US 10823566

I'll run targeted searches for this patent number, including USPTO records and any CAFC docket activity.

Let me check for CAFC litigation/docket activity and any USPTO record variations.

Let me make one more targeted check for any litigation or appeal activity.

Search scope and caveats

I ran searches aimed at (a) USPTO records for US 10,823,566 and (b) CAFC 2026 docket activity. Findings on method: I could not directly query the USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search API or the CAFC docket system from this tool; results came from web search across Google Patents, aggregators, and third-party docket mirrors. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, appeal, or district-court litigation referencing this patent number. I cannot confirm the absence of such activity with authority — treat that as "not found," not "verified none."

Two discrepancies worth flagging, per your literal-interpretation rule:

1. A "10823566" collision. A PlainSite record indexes a case styled "Flexible Seal Assembly Between Gas Turbine Components and Methods of Installation," listing "Patent Application No. 10823566," Examiner Ninh H Nguyen, applicant Chiu, Rong Shi (Nixon & Vanderhye PC). That is an application serial number coincidence and is not US Patent 10,823,566. Do not merge these records.
2. Date mismatch. Your prompt says April 26, 2026; my system date is 2026-09-29, and the patent text was fetched 2026-09-24. Status below is current as of the latest available record.

The full patent text supplied in the prompt is my authoritative source and is consistent with the Google Patents page; the only external confirmation found was a Golden wiki entry (title, Hilti, grant date Nov. 3 2020, appl. no. 16313294, filed June 21 2017), which matches.

Bibliographic summary — US 10,823,566 B2

Abstract (as granted): A method compares a received beam hitting a laser receiver in a transverse arrangement with a rotating laser beam moved about an axis of rotation in a vertical position by a rotary laser. The receiver includes an evaluating unit and a detection field with a longitudinal and a transverse direction. The rotary laser sits on a rotational platform adjustable about a rotation axis, and the vertical laser plane the rotating beam produces is moved by the platform in a direction of rotation about the rotation axis. In the longitudinal direction of the detection field, an adjustment direction of the received beam relative to the laser receiver is determined by the evaluating unit, and that adjustment direction is compared with the direction of rotation of the rotational platform.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the method. A way to decide whether the light hitting a laser receiver is really the rotary laser's rotating beam. You set the rotary laser on a motorized rotational platform whose pivot axis points up-and-down (parallel to gravity), while the laser's own spin axis points sideways (perpendicular to the platform axis). You hold the laser receiver "in a transverse arrangement," meaning its long strip of detectors runs horizontally (perpendicular to gravity) and its short axis runs vertically. Then you sweep the platform and watch where the beam strikes the detector strip:

• Sweep the platform in a rotation direction until the beam lands on the detector field;
• In the detector strip's long direction, have the evaluating unit work out the adjustment direction (which way the beam appears to be moving along the strip); and
• Compare that apparent movement direction against the known rotational direction of the platform.

The comparison is the heart of the invention: if a beam appears to move in the same sense as the platform rotation, it's plausibly the genuine rotating beam; if it appears to move the opposite way, it's a reflection off a reflective surface (e.g., a window or shiny wall) that has reversed the apparent motion; if it doesn't move at all, it's a stationary external light source. Note that claim 1 itself only recites determining and comparing — the categories (external beam, rotating beam, reflected beam) are recited in dependent claims 3, 5, and 7, and the switch to measurement mode in claim 6.

Claim 13 — the device. An apparatus comprising (i) a rotary laser that emits a laser beam rotating in a rotational direction about a first rotational axis and is mounted on a rotational platform adjustable about a second rotational axis, and (ii) a laser receiver having an evaluating unit and a detection field, wherein the laser receiver performs the method of claim 1. It is a system claim tied functionally to the claim-1 method.

Dependent claim highlights: claim 2 (store first impact position at time t1 as H1 and second at later t2 as H2; derive adjustment direction from H1/H2); claim 3 (H1 ≈ H2 → categorize as external beam); claim 4 (H1 ≠ H2 → determine adjustment direction); claim 5 (same direction → rotating laser beam); claim 6 (switch to measurement mode); claim 7 (opposite direction → reflected laser beam); claims 8–10 (laser plane limited to an angle < 360°, in rotation mode with on/off switching, or in scan mode back-and-forth); claims 11–12 (360° split into first/second angle ranges distinguished by a beam property / modulation signal); claim 14 (tilt sensor in the receiver); claim 15 (communicative link between receiver evaluating unit and platform control unit, so the platform's rotation direction can be transmitted and the method run automatically).

Points of uncertainty and technical notes

• Drafting inconsistency inside the document. Granted claim 1 recites "the rotational axis of the rotary laser is oriented perpendicular to the rotational axis of the rotational platform," whereas the description frames the relationship as both axes being perpendicular/parallel to the gravitational direction (rotary laser axis ⟂ gravity; platform axis ∥ gravity). These are consistent in the intended geometry but the claim language is not identical to the specification language. This is the kind of thing that matters for infringement/validity argumentation.
• Self-acknowledged limitation. The specification expressly states that with an even number of reflections, the adjustment direction is the same as the platform rotation direction, so such beams are "categorized by the evaluating unit wrongly as a rotating laser beam." The patent positions this as acceptable because single (odd-number) reflection is "the most common cause of incorrect measurements." So the claimed solution reduces, but does not eliminate, false positives.
• OCR artifacts in the retrieved text (Google Patents render, not substantive): reference numerals appear garbled in places — e.g., "diverting lens 37 rotating about the axis of rotation 18" (should be 21), "first impact position 16" (should be 61), "connected to the control unit 41" (should be 51), and a non-patent citation listing "filed Dec. 26, 2016" for a Dec. 26, 2018 filing. Do not treat these numerals as accurate.
• Related family members (same 2016-06-30 priority) appear in the citation tables and can be confused with this patent: US 2019/0154444 A1 and US 2019/0154445 A1 (siblings), US 10,564,033 B2 ("Procedure for comparing a reception beam impinging on a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam"), and US 12,492,895 B2 (Hilti, listed as issuing 2025-12-09, titled "Method for comparing a received beam incident on a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam"). If your task is claim-scope or FTO work, these should be examined alongside US 10,823,566.
• Prior art cited against it: US 7,119,316 B2 and US 7,224,473 B2 (both Trimble, "Strobe light and laser beam detection for laser receiver") — the specification distinguishes both, arguing they cannot detect reflections because the reflection does not change the evaluated amplitude criteria.

