0991723 B1 (FEMVIX)

• Full citation: KR 10‑0991723 B1, "Solid‑Powder Continuous Deposition Roll‑to‑Roll Device," pub. 2010‑11‑03, priority 2008‑09‑12.
• Disclosure: roll‑to‑roll transfer for continuous solid‑powder deposition — expressly incorporated by reference in the specification's coating‑chamber/substrate‑transfer discussion.
• Element map: claim 10/11‑type substrate‑stand/transfer concepts; nothing in claim 1.
• §102 potential: None for claim 1. Relevant only as enabling support for the roll‑to‑roll embodiments and as own‑work art.

C1 — KR 100203218 B1 (Gema Volstatic AG)

• Full citation: KR 100203218 B1, "Powder Coating Equipment," pub. 1999‑06‑15, priority 1996‑03‑23; Korean filing of the Gema/ITW Gema family (cf. DE 19611533 A1, KR 10‑1997‑0007944 A). https://patents.google.com/patent/KR100203218B1/en
• Disclosure (as identified): electrostatic powder spray‑coating equipment of the Gema injector type. Caveat: I could not retrieve the full text/claims of KR 100203218 B1 in this session, so the description below is based on the family context (Gema injector coaters of that era, which suck powder from a hopper by a venturi conveying‑air underpressure and add a separately regulated supplemental air stream downstream).
• Element map: if the family characterization holds, it discloses a dual‑gas powder‑transport architecture (conveying/sucked stream + separately supplied supplemental gas) — relevant to 1.2/1.7 conceptually — but in an atmospheric electrostatic booth, with no vacuum coating chamber, no suction driven by chamber negative pressure, and no 1.8.
• §102 potential: None for claim 1 or 16. Flagged as the best single §103 reference for the idea of mixing a sucked powder stream with a separately supplied gas, if its content is confirmed.

C4 — KR 2008‑0110725 A (Chemstream)

• Full citation: KR 2008‑0110725 A, "Apparatus for introducing, injecting, or spraying a mixture of carrier gas and liquid compound," pub. 2008‑12‑19, priority 2006‑04‑19.
• Disclosure: carrier‑gas delivery/injection of a liquid compound (CVD/precursor‑delivery type), not a solid‑powder impact‑consolidation coater.
• Element map: generic 1.2‑style gas‑supply plumbing only.
• §102 potential: None — different technical field (vapor/liquid precursor delivery), and it lacks 1.5, 1.7, 1.8.

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5. Family citations (cited in the JP/CN counterparts, not on the US record)

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6. Ranking of relevance and bottom line

Most relevant prior art, ranked:

1. US 2013/0192519 A1 / KR 10‑1065271 B1 (C10/C8) — nearest overall; supplies everything in claim 1 except the gas supply pipe and the three‑section diameter condition.
2. US 2011/0104369 A1 (C6) — continuous powder feed + carrier pipe + vacuum chamber.
3. US 6,759,085 B2 (C3) — the only cited reference showing a supplied carrier‑gas line into a sub‑atmospheric chamber with a nozzle; best §103 reference for elements 1.2/1.7.
4. KR 2011‑0045489 A (C9) — nozzle‑region pressure control (element 1.6).
5. US 7,153,567 B1 / KR 10‑1228004 B1 (C2/C5) — AD prior art; nozzle positioning (claims 8/9), particle storage/metering (claims 3/4).
6. JP 2005‑305427 A / JP 5142128 B2 / KR 10‑0991723 B1 (nozzle, film‑forming, roll‑to‑roll).
7. KR 100203218 B1 (C1) — Gema dual‑air injector art (content caveat).
8. KR 2008‑0110725 A (C4) and CN 2825132 Y — marginal (precursor delivery; powder recovery).

§102 conclusion: On this record, no cited reference anticipates any claim of US 10,053,765 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Each one fails at least two of the eight claim‑1 elements, and every one fails element 1.8 (a three‑section sequentially continuous transport pipe and gas supply pipe meeting condition (1), (2) or (3)). The closest single reference (C10/C8) additionally teaches away from a supplied‑gas line, which is the very element the patent adds.

The realistic invalidity theory is §103, not §102: C10/C8 (vacuum chamber + atmospheric suction + metered feeder + nozzle) in view of C3 or C1 (a separate supplied‑gas/carrier‑gas line into the nozzle line) would be the combination an examiner or challenger would run against claims 1 and 16 — with claim 1's saving element being the unexplained‑in‑the‑specification three‑section diameter conditions (1.8), which no reference addresses at all.

