US 10775338

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any 2026 docket activity.

Let me check for any litigation or PTAB proceedings involving this patent or its assignee.

Let me try to retrieve the actual claim text for this patent.

US Patent 10,775,338 B2 — Analyst Summary

⚠️ Scope note on the "CAFC 2026 docket" search

I ran targeted searches for this patent number against USPTO/PTAB and Federal Circuit materials. I found no CAFC appeal, PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceeding, or 2026 district-court docket naming U.S. Patent No. 10,775,338. I cannot confirm a negative absolutely — PTAB/docket databases are not exhaustively indexed by open web search — so treat "no litigation found" as no evidence located, not a certified all-clear.

Two hit clusters were false positives and should not be attributed to this patent:

• A New York state appellate motion in Alphasense, Inc. v. Financial Technology Partners LP, No. 2026-03274 (App. Div. 1st Dep't, entered Aug. 6, 2026) — this concerns Alphasense, Inc./Alphasense OY/Alphasense, LLC, a different corporate group in a financial-advisory dispute, not Alphasense Limited (UK) and not this patent.
• Various "‑338 patent" IPRs (e.g., IPR2024-00013 re U.S. 11,281,338; IPR2016-01573 re U.S. 8,075,338) involve different patent numbers and unrelated technologies.

One adjacent signal: IP Verse's Alphasense competitive page lists a single EPO opposition (posted May 1, 2024) to an Alphasense patent titled "Amperometric Electrochemical Gas Sensing Apparatus And Method For Measuring Oxidising Gases." That title corresponds to the EP 2,975,390 family referenced in this patent's background, not to the '338 patent. I flag it as related-portfolio context only.

Bibliographic data (from the patent front page / Google Patents record)

There is a co-pending EP sibling, EP 3 223 006 A1, with essentially the same disclosure ("Electrochemical gas sensing apparatus and methods"). Related family member EP 3 223 005 A1 also appears in search results carrying the same Mn₂O₃ filter language.

Abstract (verbatim)

"The invention relates to an electrochemical gas sensing apparatus for sensing one or more analytes, such as NO₂ and/or O₃, in a sample gas and a method of using same. The apparatus uses Mn₂O₃ as a filter for ozone. The Mn₂O₃ may take the form of a powder which may be unmixed, mixed with various PTFE particles sizes, formed into a solid layer deposited onto a membrane and/or pretreated with NO₂."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Confidence caveat: The authoritative full text I was given is the Google Patents rendering, which is built from the description/definitions and does not reproduce the claims verbatim. I therefore reconstruct the claim architecture from internal cross-references in the specification plus the textually identical EP sibling's claims. Treat the scope below as reliable; treat the exact wording as needing verification against the USPTO full-text claims (available via PatentCenter/PatFT).

The specification enumerates claims 1–7 as apparatus claims and claims 8–12 as method claims (see: "…comprising forming electrochemical gas sensing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 7, or by the method of any one of claims 8 to 12…"). That implies two independent claims in the issued US patent:

Claim 1 (independent — apparatus)

An electrochemical gas sensing apparatus for sensing at least one gaseous analyte, comprising:

• a housing having an inlet;
• a sensing electrode; and
• an ozone filter interposed between the sensing electrode and the inlet, and
• characterized in that the ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃ (manganese(III) oxide).

In plain terms: a gas sensor where sample gas enters through an inlet and must pass a filter layer/body made of Mn₂O₃ before reaching the sensing electrode. The Mn₂O₃ scrubs ozone out of the sample stream. That's the core inventive concept — substituting Mn₂O₃ for the prior-art MnO₂ filter so as to keep ozone out without incurring the NO cross-sensitivity that MnO₂ is said to cause (MnO₂ purportedly oxidizes NO to NO₂, which then reads as signal).

Dependent claims 2–7 add the sub-features taught in the specification, any of which may be separately claimed: Mn₂O₃ as a powder; Mn₂O₃ mixed with a binder (e.g., PTFE particles, with Mn₂O₃ at, e.g., 8–20% by mass of the Mn₂O₃+binder mixture); Mn₂O₃ powder coating binder particles; Mn₂O₃ pretreated/adsorbed with NO₂; Mn₂O₃ present as a solid microporous layer (optionally pressed onto a gas-porous membrane/support); and a second sensing electrode exposed to sample gas without an intervening ozone filter (so the two signals can be processed to resolve NO₂ and O₃ independently).

Claim 8 (independent — method of making)

A method of forming an electrochemical gas sensing apparatus for sensing at least one gaseous analyte, comprising:

• providing a housing having an inlet and a sensing electrode; and
• providing an ozone filter interposed between the sensing electrode and the inlet, wherein the ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃.

In plain terms: the manufacturing counterpart of claim 1 — you assemble the sensor such that the Mn₂O₃ filter sits in the gas path upstream of the working electrode. Dependent claims 9–12 add the process variants: treating the Mn₂O₃ (powder) with NO₂ (e.g., ≥10 ppm for ≥30 min, preferably until saturated — described as ≥10¹² (or ≥2×10¹²) NO₂ molecules adsorbed per cm² of surface by BET area, or ≥1–1.5 mol NO₂ per gram Mn₂O₃); mixing Mn₂O₃ powder with binder particles (the treatment with NO₂ typically occurring after mixing); and forming the filter as a solid microporous Mn₂O₃ layer by compressing powder (optionally after NO₂ treatment and/or binder mixing).

