US 11402335

I'll research this patent number across the requested sources.

Let me run more targeted searches on the patent itself and any litigation/docket activity.

Search Results Summary

Scope note: I searched for the exact identifiers 11402335 / US11402335 / 11,402,335 against patent databases and Federal Circuit 2026 dockets. I found no CAFC appeal, IPR/PGR, or district-court litigation naming US 11,402,335 in the 2026 docket results. Search hits mentioning that number interval were for unrelated patents (e.g., lighting-control IPR documents citing other numbers, and a different patent owner's litigation); I did not treat those as matches. If a 2026 CAFC docket involving this patent exists, I did not find it — treat that as "none located," not as confirmed non-existence.

Also note: the grant text you supplied is authoritative and I relied on it over any secondary web source. Two publicly indexed patent-profile pages (patentleaderboard.com and patents-review.com) consistently list the same number as a Uster Technologies patent issued 2022-08-02 titled "Fiber blend identification and ratio measurement," which corroborates the grant record.

Bibliographic Data (US 11,402,335 B2)

Prosecution events (from the Patent Center-style record): assignment to Uster Technologies AG recorded 2020-03-05; non-final action mailed 2021-12-22; response entered 2022-03-16; notice of allowance 2022-03-29; patent granted case 2022-07-13; 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2026-01-29 (large entity).

Abstract (as issued)

An instrument for identifying fiber blend composition and/or fiber blend ratio in an input material moved by a third set of fiber movements. A spectral radiation source directs radiation toward the input material. A spectral transmission sensor receives portions passing through the material; a spectral reflection sensor receives portions reflecting off it. A controller processes signals from at least one sensor to determine blend composition and/or ratio, and sends control signals to the radiation source and the third fiber-movement set.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Only claims 1 and 15 are independent.

Claim 1 — Measurement instrument (apparatus)

A machine that optically identifies what fibers are in a moving sample and/or in what proportion, comprising two parts:

• Sample sensing module:
  • a third set of fiber movements drawing the input material through at second speed (e.g., driven rollers or belts);
  • a radiation source beside the material emitting a beam at a second location containing at least two clearly distinct wavelengths;
  • at least one of (a) a transmission sensor on the opposite side receiving light that passes through, and/or (b) a reflection sensor on the same side receiving light that reflects off — each capable of detecting at least two clearly distinct wavelengths.
• Control module with controller that: receives the sensor data; sends control signals to the radiation source and the third movement set; and processes the data to determine the fiber blend composition and/or blend ratio.

In short: illuminate a moving fiber web with multi-wavelength light, measure transmission and/or reflection spectra, and compute blend makeup from those spectra.

Claim 15 — Method

The method counterpart, with parallel steps: (a) draw the material at a second speed with a third set of fiber movements; (b) direct a multi-wavelength beam at it from an adjacent-side source; (c) receive transmitted portions at an opposite-side sensor and/or reflected portions at a same-side sensor, each configured for at least two clearly distinct wavelengths; (d) receive the sensor data; (e) send control signals to the source and third movement set; and (f) process the data to determine blend composition and/or blend ratio.

Note on claim structure: Claim 15's preamble and steps track claim 1 but are drafted as method acts; the "and/or" sensor language is retained.

Dependent Claim Highlights (for context)

• Claim 2 / 16 (dependent): add a sample preparation module — a first fiber-movement set running at a first speed (≤ second speed), a second set running at the second speed, where the speed differential drafts/controls the web density; plus a material-preparation light source/sensor pair measuring transmission between the two sets, with the controller closing the loop to hold a desired density into the sensing module.
• Claims 3–5: hopper; illumination optics; collection optics for transmitted/reflected light.
• Claims 6–9: machine interface to communicate results to prior/post processing equipment (including a prior fiber blending machine); information database interface supplying transmission/reflectance data (manmade and natural fibers).
• Claims 10–11: source types (LED, halogen, mercury vapor, incandescent, deuterium, xenon); sensor types (spectrometer, photodiode, filter-wheel photodiode, narrow-band-filtered photodiode array, 1-D/2-D hyperspectral imagers).
• Claims 12–13 / 19–20: multiple sensors spaced across the width (Y) transverse to material travel (X), and/or a sensor movable across the width.
• Claim 14: fiber movements are rollers and/or belts.
• Claims 7 and 18 are narrowly drafted dependent claims whose text does not restate the recipient of the communicated composition/ratio — a possible antecedent/clarity drafting artifact in the issued text.

