US 10775337

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number and any related litigation.

Search Results Summary — US Patent No. 10,775,337

Search scope note: I searched for the literal number 10775337 (and variants US 10,775,337, US10775337B2). I found no Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket activity and no PTAB proceeding naming this patent. Searching CAFC 2026 dockets surfaced unrelated cases (e.g., Tesla v. Charge Fusion Technologies, Rideshare Displays v. Lyft, and an Illinois/Micron dispute over different patents) — none involve patent 10,775,337. The only "337" hits in litigation databases relate to other patents or to Section 337 ITC matters, which are unrelated identifiers. I cannot confirm any litigation or administrative challenge to this patent.

Bibliographic Data (from the patent document itself)

The University of Illinois technology-transfer listing confirms this patent (ID 2016-132, inventor Paul Braun), describing a postage-stamp-sized field device for detecting sarin below 1 ppb.

Abstract (verbatim)

"New approaches for selective detection of chemical agents such as sarin are necessary because of the high toxicity of sarin and related compounds, the potential of these compounds to be used as weapons of mass destruction, and the limitations of current detection methodologies. Herein is described an apparatus and a method for selective and amplified detection of sarin simulants deposited via an aerosol process. The simulant absorbs into a hydrogel, where it hydrolyzes upon contact with water producing elemental ions. The elemental ions are then concentrated via an ionic chemical potential gradient to a sensor, where it is detected. This technique has potential to amplify the capture efficiency of a sensor by a 1000-fold within couple of minutes."

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — A polymer gel for detecting elemental ions.
This is a composition/apparatus claim. It requires (a) a polymer gel that contains a chemical-potential gradient capable of concentrating elemental ions by "enthalpy driven transport," and (b) many functional groups covalently bonded to the gel, where those groups create the gradient and drive the ions to a concentration region. The distinguishing added element is that the gel has a catalyst or enzyme dispersed in it, and the gel is configured so that when an analyte touches it, the analyte dissociates into molecular ions and elemental ions, which are then transported by the gradient to the concentration region. In plain terms: a gel sponge whose internal chemistry acts as a "funnel" for ions, with a catalyst baked in to break the target molecule apart so the funnel has ions to move.

Claim 9 — An autonomic ion detector.
An apparatus claim combining four elements: (a) a polymer gel with at least one chemical-potential gradient that concentrates elemental ions (specifically halide or hydrogen ions) by enthalpy-driven transport; (b) a catalyst dispersed in the gel to catalyze dissociation of a sample into elemental and molecular ions; (c) functional groups (quaternary amine, sulfate, nitrate, tertiary amine, borate, or combinations) covalently bonded to the gel and providing the gradient; and (d) an electrode that detects the elemental ions at the concentration region. The detector operates automatically: on contact with the sample, the analyte dissociates and the ions are transported to and detected at the concentration point.

Claim 12 — A method of detecting elemental ions (inferred; see caveat below).
The specification describes a method comprising (a) contacting a sample with a polymer gel having at least one chemical-potential gradient that concentrates elemental ions by enthalpy-driven transport, where the gel is covalently bonded to functional groups that provide the gradient; and (b) detecting the concentration of elemental ions with an electrode at the region where they concentrate. The sample may contain one or more analytes that dissociate into molecular and elemental ions on contact, with the elemental ions transported by the gradient and detected. In plain terms: put a sample on the gel, let the gel's built-in gradient gather the tell-tale ions at one spot, and read that spot with an electrode.

Uncertainty / Caveats

• Claims 10–20 were truncated in the authoritative text I was given (the text stops mid-claim 9). I can therefore describe claims 1 and 9 with confidence, but I cannot authoritatively verify which claims are independent among 10–20, nor the exact wording of the method claim. The specification text references "the ion detector of claim 12," which is an unusual cross-reference and may indicate either a drafting artifact or a dependency I cannot confirm. Treat the "Claim 12" characterization above as inferred, not verified.
• The dependent claims I can see include: claim 2 (functional group types), claim 3 (halide/hydrogen ions), claim 4 (polyacrylamide hydrogel bonded to the functional groups), claim 5 (planar hydrogel, ≥80% water), claim 6 (amide bonds to AETMA, sulfanilic acid, N,N-dimethylethylenediamine, 3-aminophenylboronic acid), claim 7 (linear/concentric gradient), claim 8 (electrode at the concentration region).
• No CAFC or PTAB records found. If you need a definitive litigation clearance check, a direct PACER/PTAB (PTAB E2E) query on the exact patent number would be required; general web search returned no docket for this specific number.
• Per the operating rules, I have interpreted 10775337 literally and have not substituted or auto-corrected it against other similarly numbered patents (e.g., U.S. Patent No. 7,311,037 or 11,053,481 appearing in unrelated search results are different patents and were disregarded).

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

Initial searches returned unrelated matters. Let me refine with more targeted litigation databases.

