US 10094771

I'll search for this specific patent number and any associated litigation, then summarize.

Let me check for any litigation or CAFC docket activity involving this patent.

US Patent 10,094,771 B2 — Analyst Summary

Search notes and limitations (read first)

• I ran targeted web searches for the literal identifier 10094771 and for "15/115,693", plus litigation-oriented queries pairing the patent with AVL Emission Test Systems and "CAFC." I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket entry, appeal, or district-court complaint specifically naming US 10,094,771. I could not directly query the USPTO PatentCenter or CAFC docket systems in this session, so I cannot rule out non-indexed or very recent activity — treat "no litigation found" as a negative search result, not a certainty.
• The bibliographic data below is drawn from the authoritative full patent text you supplied, cross-checked against secondary sources (Patents-Review, Golden, FreePatentsOnline), which were consistent on issue date, filing date, inventor, and abstract.
• One secondary source (Golden) rendered the application number as "151156930"; the authoritative patent record uses 15/115,693. I do not auto-correct identifiers, so I flag both renderings.

Bibliographic data (from the patent text)

Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"A device for determining a concentration of at least one gas in a sample gas flow by infrared absorption spectroscopy. The device includes an infrared radiation source which emits a radiation which is conducted through an analysis cell, a feed line, the sample gas flow which is conducted into and out of the analysis cell via the feed line, a detector which measures an absorption spectrum arising in the analysis cell, a suction jet pump which includes a propellant gas connection, and a propellant gas line which extends to the propellant gas connection of the suction jet pump. The suction jet pump is arranged downstream of the analysis cell and feeds the sample gas flow through the analysis cell via the feed line. The propellant gas line includes a regulating valve which regulates a propellant pressure in the propellant gas line."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Claim 1 (device). A spectroscopic gas-concentration analyzer built around an infrared source, an analysis cell, and a detector, in which the sample gas is pulled through the cell by a suction jet pump (ejector) located downstream of the cell. The novelty/residue of the claim is in the control arrangement: a regulating valve sits in the propellant (compressed-air) line feeding the ejector, and that valve is a proportional valve that sets propellant pressure purely as a direct function of (a) the feed-line pressure downstream of the analysis cell or (b) the pressure in the analysis cell itself — with no other input. The specified behavior is that when the negative pressure in the feed line weakens (absolute pressure rises), the valve raises propellant pressure, restoring suction. In effect: regulate the vacuum pump's drive pressure to hold the cell pressure steady, instead of throttling the sample path.

Claim 9 (method). A method of measuring gas concentration carried out using the device of claim 4 (which chains back through claims 3 → 2 → 1, so the method claim incorporates the pneumatic proportional valve, the pressure sensor, and the sensor-linked control unit). The steps: provide that device (including a computing unit); draw the sample gas into the analysis cell via the feed line using the suction jet pump; pass the IR source radiation through the cell; measure the exiting spectrum with the detector; and compute concentration in the computing unit from that spectrum. The characterizing limitation: the ejector has a propelling nozzle, and the propellant pressure at the propellant line and at the propelling nozzle is regulated as a direct function of the feed pressure in the analysis cell or the feed line.

Dependent claims (for context)

• 2: proportional valve is a pneumatic valve with a control chamber fluidically connected to the feed line (self-actuating, no electronics).
• 3: pressure sensor downstream of the cell in the feed line, or in the cell.
• 4: pressure sensor wired to a control unit of the regulating valve that sets valve opening position from measured pressures (electropneumatic variant).
• 5: sample-gas connection plus a reference/purging-gas connection, selectively connectable to the feed line upstream of the cell.
• 6: a branch in the feed line with a switch valve to select sample gas vs. reference/purge gas (single ejector serves both).
• 7: a nozzle in the feed line upstream of the cell to cap maximum volume flow.
• 8: the IR source is a quantum cascade laser.
• 10: higher propellant pressure is generated as feed-line negative pressure decreases (mirrors claim 1's behavior).
• 11: feed pressure is routed into the proportional valve's control chamber.
• 12: feed pressure is measured and the values supplied to the regulating valve's control unit.

Technical/commercial context

The specification frames the invention against prior art that uses membrane or rotary-vane vacuum pumps (pressure pulsations, limited ambient temperature tolerance, weight/maintenance) and against DE 10 2006 05 901, which uses an ejector but regulates via throttles in the sample feed line, causing high propellant consumption. The asserted advantages are: stable cell pressure with no pulsation, low maintenance (no moving pump parts), reduced compressed-air consumption (only the propellant needed for the required pressure gradient is drawn), tolerance of condensate and high temperatures (ambient >50 °C; sample gas up to 200 °C), and low electrical consumption since the vacuum pump needs no power supply. The described operating point is ~200 hPa absolute in the analysis cell, with a nozzle limiting flow to about 1 L/min and compressed air supplied at ~7 bar.

Uncertainty flags

• No CAFC 2026 or district-court docket activity specific to US 10,094,771 was located. Searches did surface AVL-related patent disputes (e.g., the EPO revocation of EP 2 414 808 B1 concerning exhaust-gas sampling/dilution tunnels, and AVL-filed oppositions against Horiba patents), but those involve different patents and I am not attributing them to 10,094,771.
• Bibliographic figures are taken from the patent record itself; the primary examiner name is not present in the supplied text, so I have not supplied one.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 10094771 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me search specific litigation databases directly.

Litigation Search Results: US Patent 10,094,771

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,094,771 (as of the search date). I also found no USPTO PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR) against it in the material retrieved.

I want to be transparent about the limits of this search and flag a possibly relevant adjacent dispute, below.

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What I searched and what came back

Important caveat: My CourtListener and general docket-number searches were cut off by a tool/step limit before returning results, and my Unified Patents query returned an empty set. So my "no litigation" conclusion rests on the searches that did complete. It is a negative finding based on limited coverage, not a certified clearance search. A definitive answer would require direct review of PACER, Docket Navigator, and/or Lex Machina.

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What the record does show (not litigation, but worth noting)

1. No U.S. litigation found for the '771 patent itself. The patent has been maintained as active — the Google Patents record shows maintenance-fee payments at the 4th year (2022-03-29) and 8th year (2026-04-01), with an adjusted expiration of 2035-01-16. A patent that is being asserted in litigation is often (though not always) accompanied by visible docket activity; none surfaced.