Confidence and Caveats

• High confidence on title, inventors, assignee, dates, priority, abstract, and claim content — taken directly from the authoritative full text you supplied.
• Moderate confidence on the exact recorded US filing date as distinguished from the PCT filing date (both appear as 2018-09-11); the US national-stage entry date itself is not stated in the record I reviewed.
• No authoritative finding of any CAFC 2026 appeal or USPTO PTAB proceeding specifically involving US 11,402,335. I could not confirm such a docket exists, and I am explicitly not asserting it does.
• The record shows a later Uster continuation/related case (US 2024/0175806 A1, published 2024-05-30, "Detecting a Mixture Ratio of Two Components of a Textile Fiber Structure," listed as issuing as US 12,625,066 B2), which is a different patent number and should not be conflated with 11,402,335.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11402335 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search additional litigation-specific sources.

Litigation Search: US Patent No. 11,402,335

Summary: I found no known litigation involving US Patent No. 11,402,335 (or, to the extent identifiable in the sources returned, its family members US20210199593A1 / EP3662283B1 / CN111133310B / WO2019051620A1) as of the search date.

Per your instruction to interpret identifiers literally, I searched on the exact number 11402335 / 11,402,335 and on assignee/inventor context. Nothing in the results constitutes a court case asserting this patent.

What the searches did and did not return

Important caveats on confidence

• I could not access PACER, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or the Unified Patents case list directly — those are paywalled/require direct queries, and my searches were limited. So this is a "not found," not a certified "none exists."
• A newly filed, low-profile, or sealed complaint would not necessarily surface in open web indexes.
• US 11,402,335 issued 2022-08-02, so the enforceable pre-suit window is short (~3.5 years), which reduces (but does not eliminate) the likelihood of litigation. A complaint filed against this patent would typically not be ripe if filed before August 2022, though a pre-issuance complaint could have asserted the published application (US20210199593A1) or provisional-related rights.
• The European family member EP3662283B1 granted 2025-07-02; a 9-month EPO opposition window would run to roughly early April 2026. I found no evidence of an opposition filing, but I could not confirm one either.

Bottom line

No known litigation — no plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or status can be reported for US Patent No. 11,402,335. If you need a definitive negative, the next step would be a direct Docket Navigator / Lex Machina / PACER (D.C. and Court of Federal Claims) search on the patent number, plus a check of the EPO Register for any opposition to EP3662283B1.

If you can point me to a specific docket or party, I'll verify it against the record.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The structured PTAB block (USPTO Open Data Portal, most recent ingest) returns no AIA trial proceedings — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs — for US 11402335. Breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. My supplemental web searches (Google Patents, PTAB/PTAB-adjacent dockets, Uster news, PTAB-filing sources) surfaced nothing contradicting that: no petition, no institution decision, no FWD, and no Federal Circuit appeal traceable to this patent.

Bottom line for a defendant: this is the "patent has never been tested at the Board" posture — not the "hardened by two IPRs" posture and certainly not the "claims 1–5 are canceled" posture. All of claims 1–20 are alive and untested. That cuts both ways: the patent owner has no PTAB wins to point to as confirmation of validity, but you also have no PTAB record, no petitioner's expert work-product, and no Board claim constructions to lean on free of charge. Your invalidity case starts from the 29 references of record on the face of the patent and whatever you find yourself.