If you need the actual USPTO Patent Center prosecution-history documents (office actions, IDS, examiner citations) or a CAFC docket confirmation, those require a direct database query that I could not perform here — I'd recommend verifying in Patent Center and the CAFC/RECAP dockets before relying on the "no litigation found" conclusion.

I'll search litigation databases for US patent 10823566.

Litigation Search Report: US Patent No. 10,823,566

Patent identified: US 10,823,566 B2 — "Method for comparing a received beam hitting a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam"

• Assignee: Hilti AG (Hilti Aktiengesellschaft), Schaan, Liechtenstein
• Application No. 16/313,294; Filed June 21, 2017; Granted November 3, 2020
• Priority: June 30, 2016 (EP 16177222.3 / PCT/EP2017/065157)
• Inventors: Sasha Lukic, Andras Halasi, Ian Kearney, Ermin Calkic
• Status: Active, adjusted expiration December 15, 2037

Finding: No litigation located

Based on my searches of litigation-oriented sources (Google Patents litigation-family data, Unified Patents / PTAB activity, plainSite dockets, and general web searches combining the patent number with litigation terms), I found no record of any district court lawsuit, ITC investigation, PTAB post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR), or CAFC appeal involving US 10,823,566.

No plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome can therefore be reported.

Important caveat — a number collision, not a match

One search result appeared to match the number "10823566," but it is a different matter entirely and should NOT be treated as litigation about this patent:

• PlanSite docket: "Flexible Seal Assembly Between Gas Turbine Components and Methods of Installation," listing "Patent Application No. 10823566," Examiner Ninh H. Nguyen, applicant Chiu, Rong Shi, represented by Nixon & Vanderhye PC.
• URL: https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2fdpauqlg/united-states-patent-and-trademark-office/flexible-seal-assembly-between-gas-turbine-components-and-methods-of-installation/
• This is a USPTO patent application prosecution docket (prosecution, not litigation), relating to gas-turbine seal technology — unrelated to the Hilti laser-receiver patent. The numeric string coincidentally matches. It is not a lawsuit and not a case involving US 10,823,566.

I am flagging this expressly so the identifier is not auto-corrected or conflated: the digits coincide, but the subject matter and the parties are different.

Contextual (non-litigation) activity noted

• The patent has family members: EP 3479063 B1 (granted June 2, 2021), CN 109313027 B, JP 6753961 B2, WO 2018001803 A1, and the pre-grant publication US 2019/0154445 A1.
• Google Patents lists "Cited By" documents including US 12,492,895 B2 (Hilti Aktiengesellschaft, 2025) and Stanley Black & Decker laser-level patents (US 11,428,529; US 11,859,975; US 12,332,055), plus US 11,761,764 B2 (Northwest Instrument). A citation in the "Cited By" table is not evidence of litigation.
• A related Hilti application, US 2019/0154444 A1 / US 10,564,033 ("Procedure for comparing a reception beam impinging on a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam"), appears in the family but likewise shows no litigation in the sources retrieved.

Limitations

• My searches were constrained by a limited number of retrieval steps, and I could not directly query PACER, the Unified Patents litigation caselist, or Docket Navigator in this session.
• Absence of results in these sources is not affirmative proof that no litigation exists; it means no litigation could be located, and no case details can be provided.

Bottom line: Based on the sources I was able to search, no litigation is known involving US Patent 10,823,566. If you need a definitive clearance, I recommend a direct PACER/Docket Navigator/Unified Patents caselist query on the patent number and on assignee Hilti AG.

I'll verify the structured data against live sources before writing anything up.

No hits yet. Let me search more specifically, including the patent's siblings and litigation context.

Let me check the sibling patents and any litigation involving the laser-receiver family, plus CourtListener directly.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 10,823,566 — the USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and independent web searches of PTAB dockets, PTAB E2E-hosted petition documents, CourtListener, and general web sources surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal directed at this patent; the practical defensive posture for a defendant is therefore "no PTAB record either way" — the patent has never been validity-tested at the Board, so its claims 1–15 stand unadjudicated and an IPR is an open, untried option rather than a foreclosed one.

(The breakdown by status — active / claims invalidated / claims sustained / settled / institution denied — is 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0.)

No proceedings to detail

There are no proceeding records to render in the per-proceeding format. I am deliberately not populating those headings, because doing so would require fabricating proceeding numbers, petitioners, panels, and dispositions, and the instructions forbid that.

What I checked (2026-09-29):

• USPTO ODP structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied in the prompt → empty.
• Web search for IPR/PGR filings naming 10,823,566 / 10823566 → no PTAB results.
• Web search for Hilti-side PTAB petitions on this patent → nothing; the only Hilti PTAB hits are Hilti as petitioner against third-party patents (see "Pattern signals" below), on completely different technologies.
• CourtListener / general search for the patent number in litigation → no asserted-case hit; the only Hilti district-court activity surfaced involves unrelated patents.
• Google Patents family tab for US10823566B2 shows the family spread is prosecution-side only: WO2018001803A1, EP3264039A1, EP3479063A1/B1, JP6753961B2 (JP2019519788A), CN109313027A/B, and pre-grant pub US20190154445A1. No "PTAB" or "IPR" tab content exists on the record.

Caveat on ingest lag: the ODP ingest can trail filings by weeks to months. I searched for recently filed petitions and found none, but a petition filed in the last few months would not necessarily be indexed. Treat this as "no known activity," not "mathematically impossible activity." Anyone relying on this should re-query PTAB E2E directly at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ before finalizing a § 315(b) one-year-bar strategy.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 15 claims UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,823,566 has been canceled, confirmed, or even instituted upon. Claims 1 and 13 are the two independents — claim 1 recites the core comparison method (rotational platform axis parallel to gravity, laser receiver in transverse arrangement, determine adjustment direction in the detection field's longitudinal direction, compare that direction to the platform's rotational direction), and claim 13 is the corresponding device claim reciting a rotary laser on a rotational platform plus a laser receiver "wherein the laser receiver performs the method according to claim 1." Claims 2–12 depend from claim 1; claims 14–15 depend from claim 13. Because nothing has been adjudicated, there is no narrowing to work around and no claim you can point to as dead. Any statement that this patent "survived two IPRs" or "has been narrowed through IPR" would be false — it has not been through a single one.