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7. Data‑integrity flags (no auto‑correction applied)

I am reporting these as discrepancies in the records rather than silently fixing them:

1. Description vs. claims mismatch on condition (2). The granted claim 1 text reads first section ≥ third section ≥ second section, but the description as published contains the garbled variants first section ≥ third section ≥ third section (in the "MODE FOR INVENTION" diameter‑condition paragraphs). The claims control, but the specification support is imperfectly worded.
2. Claim 5 vs. the published application. Granted claim 5 recites "a supplied gas flow rate control unit configured to control a temperature of the supplied gas" — duplicative of claim 6 and inconsistent with the published application US 2016/0153082 A1, which says "control a flow rate of the supplied gas." Claim 16's preamble also contains "a gas supplied from a gas supply unit to the gas supply unit" (likely intended: "gas supply pipe").
3. "Prior Art 1" numbering. The specification calls US 7,153,567 "U.S. Pat. No. 7,153,567" and the Google Patents citation table lists it as US7153567B1 — these are the same document (7,153,567). No correction needed; noted only because the two renderings look different at a glance.
4. Examiner vs. third‑party origin of the citations could not be determined from the fetched record (the asterisk/† markers did not survive into the text I retrieved). I have therefore not characterized any citation as "cited by examiner."
5. KR 100203218 B1 (C1): full text not retrieved this session; my description of its dual‑air injector architecture is inferential from the Gema family context and should be verified against the document before being relied on.
6. Litigation cross‑check: live searches again surfaced U.S. Application 10/053,765 (Flexiworld / William Ho Chang, filed 2002‑01‑18) in PTAB petition papers — an application number, not this patent number — and unrelated Brazilian/other "10053765" strings. Consistent with the previously generated litigation summary: no litigation, PTAB trial, or ITC proceeding involving US 10,053,765 was found.

If you want, I can pull the actual claim charts (element‑by‑element) for the C10+C3 and C10+C1 §103 combinations, or retrieve the full text of KR 100203218 B1 to close the one open gap in the citation set.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me pull details on the key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,053,765 B2

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (AIA), in view of the references cited on the patent's face

Source of record: US10053765B2 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10053765](/patent/US10053765)/en (title: "Apparatus and method for coating with solid-state powder"; app. US 14/903,201; PCT/KR2014/006217; inventors Ok Min Kim / Ok Ryul Kim; assignee FEMVIX CORP; priority 2013‑07‑11).

Note on dates: The task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the patent fetch metadata is 2026‑09‑27. I flag this rather than silently reconcile it. Nothing in the §103 analysis turns on the few months' difference.

This builds on the previously generated Litigation summary (no litigation found; identified US 10,053,765 by its family) and does not repeat it. One cross-reference caveat is noted at the end.

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1. Governing standard and the person of ordinary skill

Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a claim is obvious if the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art ("POSITA") at the effective filing date, considering (i) the scope/content of the prior art, (ii) the differences, (iii) the level of ordinary skill, and (iv) any objective indicia. A combination of known elements is obvious where it does no more than yield predictable results, where it is a mere "design choice" or "obvious to try," or where the prior art itself identifies the problem to be solved and points toward the solution.

POSITA here: a mechanical/chemical engineer with ~3–5 years' experience in vacuum powder deposition (aerosol deposition, cold spray, low‑pressure cold spray) and applied compressible‑flow design — i.e., familiar with Bernoulli/continuity relations, isoentropic quasi‑one‑dimensional flow, choking, and converging–diverging (de Laval) nozzles. The patent's own specification treats this knowledge as background: it states the pipe diameters "can be determined according to the Bernoulli's theorem and the spray speed of the carrier gas," and that the de Laval nozzle "was developed by Gustaf de Laval (Sweden) in 1897" and is "generally known."

Independent claims at issue: claim 1 (apparatus) and claim 16 (method).

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2. Claim 1 — element-by-element mapping to the cited art

Claim 1 requires: (A) transport pipe; (B) gas supply pipe from a gas supply unit; (C) spray nozzle at the end of the transport pipe or gas supply pipe; (D) coating chamber containing the nozzle; (E) solid powder feeding unit feeding powder from an atmospheric‑pressure environment; (F) pressure control unit for the chamber; (G) negative‑pressure suction of atmospheric gas so that sucked gas + supplied gas together form the carrier gas; and (H) each of the transport pipe and gas supply pipe being three sequentially continuous sections whose diameters satisfy (1) first=second=third, (2) first≥third≥second, or (3) third≥first≥second.