No litigation surfaced yet. Let me check litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,775,337

Date of search: April 26, 2026
Patent: U.S. Pat. No. 10,775,337 B2 ("Potential gradient amplified detection of chemical agents")
Assignee of record: The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Inventors: Paul V. Braun; Mohammad Amdad Ali
Filing date: Jan. 26, 2018 · Priority: Jan. 27, 2017 (Prov. 62/451,389) · Grant: Sep. 15, 2020
Government interest: Made with government support under Grant No. HDTRA1-12-1-0035 (Dept. of Defense / DTRA); confirmatory license recorded to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (2018-02-14). Patent term adjusted to expire 2038-12-06.

Result: No litigation found

I have not identified any district court litigation, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), or Federal Circuit appeal involving U.S. Patent No. 10,775,337.

I searched for the exact patent number and the exact patent title across litigation-oriented sources, including the Unified Patents litigation portal, PTAB/USPTO proceeding databases, Docket Alarm materials, and general case documents. Every hit for the number string "10775337" was either (a) the patent document itself, (b) the University of Illinois technology-transfer/OTM listing for the invention, or (c) an unrelated occurrence of the digit string (e.g., a UK company registration number 10775337 for "Wild Technologies AI Limited"). No docket, complaint, or case caption asserted this patent.

Case table

Important caveats on this conclusion

1. Search-tool limitations. I was unable to query PACER, Docket Navigator, or Westlaw/Lexis directly. My conclusion rests on open-web litigation databases and the Unified Patents portal. A negative result from those sources is strong evidence of no commercially motivated asserting litigation, but it is not a substitute for a paid-docket or PACER records check for the full priority-to-expiration window (2017–2038).
2. The nature of this patent reduces litigation risk. This is a university, federally funded research patent owned by the University of Illinois with a recorded government confirmatory license. There is no public evidence of the patent being licensed to an operating company or asserted by an NPE/PAE. The number string reflects no assignee reassignment beyond the original university assignment.
3. Non-litigation proceedings. I also found no IPR/PGR challenge to the '337 patent. The PTAB materials returned by the searches concerned entirely different patents (e.g., 9,253,239; 10,311,073; 11,208,029; 11,368,537; 9,253,239) and were not related to this patent.
4. No ITC § 337 investigation involving this patent was identified.

Recommendation

If a definitive litigation history is required for a legal opinion or clearance, I recommend a direct PACER/Docket Navigator search under the patent number and under "Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois" as plaintiff, plus a check of any university licensing records through the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management (the OTM lists this invention under ID 2016-132, US Pat. No. 10775337). Based on all available open-source evidence as of today, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,775,337.

Note: I have interpreted the identifier "10775337" literally throughout and excluded results for the many similar but distinct numbers that appeared in search results (e.g., 11,368,537; 10,311,073).

I'll start by verifying the structured data against what web search surfaces for this patent.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to be thorough before concluding.

One more check for any PTAB docket or litigation reference.

PTAB / AIA Trial Activity — US Patent 10,775,337

Bottom line up front: there is no PTAB activity on file for this patent. The canonical structured block states that the USPTO Open Data Portal API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 10,775,337 as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web checks surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM record for this patent number — no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal tying back to it. I found nothing to contradict the default, and I am not going to manufacture proceeding numbers to fill the format.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 (zero) — no inter partes reviews, no post-grant reviews, no covered business method reviews, no derivations, and no PTAB appeals involving this patent; accordingly the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained by the Board / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, which leaves a defendant with no PTAB record to lean on — every claim of the patent stands as issued, un-narrowed and un-adjudicated, so any defense must be built from scratch rather than inherited from an earlier trial.

Because there is no proceeding to report, the per-proceeding template below is populated with the negative finding plus the corroborating record, rather than with fabricated case numbers.

No proceeding identified — no petitioner v. The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

• Type: None. No IPR, PGR, or CBM has been filed or instituted against US 10,775,337.
• Filed: N/A.
• Status: No PTAB activity on file (USPTO ODP structured block). The patent itself remains Active, with an adjusted expiration of 2038-12-06 per the Google Patents legal-status record (US10775337B2).
• Judge panel: None assigned — no panel exists absent a proceeding.
• Petition grounds: N/A.
• Institution decision: N/A.
• Final Written Decision: None. Note the statutory consequence: because no FWD has issued, no claim of this patent has been canceled or confirmed by the Board. Claims 1–8 (the polymer-gel family, per the claim listing) and the autonomic-detector and method claims remain in the exact form they issued on 2020-09-15.
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: None identified. I searched for a Federal Circuit docket tied to this patent and found no appeal (unsurprising, since an appeal requires an underlying Board decision).
• Defensive value: Neutral-to-negative for a defendant. There is no estoppel, no cancellation, and no Board claim construction to exploit. Nothing about this patent has been stress-tested at the PTAB, so a defendant cannot point to an earlier petitioner's win — but equally, the patent has not been "hardened" by surviving a challenge; it is simply untested, and its issued claims are the sole measure of exposure.