2. Related, but distinct, enforcement activity by the same patent owner (AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH):

   • AVL sued German competitor Maha-AIP at the Düsseldorf Regional Court in 2013 over DE 10 2009 015 188 B4 (case ID 4a O 79/13) and EP 2 414 808 (case ID 4 O 113/13). Source: JUVE Patent, "AVL and Maha dispute…" Both suits were suspended pending validity rulings; the German patent was revoked by the Federal Patent Court in 2016, and the EPO Board of Appeal later revoked EP 2 414 808 for lack of inventive step.
   • This dispute concerns a dilution-tunnel / exhaust-gas-sampling family (priority DE 102009015188, 2009), which is a different patent family from the '771 patent (priority DE 102014101915.6, filed 2014). It should not be reported as litigation of the '771 patent.
   • AVL Emission Test Systems appears in EPO opposition matters (e.g., oppositions involving Horiba patents, and T 0042/17 where AVL was opponent against a Horiba application). These are administrative EPO proceedings, not district-court or ITC litigation of the '771 patent.

3. The '771 patent's family (per Google Patents) includes EP 3105564 B1, JP 6320547 B2, CN 106461513 B, DE 102014101915 B4, and WO 2015121017 A1. No litigation of these counterparts surfaced either.

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Bottom line summary

• Plaintiff(s): None identified.
• Defendant(s): None identified.
• Jurisdiction: N/A.
• Case number: N/A.
• Filing date: N/A.
• Outcome/status: No known litigation involving US 10,094,771.

Recommendation: Because my completed searches were limited and two queries were truncated, treat this as an inconclusive negative rather than a confirmation. To confirm, check PACER (via a docket-number or patent-number search), Docket Navigator, Unified Patents' litigation portal, and Lex Machina directly for the exact number "10,094,771" / "10094771." I did not fabricate any case identifiers, since none could be verified.

I'll verify the canonical (empty) PTAB list against live sources before finalizing.

Confirming with a few more targeted queries, including party-name-driven searches.

One more pass targeting likely adversaries and docket aggregators.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings exist on US 10,094,771. The count is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. The defensive posture for a defendant is therefore not "the patent has been hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "the claims are already dead" — it is that the patent's validity is entirely untested at the PTAB, and every ground of attack under §§ 102/103/112 remains unburdened by § 315(e)(2) estoppel. The framing in the output template ("survived two IPRs," "claims 1–5 canceled") presupposes proceedings that do not exist for this patent; neither applies.

Procedural record (no proceedings to enumerate)

There are no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} entries to report. I will not generate IPR/PGR/CBM numbers, because fabricating docket numbers is the cardinal sin in this analysis and no source supports any.

What I checked, and the results:

• Canonical source (controlling). The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal API — returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. This is the authoritative list per operating rules, and it is empty.
• Live web search, patent-number driven. Queries pairing 10094771 / US10094771B2 with "IPR," "PGR," "CBM," "PTAB," "petition," and "AIA trial" surfaced no proceeding, no petition, no institution decision, and no Final Written Decision naming this patent. The hits were unrelated patents (e.g., IPR2025-00280/00281, IPR2024-00965, IPR2025-01431) that merely appeared in the same result set because they share PTAB boilerplate language.
• Live web search, party-name driven. Queries on "AVL Emission Test Systems" + IPR years returned no petition activity by or against AVL at the PTAB.
• Third-party PTAB aggregator corroboration. The GreyB/IP Verse "competitive analysis" page for Avl Emission Test Systems (page dated 2026-06-25) reports a company profile of "PTAB Cases Filed: –" and "PTAB Cases Faced: –", alongside "Oppositions Filed: 2, Oppositions Faced: –". The explicit zero in the "Cases Faced" column independently corroborates the ODP result for this patent. (IP Verse)

Important non-finding to avoid conflating. AVL Emission Test Systems is an active EPO opposition litigant — it filed oppositions against Horiba patents, including the opposition decided in T 0042/17 (Horiba application 11010203.5, "Exhaust gas analyzing system and exhaust gas analyzing method," decision dated 2020-07-14, appeal dismissed). That is Article 100 EPC practice before the EPO Boards of Appeal, not an AIA trial, and it involves a Horiba patent — not US 10,094,771. Do not cite it as PTAB activity or as an attack on this patent.

Declared limitation. My final two verification queries (a Horiba/AVL-targeted IPR search and a CourtListener/Federal Circuit search) were cut off when I reached the session's tool-call ceiling. I was also unable to query PTAB E2E or the CAFC docket directly. So the finding is a strong negative (canonical ODP data + independent aggregator + multiple negative searches) but not a mathematically exhaustive one. Treat it as: no known AIA proceeding; a just-filed petition filed in the last few weeks could in principle be unindexed.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 12 claims of US 10,094,771 are UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim has been canceled, disclaimed, or held unpatentable in an AIA trial. Claims 1–8 (device) and 9–12 (method) stand exactly as granted on 2018-10-09, all carrying the 2014-02-14 priority date. There is no narrowing to account for and no certificate-of-correction or reexamination history in the supplied record.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR has ever been instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a blank slate. No petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from raising anything — including art that was before the examiner during prosecution. Correlatively, a defendant gets no free ride from someone else's prior petition: there is no FWD to borrow, no PTAB claim construction to lean on, and no estoppel-immunized art to inherit.

Pattern signals. There is no repeat-petitioner pattern (no petitioner at all), no PTAB appeal history by the patent owner (nothing to appeal), and no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain for this patent. Given AVL's demonstrated willingness to litigate at the EPO — it both finds and faces oppositions — the company is clearly not averse to validity fights; the absence of PTAB activity most plausibly reflects that this patent has not been asserted against a well-resourced US defendant, rather than any inherent invulnerability.

Prosecution-side read for the defense. The Board's own citation list on the face of the patent is a starter kit: US 4,762,467 (Henkel, "Method for controlling the pressure ratio of a jet pump" — directly on point for ejector pressure control), DE 10 2006 05 901 B3 (M&C Products, gas jet pump in a process-gas analyzer — the specification's own admitted prior art), US 6,058,789 (Kohsaka, sampling device for gas analyzers), US 3,593,023 (Beckman, exhaust analysis), and US 2013/0250301 (Feitisch, collisional broadening compensation). Note also the prosecution-trajectory point: claim 1's "based exclusively on a direct function" limitation reads as a narrowing amendment made to escape art like DE '901, which regulated suction with throttles in the sample feed line. That amendment both shrinks the claim and supplies an estoppel/prosecution-history anchor for a non-infringement or infringement argument.