Estoppel landscape: zero § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists. With no petitioner having ever reached an FWD, no party and no privy is estopped from raising any ground in a district court or ITC proceeding. Practically, that means the full universe of § 102/§ 103 art — including art the patent owner will characterize as cumulative of the references cited on the face of the patent — remains available to a defendant. The prior-art citations of record are worth mapping now, because they are the most likely § 325(d) battleground: the examiner considered Trimble's US 7,119,316 B2 and US 7,224,473 B2 (both expressly discussed and distinguished in the specification's Background), plus JP H08247761 (Topcon), JP 2005274228 (Topcon), JP 2010505052 (Caterpillar Trimble), US 2010/0296075 (Leica Geosystems), JP 2012112953 (Hilti), and Hilti's own US 8,869,411 B2. A petition built purely on those references invites a § 325(d) discretionary denial; the better path is a primary reference that is not in the file wrapper — e.g., the Topcon/Leica/Spectra-Physics rotating-laser and receiver-detection art — combined with the § 112 and claim-construction attack on the "adjustment direction" and "transverse arrangement" limitations.

Pattern signals: the patent owner is the aggressive PTAB player here, not a target. Hilti Aktiengesellschaft (Hilti AG, Schaan, Liechtenstein) files and defends IPRs routinely — it was a petitioner in the Milwaukee Electric Tool round of IPRs (IPR2015-00595/596/597 and the follow-on IPR2015-01164/1165/1166 on US 7,554,290, 7,944,173, 7,999,510) and has been a petitioner against Specified Technologies (e.g., IPR2024-00192 on US 9,157,232). That matters tactically: Hilti understands Board procedure and costs, will not be intimidated by a petition, and is likely to run a full IPR defense with experienced PTAB counsel rather than fold or settle early. There is no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) anywhere in this patent's chain — this family has never been a crowd-sourced invalidity target, which is a further signal that the laser-receiver product line has not been the subject of a broad assertion campaign.

Family note (do not conflate patent numbers). Two nearby items are easy to misread. (1) US 12,492,895 B2 ("Method for comparing a received beam incident on a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam," Hilti, priority 2016-06-30, published 2025-12-09) shares this patent's priority date and near-identical title and appears to be a continuing member of the same family. (2) In Hilti Aktiengesellschaft v. Specified Technologies Inc. (D. Del., C.A. No. 22-1248-CJB, and 1:22-cv-01383), the patents-in-suit include US 11,339,566 B2 — a different patent from 10,823,566, and those cases concern Hilti's firestop/ceiling-track portfolio, not rotating lasers. Neither item is PTAB activity on the '566 patent, and I have not treated either as such.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and the demand letter asserts US 10,823,566: there is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to lean on. Because no claim has been invalidated, your options are affirmative, not defensive-by-precedent — and the single most valuable fact is that no § 315(b) clock may have started for you yet: the one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent, so confirm the service date before planning. Additional considerations:

1. File early and file on non-record art. With clean estoppel and no § 325(d) history beyond the file wrapper, a well-constructed IPR on claim 1 (and, by dependency, claims 2–12) is the highest-leverage validity play. Avoid re-running US 7,119,316 / US 7,224,473 as the primary reference; the specification pre-emptively distinguishes both.
2. Attack the device claim separately. Claim 13 incorporates claim 1's method by reference ("wherein the laser receiver performs the method according to claim 1"), which is a ripe § 112(b) indefiniteness target — a method step imported into an apparatus claim, with no structural recitation of how the receiver "performs" the comparing step. Consider whether that argument belongs in the petition or in a district-court invalidity case, since § 112 is unavailable in an IPR.
3. Check the parallel-art landscape before drafting. The closest technical art is the rotating-laser receiver-detection field: US 7,119,316 and US 7,224,473 (Trimble), JP H08247761 and JP 2005274228 (Topcon), and the Leica Geosystems reference US 2010/0296075. Any of these as a secondary reference is fine; as the primary reference it invites § 325(d).
4. If you want to probe the family, look at the continuations. The apparent continuation activity around this priority date (US 12,492,895 B2, and the siblings US 2019/0154444 A1 / US 2019/0154445 A1) suggests Hilti is still building claim scope in this space. File a defensive-termination or watch-and-file strategy now rather than after a second-generation patent issues.
5. Verify currency. Re-run PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ for this patent number on the day you file, since this memo reflects a 2026-09-29 snapshot and ODP ingest can lag.

Sources consulted: Google Patents family and citation data for US10823566B2; USPTO PTAB E2E petition repository at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/; CourtListener dockets (e.g., https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65597949/hilti-aktiengesellschaft-v-specified-technologies-inc/); the structured USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this task. No PTAB Final Written Decision, institution decision, or Federal Circuit opinion directed to US 10,823,566 was located; if one exists and was not surfaced by these searches, it is not reflected above.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,823,566 using USPTO assignment sources and cross-references.

Let me verify the assignment record and correspondent details, and check for any other recorded assignments.

Assignment & Ownership Chain Analysis: US Patent No. 10,823,566

Patent: US 10,823,566 B2 — "Method for comparing a received beam hitting a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam"
App. No.: 16/313,294 · Filed: 2017-06-21 · Granted: 2020-11-03 · Priority: 2016-06-30 (EP 16177222.3 / PCT/EP2017/065157)

Sourcing caveat up front: The USPTO Assignment Center has a record for this patent (see timeline). I reconstructed the chain from the Google Patents legal-events table (which mirrors the USPTO assignment record) and from the granted/application documents. I was not able to open the Assignment Center detail page for reel 047853/0780 in this session, so the correspondent-of-record field is unresolved (flagged explicitly below rather than guessed).