Not found in the claim set as issued: there is no separate independent "method of sensing" claim identifiable from the cross-reference; the sensing/dual-electrode method is described in the specification as an extension of the disclosed methods. I could not verify whether claim 12 (or another claim) is drafted as an independent sensing-method claim — this is an uncertainty to resolve against the granted claim text.

Technical gist worth noting for the file

• Point of novelty over the prior art: the specification distinguishes the earlier MnO₂ filter approach (Viricelle et al.; EP 2,975,390 to Alphasense) on the basis that Mn(IV) in MnO₂ is a stronger oxidant than Mn(III) in Mn₂O₃, and that MnO₂ filters cause NO cross-sensitivity. The patent asserts Mn₂O₃ surprisingly filters O₃ while exhibiting systematically lower NO cross-sensitivity (see FIG. 8 and Table 2, comparing 500 mg Mn₂O₃ vs. 450 mg MnO₂, and mixed-with-PTFE variants at 19 and 187 days post-manufacture).
• Binder effect: adding PTFE binder is taught both to reduce low-temperature sensitivity loss and to reduce NO→NO₂ conversion rate within the filter (by reducing available Mn₂O₃ area per gas-path volume) while retaining adequate O₃ capacity — enabling a cheaper filter (e.g., 25 mg Mn₂O₃ + 225 mg PTFE, ~10 wt%).
• NO₂ pretreatment: pre-saturating the Mn₂O₃ with NO₂ is claimed to improve NO₂ measurement reliability and further suppress NO cross-sensitivity (FIGS. 6B, 6C vs. 6A).
• Analytes covered: principally NO₂ and/or O₃, with SO₂/O₃ as an alternative pairing (FIG. 14).
• Worked examples reference the commercial sensor OX-A421 (Alphasense) as the unfiltered baseline.

Bottom line

US 10,775,338 B2 is an Alphasense Limited patent (Saffell, Baron, Hossain) filed Jan. 9, 2017, claiming EP priority of Mar. 22, 2016, and issued Sept. 15, 2020. It claims, at its broadest, an electrochemical gas sensor and a method of making it in which an Mn₂O₃-based ozone filter is interposed between the inlet and the sensing electrode — the inventive hook being reduced NO cross-sensitivity relative to the MnO₂ filters of the prior art, with dependent claims covering Mn₂O₃ powder, PTFE binder mixtures (roughly 8–20 wt% Mn₂O₃), NO₂-pretreated Mn₂O₃, solid microporous Mn₂O₃ layers, and a second, unfiltered sensing electrode for resolving NO₂ vs. O₃.

Uncertainties I am explicitly flagging:

1. Exact granted claim language is not in my authoritative source; I reconstructed scope from the specification's own claim cross-references and the textually identical EP sibling (EP 3 223 006 A1, claims 1–2), which recite the same "ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃" limitation.
2. I found no CAFC 2026 appeal or PTAB proceeding for this patent; I cannot certify that none exists, only that my searches surfaced none.
3. The "Alphasense" New York litigation and the EPO opposition hits surfaced in searching are not attributable to this patent on the evidence located.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10775338.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me check Unified Patents' litigation portal and other docket-specific sources.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 10,775,338

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation (district court, CAFC, or PTAB) involving U.S. Patent No. 10,775,338. I must flag, however, that my search was bounded (I was cut off before completing every planned query), so this should be treated as "no litigation found in the sources searched" rather than a certified negative PACAER/docket clearance.

What the patent is (for identification, not auto-correction)

The number 10,775,338 as given corresponds to Google Patents US10775338B2, "Electrochemical gas sensor, filter and methods," application 15/401,704, filed 2017‑01‑09, priority EP 16161782.4 (2016‑03‑22), granted 2020‑09‑15, current assignee Alphasense Ltd, inventors John Saffell, Ronan Baron, Marlene Hossain. This is the Mn₂O₃ ozone‑filter patent (a follow‑on to the MnO₂ work in EP 2975390).

Search results summary (nothing matched the patent number as a litigation subject)

Important distinction (avoid a wrong-number trap)

A competitor-analysis source shows a European opposition against EP 2975390 (Alphasense's MnO₂ ozone‑filter case, relating to the same family lineage as US 8,715,430 etc.), status "Patent Maintained As Amended," dated on/around 2024. That is:

• a European Patent Office opposition, not US litigation; and
• directed at EP 2975390, not US 10,775,338.

It should not be reported as litigation involving US 10,775,338.

No case entries to list

Because no case was found, I cannot provide the requested fields (plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, outcome/status) for any matter. There is no distinct case to report.

Caveats on completeness

• My searches targeted: Google Patents, IPVerse (Alphasense competitor/opposition data), Alphasense's own patent list, and open‑web/Justia/courtlistener‑style results for the exact number. I did not complete direct, exhaustive lookups on PACER, the Unified Patents litigation portal, or Docket Alarm before my tool budget was exhausted.
• A truly definitive negative would require a PACER docket search (all districts), a CAFC docket check, and a PTAB/IPR proceeding search by patent number.

Recommended next verification steps (if you need a certified negative)

1. PACER / Docket Alarm / CourtListener RECAP docket search on the patent number 10,775,338 and on "Alphasense" as plaintiff.
2. PTAB search (PTAB Actions / petition search) for IPR/PGR on 10,775,338.
3. Unified Patents litigation portal and CAFC docket search for the patent number.

If you'd like, I can run those specific docket‑portal queries when tool access is restored, and I'll report any case with the exact plaintiff/defendant/court/case number/filing date/status fields you requested.

I'll verify the ODP's "no proceedings" result against public sources before drafting.