Recommended next steps

1. Say it plainly: no PTAB activity exists. There is no FWD to link to and no disposition to quote. Do not represent otherwise in a client memo; the absence is the answer.
2. Read the absence as a signal, not a shield. Well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. This one has not been asserted hard enough in the US to draw one. If you are the first defendant facing a demand letter on US 10,094,771, you are also plausibly positioned to be the first petitioner — and you face no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no § 325(d) "same art" problem beyond what is on the face of the patent.
3. Preserve the § 315(b) clock. One year from service of a district-court complaint alleging infringement, the IPR door closes. Because the patent has never been challenged, that clock is likely still open — confirm the service date on any complaint before deciding timing.
4. Front-load the strongest prior art. Build a § 103 combination around US 4,762,467 + DE 10 2006 05 901 B3, and target the "based exclusively on a direct function" limitation head-on — that phrase, not the ejector-plus-analyzer architecture, is where the claim's validity lives or dies. Expect the patent owner to argue the art teaches throttling the sample path rather than regulating the propellant pressure, so a petition should marshal art that closes that gap.
5. Pair the validity work with an infringement-position check. Given the "exclusively a direct function" and "higher propellant pressure ... based on a decreasing negative pressure" limitations, an electronic closed-loop controller that uses additional inputs (temperature, flow, detector signal) may fall outside the literal claim — a non-infringement theory that could moot the need for an IPR entirely.
6. If you need certainty on pending filings, verify directly against USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the CAFC docket / CourtListener before finalizing any memo. I could not complete those direct queries in this session, and a very recent petition could be unindexed in the ODP ingest.

I'll search for the assignment records and ownership chain for this patent.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 10,094,771 B2

Source-access note (read first). I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) or the legacy https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html retrieval UI directly in this session — those endpoints require interactive query submission that my search tooling could not drive. The assignment data below is therefore taken from the authoritative legal-events block in the full patent record you supplied (which reproduces the USPTO assignment indexing) and cross-checked against the family/legal-events fields in the same document. The "correspondent of record" field — the attorney or agent who filed the recording — is not present in the supplied record, and I was unable to retrieve it from an independent source. I am not reconstructing or guessing it. Anyone needing the correspondent for a shell-entity recurrence analysis must pull reel 039532/0310 from the Assignment Center directly, because per your framing that field is the most probative tell and it is the one field I cannot ground here.

Because of that gap, the "repeat correspondent" signal (signal 3) is unclear by data, not by absence of activity — flag it as a retrieval task.

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Inventors

• No unusual departure pattern detected. The record shows a single inventor and no co-inventor group, so the classic "all inventors leave the assignee within 12 months" fire-sale precursor cannot be assessed as a group signal. The only timing datum is the assignment execution date (2016-08-04), which is ~18 months after the 2015-01-15 PCT filing and coincides with entry of the US national phase under 35 U.S.C. § 371. That lag is ordinary prosecution/§ 371 housekeeping, not evidence of a departure.
• I found no evidence that Fetzner has publicly dissociated from AVL. I did not find a confirmatory employment record, so I mark the employer as high-confidence inference from the assignment, not a documented fact.

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Original assignee

AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH — named as assignee on the issued patent and as the sole assignee in the assignment record.

• Primary line of business: design, manufacture, and sale of emissions measurement and test systems for internal-combustion-engine exhaust analysis (CVS dilution systems, FTIR/modal measurement systems, testbed automation). Described in trade sources as a world-market leader in emissions measurement systems, serving OEMs, truck/off-road engine makers, fuel producers, and certification labs. (North Data; Die Deutsche Wirtschaft; wer-zu-wem.)
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — this is an operating company with a commercial instrument line. The patent itself is drafted around an implemented instrument (quantum cascade laser absorption spectrometer with an ejector-pumped analysis cell, ~200 hPa cell pressure, ~1 L/min nozzle limit, ~7 bar compressed air). This is a product-support patent, not an acquisition vehicle.
• Corporate status / name history (relevant to chain of title):
  • Origin: Pierburg Instruments GmbH (Neuss, HRB 9897); AVL acquired majority in 2002; PEUS Systems merged in 2004.
  • 2005-12-20 — Pierburg Instruments GmbH renamed AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH (registered 2006-01-05). This is a name change only.
  • 2011-08-10/30 — AVL Pierburg Instruments Flow Technology GmbH merged into AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH (absorber). Merger, not a sale.
  • Renamed again to AVL Analytical Technologies GmbH (Amtsgericht Neuss HRB 9897, Graf-Landsberg-Straße 1 c, 41460 Neuss; still active as of the latest 2025 register entries). Former names listed: AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH, AVL Emmission Test Systems GmbH, Pierburg Instruments GmbH.
  • Ownership: privately held within the AVL group / List family (Graz, Austria); AVL List GmbH is the parent. Not public, not in bankruptcy.
• Important caveat: the 2005 and later renames are German commercial-register events. I found no USPTO-recorded "Change of Name" assignment for this patent covering those renames in the supplied record, and I could not verify one independently. Under USPTO practice a § 3.11 change-of-name recording would normally be indexed against the patent; its absence here means either (a) none was filed for this patent, or (b) it exists but is not reflected in the supplied legal-events block. Treat the current USPTO "assignee of record" as AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH unless a change-of-name record is confirmed.

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Assignment timeline

One recorded assignment. That is the entire chain. No post-issuance transfers were found in the patent record's legal-events block, and Google Patents' "Assignees" field still lists AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH as current assignee.

• Executed 2016-08-04 / recorded 2016-08-25 — Reel 039532/0310
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: FETZNER, STEPHAN (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: AVL EMISSION TEST SYSTEMS GMBH (Germany)
  • Correspondent of record: Not available in the supplied record — I could not retrieve the filing attorney/agent from the Assignment Center in this session. This is the one field that would need direct retrieval; I will not reconstruct it.
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-employer assignment required to perfect the applicant's title on entry of the PCT (PCT/EP2015/050640) into the US national phase. Ordinary course — not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Recoded verbatim from the record: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:FETZNER, STEPHAN, MR.;REEL/FRAME:039532/0310", effective date 20160804.

No later records of any kind (no security agreements, no mergers, no licenses, no releases, no corrections). The only other post-grant legal events are maintenance-fee payments (4th year on 2022-03-29; 8th year on 2026-04-01, large entity) — both consistent with continued direct ownership by the AVL entity.

Cross-references checked for a hidden chain

• Family: EP3105564B1 (active), JP6320547B2, CN106461513B, DE102014101915B4, WO2015121017A1 — all national/regional counterparts of the same PCT; no reassignment of the US member surfaced.
• Cited-by: only two forward citations (US20190219488A1 / US10379012B2 to McNamara; US20250102483A1 to DLR), neither indicative of a transfer.
• Related AVL patent: US 9,995,675 B2 ("Device for determining the concentration of at least one gas in a sample gas flow by means of infrared absorption spectroscopy") appears in the similar-documents list and is consistent with the same AVL program — noted as a family-adjacent asset, not as a link in this patent's chain.
• No CAFC 2026 docket entry or district-court complaint naming this patent was located. (Consistent with the prior section's negative search result.)
• SEC / bankruptcy cross-check: AVL is privately held; there is no 10-K/8-K trail and no Chapter 7/11 proceeding to feed a fire-sale.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10094771
    2014 : Priority filed by AVL group
    2015 : PCT filed 15 Jan
    2016 : Fetzner assigns to AVL
         : Recorded 25 Aug reel 039532 0310
    2018 : Patent issued 9 Oct
    2022 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2026 : 8th year maintenance fee paid

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Note on renames: the 2005 Pierburg Instruments → AVL Emission Test Systems rename and the later AVL Emission Test Systems → AVL Analytical Technologies rename are name changes / corporate transactions of an operating group, not shell-entity transfers. Under the rubric's own caution ("a name that suggests a shell entity is only a finding when paired with concrete evidence"), these are affirmatively not signal-1 findings — they are intra-group housekeeping in a 100% AVL/List-owned entity.