Conclusion: No single reference anticipates claim 1 (PA5 lacks the supplied‑gas pipe; PA4 uses compressed carrier air rather than atmospheric suction; PA3 lacks the atmospheric‑suction transport pipe and the sectional geometry). Claim 1 is, however, the union of a small set of known features drawn from four references in the same field, which is the classic §103 posture.

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3. Primary § 103 combinations

Combination A (strongest): PA5 + PA3

PA5 (US 2013/0192519 A1 / KR 10‑1065271, "Solid powder coating apparatus") — https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130192519A1 — teaches an air inlet unit at atmospheric pressure, a feeder, a carrier pipe, a nozzle in a vacuum chamber, and a pressure controller that creates a sub‑atmospheric pressure so atmospheric air is sucked into the carrier pipe. This is the closest art and supplies A, C, D, E, F, and the sucked‑gas half of G.

PA3 (US 6,759,085 B2, Muehlberger, Sulzer Metco, "Method and apparatus for low pressure cold spraying") — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6759085B2](/patent/US6759085B2) — teaches supplying a pressurized carrier gas (typically inert/heated, 0–1000 °C) into a spray gun together with powder and spraying into a low‑ambient‑pressure region (down to 0.00001 atm) so the powder is accelerated to supersonic speed; it claims "providing an inert gas under pressure to the spraying orifice… and locating the spraying orifice in a region of low ambient pressure." This supplies B and the supplied‑gas half of G, plus temperature control for dependent claims 5/6.

Why the POSITA would combine them: PA5's own approach is pressure/velocity‑limited by the suction flow rate. The present specification identifies precisely this defect: "in Prior Art 5, there may be a case in which the spray speed of the carrier gas is not controlled only by the flow rate of air sucked. Thus, it is needed to provide a means and a method capable of controlling even spray speed which is difficult to control only by the flow rate of air sucked." PA3 is directly addressed to controlling spray speed/acceleration by feeding a supplied gas into a low‑pressure chamber. Combining a known suction feed with a known supplied‑gas feed yields only the predictable result (a second, independently adjustable mass‑flow and pressure source in a system already governed by Bernoulli/continuity relations). KSR — combining two known gas‑feed mechanisms that each control flow in the same way is the paradigm of predictable combination.

Combination B: PA5 + PA4

PA4 (US 2011/0104369 A1, Ok Ryul Kim, "Apparatus and method for continuous powder coating") — https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110104369A1 (granted as US 8,936,830 / US 9,139,912) — is the same inventive family as PA5 and the present patent. It discloses:

• a carrier pipe (500) divided into five sections, where "the second and the fourth have a throat in the middle of each pipe and their pipe diameters gradually scale down moving toward a throat from the ends… (converging and diverging parts)," with the first/third/fifth sections of uniform diameter;
• a feeder open to atmospheric pressure feeding powder into a minus‑pressure region of the carrier pipe; and
• a supplied‑air train: air supply unit (100), pressurizer (130), heater (510), cooler (340).

So PA4 alone supplies element H in substantial measure (indeed more richly than the claim — converging/diverging throats), plus B, E, F. The motivation to combine PA5 with PA4 is even stronger than with PA3 because they share an inventor and assignee, address the identical coating problem, and PA4 is expressly cited in the patent's own background as the immediately preceding development in the same line ("Prior Art 4"). KSR: where a reference is in the same field and addresses the same problem, and the art is the applicant's own family, the combination is a design step, not invention.

Combination C (alternate primary): PA4 + PA3

If PA5 is set aside, PA4 supplies the variable‑diameter sectional pipe, the atmospheric‑pressure powder feed, and the minus‑pressure transport, while PA3 supplies the pressurized/heated gas feed into a low‑pressure chamber and the supersonic nozzle/acceleration rationale. The gap — "sucked gas together with supplied gas as carrier" — is closed by PA3's supplied‑gas teaching in view of PA4's suction region.

Combination D (three‑way): PA5 + PA4 + PA3

For a robust rejection of claim 1, the Examiner can rely on PA5 for the atmospheric‑suction architecture (A, C, D, E, F, sucked half of G), PA4 for the three‑section/throat diameter conditions (H), and PA3 for the supplied‑gas pipe and heated‑gas control (B, supplied half of G, temp control). Each reference is analogous art and the combination yields the claimed arrangement with no more than predictable results.