No hits tying this patent to any AIA trial. Let me run a few more targeted checks on the patent owner and any litigation that might spawn proceedings.

Let me confirm the EPO opposition picture on the related family member and double-check no PTAB case exists under the patent's docket.

PTAB Proceedings Analysis — US 10,775,338 B2

Verification note up front: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal, canonical) returns zero AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. I independently searched for IPR/PGR/CBM activity on US 10,775,338 and on the patent owner (Alphasense Ltd) and found nothing to contradict that. No proceeding number is reported below because none exists — I will not manufacture one.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 10,775,338: 0 — no active proceedings, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained in a Final Written Decision, no settlements, no institution denials. All claims are therefore UNTESTED at the PTAB, and the patent carries no PTAB estoppel record and no PTAB-driven narrowing; a defendant faces an unblemished, fully-intact claim set, but also one whose validity has never been stress-tested in an AIA trial and for which no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has yet been created against anyone.

Proceedings

None to report. There are no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings on US 10,775,338 in the ODP structured data, and no public source I located discloses one. For completeness, I verified the negative along several independent axes:

• Patent-level search — queries for "10775338" combined with "inter partes review" / "IPR" / "PTAB" surfaced no petition, institution decision, or FWD. The only Google Patents-family material returned was the '338 record itself (US15/401,704, filed 2017-01-09, granted 2020-09-15, priority 2016-03-22, assignee Alphasense Ltd).
• Patent-owner-level search — a competitive-intelligence roll-up of PTAB activity naming Alphasense reports "PTAB Cases Faced: –" and "PTAB Cases Filed: –" (https://ipverse.greyb.com/competitive-analysis/company/alphasense-limited). That is consistent with an empty PTAB docket for this portfolio.
• Litigation-trigger search — no US district court action was located that would have started a § 315(b) one-year clock or otherwise seeded an IPR. (This is a soft negative: absence of a found complaint is not proof no complaint exists.)

Adjacent proceeding that is NOT a PTAB proceeding — flag for awareness only: EP 2975390 ("Amperometric electrochemical gas sensing apparatus and method for measuring oxidising gases," Alphasense Limited; EP15176730.8, filed 2015-07-14, granted 2017-12-13) went through an EPO opposition, with the opposition procedure recorded as started (European Patent Bulletin 2018/42, 2018-10-17). Third-party reporting indicates EP 2975390 was "Patent Maintained As Amended," B2 published 2024-05-01 (https://ipverse.greyb.com/patents/EP2975390). EP 2975390 is a family sibling of the '338 patent (same inventors: Saffell, Hossain, Baron) and is cited in the '338 specification as background art for the MnO₂ ozone filter. This is an EPO proceeding under the EPC, not an AIA trial, and it has no estoppel or preclusive effect in the PTAB or in US district court. Its practical relevance is evidentiary: it establishes that competitors have actively contested this family, and the EPO opposition file is a free source of prior-art theories and expert framing that a US petitioner could adapt.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because no AIA trial has run, no claim of US 10,775,338 has been canceled, narrowed by amendment, or sustained in a Final Written Decision. The full issued claim set stands as granted. Contrast this with the family's European counterpart, where EP 2975390 survived opposition only in amended form — that outcome is jurisdictionally irrelevant to the US patent but tells you the family has previously been trimmed when challenged on the merits. If you are a defendant, you cannot say "claim 1 is dead," and you should not let a demand letter imply the patent has been validated by the PTAB either — it has done neither.

Estoppel landscape. The § 315(e)(2) estoppel field is completely clean. No petitioner has been through an institution decision on this patent, so no party (or privy) is barred from raising any ground — § 102, § 103, or § 112 — that was raised or reasonably could have been raised. A defendant today retains the full universe of invalidity theories, both at the PTAB and in district court. Equally, there is no IPR-based narrowing to exploit as a prosecution-history or claim-construction anchor.

Candidate prior-art avenues. The '338 specification itself concedes a well-developed field: it cites Viricelle J P et al., Materials Science and Engineering C, vol. 26, no. 2-3, pp. 186-195 for MnO₂ as an ozone filter in a conductometric sensor, and EP 2975390 (Alphasense) for an MnO₂ filter adjacent one of two carbon sensing electrodes in a parallel-exposure NO₂/O₃ sensor. Two cautions before building a petition on these: (i) EP 2975390 published 2016-01-20, roughly two months before the '338 priority date of 2016-03-22, so it is facially a § 102(a)(1) printed publication — but it names the same three inventors, so the inventor-originated-disclosure exception of § 102(b)(1)(A) is squarely in play and must be negated with evidence before it can be relied on; (ii) Viricelle is conceded as known, which cuts both ways — it helps establish the general MnO₂/ozone-filter milieu but also frames the '338's asserted point of novelty (Mn₂O₃ as the filter, and its reduced NO cross-sensitivity versus MnO₂) as a substitution of one manganese oxide for another. That substitution argument, supported by the patent's own admission that "Mn₂O₃ is therefore a less strong oxidising agent and has distinct chemistry to MnO₂," is the most promising § 103 lane — and note the patent pre-emptively rebuts it with an unexpected-results story built on the FIG. 8 NO cross-sensitivity data comparing Mn₂O₃ against MnO₂. Any petition should engage that comparative data head-on.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed on this patent — let alone multiple times. There is no defensive-aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) trail on this patent or, per the sources reviewed, on the Alphasense portfolio. The patent owner has not pursued any PTAB appeal involving this patent, because there has been no proceeding to appeal. One commercial observation worth tracking: Alphasense's own published patent list now routes contact through sensors.alphasense@ametek.com, suggesting the entity has come under AMETEK ownership — if so, real-party-in-interest and privity analysis for any future petition should map the AMETEK corporate family, not just "Alphasense Ltd."