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Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

The single recorded assignment — executed 2016-08-04, recorded 2016-08-25, reel 039532/0310, from inventor Stephan Fetzner to AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH — is a straightforward inventor-to-employer title perfection accompanying § 371 national-phase entry. There is no subsequent assignment, no LLC, no licensing vehicle, no litigation, and no defensive-aggregator terminus, so the chain ends where it started: with a privately held operating company (AVL/List group) that ships the very instrument the claims describe. The one rubric field I could not ground — the correspondent of record on reel 039532/0310 — is a data gap, not a hidden finding; with a one-link chain, recurrence analysis is moot in any event. If you need the correspondent for a broader repeat-player screen, retrieve reel 039532/0310 directly at the USPTO Assignment Center.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "10094771" or reel/frame "039532/0310"); legacy mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

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Contradictions / flags against the prior section

• None substantive. The prior section's negative litigation result is confirmed and reinforced by the clean one-link chain.
• One clarification it did not state: the current USPTO assignee of record remains "AVL Emission Test Systems GmbH," even though the corporate entity now trades as AVL Analytical Technologies GmbH (HRB 9897). If a change-of-name recording was ever filed, it is not visible in the supplied record — treat the "current assignee" label as nominally stale but substantively the same ongoing operating entity.

I'll verify the patent at the USPTO and research each cited reference.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,094,771 B2

0. Search status and scope (read first)

I was able to confirm the patent against secondary USPTO-derived indexes before my docket/verification searches were truncated by a tool step-limit. Two points of process transparency:

• The authoritative source for this analysis is the full patent text supplied in the prompt. I cross-checked the bibliographic record against OnScope's assignee listing, which independently renders the same grant number, application number, filing and grant dates, and inventor: "Grant Number 10094771 … Application Number 15115693 … Filing Date 2015-01-15 … Grant Date 2018-10-09 … Inventor Fetzner, Stephan" (https://www.onscope.com/ipowner/en/owner/ip/[114195](/patent/114195)-avl-emission-test-systems-gmbh.html). Note the same identifier-rendering discrepancy flagged in the earlier summary — OnScope shows 15115693 and Golden shows 151156930, while the patent record itself uses 15/115,693. Per the operating rule I do not auto-correct any of these.
• I was not able to complete description-verification searches for every cited reference. Searches for US20140002823A1, US20070034792A1, and US20130250301A1 were cut off at the step limit. For those three I rely on the titles recorded in the patent's own citation list plus general knowledge, and I flag the resulting uncertainty explicitly. The references I describe in full (US3593023A, US4762467A, US6058789A, DE102006005901B3) were verified against their own texts/specifications.
• Important caveat on the § 102 labels below: the record I have lists which references were cited, but it does not contain the examiner's actual rejections or the "cited by examiner vs. third party" provenance for each row (Google's legend shows both categories but the per-row dagger marks did not render cleanly in the fetched text). My § 102/§ 103 attributions are therefore analyst assessments of anticipation potential, not quotations of prosecution history.

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1. The cited prior art — full inventory

US 10,094,771 lists 17 patent citations in the "Patent Citations" table and 16 in the "Citations" table (a one-row discrepancy in the source record itself, likely the JP utility-model duplicate). I reproduce the full set below.

Tier 1 — Highest relevance (the ejector + pressure-control concept)

Tier 2 — Moderate relevance (sampling/suction architecture, spectroscopic pressure handling)

Tier 3 — Background / peripheral relevance

Family-cited references (additional)

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2. Per-reference analysis: description and anticipation potential

A. US 3,593,023 A — Beckman Instruments (Dodson & Gomez), pub. 1971-07-13

Description (verified against the patent PDF). An engine-exhaust analysis apparatus in which the sample gas is drawn through a condenser/filter and a detector cell by a jet pump connected to the outlet port of the cell — i.e., an ejector downstream of the analysis cell. It is driven by shop air. The reference expressly addresses sample-pressure regulation: "sample pressure regulation is achieved by providing a restriction 96 in the outlet end 68 of the jet pump," which "minimizes the affect [sic] of pressure fluctuations in the air source 90 on the output and response time of the analyzer 16." Representative claims recite a jet pump with a restriction at its outlet "for maintaining the pressure in said cell substantially constant within the range of pressure fluctuations encountered in the fluid conveyed from said fluid source," and a cell pressure "within the range of about 3.5 to 4.5 inches of water below atmosphere," with flow "0.2 to 2.0 cubic feet per minute" (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5f/65/35/71d06e3468c110/US3593023.pdf).

Potential § 102 relevance.

• Claim 1 (preamble elements only): Discloses an analysis cell with gas conveyed in and out via conduit means, a jet pump arranged downstream of the cell that draws the sample gas through it, and pressure regulation at the cell. It also discloses the jet pump having a driving-fluid inlet from a pressurized source — structurally the "propellant gas connection / propellant gas line."
• Does NOT disclose the claim 1 limitation of "a regulating valve … in the propellant gas line" that is "a proportional valve … based exclusively on a direct function of … feed pressure … or … cell pressure." Beckman regulates passively, via a fixed outlet restriction, not by an actively modulated valve in the motive-air line.
• Net: Anticipates the device architecture of claim 1's preamble but not the characterizing control limitation. Strong § 103 combination reference (e.g., Beckman structure + Henkel control method); not a standalone § 102 anticipation of claim 1.

B. US 4,762,467 A — Henkel, pub. 1988-08-09 — the closest control-scheme reference

Description (verified against the Google Patents abstract/full text). A method for controlling a jet pump in which the suction pressure is held constant by varying the motive-fluid pressure — "the suction pressure generated in the delivery fluid of a jet pump may be kept constant by variation of the motive fluid pressure and hence the motive fluid volume." The suction pressure P₀ is measured by a vacuum gauge 11, fed to a computer 12, whose output is applied "through a direct line 13 to a control or regulating valve 14 in the motive fluid pipe 9." The object includes keeping energy consumption "at an optimally low level," and the specification notes the method can save "up to 50%" over conventional practice where "surplus energy [is] destroyed by throttling" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4762467).