No proceedings to report

There is no proceeding number to list. I will not manufacture one. For completeness, the following are not AIA trial proceedings and should not be mistaken for them:

• US 20240175806 A1 / US 12625066 B2 ("Detecting a Mixture Ratio of Two Components of a Textile Fiber Structure," Uster) appear in Google Patents' "Cited By" table for 11402335. These are later Uster patents (priority 2021-03-26) that cite the '335 patent as prior art — a family/prosecution artifact, not a PTAB challenge. Cited-by entries are frequently misread as adverse proceedings.
• LU505549B1 / EP4556894A1 (Saurer) cite the '335 patent in a search report / novelty citation only (I saw the citation in the EP4556894 search-report table: "US 11 402 335 B2 (USTER TECHNOLOGIES AG) … 1-3, 5-7, 9, 11-13, 15"). That is an examiner citation against a third party's later application, not an invalidity challenge.
• The EPO Board of Appeal decisions T 0248/07 and T 0476/08 that surface in searches are old Uster-as-opponent proceedings on other patents (Belgian Monitoring Systems), not on the '335 family.

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 11402335. Independent claims 1 (instrument) and 15 (method) are untested — never construed by the PTAB, never subjected to an institution decision. Dependent claims 2–14 (apparatus) and 16–20 (method) are likewise untested. Nothing is canceled; nothing has been held patentable by the Board. The patent remains active, with an adjusted expiration of 2039-04-07 (20-year term from the 2018-09-11 PCT filing plus adjustment), and the 4th-year maintenance fee was paid 2026-01-29. Note also that the FWD-relevant scope question is real here: claim 1 as issued is markedly broader than the claim 1 of published application US20210199593A1 — the "second/third" electromagnetic radiation source/sensor language was rewritten to plain "an electromagnetic radiation source"/"transmission sensor"/"reflection sensor." If you are reading the pre-grant publication to scope your product, read the issued claims instead.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR was ever filed, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue — no petitioner and no privies are barred from anything. Every ground is available to you: §§ 102/103 on the 29 references of record (including US 5,270,787 and US 5,355,561, which the patent itself distinguishes in the Background), § 112 written-description/enablement, and any art those references cite or that you find independently. That is the entire upside of a clean PTAB docket. The corresponding downside is that you will be doing the prior-art work from scratch, with no Board-tested obviousness theory to borrow.

Procedural postures that are now closed. (a) PGR is time-barred — a PGR petition must be filed within nine months of grant, and the patent granted 2022-08-02, so that window closed around 2023-05-02. (b) CBM is unavailable — the transitional CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16, and in any event these claims (spectral transmission/reflection measurement of fiber blends) are a technological invention, not a "financial product or service." IPR is the only available AIA vehicle, and it is available at any time except that a petitioner served with a complaint alleging infringement must file within one year of service (§ 315(b)). If you have already been served, calendar that date now.

Pattern signals. Nothing in the record shows a repeat petitioner, a defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or IP Edge-adjacent petitioner appears), or an aggressive PTAB-appeal posture by Uster. Uster's visible enforcement activity is in China — press coverage of a Supreme People's Court win against a competitor copying a yarn feeder (textileinsights.in and Texdata both carry the release: https://texdata.ch/english/deutsch/deutsch/deutsch/english/firmen/9.buyers-guide/english/17.spinning-machines.html ) — and that is a different patent and a different product line. There is no public evidence of a US assertion campaign on the '335 patent, which is the most likely reason it has attracted no IPR.