Inventors

• Basis for "employer = Hilti": all four inventors personally executed an "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST" to Hilti Aktiengesellschaft, signed between 2018-12-03 and 2018-12-17 (Reel 047853/0780). A four-inventor, single-assignee, signature-dates-clustered execution is the classic employee-invention (employment) assignment, not an arm's-length purchase. The CH/AT residences line up with Hilti's Schaan (Liechtenstein) headquarters and its Austrian/Swiss measuring-systems R&D footprint.
• Unusual patterns: None detected. There is no evidence in the retrieved sources of any inventor departing Hilti within 12 months of filing, no inventor-to-third-party assignment, and no inventor-retained rights. The inventors do not reappear as assignees anywhere in the chain — i.e., the "inventor-holds-then-flips" precursor pattern is absent.

Original assignee

Hilti Aktiengesellschaft (Feldkircherstrasse 100, 9494 Schaan, Liechtenstein) — the assignee named on the issued patent and the current assignee.

• Products embodying the claims: Yes. Hilti is a leading manufacturer of rotary lasers and laser receivers (its PR-series rotary lasers and PRA/PRC laser receivers operate on exactly the vertical-plane/transverse-arrangement detection scheme claimed). The patent's own FIG. 1–7 hardware (rotary laser 11, laser receiver 12, motorized rotational platform 14) describes a Hilti product configuration.
• Primary line of business: Professional construction tools and fastening systems — power tools, drilling/demolition, anchors, diamond systems, firestopping, and measuring/layout systems (rotary lasers, laser receivers, total stations). The "measuring systems" segment is the relevant unit.
• Current status: Operating, privately held, financially strong. No bankruptcy, insolvency, or wind-down. Hilti is owned through the Martin Hilti Family Trust / Hilti Foundation structure; it is not a public-reporting U.S. issuer (so no 10-K/8-K assignment-driven disclosures apply). Group revenue is in the multi-billion-CHF range (≈CHF 5.1 bn in 2017, the year after this filing; ≈CHF 6.5 bn recently).
• Portfolio maintenance: Actively maintained. The same 2016 priority family was continued — a later Hilti continuation, US 12,492,895 B2 (granted 2025-12-09), appears in the "Cited By" table with the same 2016-06-30 priority, and sibling US 10,564,033 B2 / US 2019/0154444 A1 covers a companion "procedure." Hilti is still prosecuting and holding this family a decade later.

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded assignment located. There is exactly one recorded assignment, plus a non-assignment entity-status filing.

• 2018-12-03 → 2018-12-17 (executed) / recorded 2018-12-26 — Reel 047853/0780

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST") — inventor-to-employer invention assignment.
  • Assignor: Sasha Lukic; Andras Halasi; Ian Kearney; Ermin Calkic (individual natural persons; "and others" in the record abstracts the fourth).
  • Assignee: Hilti Aktiengesellschaft (Liechtenstein).
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the retrieved sources. Google Patents' legal-events table does not carry the correspondent field, and I could not open the Assignment Center page for 047853/0780 in this session. Flagged as unresolved — do not infer a firm. (This is the one field in the chain I could not evidence; verify directly at Assignment Center.)
  • Context: Internal/employment acquisition — the standard inventor-assigns-to-employer recording that accompanies U.S. national-stage entry of PCT/EP2017/065157 (the national-stage filing date, 2018-12, matches the assignment recording date). Not a purchase, not a fire-sale, not a transfer to an asserter.

• 2018-12-26 — not an assignment: "FEPP" entry setting entity status to undiscounted / large entity. Listed only to avoid it being mistaken for a second conveyance.

No post-issuance assignments were located. The patent has never left Hilti. There is no security agreement, no license recording, no merger, no change-of-name, no release, and no transfer to any Hilti IP-holding subsidiary or third party. The original assignee still owns the patent outright.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10823566
    2016 : Priority filed EP 16177222
    2017 : PCT application filed 21 Jun
    2018 : Inventors assign rights to Hilti
         : Reel 047853 frame 0780 recorded
    2020 : US 10823566 granted 3 Nov
    2021 : EP 3479063 B1 granted to Hilti
    2025 : Hilti continuation US 12492895 issued

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Summary: zero of the eight NPE signals is present; one (#3) is unevaluable for lack of the correspondent field.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — this is the operating-company outcome, with the caveat that no assertion activity was located.

Justification: The entire chain consists of a single recorded conveyance, Reel 047853/0780 (executed 2018-12-03/17, recorded 2018-12-26), moving the invention from four natural-person inventors to Hilti Aktiengesellschaft, which has held it continuously since — Hilti is a genuine operating manufacturer whose rotary lasers and laser receivers embody the claims, and it even continued the family itself (US 12,492,895 B2, 2025). No shell entity, no known asserter, no cascading LLC transfers, no bankruptcy sale, no defensive-aggregator termination, and no assignment-dated-in-advance-of-suit appears anywhere in the record. I found no litigation, so Hilti is presently non-asserting; the patent is properly characterized as an operating-company-held asset, not an NPE vehicle.

One open item to close out the record: the correspondent of record on Reel 047853/0780 could not be retrieved and should be verified to complete the NPE "repeat correspondent" test (signal #3) — the only unresolvable signal here.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 10823566 or by application 16/313,294; the same underlying record is indexed at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Confirm Reel 047853/0780 and capture the correspondent field.

Cross-reference note (possible contradiction to flag)

The previously generated litigation section reported no litigation for this patent. That is consistent with the ownership finding here — there is no pre-litigation transfer because there is no litigation. No contradiction exists between the two sections. Note, however, that the litigation search's "number-collision" document (the Plainsite gas-turbine docket, Flexible Seal Assembly…, matched on the string "Patent Application No. 10823566") is unrelated to this patent and is not an assignment record for US 10,823,566; it should not be folded into this chain.

I'll research this patent's citation record and the prior-art references it cites.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,823,566 B2

Note on the record used. I could not open a live USPTO Patent Public Search / Patent Center session from this tool. I therefore worked from (i) the authoritative full text supplied in the prompt — the USPTO/Google Patents record for the granted patent, which I treat as ground truth — and (ii) targeted web searches to characterize the cited references. Where a search returned nothing usable, I say so rather than fill the gap by inference. I did not merge the coincidentally-numbered PlainSite "Patent Application No. 10823566" gas-turbine-seal matter into this record (see the earlier litigation section — that identifier collision stands).

Governing statute. Effective filing date is 2017-06-21, with priority to 2016-06-30 (EP 16177222.3). Both post-date 2013-03-16, so AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) applies, with the § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership exception available to the Hilti family documents.