What I did check (and what it establishes)

• USPTO ODP / structured feed — the authoritative "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied in this prompt returns no AIA trial proceedings.
• Web search — queries on the patent number plus "IPR / PTAB petition / Federal Circuit" returned no petition, decision, or docket for 10,775,337. The hits that did surface were unrelated PTAB documents (e.g., Nike/Adidas and other dockets) that merely happen to cite a different patent number.
• Assignment / ownership record — the patent is held by The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (originally assigned to University of Illinois System 2018-01-26; assignment to the Board of Trustees recorded 2018-02-07), and carries a confirmatory license to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, US DOD, recorded 2018-02-14. Government support was under Grant No. HDTRA1-12-1-0035.
• No litigation signal found — I did not locate an infringement suit or demand campaign associated with this patent in the sources checked. The technology is offered for licensing through the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management (ID 2016-132, "Rapid Amplified Detection of Chemical Agents, Including Sarin Gas," otm.illinois.edu).

Confidence / caveat: the absence of proceedings is stated with high confidence as of the ODP ingest. I cannot affirmatively rule out a petition filed within the last few weeks that neither the ODP ingest nor my searches captured, because pre-institution petitions are not always promptly indexed. If you are evaluating this patent for a real dispute, re-run the Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E / PTAB Center docket for the patent number on the day you need the answer.

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 10,775,337 has been CANCELED and none has been SUSTAINED by the Board, because the Board has never acted. Every claim (the patent lists 20 claims) is UNTESTED. The issued claim set includes at least: claim 1 (a polymer gel with a chemical-potential gradient plus covalently bonded functional groups, and — as issued — a catalyst or enzyme dispersed in the gel); claim 9 (an autonomic ion detector combining the gradient gel, a dispersed catalyst, the recited functional groups, and an electrode to detect elemental ions); and further dependent/detector and method claims, including the method claim the specification refers to as claim 12. Any demand letter or complaint asserting this patent is asserting the as-issued claims — there is no reissue, no certificate of correction narrowing scope, and no disclaimer on the public record.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, because no petitioner has ever been through an institution decision. That cuts both ways. A defendant today faces zero estoppel exposure from past challenges, but also inherits no prior-art roadmap — every ground (anticipation or obviousness) is still available, including art and combinations that a prior petitioner might already have lost on. Practically, the full universe of § 102/§ 103 grounds against claims 1–20 remains open to a first petitioner.

Pattern signals. None applicable: no repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners), no patent-owner appeal activity (there is nothing to appeal), and no defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in the chain. Ownership sits with a university (Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois) with a DoD confirmatory license and government funding — a posture that, in practice, tends not to generate the high-volume NPE assertion pattern that attracts IPRs. That is itself a partial explanation for the empty PTAB docket, and it is not evidence that the claims are weak.

One substantive observation for a challenger. The patent's own background section cites the inventors' prior work — Zhang et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 5066 ("Autonomic Molecular Transport by Polymer Films Containing Programmed Chemical Potential Gradients") and Sitt et al., Nano Lett. 2015, 15(5), 3341 — both listed on the face of the patent. Those are the same-lab papers that describe gradient-directed transport of charged species in polymer films. Because they are of record, they are the starting point a petitioner would have to distinguish, and their on-face citation is a signal that the examiner considered the closest art. Any IPR ground would need to add something meaningful about ion-selective detection via a covalent functional-group gradient that those references do not teach.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the empty docket yourself, dated. Pull the PTAB docket for US 10,775,337 via USPTO PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board Center before relying on the absence of proceedings in a filing or opinion. Record the retrieval date — "no IPR as of YYYY-MM-DD" is a defensible statement; an undated "no IPRs exist" is not.
2. If you are a defendant, budget for a from-scratch invalidity case. There is no FWD to cite and no cancelled claim to wave at the plaintiff. Your § 102/§ 103 work must start from the two articles cited on the face of the patent plus whatever third-party art predates the 2017-01-27 priority date.
3. If you are contemplating an IPR petition, note that the patent's priority date is 2017-01-27 (provisional 62/451,389), so IPR-eligible prior art must be patents or printed publications predating that date. Be aware that no estoppel currently binds you, so a first-filed petition carries no § 315(e)(2) penalty — but also no prior panel's claim-construction guidance to rely on.
4. Flag the government-interest dimension. The DoD confirmatory license and grant HDTRA1-12-1-0035 mean any licensing or enforcement posture runs through a university tech-transfer office and implicates federally funded research; that can affect who has standing to assert and whether the government has retained rights.
5. Watch for the first filing. With no IPR ever filed, this patent is a blank slate. If the University of Illinois (or an exclusive licensee) begins asserting it against a well-capitalized target, expect the first IPR petition to follow within the one-year § 315(b) window and for that proceeding to define the claim scope for everyone after it. Until then, treat the absence of PTAB activity as the operative fact, not as a sign the patent has been quietly validated.

Prepared 2026-09-29. Sources: USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" structured block (canonical, no AIA trial proceedings); Google Patents US10775337B2 (full text, claims, assignment, legal-status/expiry record); University of Illinois OTM technology listing for US Pat. 10775337. No PTAB Final Written Decision, institution decision, or Federal Circuit opinion exists to link to for this patent as of the search date — if one exists and I did not find it, it is not in the sources I was able to reach, and I have not invented one.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent across USPTO and related sources.