One collateral item worth a look (not a PTAB item). The European sibling EP3662283B1 ("Fiber blend identification and/or ratio measurement," same inventors/priority) granted 2025-07-02, per the Belgian official journal excerpt and the family data. That means the nine-month EPO opposition window ran to roughly 2026-04-02. I could not confirm in this pass whether an opposition was filed — check the EPO Register (https://register.epo.org/application?number=EP18785247 ) directly. If an opposition exists, the opponent's prior-art pack and expert declarations may be portable to a US IPR; if none exists, that's another data point that competitors aren't treating this family as a blocking threat. The Chinese sibling CN111133310B is also active.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant: treat the absence of PTAB activity as an opening, not a reprieve. Commission your own prior-art search now, prioritizing the very references the patentee distinguished in its own Background — US 5,355,561 (Rieter, sliver characteristic measurement) and US 5,270,787 (Zellweger Uster, electro-optical multivariate measurement) — plus the spectroscopy-of-textile-blends literature around the 1050–2500 nm region the specification itself identifies as where the math "may be solved" (see the Math. 2 / λmin=1050 nm, λmax=2500 nm discussion in the description). Broad claims 1 and 15 recite only "at least two clearly distinct wavelengths" plus a source/sensor/controller combination — that is a tempting § 103 target.
• Calendar the § 315(b) bar. If a complaint asserting 11402335 has been served on you, the one-year IPR clock is running. If you are pre-suit (e.g., a demand letter only), you are free to file at any time — and filing before being served is the only way to avoid the bar entirely.
• Verify the negative yourself in PTAB E2E and the ODP before relying on this memo: PTAB E2E search at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ and Patent Center at https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ . For any Federal Circuit activity, check https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22US11402335%22 directly — my searches found no CAFC docket tied to this patent, but I was cut off before completing that specific check, so treat that as unconfirmed rather than affirmatively cleared.
• If a proceeding does surface later, the milestones to track are: petition filing → PO preliminary response (3 months) → institution decision (statutory 6 months from filing) → optional POP review → FWD at 12 months from institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)) → rehearing request (30 days) → CAFC notice of appeal (63 days from FWD). None of those clocks are running today.

Caveat: the ODP-sourced block is authoritative for the proceeding list. My web checks were corroborative only and were truncated by search limits; where I could not verify something (e.g., EP opposition status, CAFC docket), I have said so rather than assert it.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 11,402,335, starting with the assignment record and assignee history.

Let me dig into the assignee's corporate status and any IP-holding restructuring.

Let me confirm the assignment record details and check for any later transfers or NPE-list appearances.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 11,402,335 B2

Scope note: The authoritative grant text you supplied is the backbone here. I also reached Google Patents legal events and secondary corporate records. I could not retrieve the raw Patent Assignment Center record page for reel/frame 052030/0927, so the correspondent-of-record field is a genuine data gap — I will not guess a name for it. Everything else below is grounded in the recorded events and dated corporate records cited.

Inventors

All three are named assignors in the single recorded assignment to Uster Technologies AG.

Unusual patterns: none.

• No inventor departed the original assignee within 12 months of filing — the opposite: Dehkordi and Rinehart are still filing and receiving Uster-assigned patents through 2025 (Dehkordi's latest grant 2025-03-04). There is no fire-sale precursor.
• The assignment was executed 2019-11-20, i.e. ~26 months after the 2017-09-14 priority filing, and recorded the same day the national-stage case was docketed (2020-03-05). That is a routine employer-rights formality tied to §371 entry, not a distress signal.
• Note only a one-way drafting quirk: the front page lists "Weichang C. Zhao" while the assignment names "ZHAO, Weichang C." — same person.

Original assignee

Uster Technologies AG — Sonnenbergstrasse 10, CH-8610 Uster, Switzerland (Swiss Aktiengesellschaft; registered office unchanged in 2021 and 2023 corporate filings). Uster is also the current assignee — there has been no change of owner since issuance.

• Primary line of business: electronic measurement and quality-management instrumentation for the textile industry ("from fiber to finished fabric") — fiber testing/classing, yarn laboratory testing, and yarn-production monitoring (HVI, AFIS, TESTER, QUANTUM class of products). Uster employs ~650 people and, at the relevant time, invested 10–12% of sales in R&D.
• Does it ship products embodying the claims? It is unquestionably a product-shipping instrument manufacturer in the exact commercial field of the claims (spectral characterisation of a moving fiber web to determine blend composition/ratio). Its related patent US 12,625,066 B2 (a spectral-filter "device for detecting a mixture ratio of two components of a textile fabric") shows continued product-side investment in blend-ratio detection. Caveat: I could not confirm the specific commercial SKU that reads on claims 1/15 from the sources reachable — treat that as a gap, not as evidence of non-practice.
• Current status: Operating, and solvent. It was taken over by Toyota Industries Corporation (Kariya, Japan), which acquired 99.4% by May 2012 and delisted Uster from the SIX Swiss Exchange on 2012-11-06. It remains a subsidiary held inside the Toyota Industries group (Toyota Industries Singapore Pte. appears in its group structure). No bankruptcy, no receivership, no dissolution.
• Maintenance evidence of continued interest: 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2026-01-29 (large entity); patent Active, adjusted expiration 2039-04-07.
• Foreign family (all still Uster): EP 3662283 B1, CN 111133310 B, WO 2019/051620 A1.