1. The citation record for US 10,823,566

The granted patent carries two overlapping citation tables in the record: a 12-entry "Citations" list and a 14-entry "Patent Citations" list. The union is 14 distinct references. Per the "United States Patent and Trademark Office" legend, asterisked entries are examiner-cited; the remainder are applicant/IDS citations.

Plus three non-patent citations: the PCT/ISA/210 + ISA/220 + ISA/237 for PCT/EP2017/065157 (dated 2017-10-30, 15 pages, with partial English translation), and two co-pending US applications by Lukic et al. (the serial-number/citation-list gives a "filed Dec. 26, 2016" date for one — an OCR/typo artifact; the corresponding national-stage entries were filed 2018-12-26, as flagged in the earlier section).

2. Reference-by-reference § 102 analysis

Methodological caveat stated up front: an examiner citation is not an anticipation finding. Anticipation under § 102 requires a single reference to disclose every element as arranged in the claim. The four asterisked examiner citations are, on inspection, Hilti's own earlier/parallel work — which suggests they were cited for § 102(a)(2) / double-patenting / family-resemblance reasons rather than as anticipating art.

2.1 US 7,119,316 B2 — the closest prior art

• Full citation: US 7,119,316 B2, Strobe light and laser beam detection for laser receiver, Trimble Navigation Limited (Green et al.); Appl. No. 10/936,617 filed 2004-09-08, granted 2006-10-10. Foreign family: WO 2006/028928 A1; DE 11 2005 001 873 B4 (granted 2015-10-22). Confirmed by search (Google Patents / patentimages).
• Description: A laser receiver with a plurality of photodetector arrays in a generally vertical row. Weighting circuits output a first reference signal (spacing from one end of the row) and a second reference signal (spacing from the other end). The device computes the sum and the difference of the reference signals, forms a quotient, and compares it to a preset limit: quotient < limit ⇒ "moving, relatively thin beam of laser light"; quotient > limit ⇒ "omni-directional pulse of light" (strobe). Beam position is then derived from the reference-signal levels.
• § 102 mapping: This is the reference the specification itself characterizes at length (the "summation, difference and quotient formation … compared with a preset limit" passage). It discloses: the receiver with a detection field (photodetector array row) having a longitudinal direction; an evaluating unit deriving first/second reference signals; and the categorization of an external/omni-directional beam versus a thin laser beam — which maps onto the subject matter of claims 1 (sub-elements only), 2, and 3. It does not disclose a rotational platform, an axis of rotation parallel to gravity, the step of adjusting the rotary laser on that platform in a rotational direction, or the step of comparing an adjustment direction of the received beam with the platform's rotational direction.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim of US 10,823,566 is anticipated. Claim 1 in particular is missing elements (c), (e) and (g) of the claim-1 chain; claims 2–7 depend from claim 1 and therefore inherit the deficiency; claims 8–15 add further limitations absent here. Treat it as the strongest § 103 reference, not a § 102 reference. The patent's own specification argues this family cannot detect reflections because reflection does not perturb the amplitude criteria — a distinction worth testing against the actual disclosure.

2.2 US 7,224,473 B2 — closest prior art, second of the pair

• Full citation: US 7,224,473 B2, Strobe light and laser beam detection for laser receiver, Trimble Navigation Limited; filed 2004-10-19, granted 2007-05-29. Subject to two reissues: RE42,880 (from application 12/469,420 filed 2009-05-20) and RE43,744 (from application 13/267,726). Confirmed by search of the RE43,744 text, which expressly recites both reissue applications for U.S. Pat. No. 7,224,473.
• Description: Adds an additional photodetector remote from the row. The row photodetectors yield first and second reference signals; the additional detector yields a third reference signal. Low third-signal amplitude ⇒ thin laser beam; sufficiently high amplitude ⇒ omni-directional pulse of light (with the further condition that the first reference signal be less than ~4× the third and less than ~2× the second).
• § 102 mapping: Same structural disclosure as 2.1, plus the third reference signal. Maps to claims 1 (sub-elements), 2, 3, 4 — notably the "third reference signal" logic is the § 102 counterpart of the specification's description of this reference. Same missing elements as 2.1: no rotational platform, no known platform rotational direction, no comparison step.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated. Same § 103-candidate status as 2.1; the two are near-duplicates of each other and would likely be treated as a single teaching for obviousness purposes.

Flag — potential number confusion inside the record. US 7,836,808 B2 appears at row 5 above (Szymanski, Safety chain and rotational devices and replaceable teeth therefor, 2006-01-23 / 2010-11-23). Separately, the "Family Cites Families" table lists US 7,838,808 B1 (Trimble Navigation, Laser light detector with reflection rejection algorithm, 2005-03-16 / 2010-11-23). These two digits differ only in the third position (7836808 vs 7838808) and share an issue date. Given the subject matter, the Trimble "reflection rejection algorithm" document is far more plausibly the technically relevant item, and it appears only as art cited by a family member, not in this patent's own citation table. Per your literal-interpretation rule I am not auto-correcting either number — but any § 102/§ 103 or FTO analysis should obtain and read both documents, since a reflection-rejection reference is directly on the problem this patent addresses.

2.3 US 2010/0296075 A1 (Leica Geosystems) — examiner-cited

• Full citation: US 2010/0296075 A1, Distance-measuring method for a device projecting a reference line, and such a device, Leica Geosystems AG; priority 2007-10-26, published 2010-11-25. Granted as US 8,422,035 B2; family includes CA 2703620 C (2014-06-17) and EP 2019973 B1. Confirmed by search.
• Description: Integrates an electro-optical rangefinder with a reference-line-projecting device (e.g., a rotary laser). The measuring beam is guided along a defined reference path (the projected line); the path is traversed repeatedly, and angle-synchronous distance measurements are accumulated/averaged. A directional angle αᵢ relative to a reference direction is determined; fast angle encoders or time allocation are used.
• § 102 mapping: Discloses a rotary laser whose beam is rotated about an axis to sweep a reference plane/line, repeat passes, and the determination of an angular/directional position of the beam. That touches the environment of claim 1 and, loosely, the "direction" concept behind the adjustment direction. It does not disclose a laser receiver with a detection field and evaluating unit, the transverse arrangement, the height-position storage, or the platform-rotation-direction comparison.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated. Its relevance is as background for the rotary-laser-projecting-a-plane element and for the general idea of tracking a rotating beam's angular progression.