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4. The "three‑section diameter" limitation is the weakest link (and independently obvious)

Two independent reasons the H limitation does not confer non‑obviousness:

1. Condition (1) is a nullity. "first section = second section = third section" is met by any constant‑diameter pipe. Every one of PA3/PA4/PA5's ordinary uniform‑diameter pipe sections reads on condition (1) if the pipe is nominally divided into three continuous segments. A POSITA would not regard segmenting a constant‑bore pipe into three equal nominal sections as a patentable difference.

2. Conditions (2) and (3) are the classic venturi/throat. Both reduce to "the second section is the narrowest (a throat), with a wider inlet and a wider‑than‑or‑equal outlet." That is a standard converging (or converging–diverging) flow element whose behavior is fixed by the isoentropic quasi‑one‑dimensional flow equations. PA4 explicitly manufactures a minus‑pressure space "by application of principles of a subsonic nozzle and a supersonic nozzle in connection with cross‑sectional area of the carrier pipe, pressure of the carrier pipe, and velocity of the carrier air," and even tabulates throat diameters (e.g., 12 mm → 3.5 mm; 15 mm → 2.6 mm) to set the throat pressure below 760 torr. Selecting the numerical diameter ordering of claim 1 is thus a design choice/optimization within the POSITA's ordinary skill. The patent itself concedes the diameters "can be determined according to the Bernoulli's theorem."

Literal‑reading flag: The claim recites condition (2) as "first section ≥ third section ≥ second section," but the DETAILED DESCRIPTION twice prints "first section ≥ third section ≥ third section" (and once "third section ≥ third section") — an apparent typographical error in the specification. Per the operating rule to interpret identifiers literally, I do not auto‑correct it; if the claim is construed to match the erroneous specification text, the limitation becomes internally incoherent and is all the more vulnerable. See also the "section 15b" typo in the originally published US20160153082A1 claim 16 ("a gas supplied from a gas supply unit to the gas supply unit"), which was corrected to "gas supply pipe" in the granted claim 16.

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5. The method claims (16–21)

Claim 16 tracks the apparatus claim and adds no independent inventive step: a carrier gas of "a mixture of a gas sucked into the transport pipe by a negative pressure generated in the coating chamber" and "a gas supplied from a gas supply unit," transporting atmospheric‑pressure powder through the nozzle onto a substrate in the vacuum chamber. PA5's five‑stage method (ventilate the chamber; set the pressure at the pipe end below 760 torr; control chamber pressure for the nozzle spray regime; transport entrained powder; spray subsonically/supersonically) supplies the suction‑transport method; PA3 supplies the supplied‑gas method. The method therefore rises or falls with claim 1.

• Claim 17 (control supplied‑gas flow rate to set transport‑pipe pressure as a function of spray speed) — routine control of a known flow‑rate valve; PA4 expressly controls flow rate/pressure and links it to spray velocity ("the control of spray velocity… can be linked to the control of the flow rate of the air").
• Claim 18 (supplied gas 0–600 °C) — PA3 discloses/claims heating the gas to 0–1000 °C; a sub‑range of 0–600 °C is an obvious optimization.
• Claim 19 (control carrier‑gas temperature) — PA4's heater (510)/cooler (340); PA3's heating coil.
• Claims 20–21 (sucked/supplied gas = O₂, N₂, Ar, He, H₂, air or mixtures) — PA3 (inert gases such as helium), PA4 (air), PA1/PA2 (gas). Selection of a known working gas is an obvious design choice; the patent's "Advantageous Effects" does not assert criticality of any particular gas.

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6. Dependent claims (2–15) — all read on the same art

None of claims 2–15 supplies a limitation that the cited art does not already teach or suggest, and none is asserted in the specification to produce a result beyond improved flow control.

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7. Motivation‑to‑combine — stated affirmatively

1. The art identifies the problem and the solution. The specification's own Background frames PA5 as suffering from a spray‑speed control deficit and states the need for a supplied‑gas means — a roadmap a POSITA would follow. KSR.
2. Same field / same purpose. PA1–PA5 all address spray‑coating solid powder in vacuum; PA3/PA4/PA5 all address carrier‑gas flow control. KSR (analogous art).
3. Predictable results. Adding a second gas source and a throat‑type pipe bend produces only the expected fluid‑dynamic effects on velocity, pressure, and entrainment.
4. Common ownership / same inventor family. PA4 and PA5 are the applicants' own prior developments; combining one's own sequential improvements is a design step.
5. Obvious to try. Only three diameter orderings are claimed; one is trivial (equality) and the other two are the two ways to place a throat, governed by known equations.