Recommended next steps

1. Treat the ODP result as authoritative and the absence as the finding. State plainly in any opinion letter: as of the most recent ODP ingest, there are no AIA trial proceedings on US 10,775,338; all claims are untested at the PTAB and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists. Do not soften this into a suggestion that proceedings are pending.

2. Run the § 315(b) clock check immediately. A one-year IPR bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement. If your client has been served, calendar the deadline the day you receive the pleading; if it has not, note that the patent is still inside its full IPR-eligible life (granted 2020-09-15, anticipated expiration 2037-01-09), so a proactive IPR is available.

3. Pull the EPO opposition file for EP 2975390. It is the closest thing to a merits challenge this family has faced. The opponent's prior-art citations, the amended claim set that survived, and the EPO's reasoning all transfer usefully into a § 103 obviousness narrative (and into claim-construction positions on the "ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃" and parallel-exposure limitations).

4. Commission a § 102(b)(1)(A) analysis on EP 2975390 before relying on it. Confirm the named inventive entity matches and gather evidence to defeat the common-inventor exception; otherwise it is not available art.

5. If no proceeding exists and none is filed, say so and explain the signal. An absence of PTAB activity on a 2020 patent that is being asserted is itself informative: it usually means either (a) very low assertion volume, or (b) defendants who have chosen to litigate validity in district court rather than at the PTAB. Either way, your client's invalidity case starts from a blank slate — full ground coverage, no estoppel, and no PTAB record to inherit.

Sources consulted: USPTO ODP structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical, zero results); Google Patents record for US 10,775,338 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10775338/en); Alphasense PTAB/opposition roll-up (https://ipverse.greyb.com/competitive-analysis/company/alphasense-limited); EP 2975390 opposition status (https://ipverse.greyb.com/patents/EP2975390 and EPO Bulletin 2018/42, 2018-10-17); Alphasense published patent list (https://www.alphasense.com/-/media/project/oneweb/oneweb/alphasense/alphasense-patent-list.pdf).

Confidence and limits: I am confident there is no proceedings data for this patent in the ODP feed, and I found no public counter-evidence. My searches were general web queries, not a programmatic run against the PTAB E2E docket or Docket Alarm; a definitive negative should be confirmed by a direct PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm query on patent number 10,775,338 and on Alphasense before it is relied on in a filing.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10775338 across the sources you named.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 10775338 B2

Patent: US 10775338 B2 — "Electrochemical gas sensor, filter and methods"
Application: US 15/401,704 · filed 2017-01-09 · granted 2020-09-15
Priority: EP 16161782.4, filed 2016-03-22
Assignee of record (issuance): Alphasense Limited (GB)

Sourcing note / caveat. I was able to confirm the existence and content of the assignment record through the Google Patents legal-events block for this patent (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10775338/en, fetched 2026-09-24) and through the patent's own front-page data. I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent of record from the USPTO Assignment Center: the Assignment Center search application is a JavaScript session-based tool and my search tooling returned only its training manuals and third-party pages, not the underlying record for this patent. Per your constraints, I am not going to invent a reel/frame or a correspondent name. Every reel/frame field below is marked not retrieved, and the "repeat correspondent" signal is therefore scored conservatively.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — no pattern found. The red flag you asked me to look for (all inventors exiting the original assignee within ~12 months of filing, ahead of a fire-sale) is not evident here. The relevant corporate event is the reverse of a fire-sale: the original assignee was acquired as a going concern roughly 4 years and 8 months after filing (see below). Patent records alone cannot establish individual inventor departure dates, so I am not asserting any departure; I note only that nothing in the record suggests a mass exodus.

Original assignee

Alphasense Limited — Applicant/Assignee on the face of the patent: "ALPHASENSE LIMITED, Braintree, Essex (GB)." Corporate address of record in company registries: Sensor Technology House, 300 Avenue West, Skyline 120, Great Notley, Braintree, Essex CM77 7AA, United Kingdom (UK company number 3264282, incorporated 1996-10-15).

• Primary line of business: design and manufacture of electrochemical gas sensors (O₂, toxic gases, VOCs, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, CO, particulate/optical PM sensors) sold to industrial OEMs of fixed and portable gas-detection and air-quality instruments. Operator, not a licensor.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. The patent's own specification identifies the unfiltered counterpart sensor used in the experiments as "commercially available under the trade name OX-A421, manufactured and sold by Alphasense Limited of Great Notley, United Kingdom." Alphasense's commercial A4/B4 air-quality sensor families (NO₂-B43F, OX-A421/OX-B421 etc.) are the products this disclosure was written around. This is a genuine operating-company portfolio asset.
• Current status: acquired, still operating. AMETEK, Inc. (NYSE: AME) announced the acquisition of Alphasense on 2021-12-01 (PRNewswire / AMETEK investor release); Alphasense's own post states the transaction closed in December 2021 and that the business continues to trade from Braintree as a product brand within AMETEK MOCON (EIG segment). Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy, not an IP-holding shell. Annual sales at acquisition were ~£25m.

Name-collision warning (analyst note): There is an unrelated entity "Alphasense Oy" / AlphaSense Inc., the Finnish/US AI market-intelligence company (G06F patents). Entity-resolution tools that match on the string "Alphasense" conflate the two. There is no relationship to Alphasense Limited of Essex, and none of those G06F patents belong in this chain.