2.4 JP 2005-274228 A (Topcon) — and family

• Full citation: JP 2005-274228 A, Laser measurement system (レーザ計測システム), Kabushiki Kaisha Topcon; priority 2004-03-23, published 2005-10-06. Nearest family document retrieved: EP 1 580 527 A2 (same abstract/subject matter, Topcon, priority JP 2004-263440-lineage — treat the family correspondence as likely but not conclusively verified from this session).
• Description: A rotary laser system emitting at least two fan-shaped laser beams, at least one tilted, received by a photodetection system at three known points; elevation angles are computed from photodetection signals, and the installation position of the rotary laser is derived.
• § 102 mapping: Relevant only generically to claim 1's rotary laser emitting a beam about an axis, and very loosely to claims 8–10 (limited/scan plane). No receiver-side detection field evaluation, no adjustment direction, no platform comparison.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated. Background for rotary-laser beam-plane generation and angle-based position determination.

2.5 JP H08-247761 A (Topcon)

• Full citation: JP H08-247761 A (JP 8-247761), Laser level device, Kabushiki Kaisha Topcon; application 1995-01-11, published 1996-09-27. Family recorded as EP 0 722 080 B1 (Laser levelling device, granted 2000-03-15).
• Description / § 102 mapping: Confidence: low. I could not retrieve the document text in this session; my searches surfaced adjacent Topcon laser-level cases (e.g., JP 8-38425 A) but not this publication. On the face of the record it is an early rotary-laser-level disclosure, i.e. § 102(a)(1) background. Because the granting examiner included it as applicant-cited art, examine the specific disclosure (beam on/off switching, scan/rotation modes) before relying on or dismissing it.
• Anticipation verdict: Cannot be assessed to a defensible confidence level. Do not treat this entry as either anticipating or as clearly irrelevant without reading the document.

2.6 JP 2010-505052 A / US 7,970,519 B2 (Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies)

• Full citation: JP 2010-505052 A (キャタピラー トリンブル コントロール テクノロジーズ), published 2010-02-18; US counterpart US 7,970,519 B2, Control for an earth moving system while performing turns, Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies LLC, priority 2006-09-27, granted 2011-06-28.
• Description: Machine-control for an earthmoving system during turns, using position/heading information from a reference system.
• § 102 mapping: No detector field, no evaluating unit comparing beam movement to a platform rotation. This is machine-control art, not laser-receiver art.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated. Appears to be contextual/IDS art.

2.7 US 7,836,808 B2 (Szymanski)

• Full citation: US 7,836,808 B2, Safety chain and rotational devices and replaceable teeth therefor, Szymanski David A.; filed 2006-01-23, granted 2010-11-23.
• Description / § 102 mapping: Chain-saw safety chain technology. No laser, no receiver, no rotational platform in the claimed sense.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated — and see the 7836808 / 7838808 flag in § 2.2 above; verify which document was actually intended.

2.8 JP 2012-112953 A (Hilti) / US 8,869,411 B2

• Full citation: JP 2012-112953 A, Rotating laser device and method for aligning rotating laser device, Hilti AG; application 2010-11-22, published 2012-06-14. US counterpart US 8,869,411 B2, Rotating laser device having an inclined laser plane and a method for aligning a rotating laser device, Hilti Aktiengesellschaft, granted 2014-10-28.
• Description: A rotating laser device capable of an inclined laser plane, and a method for aligning the device (leveling/tilting the rotating laser, thereby orienting its laser plane).
• § 102 mapping: Its most relevant aspects are (i) a rotary laser whose plane can be oriented/adjusted, and (ii) alignment methodology — which touches the "adjusting the rotary laser … about the rotational axis" element of claim 1 and the plane-orientation aspects of claims 8 and 11. It does not disclose the receiver-side detection field, the stored height positions H₁/H₂, or the comparison of the beam's adjustment direction with a platform's rotational direction.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated. Same-assignee background art.

2.9 US 2019/0154443 A1 (Hilti) — examiner-cited

• Full citation: US 2019/0154443 A1, Method for Measuring a Measurement Distance Between a Rotating Laser and a Laser Receiver, Hilti Aktiengesellschaft; priority 2015-11-30, published 2019-05-23.
• Description: A method for measuring the distance between a rotating laser and a laser receiver.
• § 102 mapping: Potentially § 102(a)(2) art (US application publication with an effective filing date before this patent's 2017-06-21 filing). However, it is commonly owned with this patent, so § 102(b)(2)(C) may remove it from prior art — and in any event it does not disclose the platform-rotation-direction comparison.
• Anticipation verdict: No claim anticipated.

2.10 US 10,684,129 B2 (Hilti) — examiner-cited

• Full citation: US 10,684,129 B2, Method for checking and/or calibrating a horizontal axis of a rotating laser, Hilti Aktiengesellschaft; priority 2015-11-30, granted 2020-06-16.
• § 102 mapping / verdict: § 102(a)(2) candidate subject to the § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership exception; discloses rotating-laser axis checking/calibration, not the claimed receiver-side direction comparison. No claim anticipated.

2.11 US 2019/0154445 A1 (Hilti) — examiner-cited

• This is the pre-grant publication of US 10,823,566 itself (same application, same 2016-06-30 priority, same title). It is not prior art to its own patent — § 102(b)(2)(A)/same-disclosure considerations aside, a publication of the application cannot anticipate the patent issuing from it.
• Anticipation verdict: None — same-disclosure, not prior art. Its appearance in the citation table is a record artifact.

2.12 US 2019/0154444 A1 (Hilti) — examiner-cited; sibling

• Full citation: US 2019/0154444 A1, Method for Comparing a Received Beam Incident on a Laser Receiver with a Rotating Laser Beam, Hilti Aktiengesellschaft; priority 2016-06-30 (identical to this patent), published 2019-05-23. The earlier section identifies its granted counterpart as US 10,564,033 B2 ("Procedure for comparing a reception beam impinging on a laser receiver with a rotating laser beam") — a title that differs from the printed US 2019/0154444 title, so the US 10,564,033 correspondence should be verified independently rather than assumed.
• § 102 mapping: Because it shares the same effective filing date, it is not "effectively filed before" this patent and therefore cannot be § 102(a)(2) art. It is a true sibling, not prior art.
• Anticipation verdict: None as a matter of law. It is, however, the closest companion disclosure and should be read side-by-side for claim-scope and double-patenting purposes — as should the family members EP 3 479 063 B1, CN 109313027 B, JP 6753961 B2 and WO 2018/001803 A1.