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8. Rebuttal / non‑obviousness arguments a patentee could raise (and why they likely fail)

• "Teaching away." PA5 states the invention "does not need an extra gas supplier for the pressurized inert gas or the compressed air," and the family text says PA5 "does not employ a method of transporting solid powder by supplying a compressed gas." A patentee could argue PA5 discredits the supplied‑gas approach. Weak: KSR requires the reference to criticize, discredit, or discourage the solution, not merely describe a different design choice. PA5's statement explains its own architecture; it does not disparage supplied gas as inoperable. Moreover, the present specification's Background expressly recites the need to control "spray speed which is difficult to control only by the flow rate of air sucked," converting the alleged "away" into a "toward."
• "Unexpected result" (±500 nm uniformity over 2 m × 2 m, supersonic spray). There is no evidence of unexpectedness in the record; the effects follow directly from (a) metered atmospheric‑pressure feeding and (b) supplied‑gas pressure/velocity control, both known. The supersonic capability is expressly attributed to the known de Laval principle. No nexus is shown between any claimed diameter inequality and the asserted thickness tolerance.
• Secondary considerations generally. No unexpected results, no industry praise, no licensing, and no copying are evidenced on the face of the document.

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9. Procedural caveats and flags (literal‑interpretation compliance)

• § 102 status of the family references. PA4 (published 2011‑05‑05) and PA5's Korean parent KR 10‑1065271 (published 2011‑09‑20) are § 102(a)(1) printed publications predating the 2013‑07‑11 effective filing date and thus are not removable by the common‑ownership exception of § 102(b)(2)(C) (which applies only to § 102(a)(2) art). US 2013/0192519 itself published 2013‑08‑01 — after the asserted priority date — so its § 102(a)(2) availability, and any § 102(b)(2)(C) common‑ownership exception, should be checked against the KR parent for a clean rejection. I flag this rather than resolve it, since it depends on inventorship/assignment facts not fully in the record.
• Obviousness‑type double patenting (separate from § 103). Because PA4 (US 8,936,830 / US 9,139,912) and PA5 (US 9,079,209) are Kim/FEMVIX patents claiming overlapping subject matter, ODP over those patents (requiring a terminal disclaimer if not otherwise distinguished) is a realistic co‑pending risk. This is not a § 103 issue but is worth noting alongside it.
• Contradiction to flag against the prior section. The earlier Litigation summary correctly stresses not to conflate patent number 10,053,765 with application 10/053,765 (Flexiworld). I confirm no inconsistency here; the reference US 2013/0192519 / KR 10‑1065271 ("Prior Art 5") and US 2011/0104369 ("Prior Art 4") are cited prior art in the same family, not litigation, consistent with that section.
• Claim‑drafting defects (literal reading, not auto‑corrected): claim 1 preamble "a transport pipe provided a transport channel"; claim 5's "flow rate control unit configured to control a temperature"; claim 16's original recital "to the gas supply unit" (granted as "gas supply pipe"); and the specification's repeated "first section ≥ third section ≥ third section" typo versus the claim's condition (2). These defects reduce the claims' scope and/or clarity and, where they make a limitation incoherent, weaken any non‑obviousness position resting on it.

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10. Bottom line

Claim 1 would have been obvious under § 103 over PA5 (US 2013/0192519 A1) in view of PA3 (US 6,759,085 B2), and/or over PA5 in view of PA4 (US 2011/0104369 A1), optionally with PA3 in a three‑way combination. PA5 supplies the atmospheric‑suction transport/nozzle/chamber/feeder/pressure‑control architecture; PA3 supplies the gas‑supply pipe and the pressure/temperature‑controlled supplied carrier gas; PA4 supplies the multi‑section variable‑diameter (throat) pipe. The one arguably distinctive limitation — the three‑section diameter inequalities — is either a nullity (condition (1) = any constant‑bore pipe) or the classical venturi/throat design choice explicitly taught and quantified by PA4 and governed by the Bernoulli/continuity relations the specification itself invokes.

Claims 16–21 (method) and claims 2–15 (dependents) add only routine instrumentation, known materials, or known control steps, and are obvious for the same reasons. I found no objective indicia in the record that would rebut this conclusion.

Confidence: high on the element‑by‑element conclusions drawn from the patent's own cited art; moderate on the precise § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(b)(2)(C) timing points in §9, which require the Korean filing/publication dates and assignment records for a definitive determination.