Assignment timeline

Total recorded assignments found for this patent: 1 (the original inventor-to-company assignment). No post-issuance assignment, security interest, merger, change-of-name, license or release is recorded against US 10775338 in the sources reachable to me. Google Patents' "Current Assignee" field still reads Alphasense Ltd, with no assignee change event after 2017.

• 2017-05-26 (recording date; execution date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved / Frame not retrieved
  • Conveyance: Assignment (reassignment record; exact conveyance text not retrieved)
  • Assignor: Marlene Hossain; Ronan Baron; John Saffell (the three named inventors)
  • Assignee: Alphasense Limited (Great Notley / Braintree, Essex, GB)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. I could not pull the attorney/firm of record from the Assignment Center. Flagging as a gap rather than guessing — on a single-link chain this field would not have been probative anyway (a lone correspondent appearance is not a recurrence signal).
  • Context: Standard employer-takes-inventor-rights assignment executed at/after filing; Alphasense was the applicant of record on the face of the application from the 2017-01-09 filing date. Not a transfer to an asserter and not a monetisation event.

Notable negative finding — the AMETEK acquisition is not reflected as a recorded assignment on this patent. Alphasense Limited was acquired by AMETEK, Inc. on/around 2021-12-01 to 2021-12-09, yet no assignment from Alphasense Limited to AMETEK or to an AMETEK subsidiary appears in the legal-events record for US 10775338, and Google Patents still lists Alphasense Ltd as current assignee. Treat with care: (a) recordation of a share-purchase or group-reorganisation transfer is not always made against every individual US patent; and (b) USPTO records are not required to reflect intra-group reorganisation. I flag this as a record-keeping gap worth verifying directly in Assignment Center, not as evidence that the patent changed hands off-record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10775338
    2016 : Priority EP application filed 22 Mar
    2017 : US application filed 09 Jan
         : Inventors assign to Alphasense Limited
         : Assignment recorded 26 May
    2020 : Patent US10775338B2 issued 15 Sep
    2021 : Alphasense acquired by AMETEK
         : No AMETEK assignment recorded

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. There is exactly one recorded conveyance and it runs to the operating company, not away from it (2017-05-26, inventors → Alphasense Limited). Alphasense's recorded address is its own manufacturing head office in Great Notley / Braintree, Essex, not a registered-agent service; the entity has 25+ years of trading history, ~£25m sales, employees and products in commerce.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee in the chain matches any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg entities). Assignee names are "Alphasense Limited" and (commercially) AMETEK, Inc. I found no litigation naming US 10775338 in the sources reachable to me.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Cannot be assessed / not present. There is only one recorded link, so recurrence is impossible by definition; and I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for even that link. Flagged as a data gap, not a finding. This is the one field on your list I could not close out.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One recorded assignment in the entire prosecution/post-grant life; no chained LLC hops, no shared-correspondent cluster.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was located, so there is no anchor date for a pre-suit transfer test. The only assignment (recorded 2017-05-26) precedes issuance (2020-09-15) by more than three years.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11, no assignment-in-bankruptcy, no IP auction. The original assignee was acquired as a going concern by AMETEK (2021-12), which is an M&A exit, not a distressed sale.
7. Privateering — Not present. No operating-company-to-NPE transfer, no licensing entity, no evidence of assertion on Alphasense's or AMETEK's behalf.
8. Defensive aggregator — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents or OIN; it terminates at an operating manufacturer (now inside AMETEK MOCON/EIG).

Verdict

Insufficient data — as defined by your rubric: records exist, but only the original inventor-to-assignee assignment is of record.

Justification. The single recorded conveyance (recording date 2017-05-26, reel/frame not retrieved — inventors Hossain, Baron and Saffell → Alphasense Limited) is a routine employer-rights assignment that predates grant by over three years, and Google Patents still shows Alphasense Ltd as current assignee with no subsequent assignee-change event. Every NPE indicator is negative: assignment flows to an operating manufacturer with a named commercial product (OX‑A421, and the A4/B4 air-quality families), no known asserter appears, no cascading LLC transfers exist, no litigation on this patent was found, and the original assignee exited via a going-concern acquisition by AMETEK, Inc. (announced 2021-12-01) rather than a bankruptcy or a transfer to an asserter. The verdict is "insufficient data" only because the chain has a single link and I could not retrieve the reel/frame or correspondent — not because the evidence points toward an NPE.

Two open items to close manually in Assignment Center:

1. Reel/frame and execution date for the 2017-05-26 record, and the correspondent of record on it (likely Alphasense's then-prosecution firm, not an NPE-side filer).
2. Whether any Alphasense → AMETEK (or AMETEK subsidiary) assignment was recorded against this patent and its family post-December 2021.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 10775338 (note: the legacy host assignment.uspto.gov is being retired; per USPTO guidance all older assignment URLs are due to be discontinued in early 2026, so use assignmentcenter.uspto.gov).

Secondary observation (not an NPE signal, but a prosecution-quality note): the granted description contains an internal inconsistency — the DETAILED DESCRIPTION of FIG. 1 states the ozone filter (19) "is formed of MnO₂ powder which has been treated with NO₂," whereas the abstract, claims, summary and the remainder of the description consistently specify Mn₂O₃. This looks like an uncorrected typographical error in the printed patent rather than a claim-scope issue, but it matters for prior-art/claim-construction work and is worth flagging to anyone reading the description at face value.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 10,775,338. Let me search for the patent's citation data.

Let me get the full citation list from the patent record.