Potential § 102 relevance.

• Claim 1: Discloses the core inventive concept — regulating the jet pump's motive/propellant pressure, via a regulating valve in the motive-fluid line, as a function of the measured suction-side pressure, to hold suction pressure constant. What it does not disclose is (i) the fluid-specific context of a spectroscopic analysis cell and (ii) the "proportional valve … based exclusively on a direct function" — Henkel's controller is a computer-aided iterative/stepwise algorithm (its own claims emphasize "computer-aided iterative stepwise changing"), which is functionally different from a proportional valve whose position is set directly and exclusively by feed pressure.
• Claims 3 / 4 / 12 (pressure sensor → control unit → valve): Henkel arguably discloses these in substance: a pressure-sensing element (vacuum gauge 11) is connected to a control unit (computer 12) that sets the opening of the regulating valve (14) in the motive-fluid/propellant line as a function of the measured pressure. This is the single most dangerous reference for the sensor-and-control-unit sub-combination.
• Claims 9 / 10 (method; higher propellant pressure as negative pressure decreases): Directly on point for the principle of modulating motive pressure to control suction; § 102 relevance depends on whether "as a direct function" is read to exclude Henkel's closed-loop iterative algorithm.
• Net: Strongest § 103 reference for claim 1 and the most likely § 102 reference for the sensor/control-unit claims (3, 4, 12) if the examiner characterizes the computer-driven valve as a "control unit."

C. DE 10 2006 005 901 B3 — M & C Products Analysentechnik, pub. 2007-08-23 — the applicant's own admitted starting point

Description (verified against the German specification). A gas analysis device ("Gasanalysevorrichtung") with a gas jet pump ("Gasstrahlpumpe"). Its central teaching is using the gas jet pump to discharge condensate from a condensate separator and to convey the analysis gas to the gas analyzer; the specification extols that the jet pump "has no mechanically moved parts" and is maintenance-light and suitable for explosion-protected environments. Claim 2/3 refer to the flow resistance in the discharge path ("Strömungswiderstand im Ableitungsweg") being settable — i.e., regulation by throttling in the gas path, not in the propellant line.

Cross-reference to the '771 specification (important): the '771 patent's Background states that "DE 10 2006 05 901 therefore describes an analyzer where the feeding of the gas is performed by a suction jet pump which is largely maintenance-free … The regulation of the feed pressure is effected via regulating valves arranged in the feed line," and identifies the disadvantage as "an increased propellant gas consumption since feeding must be carried out against the resistance of the throttle in the feed line." This directly corroborates my description of reference C and establishes that the '771 invention was framed as an improvement over it.

Potential § 102 relevance.

• Discloses a gas-analysis device with a suction jet pump conveying sample gas — i.e., claim 1's preamble and pump architecture — and regulation of the gas path, but by throttling in the feed/discharge line, not by a proportional valve regulating propellant pressure as a function of feed pressure.
• Net: This is the closest prior art as a matter of the applicant's own admission, but it is the point of departure the '771 claim deliberately departs from. It is a § 103 reference for the device combination, not a § 102 anticipation of the characterizing limitation.

D. US 6,058,789 A — Kohsaka (Horiba), pub. 2000-05-09

Description (verified). A sampling device for gas analyzers in which a constant-rate flow of diluted sample gas is sampled by a constant-volume sampling (CVS) device; the gas inlet port sits in the throat of a main venturi tube (flow ≈ Mach 1), and a suction pump and cold trap are provided downstream. The design goal is that sampling "is unaffected by pressure or flow-rate changes elsewhere in the system" (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/82/b3/75/6e25eda119db43/US6058789.pdf).

Potential § 102 relevance. Discloses venturi/ejector-based sample conveyance downstream of sampling and a suction pump, plus insensitivity to external pressure changes. It does not disclose IR absorption spectroscopy of a sample cell, nor propellant-pressure regulation via a proportional valve. § 102: none of claims 1–12 as a standalone; § 103: marginal (general sampling architecture / the notion of desensitizing sampling to upstream pressure variation).

E. US 5,147,426 A — Horiba (1992-09-15)

Description. Centrifugal separator for preparing automotive exhaust gas for pollution testing with pressure compensation. Potential § 102 relevance. Concerns sample conditioning/pressure compensation in exhaust-gas analysis, not a suction-jet-pump propellant regulation scheme. Peripheral § 103 context at most; no anticipation of any claim.

F. US 2013/0250301 A1 — Feitisch (2013-09-26)

Description. "Collisional broadening compensation using real or near-real-time validation in spectroscopic analyzers." This addresses the very pressure/temperature line-broadening problem that the '771 Background describes ("the line shape in this spectrum depends on pressure and temperature … must therefore either be kept constant or must be continuously metrologically detected and offset").

Potential § 102 relevance. Relevant to the problem context of claim 1 (spectroscopic measurement whose accuracy depends on cell pressure) but discloses no suction jet pump, feed line, or propellant regulating valve. § 102: none. § 103: possible secondary reference to establish that compensating/holding pressure constant in an IR analyzer was known — supporting a motivation-to-combine argument.

(Description based on title and general knowledge; verification search truncated — treat with reduced confidence.)

G. US 2007/0034792 A1 — Shenzhen Mindray (2007-02-15)

Description. "Method and apparatus for detecting gas concentration with infrared absorption characteristics" — an IR-absorption gas concentration sensor, i.e., the same general measurement physics as claim 1 (IR source → sample chamber → detector → concentration).

Potential § 102 relevance. Relevant to the IR-absorption measurement portion of claim 1's preamble and to claim 8-adjacent subject matter (IR source). It does not disclose an ejector downstream of the cell or propellant-side regulation. § 102: none. § 103: background reference for the spectrometry elements.

(Description based on title; verification search truncated — reduced confidence.)

H. US 2014/0002823 A1 — Horiba (2014-01-02)

Description. "Gas analysis device" (Horiba). Published 2014-01-02, i.e., after the '771 priority date (2014-02-14) but within the same month; as a prior-art reference its date is close enough to the priority date that its § 102(a)/(b) status would turn on exact dates and whether it qualifies as prior art at all. Potential § 102 relevance. Horiba is the same field (automotive gas analysis); content was not verifiable within my search budget. Cannot responsibly assign a claim mapping — flagged as unverified.

(Verification search truncated.)

I. US 2011/0285998 A1 (2011-11-24) and JP 2012-002799 A (2012-01-05) — Horiba, "Adsorptive gas analyzer"

Description. Adsorptive gas analyzer; the US/JP documents are a family pair. Potential § 102 relevance. Concerns adsorptive measurement, unrelated to ejector/propellant regulation. § 102: none. Listed as background. (Reduced confidence.)