2.13 Non-patent citations

• PCT/EP2017/065157 International Search Report (PCT/ISA/210, /220, /237), dated 2017-10-30, 15 pages, with partial English translation. This is the search report for this application's own PCT case; the ISR's category codes (A/X/Y) identify the art the ISA considered most relevant. I could not retrieve the ISR in this session — obtaining it is the single highest-value next step, because it will show exactly which references the ISA mapped to which claims and with what relevance category, which is a far better guide than the granted-patent citation table.
• The two co-pending US applications by Lukic et al. (listed as filed 2018-12-26; one entry prints "Dec. 26, 2016" — typo). These are the sibling national-stage applications referenced in the "Family Cites Families"/"Similar Documents" tables.

3. Summary: anticipation exposure by claim

Reading the claim-1 chain element-by-element (platform axis ∥ gravity; rotary-laser axis ⊥ platform axis; transverse receiver arrangement; sweeping the platform until the beam lands on the field; evaluating unit deriving an adjustment direction in the longitudinal direction; comparing that adjustment direction with the platform's rotational direction):

Bottom line. On the cited record, none of the 14 patent citations anticipates any claim of US 10,823,566. The two Trimble references (US 7,119,316 and US 7,224,473) are the only ones that come close, and the specification itself singles them out and distinguishes them precisely on the element this patent adds — detection of a reflection by comparing the apparent beam-motion direction with the platform's known rotation direction. The distinguishing element (claim 1 steps (c)/(e)/(g)) does not appear in any cited reference I was able to read. The realistic challenge posture is therefore § 103 obviousness, not § 102, most plausibly as US 7,119,316 or US 7,224,473 in view of a rotary-laser-platform/alignment teaching such as US 8,869,411 or the Leica reference.

4. Confidence and open items

• High confidence: dates, assignees and titles of the US references and the Hilti/Leica/Trimble citations (cross-checked against the patent text and, for US 7,119,316 / US 7,224,473 / US 2010/0296075 / US 7,970,519, against retrieved document text); the identification of US 2019/0154445 A1 and US 2019/0154444 A1 as non-prior-art family documents.
• Medium confidence: the JP-family correspondences (JP 2005-274228 A ↔ EP 1 580 527 A2; JP 2010-505052 A ↔ US 7,970,519 B2; JP 2012-112953 A ↔ US 8,869,411 B2) — the patent's own tables state these pairings, but I did not independently confirm each.
• Low confidence / unretrieved: JP H08-247761 A and US 7,836,808 B2 (and the question of whether US 7,838,808 B1 was the intended reference); US 2019/0154443 A1 and US 10,684,129 B2 substantive content; and the actual prosecution history.
• Not performed: I could not retrieve the prosecution history (office actions, IDS forms, examiner's § 102/§ 103 rejections) from Patent Center, and I could not retrieve the ISR for PCT/EP2017/065157. Consequently I cannot state which of these references was actually applied by the examiner in a rejection, or under which statutory subsection. Verifying that in Patent Center, and pulling the ISR, are the two actions that would convert this from a citation-table analysis into a grounded prosecution-history analysis.

One contradiction to note against the earlier sections: those sections flagged that the case record was retrieved with the system date 2026-09-29 while the task header states April 26, 2026. That discrepancy persists and affects only issue/publication dates after the retrieval date (e.g., the "2025-12-09" US 12,492,895 entry), not any § 102 analysis above.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the actual cited prior art by pulling details on the most relevant references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,823,566 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the bibliographic, claim-overview, uncertainty, and litigation sections already generated. I do not repeat them. This section adds the § 103 analysis, using the references listed in the patent's own Prior Art / Citations tables.

0. New contradiction flagged (not in the earlier sections)

Before the analysis, one additional internal inconsistency in the authoritative text that materially affects claim construction and any obviousness argument:

• The "Definitions" paragraph states: "With a rotary laser in horizontal position, the longitudinal direction of the detection field is oriented parallel to the direction of gravity (transverse arrangement)."
• The Detailed Description (FIG. 1) states the opposite: "longitudinal arrangement in which the longitudinal direction 28 … is oriented parallel … to the gravitational direction 27, and … transverse arrangement in which the longitudinal direction 28 … is oriented perpendicular … and the transverse direction 29 … parallel to the gravitational direction 27."

So "transverse arrangement" is defined one way in the summary definitions and the opposite way in the description. The claims follow the Detailed Description (claim 1: longitudinal ⟂ gravity, transverse ∥ gravity). This is a third drafting/consistency defect alongside the axis-relationship language and the OCR numeral artifacts already flagged. It matters because an obviousness or infringement argument that keys on "transverse arrangement" must anchor to the claim language, not the definitions paragraph.

1. Legal framework applied

• AIA § 103 applies (effective filing date = EP priority 2016-06-30; PCT filed 2017-06-21). Prior art must be publicly available, or effectively filed, before 2016-06-30.
• Graham v. John Deere: scope/content of the prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations.
• KSR v. Teleflex: a combination is obvious where the references are from the same field, address the same problem, and the combination yields predictable results; a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" supports "obvious to try."
• ⚠️ Caveat on verification. I obtained and read full/partial text for US 5,959,739, US 7,838,808, US 8,869,411 (and the strobe/quotient family text corresponding to US 7,119,316). I did not verify the disclosures of JP H08247761, JP 2005274228, US 2010/0296075 (Leica), US 10,684,129, or JP 3100478. Where I rely on those, I say so and hedge. This is an analyst's obviousness opinion, not a legal conclusion and not a substitute for the prosecution history (IDS/office actions), which I could not retrieve.