Let me get the specific citation list from Justia and the Google Patents citation table.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,775,338

Important preliminary caveat. My search budget was exhausted before I could pull an exhaustive, on‑the‑face "References Cited" dump from USPTO PatentCenter / the front page of the printed patent. What follows is built from (a) the authoritative full patent text you supplied, which itself cites specific prior art, and (b) the Google Patents / Justia family records retrieved in search. Where I could not definitively tie a reference to the face of this patent (as opposed to a family member), I say so explicitly rather than guess. I found no litigation on this patent (consistent with the earlier litigation section), so this is a pure prosecution-art review.

1. Identification (as given, not auto-corrected)

The critical date for § 102 purposes is the 2016‑03‑22 priority date (EP 16161782.4), not the 2017‑01‑09 US filing date.

2. The references actually cited on the face of / within this patent

2A. Patent citations

From the Google Patents/Justia record for this family, four patent documents appear as citations associated with the Alphasense "electrochemical sensor" lineage that this patent cites. Caveat: the retrievable citation table rendered on a family‑member page (EP 1544614 A1, Alphasense's "Electrochemical sensor," https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1544614A1/en), so I cannot with certainty assert that all four sit on the printed front page of US 10,775,338 itself. Treat the four below as "cited Alphasense‑family art" until a front‑page dump is obtained.

2B. The most relevant prior art — cited in the description (background)

The point the patent makes (description, and confirmed by the examiner's allowing a Mn₂O₃‑limited claim): MnO₂ (Mn(IV)) is a stronger oxidant than Mn₂O₃ (Mn(III)) and converts NO to NO₂, causing NO cross‑sensitivity; Mn₂O₃ is the asserted invention over both #5 and #6.

2C. Related family members (not prior art — same family)

• EP 3223005 A1 (EP16161782.4; Ceased) — "Electrochemical gas sensing apparatus and methods."
• EP 3223006 B1 (EP17150737.9; Active) — same title.
  Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3223006A1 — these share the 2016‑03‑22 priority and are not § 102 art against US 10,775,338 (common priority/own work).

3. Claim‑by‑claim anticipation assessment (35 U.S.C. § 102)

The independent claims (claim 1 apparatus; claim 8 method) each require, in substance:

• a housing having an inlet;
• a sensing electrode; and
• an ozone filter interposed between the sensing electrode and the inlet, wherein the ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃.

Dependent features (from the specification's own claim cross‑references) include: NO₂‑treated/saturated Mn₂O₃, powder+binder (PTFE) mixtures, a solid microporous Mn₂O₃ layer, and a second unfiltered sensing electrode.

Conclusion on § 102: On the art of record located, no single reference anticipates the independent claims, because no located reference discloses the "ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃" limitation combined with the remaining elements. The nearest reference is EP 2975390, which anticipates the architecture but fails the filter chemistry element. If a validity challenge exists, it would most likely be a § 103 attack combining EP 2975390 (MnO₂ filter architecture, same applicant) with the general teaching that Mn(III) oxide is a less aggressive oxidant than Mn(IV) oxide (e.g., via the Viricelle NPL and ordinary Mn‑oxide chemistry).

4. Forward citations ("Cited By," ~18 documents) — context only

These are later documents citing US 10,775,338 (not prior art against it), useful for family/landscape tracking: CN111542752A (MSA Europe); US10617985B2 (Rosemount); US11137368B2 / US11913901B2 / US11988628B2 (Lyten); US11231387B2 (MSA Europe); KR20200081579A (Senko); TWI706126B / US2020/0209186A1 (ITRI); US10962517B1 (Honeywell); JP7391708B2 (New Cosmos — "ozone gas removal filter"); DE102020125411A1 (Dräger); EP4033233A1 (Infineon). Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10775338B2/en.

5. Verifications still needed (to convert this to a certified record)

1. USPTO PatentCenter / printed front page for US 10,775,338 — confirm the exact "References Cited" list and whether US 5,650,054, EP 1 154 267, US 2002/0121438, EP 1 336 840 are on the face of this patent (vs. a family member).
2. Examiner's citation of EP 2975390 and the Viricelle NPL in the US file wrapper (Form 892 / PTO‑1449), with the examiner's § 102/§ 103 rejection rationale.
3. Full issued claim set (all claims) to complete the element‑by‑element § 102 mapping (I only have claims 1–7/8–12 identified indirectly from the specification).

If you can supply the front‑page citation list or the file‑wrapper 892/1449 forms, I will re‑run the § 102/§ 103 mapping against each reference precisely, claim by claim.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art landscape before arguing § 103. Note upfront: the text I was given for US 10,775,338 does not include the Google Patents "Similar Documents / Cited By / Prior Art" listing itself — only the references discussed in the specification. Let me verify what the front page and family cite, and what the field recognized about Mn₂O₃ in ozone service.

Strong signal already. Let me pin down the publication dates and the EP-family search report (which is the closest thing to the "Prior Art" listing for this family), plus the key academic reference.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 10,775,338 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent: US10775338B2, "Electrochemical gas sensor, filter and methods" (Alphasense Ltd; inventors Saffell, Baron, Hossain). App. 15/401,704, filed 2017‑01‑09; priority EP 16161782.4 (2016‑03‑22); granted 2020‑09‑15.
Claim structure (as recited in the specification): apparatus claims 1–7; method claims 8–12 (the spec extends "the method of any one of claims 8 to 12" and refers back to "claims 1 to 7").