Let me look for the specific reel/frame records and the DTRA license.

Let me try to retrieve specific USPTO assignment records and the OTM licensing page.

I was unable to complete the last round of live queries (search budget reached), so this section is built from the authoritative patent text provided plus the sources retrieved before the cutoff. Where I could not verify a field, I say so explicitly rather than guessing.

Inventors

Unusual patterns: None suggestive of a pre‑sale collapse. Both inventors executed the assignment to the University within days of the Jan. 26, 2018 filing (recorded Feb. 7, 2018), which is the normal Bayh‑Dole employment‑obligation flow, not a departure‑driven fire sale. One minor observation worth flagging: the corresponding ACS Omega paper has a third author, Tsung‑Han Tsai, who is not a named inventor on the '337 patent — a normal authorship/inventorship divergence, not an ownership signal. I could not independently verify either inventor's current employment status (no tool budget remained), so I do not assert a departure date.

Original assignee

The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Google Patents lists "University of Illinois System" as the applicant/assignee at filing and the reassignment of Feb. 7, 2018 to the full legal name "THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS").

• Line of business: Public land‑grant university (higher education and federally sponsored research). The patent is administered by the Office of Technology Management (OTM), Urbana‑Champaign campus, under invention ID 2016‑132.
• Does the assignee ship a product embodying the claims? No. The University does not manufacture the sensor; its OTM listing markets a "postage‑stamp‑sized device… deployable in the field," i.e., an unlicensed/available‑for‑licensing technology, not a shipped product.
• Government interest: Made with government support under Grant No. HDTRA1‑12‑1‑0035 (Department of Defense / DTRA). A confirmatory license to the U.S. Government (Defense Threat Reduction Agency) is recorded at the USPTO — this is a Bayh‑Dole statutory license, not a transfer of ownership.
• Current status: Operating public institution. No acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy. Term adjusted to expire 2038‑12‑06.

Assignment timeline

⚠️ Verification caveat up front. I could not retrieve the USPTO reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record for this patent from the sources available in this session (I could not query the Assignment Center API or legacy‑assignments USPS PDF for this specific patent before the tool budget was exhausted). The two events below are documented in the Google Patents legal‑events feed for US 10,775,337; the conveyance characterizations and parties are authoritative, but treat the missing reel/frame and correspondent fields as unverified — do not cite them as confirmed.

1. 2018‑02‑07 (recorded) — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN — not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
   • Assignor(s): Mohammad Amdad Ali; Paul V. Braun
   • Assignee: The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
   • Correspondent: not retrieved. (For context only — not this patent: other UIUC recordings in the same period use Urbana addresses such as 506/508 S. Wright St.; I did not find this patent's recording document, so I will not attribute a correspondent here.)
   • Context: Routine inventor‑to‑university employment assignment (no consideration to a third party).

2. 2018‑02‑14 (recorded) — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN — not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Confirmatory License (to the U.S. Government)
   • Assignor: University of Illinois
   • Assignee: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, US DOD
   • Correspondent: not retrieved.
   • Context: Statutory Bayh‑Dole confirmatory license reflecting the government's nonexclusive, paid‑up license from DTRA funding — not an ownership transfer.

No post‑issuance (post‑2020‑09‑15) ownership assignment of any kind was identified. The ownership chain never left the University.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10775337
    2017 : Priority application filed
    2018 : Non-provisional application filed
         : Inventors assign rights to University of Illinois
         : Confirmatory license recorded to US Government
    2020 : Patent granted

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell‑entity transfer — not present. No LLC, no "IP/Holdings/Ventures/Licensing" naming, no registered‑agent address. The only assignee is the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (a state university). No reel/frame shows a transfer to a single‑purpose entity.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Current and only owner is the University of Illinois; none of the listed NPEs (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi‑LAN, Conversant, etc.) appear. (Cross‑check against the earlier litigation section: no suit, IPR/PGR, ITC, or Federal Circuit matter identified.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not retrievable. I could not capture the correspondent of record for either recording because the recording documents themselves were not retrieved. This is a gap, not a negative finding. Because the chain contains only a single owner and a government license, a repeat‑correspondent "tell" would not be expected to carry NPE significance even if captured.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only two recorded events, both within eight days of filing (Feb. 7 and Feb. 14, 2018), both routine. No chained LLC transfers.

5. Pre‑litigation transfer — not present. The last assignment of record predates the (nonexistent) litigation by many years; there is no assignment within 6 months of any suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 involving the assignee; the University of Illinois is a solvent state institution.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating‑company‑to‑NPE transfer; the University never divested.

8. Defensive aggregator termination — not present. The chain does not end at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The closest analogue is the government confirmatory license (DTRA, recorded 2018‑02‑14), which encumbers the patent with a statutory U.S. Government license but does not neutralize or aggregate it. (A university "available for licensing" posture is functionally non‑asserting, but it is not a defensive‑aggregator termination.)

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — closest fit by substance.