J. US 5,271,900 A — Shimadzu (1993-12-21)

Description. Carbon analyzer for aqueous and solid samples. Appears to be a background/analytical-chemistry citation. § 102: none. (Note: this reference is flagged with an asterisk in the record — see provenance caveat in §3.)

K. US 2010/0284006 A1 — Socha (2010-11-11)

Description. "Environmental control of fluid samples, calibration, and detection of concentration levels." Concerns sample conditioning/calibration — potentially relevant to claim 5/6 (reference-gas/purge-gas connection for calibration) only as general background. § 102: none.

L. JP 2013-029395 A — Best Sokki K.K. (2013-02-07)

Description. "Gas analysis apparatus." Same general field; content not verified. § 102: indeterminate; listed as background.

M. EP 2 657 685 A1 — Bobst Italia (2013-10-30)

Description. Gas analysis and control system, particularly for detecting the Lower Explosion Limit (LEL) of a gas/gas mixture. § 102: none on the ejector/propellant limitation; general gas-analysis-control background.

N. JPS 49-44154 Y1 (1974-12-03) and O. JPS 63-121958 U (1988-08-08)

Description. Japanese utility models with no title or assignee in the record. Filing dates of 1969 and 1987 place them in the early gas-analysis era; likely cited as pre-existing gas-sampling devices. Content unverified — no claim mapping can be responsibly assigned.

P. JPS 62-121997 A — Hitachi VLSI Engineering (1987-06-03) — "Dynamic RAM"

Description. The title recorded is a dynamic random-access memory patent. On its face this is not relevant to infrared gas analysis, suction jet pumps, or pressure regulation, and it does not map to any claim. I flag it because the instruction is to interpret identifiers literally: I am not auto-correcting or assuming a typographical error in the record — I simply report that this cited document, as titled, has no discernible § 102 bearing on claims 1–12. (It may be a citation-management artifact in the source record.)

Q. JPH 05-31547 Y2 (1993-08-13) and R. JPH 06-48379 Y2 — Koyo Seiko, "Gas analyzer" (1994-12-12)

Description. Family-cited Japanese utility models; R is titled "Gas analyzer," Q has no title. These are dated 1993–1994 and appear to be background Japanese gas-analyzer art. § 102: none identified.

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3. Synthesis — which references actually matter, and against which claims

Claim 1 (independent device claim) requires, as its distinguishing feature, a proportional valve in the propellant gas line driven exclusively by the feed pressure downstream of the cell (or cell pressure).

Bottom line:

1. No single cited reference appears, on its face, to disclose every element of independent claim 1 — in particular the "proportional valve … based exclusively on a direct function of … feed pressure … or … cell pressure." The prior art does not openly disclose that the sole control input is the feed/cell pressure with no other measurement input.
2. US 4,762,467 A is the most relevant reference overall and the greatest threat, because it discloses the central insight (modulate jet-pump motive pressure via a valve in the motive-fluid line to hold suction pressure) and, in its FIG. 2 arrangement (vacuum gauge 11 → computer 12 → regulating valve 14 in motive-fluid pipe 9), substantially maps onto dependent claims 3, 4 and 12 (pressure sensor → control unit → valve in the propellant line).
3. US 3,593,023 A and DE 10 2006 005 901 B3 are close, complementary structural references covering, respectively, (a) an ejector downstream of an analysis cell with cell-pressure regulation, and (b) an ejector-based gas analyzer with feed-path regulation. Either could anchor a § 103 obviousness combination with Henkel.
4. The remaining references (D–R) are background or field-context and individually do not anticipate any claim. Two cited entries — JPS 62-121997 A ("Dynamic RAM") and the two untitled Japanese utility models (N, O, Q) — carry no discernible § 102 bearing and should be verified for citation-record accuracy rather than cited as art.

Reliability caveats, restated: (i) § 102/§ 103 attributions are my analysis, not the examiner's actual rejections; (ii) references D–R were not all individually verified due to a tool step-limit; (iii) the "cited by examiner vs. third party" provenance markers did not render reliably, so I have not labeled which citations the examiner selected versus which the applicant supplied; and (iv) the record shows 16 vs. 17 counts across its two citation tables, which I have flagged rather than reconciled.

Recommended next steps for a definitive prior-art opinion: pull the actual file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter for application 15/115,693) to see the PTO-892 forms and the examiner's grounds of rejection; retrieve the full texts of N, O, Q and JP 2013-029395 A to confirm relevance; and obtain the International Search Report / Written Opinion for PCT/EP2015/050640 (WO 2015/121017 A1), which would state the ISA's own art citations and claim mappings directly.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in the prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me verify the content of the most probative references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,094,771 B2

35 U.S.C. § 103 | Analyst assessment, not a legal opinion
Built on the previously generated bibliographic, claim-overview, and litigation sections. Prior art taken from the "Citations / Patent Citations" lists on the patent page (the record's own prior-art section), plus the admitted prior art in the specification.

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0. A critical framing point before the combinations

Two things about this record drive the whole analysis:

1. The patent's own specification is a substantial admission. It admits (i) IR/laser spectroscopy gas analyzers, (ii) quantum cascade lasers, (iii) suction-jet-pump feeding of an analysis cell, and (iv) active regulation of the feed pressure — all as known. The only thing the patent attacks in the prior art is where the regulation sits:

"DE 10 2006 05 901 therefore describes an analyzer where the feeding of the gas is performed by a suction jet pump which is largely maintenance-free… The regulation of the feed pressure is effected via regulating valves arranged in the feed line. The disadvantage of such a regulation is an increased propellant gas consumption since feeding must be carried out against the resistance of the throttle in the feed line so that a high propellant gas pressure always exists."

That is an admitted-prior-art starting point plus an admitted problem. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and MPEP § 2144.03, this posture materially strengthens any § 103 attack.

1. The "exclusively" wording of claim 1 is the whole ballgame. Claim 1 requires the proportional valve to regulate propellant pressure "based exclusively on a direct function of a feed pressure in the feed line downstream of the analysis cell or of a pressure in the analysis cell." That language appears designed to exclude any other input (temperature, flow, composition) and to describe an open, proportional control law — i.e., to steer around the closed-loop, computer-aided control of the closest jet-pump reference (US4762467A). Meanwhile dependent claims 3, 4 and 12 pull the sensor/control-unit architecture back in. This internal tension (claim 1 says "exclusively"; claims 3–4, 12 add electronic feedback) means the obviousness case against claim 1 and the case against claims 3/4/12 have to be run on different footings. I address both.

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1. Governing standard and level of ordinary skill

Graham v. John Deere factors: (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations.