Two disclosure caveats up front (please read before relying on this):

1. The Google Patents text I was working from does not contain the "Similar Documents / Cited By" prior-art listing for US10775338 itself — only the references discussed in the specification. So the art below is (a) the two references necessarily of record because the patent's own background discusses them, plus (b) art I located by search in the Mn-oxide/ozone-catalysis field. An examiner's actual citation set may be broader or different.
2. The exact granted claim language was not in my source; I analyze claim 1 as its text is reproduced in the specification, and the dependent features as the specification recites them. Verify against the granted claims before filing anything.

1. Claim 1 and where the novelty actually sits

Claim 1, as its text is reproduced in the patent:

"electrochemical gas sensing apparatus for sensing at least one gaseous analyte and comprising a housing having an inlet, a sensing electrode and an ozone filter interposed between the sensing electrode and the inlet, wherein the ozone filter comprises Mn₂O₃."

Every element except the identity of the manganese oxide is old. The patent's background concedes that MnO₂ is already used as an O₃ filter in a sensing instrument (Viricelle) and that Alphasense's own EP 2975390 already put an MnO₂ filter adjacent one of two carbon sensing electrodes in an amperometric NO₂/O₃ sensor with the filtered and unfiltered electrodes in parallel. Claim 1 therefore reduces to a single substitution: Mn₂O₃ in place of MnO₂ in a known filter slot. That framing drives the whole analysis.

2. The relevant prior art

3. Primary combination — claim 1 is prima facie obvious

Combination A: EP 2975390 (A1) + Sasaoka 1995 (or US 6,375,905 / JP 4065026 B2).

• EP 2975390 supplies every structural element of claim 1: housing, inlet, sensing (working) electrode, and an ozone filter interposed between the electrode and the inlet that comprises a manganese oxide. It is §102(a)(1) art — published 2016‑01‑20, before the 2016‑03‑22 priority date. Note that Alphasense's common ownership of both cases is irrelevant: §103(c) common ownership removes only §102(e)/(g)-type art, not a pre‑critical-date printed publication under §102(a)(1).
• Sasaoka 1995 (and US 6,375,905's claim 9, and JP 4065026 B2) supplies the missing element: Mn₂O₃ is a known ozone-decomposition catalyst, sitting in the same recognised MnOₓ family as the MnO₂ the sensor art already used.
• The only difference between claim 1 and Combination A is the selection of one known member of a small, enumerated set of manganese oxides on which essentially the entire ambient-temperature ozone-decomposition literature is built (MnO₂, Mn₂O₃, Mn₃O₄, plus MnO). That is the paradigm of In re O'Farrell, 853 F.2d 894, 900 (Fed. Cir. 1988) ("substituting one known material for another known material in a known method… to achieve the same or similar result"), and of KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007) ("a finite number of identified, predictable solutions… leads to the anticipated success").

Combination B (alternative, if the A1 publication is narrower than assumed): Viricelle 2006 + EP 2975390 + Sasaoka 1995. Viricelle independently establishes MnO₂ as an instrument-side ozone filter and EP 2975390 supplies the amperometric architecture; the Mn₂O₃-as-ozone-catalyst teaching comes from the catalyst art. Same result; more references, but immune to any date/version problem with EP 2975390's claims.

The motivation a POSA would have had:

1. A known defect to fix. The patent itself states MnO₂ "can create a problem with cross-sensitivity to NO" (spec ¶5) — because NO is oxidised at the MnO₂ filter to NO₂, which is then reduced at the sensing electrode. This mechanism was in the literature (the inventors' own ACS Sensors paper confirms the field understood the MnO₂-filter→NO→NO₂ pathway) and is inherent in the operation of EP 2975390's device in urban air where NO > NO₂.
2. A focused search space. The acknowledged solution path was to try a different manganese oxide with a different oxidation state. Mn is III in Mn₂O₃ and IV in MnO₂ — the two adjacent, commercially available oxides. The art (JP 4065026 B2; US 6,375,905) lists them side by side as ozone-treatment materials.
3. Same function, predictable result. Substitution preserves the intended function (catalytic O₃→O₂ removal) with a material the art already credits with that function. KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."

Expected rejection: claim 1 rejected under §103 over EP 2975390 in view of Sasaoka 1995 (or US 6,375,905), with Viricelle cited as cumulative background.

4. Dependent claims — claim-by-claim

5. Motivation-to-combine summary (for an office action or an invalidity contention)

• Same field / reasonably pertinent. Both EP 2975390 and the Mn-oxide catalyst art address removing O₃ from ambient air by contact with a manganese oxide, and both the sensor art and the catalyst art specifically warn that manganese oxides can transform co-present species (the MnO₂→NO→NO₂ problem; the MnOₓ redox/oxygen-vacancy literature generally).
• Known problem to be solved. The patent's own admission that MnO₂ filters create NO cross-sensitivity is an express motivation to substitute within the Mn-oxide family.
• Small, enumerated set / "obvious to try" (KSR). MnO₂, Mn₂O₃ and Mn₃O₄ are the conventional MnOₓ ozone catalysts; the art names Mn₂O₃ and MnO₂ together (JP 4065026 B2; US 6,375,905 claim 9). Selecting the adjacent oxidation state is not inventive.
• Predictable result. O₃ removal is preserved (a catalytic, not consumptive, function, per the art and per the patent's own FIG. 9–10 data).

6. The patentee's rebuttal case — and how strong it is

The strongest non-obviousness argument is unexpected results, and it is centred on NO cross-sensitivity, not on ozone removal.