Justification: The only recorded ownership events are the inventor→Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois assignment (recorded 2018‑02‑07) and a Bayh‑Dole confirmatory license to the U.S. Government / DTRA (recorded 2018‑02‑14); no ownership interest has ever passed to an NPE, shell LLC, or defensive aggregator, and the earlier litigation review found no assertion of US 10,775,337. Zero of the eight troll‑pattern signals are present (one — repeat correspondent — is undocumented rather than disproven). I flag that the literal definition of this verdict ("chain terminates at a defensive aggregator") is not met; no listed aggregator holds the patent. Strictly construed, the record is thin enough that "Insufficient data" is a defensible fallback, since effectively only the original assignment plus a statutory government license exist — but the ownership posture itself is clear (university‑held, never asserted), so "Defensive / non‑asserting" is the more informative call.

Verification links: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent no. 10775337; also https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US10775337/en. UIUC OTM technology listing (ID 2016‑132) — https://otm.illinois.edu.

Recommended next step to close the gaps: pull the two recording documents directly from the Assignment Center by patent number to capture reel/frame and correspondent, and confirm no intervening (unindexed) recording exists between issuance (2020‑09‑15) and today.

I'll search for the USPTO record and the cited references for this specific patent.

I found the patent's own citation list is on the front page. Let me retrieve the full "References Cited" section.

Let me pull the front-page reference lists from the patent document sources directly.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,775,337 B2

⚠️ Sourcing note (read first)

You asked for a USPTO-database walk of every reference cited on the face of the '337 patent, with a §102 mapping for each. I must be transparent about a hard limit on what I could verify:

• The authoritative full text of US 10,775,337 B2 I was given (the Google Patents fetch) does not contain a "References Cited" section at all — it jumps from the bibliographic block to Images → Classifications → Definitions → Description → Claims. So the front-page "(56) References Cited" columns could not be read from my authoritative source.
• My tool run was cut off before I could pull the patent PDF front page (patentimages.../US10775337.pdf) or the Justia/FPO reference tables end-to-end. I retrieved only fragments of the front-page Other Publications column.

Accordingly, below I (1) report the references I did verify as cited, with §102 analysis, and (2) explicitly mark the "U.S. Patent Documents" column as unverified rather than fabricating numbers. I have interpreted the identifier 10775337 literally throughout; no similar numbers (e.g., 11,368,537; 10,311,073) were substituted.

1. References verified as cited in the '337 patent

What R3 is not: it is the priority document, not prior art. It is listed for completeness only.

Related-but-uncited items I encountered (flagging, not asserting they are on the face of the patent):

• Tsai, T.-H.; Ali, M. A.; Jiang, Z.; Braun, P. V. "Dynamic Gradient Directed Molecular Transport and Concentration in Hydrogel Films," Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56(18), 5001–5006 — by the '337 inventors themselves, published ~April 2017, i.e. after the 2017-01-27 priority date; not §102 art absent a priority challenge.
• Ali, M. A.; Tsai, T.-H.; Braun, P. V., ACS Omega 2018, 3, 14665–14670 — post-dates filing; not §102 art.

2. §102 analysis of the verified references

Statutory framework: the '337 patent is an AIA application (effective filing 2017-01-27 provisional / 2018-01-26 non-provisional). §102(a)(1)/(a)(2) control. Both R1 and R2 are printed publications more than 20 months before the priority date and thus are §102(a)(1) art on their face, subject only to the §102(b)(1)(A) "inventor's-own-work" grace-period exception — which is problematic for the applicant because the inventive entity differs (the '337 inventors are Braun and Ali; R1's authors are Zhang, Sitt, Koo, Waynant, Hess, Pate, and Braun).

R1 — Zhang et al., JACS 2015, 137(15):5066–5073

Disclosure (verified from the abstract returned in search): polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogel films containing built-in chemical gradients (enthalpic gradients) used to direct molecular transport; a cationic tertiary amine gradient directionally transported anionic molecules up to several millimeters; ~40-fold concentration of anionic molecules dosed in aerosol form at the center of a radially symmetric cationic gradient; a boronic-acid-to-cationic gradient separated charged dye mixtures; drift velocity hundreds of nm/s.

§102 mapping:

R2 — Sitt & Hess, Nano Lett. 2015, 15(5):3341–3350

Disclosure (verified from the abstract): a modeling study of surface chemical-potential gradients that accelerate analyte capture by nanoscale sensors; the study collects nanoparticles and single-/double-stranded DNA; conclusion that gradients can accelerate capture "by several orders of magnitude compared to direct collection from the solution," subject to a narrow useful window of gradient slopes and patch size.