Assignment timeline

There is exactly one recorded assignment in the chain, and it is an original employee→employer assignment. No security agreements, mergers, change-of-name, licence, release or correction records appear.

• 2019-11-20 (executed) / recorded 2020-03-05 — Reel 052030 / Frame 0927
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignors: Peyman Dehkordi; Kent A. Rinehart; Weichang C. Zhao (all individual inventors)
  • Assignee: Uster Technologies AG, Switzerland
  • Correspondent: ⚠️ Not retrievable. The correspondent/attorney-of-record field for reel 052030/0927 did not surface in any indexed source I could reach, and I will not name one speculatively. Unverified lead only: the sole correspondent data point I could verify anywhere in Uster's US portfolio is Luedeka Neely & Graham, P.C. (Knoxville, TN), attorney of record on Uster's US design patent D651,101 — which is geographically consistent with Uster's Knoxville, TN US inventors. That is not confirmation for this reel/frame.
  • Context: Internal/employee invention assignment (inventors → employer), executed as part of the §371 US national-stage entry; not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitisation or transfer-to-asserter.

There are no post-issuance assignments. Per the Assignment Center/legal-events record, the only ownership entry after issuance is the assignee's own maintenance-fee payment. That is itself a finding: the original assignee still owns US 11,402,335.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402335
    2017 : Priority application filed by inventors
    2018 : PCT application filed
    2019 : Inventors assign rights to Uster
    2020 : Assignment recorded at USPTO
    2022 : US patent granted to Uster
    2026 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Competitive-landscape note (not an NPE signal): Competitor Saurer Intelligent Technology AG's application EP 4556894 A1 ("Illumination projector") cites US 11,402,335 B2 as an X-category reference against claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–13 and 15. That is a competitor-tracking-a-rival's-patent signal, consistent with an operating-company portfolio, not with assertion behaviour.

Verdict

Insufficient data — applying the rubric literally: there are no post-issuance records, and the only entry is the original assignment (reel 052030/0927, executed 2019-11-20, recorded 2020-03-05), which is an employee-inventor→employer conveyance to Uster Technologies AG. Substantively this is a "no adverse findings" outcome rather than a true gap: all eight NPE signals are absent, the patent has never changed hands, the owner is an operating instrument manufacturer (son-in-law/subsidiary of Toyota Industries since May 2012) that continues to pay maintenance (fee paid 2026-01-29; expiry 2039-04-07) and whose inventors Dehkordi and Rinehart are still receiving Uster-assigned patents through 2025. The one thing I could not verify — and will not fabricate — is the correspondent of record on the single assignment.

Verify at: USPTO Patent Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 11402335; legacy index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Secondary cross-check: Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11402335B2](/patent/US11402335B2)/en.

To close the two open gaps, a direct Assignment Center query on 11402335 would confirm (a) the correspondent name/firm on reel 052030/0927 and (b) that no second recording exists (e.g., a Toyota-group internal transfer or a security interest) that is not surfaced in the legal-events feed.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 11,402,335, focusing on the references cited during prosecution.

Let me research the key prior-art references in detail.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 11,402,335 B2 ("Fiber blend identification and ratio measurement")

Scope/method note. I confirmed the target record as the exact number US 11,402,335 B2 (Uster Technologies AG; App. 16/644,845; priority 2017-09-14; granted 2022-08-02) and did not substitute any similar-numbered patent. I then worked from the 31 references listed in the patent's "Patent Citations" table (plus the family-level citations), cross-checking descriptions against Google Patents/Justia/EveryPatent/FreePatentsOnline where reachable. Where I could only rely on the title and citation metadata (I did not open the full text), I say so explicitly.