PHOSITA: a B.S. in electrical/mechanical engineering or physics plus 2–4 years' experience with rotary construction lasers and laser receivers (photodetector-array receivers, beam-position determination, sweep/scan modes, reflection handling), or equivalent. This is a mature, crowded art with at least five active players (Trimble, Topcon, Leica, Spectra Precision, Hilti).

2. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Net read: every hardware/structure limitation of claim 1 is disclosed or admitted conventional; the only genuinely thin element is the explicit sign-of-ΔH vs. platform-rotation-direction comparison — and US 5,959,739 supplies the concept (direction of rotation used as the discriminator between a true beam and a reflection).

3. Dependent-claim mapping

4. The principal § 103 combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination A — the core attack on claim 1 (and 2–7)

US 7,119,316 B2 (or US 7,224,473 B2) as primary (laser receiver: detection field of photodetector arrays along a longitudinal row; evaluating unit that determines beam position and classifies moving laser beam vs. omni-directional/external light)
+ US 5,959,739 (rotary laser whose beam is swept along a rotational arc; uses the known rotational direction and detection zones to distinguish true target reflections from ghost reflections)
+ US 7,838,808 B1 (receiver-side reflection-rejection algorithm operating on beam positions on the photosensor array)
+ US 8,869,411 B2 (motorized/automatic rotation of the laser about its axis; receiver↔laser communication link).

Motivation (KSR-aligned):

1. Same field, same problem. All four are rotary-laser construction/surveying systems; US 7,838,808 expressly targets "reflections of the laser beams from other objects that will ultimately strike the laser receiver's photosensors; such reflections might otherwise cause false readings" — verbatim the problem the '566 patent states as its object.
2. The references point at the claimed solution. US 5,959,739 already teaches that the direction of rotation is the discriminator that separates a genuine beam from a "ghost" reflection; US 7,119,316/7,838,808 already compute where the beam struck. Combining "where, at two times" with "which way the platform turns" is the predictable, mechanical union of two known techniques.
3. The patent's own admission supplies the motivation. The specification concedes the amplitude-based prior art (7,119,316 / 7,224,473) cannot catch reflections because "the amplitudes of the reference signals do not change or do so only slightly." That admission directs a PHOSITA away from amplitude and toward a geometric/kinematic discriminator — the very ΔH-vs-rotation comparison claimed.
4. Finite, predictable solutions / obvious to try. Faced with a false reading, the artisan had a small closed set of known discrimination techniques (amplitude ratio, modulation/strobe coding, target sequencing, and now hit-position over time). The claimed solution is one of them, with no asserted unexpected result.
5. Market/design incentive. Five competitors were litigating for reliability on the jobsite; Hilti's own US 8,869,411 already combined automated rotation with a communicating receiver.

Combination B — dependent claims 8–12

Add US 8,869,411 B2 (beam-property modulation per angle range ⇒ claims 11–12) and US 5,959,739 / JP 3100478 B2 (reciprocating/scan, back-and-forth sweep, on/off within an angle ⇒ claims 8–10). Both are directly, separately on point; motivation is to let the receiver identify which angular sector the beam came from and to support scan/limited-arc operation — functionalities the patent itself says these claims provide.

Combination C — device claims 13–15

US 5,959,739 + US 7,119,316 (hardware) + US 8,869,411 (comm link ⇒ claim 15). Claim 13 is a functionally-defined system claim tied to the claim-1 method, so it rises and falls with Combination A.

5. Counterarguments the patentee will raise (and how strong they are)

1. "No reference teaches computing the sign of ΔH between two impacts and comparing it to the platform's rotation direction." This is the strongest non-obviousness position, and it is the practical reason the patent issued. But the gap is narrow: US 5,959,739 supplies "use rotational direction to reject reflections," US 7,119,316/7,838,808 supply "determine the beam's position," and the union is a two-sample arithmetic step. Expect an examiner/petitioner to characterize the addition as an inherent, predictable implementation detail.
2. "The specific geometric arrangement (vertical rotary laser; platform axis ∥ gravity; laser axis ⟂ platform axis)." Weak — the patent itself calls receiver orientation a function of device position, and vertical-plane operation of rotary lasers is admitted conventional background.
3. Secondary considerations. I found no evidence of unexpected results, copying, or a nexus; the specification actually concedes the method fails for even-number reflections ("categorized … wrongly as a rotating laser beam"). That self-acknowledged limitation cuts against any argument that the combination achieves a surprising, all-encompassing benefit — it is an incremental improvement over the cited amplitude art, which is the classic fact pattern for obviousness.
4. § 112 leverage instead of § 103. The claim-1 axis relationship ("perpendicular to the rotational axis of the rotational platform") versus the specification's gravity-based framing, plus the "transverse arrangement" contradiction (§ 0), are written-description/enablement and indefiniteness vulnerabilities that a challenger may pair with a § 103 ground.

6. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is vulnerable to a § 103 rejection over US 7,119,316 B2 (or US 7,224,473 B2) in view of US 5,959,739, US 7,838,808 B1, and US 8,869,411 B2. The single hardest limitation (adjustment-direction vs. platform-rotation-direction) is squarely motivated by US 5,959,739 and by the patent's own admission that amplitude-based arts cannot detect reflections.
• Claims 3, 7, 8–10, 11–12, and 15 are the most likely to be held obvious (external-beam categorization from US 7,224,473; reflection rejection from US 5,959,739/7,838,808; scan mode from US 5,959,739/JP 3100478; angle-range modulation from US 8,869,411; communication link from US 8,869,411).
• Claims 2 and 14 are the hardest to invalidate on the record I have: claim 2 carries the ΔH-timing arithmetic (no verified explicit disclosure), and claim 14's receiver-mounted tilt sensor lacks a clean cited reference.
• Confidence: moderate on the overall § 103 picture; low-to-moderate on any specific reference's exact disclosure, because I could verify only US 5,959,739, US 7,838,808, US 8,869,411 and the strobe/quotient family text, and I could not read the office actions or the IDS. Verify the full texts of US 7,119,316, US 7,224,473 (and reissues RE42,880 / RE43,744), US 2010/0296075, JP H08247761, and JP 2005274228 in Patent Center before relying on this. Precision matters here because US 5,959,739's discrimination is transmitter-side (reflection returns to the transmitter) rather than receiver-side — a petitioner must bridge that with US 7,838,808, which is receiver-side, to land the claim cleanly.