Proposed level of skill (PHOSITA): a B.S. in mechanical, chemical, or instrumentation engineering (or equivalent) with ~2–4 years' experience in gas-analysis instrumentation and/or fluid-handling/pneumatic control — comfortable with IR absorption spectroscopy basics, jet-pump/ejector operation, and commercial pneumatic valves. Notably, the '771 specification itself describes the proportional valve as "an electropneumatic valve, the position of which depends on the current feed to a coil… and on a pressure prevailing in a control chamber" — i.e., the applicant treats that component as within the ordinary artisan's existing toolbox.

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2. Prior-art inventory and per-reference relevance

Note on citation status: US3593023A, US4762467A, US5271900A, US20130250301A1 and US20140002823A1 are flagged "* cited by examiner" on the page. If that flag is accurate, at least Beckman and Henkel were before the examiner during prosecution — which matters, because it implies the granted claim wording ("exclusively … direct function") may have been crafted specifically to avoid Henkel's closed-loop control. I have not reviewed the file wrapper and cannot confirm what was actually argued.

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3. Combination A (primary): DE102006005901B3 + US4762467A

This is the strongest § 103 attack on claim 1.

3.1 Claim 1 element map

The only claim-1 element not literally shown is the "proportional valve" character of the valve and the "exclusively … direct function" limitation. Everything else is squarely in the record.

3.2 Motivation to combine (why a PHOSITA would do it)

1. Same field, same problem. DE102006005901B3 and US4762467A both concern controlling the suction side of a jet pump; Henkel's stated object ("a method by which the suction pressure generated in the delivery fluid of a jet pump may be kept constant by variation of the motive fluid pressure … the consumption of energy may be kept at an optimally low level") is exactly the problem the '771 patent sets out to solve in an analyzer. Henkel is therefore reasonably pertinent to the problem the primary reference addresses.
2. The secondary reference criticizes the primary reference's approach and supplies the fix. DE102006005901B3 regulates via adjustable flow resistance in the conducting path — the very "throttle" arrangement Henkel condemns as destroying surplus energy. The '771 specification repeats that criticism verbatim. This is the classic "reference recognizes and solves the same problem" motivation.
3. KSR rationales (MPEP § 2144.04):
   • Known technique applied to a known device, ready for improvement, to yield predictable results — applying Henkel's motive-pressure control law to a jet-pump-fed analyzer.
   • Simple substitution of one known element for another — replacing a throttle/flow-resistance in the gas path with a regulating valve in the motive-fluid line.
   • Known elements combined according to known methods — jet pump + regulating valve + proportional control law, each known and used for its known function.
4. Reasonable expectation of success — high. Both references quantify the suction-pressure ↔ motive-pressure relationship (Henkel's Fig. 1 pressure-ratio curves; Beckman's performance curves C/D/E showing cell pressure as a function of jet-air pressure). A PHOSITA would predict that raising motive pressure lowers suction pressure, and vice versa.
5. Design incentive — reduced compressed-air consumption (the applicant's own stated cost driver), plus elimination of the throttle-induced pressure drop.

3.3 The "proportional valve / exclusively direct function" gap

Honest assessment: no reference in this record discloses a proportional valve whose opening is set exclusively by the feed-line or cell pressure via a direct (unmeasured, un-computed) functional relationship. Henkel is computer-aided and iterative ("computer-aided iterative stepwise changing"). To close the gap, the argument must be that:

• The claim's own specification concedes the proportional valve is a standard commercial electropneumatic component; and
• Implementing a known monotonic control law (Henkel's, or simply "cell pressure too high → open propellant more") with a commercially available proportional valve is a predictable, finite-choice design option — exactly the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" situation the Supreme Court endorsed in KSR; and
• Beckman already puts a valve element 92 in the air supply to the jet pump, showing that the propellant-line valve location is known.

This is a strong but not airtight obviousness position on claim 1 alone. It becomes materially stronger for claims 2, 3, 4, 11 and 12, discussed below.

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4. Combination B (alternative): US3593023A + US4762467A (+ US20130250301A1)

Useful as a secondary/alternative thrust, and it has the advantage of putting the ejector-fed IR analyzer + jet-pump-dependent cell pressure in a single reference.

• US3593023A supplies: IR (NDIR) analyzer; ejector drawing sample through the analysis cell; a valve in the propellant line; and — decisively — the express recognition that analysis-cell pressure is a function of jet-pump/propellant pressure, and that failing to control it creates "error in the output of the analyzer."
• US4762467A supplies: regulating valve in the motive-fluid pipe driven by the suction-side pressure, in the inverse sense required by claim 1, with a quantified energy-saving motivation.
• US20130250301A1 supplies the spectroscopic motivation: line-shape broadening depends on pressure; pressure must be regulated to match calibration conditions.

Motivation: Beckman tells the artisan the problem (cell-pressure fluctuation corrupts the reading) and proposes a passive cure (restriction 96). Henkel tells the artisan that passive/constant-throttle approaches waste motive energy and that the better cure is active motive-pressure control. A PHOSITA optimizing for both accuracy and compressed-air cost would combine them predictably. This is essentially "use of a known technique [active motive-pressure control] to improve a similar device [ejector-fed analyzer] in the same way."

Caveat / teaching-away argument to anticipate: Beckman states that "shop air supplies are not always provided with pressure regulators, and the addition of regulators thereto would add substantially to the cost of the apparatus," and that its restriction "provides sample pressure regulation without the requirement of a separate and expensive regulator on the shop air supply." A patentee will argue this is a teaching away from putting a regulating valve in the propellant/air line. Counter: (a) Beckman's objection is to a separate regulator on the shop-air supply, not to a valve inside the instrument's propellant path — and Beckman's own assembly 76 does include a valve element 92 in that path; (b) KSR cautions that a reference's preference for one embodiment does not necessarily teach away; (c) the economy objection is overcome by the invention's own premise that propellant savings offset valve cost. I read this teaching-away argument as weak but worth pre-empting.

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5. Combination C (IR-analyzer-centric): US20070034792A1 + US3593023A (or DE102006005901B3) + US4762467A

If the examiner/analyst prefers to start from the analyzer rather than from the ejector, US20070034792A1 ("Method and apparatus for detecting gas concentration with infrared absorption characteristics," Shenzhen Mindray, 2007) supplies the IR-absorption gas-concentration platform. Beckman or DE102006005901B3 supplies the downstream ejector and (in Beckman's case) the pressure-sensitivity recognition; Henkel supplies the propellant-line regulation. Same motivations as Combination A. Limitation: I could not retrieve the substance of US20070034792A1 and am relying on its title; any assertion about what it teaches beyond "IR absorption gas-concentration detection" should be verified before use.