• Spec FIG. 8 / Example 3: Mn₂O₃ filters show systematically and persistently lower NO cross-sensitivity than MnO₂ filters, the improvement "persists."
• Spec ¶ "Surprisingly, we have found that the decrease in sensitivity at low temperature is reduced where the Mn₂O₃ is mixed with binder…" and "NO cross sensitivity may be reduced when Mn₂O₃ is mixed with binder rather than unmixed."
• FIG. 6B: untreated Mn₂O₃ degrades the NO₂ signal, and the NO₂-pretreatment step restores it (FIG. 6C shows ozone filtering retained).

Assessment:

• These are genuine comparative data against the closest art (MnO₂). They are the kind of evidence that can rebut a prima facie case, and they are the reason claim 1 may not be a slam dunk. But the differences are, on the record, improvements in degree in a property the art already recognised as a problem — which invites the In re Soni / In re Merck answer that unexpected results must be "plainly different in kind," not merely a better number.
• The NO₂-pretreatment dependent claim is the best candidate for allowance. Nothing in Viricelle, EP 2975390 or the catalyst art appears to teach saturating a manganese-oxide filter with NO₂ (spec: ≥10¹² molecules NO₂/cm² BET, ≥1–1.5 mol NO₂/g, ≥10 ppm for ≥30 min) in order to restore analyte sensitivity lost by the untreated filter. That is a counter-intuitive, filter-preconditioning step directed at a problem the art had not identified (the filter degrading the NO₂ response). If I were defending the patent, that is the claim I would push; if I were challenging it, I would argue "pre-conditioning/conditioning filters with the analyte" is routine optimisation, but I would expect to lose that point on the current record.
• Possible "different field/context" argument: the Mn-oxide catalyst art concerns bulk air-handling/industrial ozone abatement (high flow, decomposition to O₂), whereas the '338 filter sits in a diffusion-limited amperometric sensor where the material must neither convert NO nor perturb the NO₂ limiting current. Expect the patentee to argue the catalyst art is not reasonably pertinent. Counter: the reference art and the patent address the same problem—removing O₃ from sampled air without creating an interferent—and the patent's own independent claim frames the filter generically as "an ozone filter," not as a sensor-specific article. I would expect this argument to fail, but it is the patentee's second-best line.
• No teaching away. I found no reference disparaging Mn₂O₃ for ozone removal. The 1995 Sasaoka work and later MnOₓ literature rank MnO₂ above Mn₂O₃ on ozone activity, but a ranking is not a teaching away from the claimed use; at most it supplies a "why would you expect it to work as well?" talking point on capacity, which the patent's own data address (FIG. 10A/B, 14-day and 10-hour capacity tests).

7. Date / status verification items (do these before relying on this memo)

1. ACS Sensors paper is probably NOT prior art. Published 2016‑11‑03, i.e. after the 2016‑03‑22 priority date. §102(a)(1) requires the disclosure to be before the effective filing date, so it cannot be §102(a)(1) art against claims entitled to EP 16161782.4; and it is the inventors' own work (§102(b)(1)(A)). Exception to check: if any claim (e.g. a NO₂-pretreatment or specific solid-layer claim) contains matter not supported by the EP priority filing, its effective filing date becomes 2017‑01‑09 and the ACS Sensors paper becomes §102(a)(1) art against that claim. Run the priority/support analysis claim-by-claim. This is a real vulnerability because the paper discloses the MnO₂/PTFE composite at a 1:10 ratio — the very binder-composite concept the '338 claims apply to Mn₂O₃.
2. Version of EP 2975390 relied on. The "1 to 20% by weight of MnO₂ with binder" language I have comes from the family's US publication (US 2017/0016847). Confirm whether that limitation appears in the EP 2975390 A1 as published on 2016‑01‑20 (the operative prior-art document). Given the European opposition on EP 2975390 and its "maintained as amended" status (per the earlier litigation section), the granted/amended text may differ from the A1. Rely on the A1 text only.
3. Retrieve the actual front-page citations and the "Similar Documents" list for US10775338B2, plus the EP 3223006 search report, to see whether the examiner already cited Mn₂O₃-ever-in-a-sensor art (that would make this an even shorter case) and to identify art on pretreating/conditioning manganese-oxide filters, which is the point I am least confident about.
4. Full granted claim text. My dependent-claim table is built from the specification's "it may be that…" recitations, not from the granted claims. The mapping of claim numbers to features must be confirmed.

Bottom line

• Claim 1 is prima facie obvious over EP 2975390 (published 2016‑01‑20) in view of Sasaoka 1995 (or US 6,375,905 claim 9 / JP 4065026 B2), with Viricelle 2006 as cumulative background. The only delta is a Mn₂O₃-for-MnO₂ substitution in a known ozone-filter slot, within a small enumerated set of Mn oxides all documented as ozone-decomposition catalysts, yielding the same intended function — O'Farrell + KSR.
• Most dependent claims fall with it, especially the binder-composite weight ranges (which overlap EP 2975390's 1–20 wt% MnO₂-with-binder teaching), the parallel second electrode (anticipated verbatim by EP 2975390), the carbon electrode, and the particle-size/BET ranges.
• The realistic hard target is the NO₂-pretreatment claim (and, secondarily, the solid microporous layer/layer-on-shared-support claims). The pretreatment claim is where the patent's best unexpected-results and "art did not recognise the problem" arguments live; I would not predict invalidity there without first locating specific art on preconditioning Mn-oxide filters with NO₂.
• Confidence: moderate-to-high on claim 1; moderate on the dependent claims; lower on the NO₂-pretreatment and SO₂ claims. And note my two structural caveats in §0/§7 — I did not have the actual prior-art citation list for this patent, and I did not have its granted claims.