§102 mapping:

R1+R2 as an obviousness combination (§103)

Worth flagging, since you asked for anticipation but the record strongly suggests §103 was the operative rejection basis: R1 (gel + built-in chemical gradient + 40-fold aerosol-dosed concentration at a radially symmetric focus) + a secondary reference teaching an enzyme that hydrolyzes a P–F bond to release F⁻ (the specification itself names diisopropyl fluorophosphatase (DFPase) and alternative catalysts: 2-oxo-oximes, mono-/bis-quaternary pyridine oxo-oximes, Cu(II)-2,2′-bipyridyl, alkaline phosphatase) would render issued claim 1 obvious. The applicant's own specification concedes these catalysts are known and characterized by a known rate constant ("at pH 7, DFP is hydrolyzed by DFPase at a rate of 78 μmol l⁻¹ s⁻¹"), which weakens any non-obviousness argument tied to the enzyme per se and shifts the argument to the unexpected 30-fold amplification / two-orders-of-magnitude faster ion transport.

3. What the claim amendments tell us about the art the examiner actually applied

This is the most reliable inference available despite the missing face-page list:

1. Application US 2018/0217085 A1 (verified via Justia) recited, in claim 1, only: gel + chemical-potential gradient + covalently bonded functional groups + analyte dissociation into molecular/elemental ions transported to the concentration region. No catalyst. The application's claims 4 and 5 separately recited "a catalyst dispersed in the polymer gel" and "an enzyme dispersed in the polymer gel."
2. Issued claim 1 instead recites "wherein the polymer gel comprises a catalyst or an enzyme dispersed in the polymer gel." The catalyst element was moved up into the independent claim — the classic signature of an examiner rejection of application claim 1 over art disclosing a gel with a built-in chemical-potential gradient but no catalyst. R1 (Zhang 2015) is the natural candidate for that rejection.
3. The specification's odd internal cross-reference, "contacting a sample with the ion detector of claim 12," is an artifact of the published application's claim numbering, not the issued claims. This resolves the caveat flagged in my earlier section: it is a drafting artifact, not a dependency I need to re-verify.

4. What I could NOT verify — and exactly how to close the gap

I was unable to obtain the "(56) U.S. Patent Documents" and Foreign Patent Documents columns for US 10,775,337 B2. My fragmentary retrieval showed only the beginning of the Other Publications column (R1, R2) and a truncated string beginning "U.S. …" that I will not guess at. I do not know the identity of any U.S. patent or U.S. patent-application publication cited on the face of this patent, and I decline to invent any.

To complete the task with certainty, retrieve these three sources (all contain the authoritative "(56) References Cited" table):

1. USPTO Patent Center → Application No. 15/880,815 → "References Cited" / "IDS" tab (gives the applicant-submitted IDS list, which is broader than the face-page list, plus the examiner's Form PTO-892 "Notice of References Cited" and any PTO-1449).
2. USPTO Patent Public Search / Global Dossier → US 10,775,337 B2 → full-text front page (the "References Cited" columns are OCR-truncated in the Google Patents fetch I was given).
3. Examiner's file wrapper (Public PAIR/Patent Center "Documents") → the PTAB/form-892 and Non-Final/Notice of Allowance papers, which state verbatim which claims were rejected over which reference. This is the only way to make an affirmative statement about the §102/§103 basis rather than an inference.

5. Bottom line

• Verified face-cited prior art: two printed publications — Zhang et al., JACS 137(15):5066–5073 (Apr. 2015) and Sitt & Hess, Nano Lett. 15(5):3341–3350 (May 2015) — plus the provisional 62/451,389 (priority document, not art).
• Anticipation under §102: Neither reference anticipates any claim of the issued patent. R1 lacks the catalyst/enzyme and the elemental-ion-dissociation elements of issued claim 1; R2 lacks essentially everything structural.
• R1 anticipates the application's original claim 1 (no catalyst), which is consistent with the observed amendment pulling the catalyst limitation into issued claim 1.
• R1 alone, or R1+R2, is strong §103 art against claim 1 and its dependents, with the probable non-obviousness battleground being the rate of ion transport (µm/s vs. nm/s) and the degree of concentration (30-fold measured / 57-fold theoretical / 1000-fold projected) rather than the components themselves.
• Unverified: the entire "U.S. Patent Documents" column of the '337 face page. That remains an open gap requiring a Patent Center / file-wrapper check — I did not fabricate entries to fill it.

I'll research the prior art landscape relevant to this patent's claims before building the §103 analysis.

Now let me pin down the key priority-art dates and look for any earlier patent filings by the same group, plus the remaining claim-element art.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,775,337 B2

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (AIA), as of April 26, 2026

Builds on the previously generated bibliographic, claim-overview, and litigation sections. I do not repeat the bibliographic table or the "no litigation found" conclusion here.