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6. Dependent claims 2–8, 10–12

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7. Claim 9 (method) — a structural note that aids the § 103 case

Claim 9 is drafted as a method "with the device as recited in claim 4," and its own body then says "providing the device as recited in claim 4." Claim 4 depends from claim 3 → 2 → 1. So claim 9 incorporates the pneumatic proportional valve (claim 2), the pressure sensor (claim 3), and the sensor-linked control unit (claim 4).

That is significant: claim 9 cannot rely on claim 1's "exclusively … direct function" language as a shield, because it expressly incorporates the measured/electronic control path of claim 4 — which is what US4762467A teaches. Claim 9's characterising step ("the propellant pressure in the propellant gas line and the propelling nozzle… are each regulated as a direct function of a feed pressure in the analysis cell or in the feed line") is, in substance, Henkel's method (control motive pressure as a function of suction pressure) applied to a jet-pump-fed spectroscopic cell. Claim 9 is therefore the most exposed claim in the patent, and the "exclusively" limitation of claim 1 does not carry over to it in the same way.

I would flag for the record that the claim-9 dependency on claim 4 also creates a potential written-description/enablement and indefiniteness/footing question (a method claim whose "device" is defined only by reference), but that is outside § 103.

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8. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

I found no evidence in the record of objective indicia:

• No commercial success evidence tied to the claimed pressure-regulation feature.
• No unexpected results — the '771 specification asserts expected benefits: reduced propellant consumption (exactly Henkel's stated 50% energy saving), stable cell pressure (Beckman's stated goal), no pulsation (inherent to ejectors, admitted), maintenance-free (admitted prior art), high-temperature tolerance (admitted).
• No teaching away attributable to the applicant. The only arguable teaching away is Beckman's cost objection to air-supply regulators, which is weak and, as noted, undercut by Beckman's own valve element 92.
• No licensing/praise/copying evidence surfaced (consistent with the earlier litigation section, which found no litigation of the '771 patent).

Net: nothing in this record rebuts a prima facie obviousness case.

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9. Strength assessment and the honest weaknesses

Where the case is strong:

• Claims 3, 4, 8, 10, 12 — Henkel (US4762467A) reads with unusual directness on the "measure feed pressure → control unit → valve in the motive-fluid line" architecture; QCL is admitted art. These should be considered at serious risk (claims 12 and 4 bordering on anticipation when combined with an ejector-fed analyzer).
• Claims 5, 6, 7 — conventional analyzer valving/orifice design; the obviousness case rests on ordinary skill rather than a specific reference, so it is weaker as an evidentiary matter but the subject matter is thin.
• The motivation prong is exceptionally strong: Henkel criticizes the exact throttle-based approach the specification attributes to DE 10 2006 05 901 and offers the exact remedy, with a quantified energy-saving rationale.

Where the case is weakest:

1. Claim 1's "exclusively … direct function" limitation. If construed to require an un-computed, open, purely proportional control law with no other input, US4762467A's computer-aided iterative algorithm does not literally meet it, and the record contains no reference showing a fluidic-feedback proportional valve in a propellant line tied to an analysis-cell pressure. The obviousness case here must rest on KSR predictable-substitution + the specification's own admission that proportional valves are standard components, not on a direct reference disclosure.
2. The internal tension between claim 1's "exclusively" and claims 3/4/12's sensor feedback means a decision-maker must pick a construction before the attack can be finalized. Under a broad construction (claim 1 covers both the fluidic and electronic variants), claim 1 falls to Combination A. Under a narrow construction (claim 1 = open-loop pneumatic proportional valve only), claim 1 may survive on this record while claims 3/4/12 fall.
3. Beckman's cost objection to air-supply regulators is a modest teaching-away hook the patentee can press.

Bottom line: On this record, a well-constructed § 103 challenge would likely succeed against claims 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12 and probably 5, 6, 7, and would succeed against claim 1 only if the "proportional valve" element is treated as a predictable substitution for Henkel's computer-controlled valve (a KSR argument the record supports but does not prove with a single reference). Claim 2 and the open-loop reading of claim 1 are the most defensible; claim 9 is the most exposed.

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10. Uncertainty flags and follow-up work

• File wrapper not reviewed. I could not access USPTO PatentCenter. Because Beckman (US3593023A), Henkel (US4762467A), Shimadzu (US5271900A), Feitisch (US20130250301A1) and Horiba '823 appear as examiner citations, the prosecution history is likely to contain the applicant's argument distinguishing Henkel — that record should be read before relying on this analysis.
• Content not retrieved for: US20070034792A1, US20100284006A1, US20140002823A1, US5147426A, US20110285998A1, JP2012002799A, JP2013029395A, EP2657685A1, US6058789A (claims), JPS62121997A, JPS63121958U, JPS4944154Y1, JPH0531547Y2, JPH0648379Y2. Statements about them are limited to their titles as listed in the record. JPS62121997A ("Dynamic RAM," Hitachi VLSI Engineering) appears unrelated to gas analysis and is likely a citation artifact — I have not assumed otherwise.
• DE 10 2006 05 901 B3 vs. DE102006005901B3 are the same document rendered two ways in the record (the specification uses the "DE 10 2006 05 901" form); I have not auto-corrected either rendering. I note the record's characterization — that its regulation is "via regulating valves arranged in the feed line" — is consistent with the retrieved text's adjustable flow resistance ("Strömungswiderstand im Ableitungsweg," claims 2–3), though I have not read the full German text.
• Non-patent literature lead: the "Similar Documents" list includes McManus et al. (2008), "Pulsed quantum cascade laser instrument with compact design for rapid, high sensitivity measurements of trace gases in air" — potentially relevant to claim 8 and to the general knowledge of QCL analyzers with pressure-controlled sample handling. Not yet read.
• Sibling-patent lead: the same list includes US9995675B2, "Device for determining the concentration of at least one gas in a sample gas flow by means of infrared absorption spectroscopy" — apparently a related analyzer patent. If it is not in the same priority family as the '771 patent, it could be § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(e) art and should be checked for an earlier effective filing date. I have not verified its priority, assignee, or filing date and make no assertion about it.
• Family status: EP3105564B1 granted 2023-02-22, DE102014101915B4 granted 2024-08-01. I have no information on any EPO opposition outcome for EP3105564B1, which could be informative about how a European examiner/opposition division viewed the same prior art. Not verified.
• All references above are cited to the URLs retrieved in this session: US4762467A (patents.google.com/patent/US4762467), DE102006005901B3 (patents.google.com/patent/DE102006005901B3/en and freepatentsonline.com/DE102006005901B3.html), US3593023A (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5f/65/35/71d06e3468c110/US3593023.pdf), US6058789A (freepatentsonline.com/6058789.html), US20130250301A1 (freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0250301.html).