0. Cross-reference flags (contradictions / gaps carried forward)

1. Claims 10–20 remain unavailable. The authoritative text again truncates mid-claim 9 ("wherein the polymer gel is c…"). I cannot perform a §103 analysis of claims 10–20. My analysis covers issued claims 1–9 plus the method claims described in the specification, which I treat as inferred per the earlier caveat.
2. The specification's "claim 12" cross-reference is still anomalous. The spec recites "contacting a sample with the ion detector of claim 12," but the spec's own summary of the method claim is a stand-alone method. This is either a drafting artifact or a dependency I cannot verify. I analyze the method as a stand-alone claim.
3. New observation bearing directly on obviousness: the specification's summary version of the polymer-gel claim does not contain the catalyst/enzyme limitation, but issued claim 1 adds it: "wherein the polymer gel comprises a catalyst or an enzyme dispersed in the polymer gel." The addition of exactly this limitation during prosecution is consistent with the primary prior art being the applicants' own earlier hydrogel-gradient work (discussed below), and it is where the obviousness fight concentrates.
4. Closest single reference is not prior art. The only document I found that discloses the entire claimed combination is the inventors' own Ali & Braun, ACS Omega 2018 paper — published ~9 months after the Jan. 26, 2018 filing. It is not §102(a)(1) art and not a §102(a)(2) application. It cannot be used in the §103 case. Any obviousness theory must therefore be a combination theory.

1. Effective filing date — threshold issue that controls the art set

• Non-provisional US 15/880,815 filed 2018-01-26; priority to Prov. 62/451,389, filed 2017-01-27.
• If the issued claims are §112-supported by the provisional, the effective filing date is 2017-01-27; otherwise 2018-01-26.
• AIAA applies either way (both dates are post-2013-03-16).

This matters for one reference only: Tsai, Ali, Jiang & Braun, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56(18), 5001–5006 / Angew. Chem. 129(18), 5083–5088, DOI 10.1002/anie.201700166, published ~April 24, 2017. If the claims get the 2017-01-27 provisional date, this is not art; if they do not, it is art unless the §102(b)(1)(A) exception applies. Because two co-authors (Tsai, Jiang) are not named inventors, the "inventor's own disclosure" exception is not cleanly available. Flagged as an unresolved date/exception question. In any event this reference is cumulative to the JACS 2015 reference for §103 purposes (it adds traveling ionic waves and a 70-fold dye concentration, but still no elemental-ion transport and no catalyst).

2. The prior-art set

Not usable: Ali & Braun, ACS Omega 2018, 3(11):14665–14670 (PMID 30555985) — the inventors' own post-filing publication disclosing DFPase + gradient + embedded fluoride ISE + 30-fold amplification. Post-filing; excluded from §102/§103.

3. Person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A master's or Ph.D. in materials science, chemical engineering, or analytical chemistry, with 2–3 years' experience in polymer hydrogels and chemical sensing, and access to the enzymology of organophosphate hydrolysis and to electrochemical ion-selective electrode practice. This is a predictable, mature, and highly interdisciplinary art — relevant because obvious-to-try and "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" reasoning (KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007)) applies with force.

4. The core combination

Combination A — [R1] + [R3] (or [R4]/[R5]/[R6]) ⇒ claim 1

Rationale (MPEP 2143(A), (C), (F); KSR):

• Same field, same materials, same problem. R1 and R3–R6 are all hydrogel/polymer-matrix chemical detection. R1 selects "polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels … due to their flexibility for chemical modification and relatively inert nature" — the identical justification the '337 spec gives for choosing PAAm.
• The prior art supplies the motivation in express terms. R1 states that directing analyte transport to a sensor "would greatly improve both the sensitivity and response time," and that the concept "should enable the autonomous processing of a diversity of chemical species." R3 states that conventional OP detection "is not practical for individual use" and that immobilized-enzyme gel biosensors solve it. Combining them merely implements R1's stated purpose using R3–R6's known catalyst-immobilization chemistry.
• A finite, identified, predictable set. R1's transport mechanism is charge-generic electrostatic; the transported cargo is generic ("a diversity of chemical species"). R3–R6 teach that the analyte of interest (a G-agent or its simulant) is already converted by a known enzyme into an ionic product (F−). Substituting an elemental ion for the dye molecule as the transported species is a substitution of one known element for another to obtain the predictable result (MPEP 2143(B)) — the enthalpy-gradient mechanism does not change based on whether the counter-ion is inorganic or organic.
• Design incentive / market force (MPEP 2143(F)). The field's acknowledged need was field-portable sub-ppb nerve-agent detection; concentration upstream of a small detector is the classic way to lower a detection limit. Both R1 (nano-scale sensor sensitivity argument) and R5/R6 (loading-dependent decontamination efficiency) push in that direction.
• "Obvious to try" (In re Kao; KSR). A PHOSITA facing the low-F−-concentration problem had a finite menu: (i) increase enzyme loading, (ii) increase hydrogel pH to accelerate hydrolysis, (iii) pre-concentrate the ion. Each is disclosed or suggested (R5/R6 for (i) and pH/buffer; R1 for (iii)). The '337 patent itself recites (i) and (ii) as alternatives in its Examples — an implicit concession that these were known optimization levers.

Combination B — [R1] + [R3–R6] + [R8] (and optionally [R9]) ⇒ claims 8, 9, and the method

• Claim 8: "an electrode at the region where the elemental ions are concentrated." Claim 9 additionally requires a catalyst dispersed in the gel plus a functional-group Markush plus an electrode; the method claim requires "detecting the concentration of elemental ions with an electrode at the region where the elemental ions are concentrated."
• R1 supplies the placement concept (put the detector at the gradient focus; and R1 sized the gradient to be much larger than the sensor). The '337 patent concedes the sensor must be "smaller than the gradient length" — a purely geometric, non-obviousness-conferring constraint.
• R8 (Frant & Ross 1966) supplies the transducer: the LaF3/EuF2 fluoride ISE, F−-specific, Nernstian, commercial since the 1960s. The '337 spec recites exactly this membrane ("EuF2-doped LaF3 … about 3%") — i.e., the patent claims no new sensor chemistry; it adopts the 1966 electrode.
• R9 supplies the missing link: it teaches monitoring DFP hydrolysis via a fluoride-selective film — a near-perfect motivation to read enzymatic F− generation with a fluoride-selective electrochemical element.
• R3/R4 supply the readout-electronics context (electrochemical transducers; polymer-imbedded enzymes as the sensing layer).
• The 2 mm sensor pin positioned at the radial center is a routine mechanical placement producing a predictable result, not a patentable design choice.

Rationale (MPEP 2143(A), (C)): combining a known concentrating element (R1), a known generating element (R3–R6), and a known detecting element (R8/R9) to yield the predictable aggregate of each — generation, transport, and measurement of F− — is the paradigm of §103.

Combination C — [R1] + [R10] (+ [R2] optionally) ⇒ dependent claims 2, 4, 5, 6, 7

Combination D — [R1] + [R3] + [R8] ⇒ the method claim of detecting an analyte having a P–F or P–Cl bond

R1 supplies contact + fragmentation-driven accumulation (via R3's catalyst); R3/R6 supply the P–F and P–Cl fragmentation chemistry (sarin, soman, cyclosarin, DFP); R8 supplies the detecting step. The stated analytes (sarin, soman, cyclosarin) are named expressly in R3, R6, and R7.

5. Why a PHOSITA would have combined these (consolidated)

1. Express motivation in R1 to concentrate analyte at a small sensor to improve sensitivity and response time, and to do so generally for "a diversity of chemical species."
2. Express recognition in R3 of an unmet need for practical, portable, rapid nerve-agent detection — the same problem statement as the '337 Background.
3. Express teaching in R6 that a polymer-immobilized DFPase hydrolyzes the very simulant used in the '337 examples, and in R9 that this hydrolysis can be read by a fluoride-selective element.
4. Common ownership/common inventors/technical overlap among R1, R2, and the '337 patent; the '337 patent's own Background cites R1 as the starting point — a de facto admission that R1 is the closest art.
5. Predictable results: R1's 40-fold (dye) vs. the '337's 30-fold (F−) vs. the theoretical 57-fold area-ratio maximum. The concentration enhancement is dominated by geometry (gradient area ÷ detector area), so the observed result is expected, not surprising.

6. Predicted patentee counterarguments and rebuttals

Strongest nonobviousness argument available to the University (for completeness): the field apparently accepted that gradient-directed transport was too slow for real-time sensing (the '337 Background says the reported rate was "a few micrometers per minute"), and the inventors' insight was to change the transported species class rather than optimize the gradient. Expect that to be pressed as long-felt need / teaching-away. Its weakness is that R1 itself frames the slow rate as a function of the cargo and expressly invites sensor-directed transport.

Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4): I found no evidence in the record of commercial success, licensing of this patent to an operating company, copying, or industry praise. The previously generated sections confirm no litigation and no operating-company licensee, which tends to leave the record free of objective indicia supporting nonobviousness.

7. Caveats and unverified items (stated explicitly per operating rules)

• I did retrieve and quote: R1 (title/authors/DOI/pages/abstract/date), R2 (title/authors/DOI/pages/abstract, ~2017-04-24), R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R10, R11 and the ACS Omega 2018 inventor paper (title/authors/DOI/PMID/abstract).
• I did NOT complete verification of: (a) the patent number for the Frant & Ross fluoride electrode (frequently cited as US 3,431,182, but I did not confirm it — cite the Science paper instead); (b) the full text and exact publication date of R9 (Ramanathan 2010) — I saw only its citation; (c) the priority date of R11 (US 9,976,974); (d) any pre-2017 patent application by the Braun group on hydrogel chemical gradients — my search on that point was cut off, and such a filing, if it exists and published before 2017-01-27, would be materially stronger §102(a)(2) art for the gradient elements of claim 1.
• Date-sensitivity: the entire §103 case is unaffected by the 2017-01-27 vs. 2018-01-26 effective-date choice, because R1 (March 2015) is prior art on either date and is the linchpin reference. R2's status is date-dependent but immaterial.
• No conclusion is offered on claims 10–20, whose text was unavailable. If those claims depend from claim 9 and add only the fluoride-membrane limitation (EuF2-doped LaF3, ~0.5–10 wt%), note that R8 anticipates that limitation outright; if they add detection-time or LOD ranges (1–60 min; ≤1 ppb; ≤0.1 ppb), those are result-effective optimization ranges supported by the patent's own disclosure of the levers (enzyme loading, hydrogel pH, gradient length) — a §103 case there would run through In re Aller / In re Applied Materials principles of optimization of a known variable with predictable results.