Critical date. The priority date is 2017-09-14. Every cited reference has a publication date well before that, so all are facially available as prior art under §102(a)(1)/(a)(2) (AIA). No reference is close to the critical date, so there are no §102(b)(2)(C)/exception issues to work through.

Important legal caveat. This is a technical relevance mapping, not a patentability or validity opinion. "Anticipation" under §102 requires every element of a claim in a single reference, arranged as claimed. On my reading, few if any references cleanly anticipate independent claims 1 or 15; most are §103 combination material. I flag "closest to §102" separately from "§103 support."

A. The full citation set (31 references), with dates and §102 relevance

B. Tier-1 references — detailed §102 analysis

These are the references with genuine claim-element overlap for the independent claims.

1. US 5,355,561 A — Rieter (filed 1990-11-02; issued 1994-10-18) — the single closest reference

• What it discloses (verified): determining the concentration/proportion of individual fiber types in a sliver or blend by evaluating spectra in the near-infrared (explicitly, "the measurement of the concentration of individual pregiven types of fibers… is accomplished by evaluating spectrums in the near infrared range (by ultra-violet or fluorescence)"). It senses reflected light through a light passage, uses a spectrometer, and its output feeds a blending control loop.
• Overlap with claim 1: multi-wavelength spectral determination of blend ratio of a moving fiber structure; a radiation source + spectral sensor; a controller that processes the spectrum and acts on the process.
• §102 gap for claim 1: Claim 1 requires a "third set of fiber movements for drawing the input material … at a second speed" and a controller that sends control signals to the radiation source and that movement set. Rieter's teaching centers on compaction/compression of the sliver at a measurement site (its stated point of novelty is that the fiber structure is compressed where it is measured) and on controlling the blend/mixer, not on controlling a dedicated sensor-section draw-off movement set. Rieter also emphasizes reflection; the claim's transmission alternative is not clearly met.
• §102 gap for claim 15: Same movement-set and control-signal limitations.
• Better fit: claim 11 (spectrometer-type sensor) is arguably disclosed; claim 10 (source type) is supportable. For claim 1/15 this is best characterized as strong §103 art (and the closest single reference), with a credible §102 argument only if one reads Rieter's moving sliver transport as the claimed "third set of fiber movements."
• Note: The patent's own Background expressly distinguishes US 5,355,561 on the ground that "the fibers must be compressed at the location where they pass a commercially available measuring instrument."

2. US 5,533,145 A — Zellweger Uster (Shofner/Baldwin) (filed 1992-12-31; issued 1996-07-02)

• What it discloses (verified): an imaging unit scanning stripe images across the web perpendicular to web motion; the ability to produce multiple optical images distinguished by spectral content; and separate reflected-illumination vs transmitted-illumination images (front side vs rear side) for classifying entities.
• §102 relevance:
  • Claims 12 and 19 (a plurality of electromagnetic radiation sensors "disposed at differing positions along a surface of the input material in a direction (Y) perpendicular to the direction of movement (X)"): the multiple stripe locations across the width, perpendicular to motion, map closely onto this limitation. This is the strongest §102 candidate among the cited art.
  • Claim 1: it has light-in / spectral-content imaging / computer analysis; but it classifies defects (neps, trash, entities), not blend composition or blend ratio, and it lacks the claimed radiation source + transmission/reflection sensor paired to a single source beam. → §103, not clean §102.

3. US 6,967,721 B2 — Am-Vision Technologies (Moshe) (filed 2000-10-23; issued 2005-11-22)

• What it discloses (verified): an illumination mechanism on one side of a moving web and detection of scattered light, through-web (transmitted) light, and reflected light, with a central processing unit computing a web property.
• §102 relevance:
  • The opposite-side transmission path + same-side reflection path and a controller are present → relevant to claim 1's optical architecture and claims 4–5 (illumination/collection optics).
  • Gap: it computes bulk density/uniformity, not blend composition/ratio, and the claim's "at least two clearly distinct wavelengths" analog (its "poly-/multi-monochromatic light") is a permissive option rather than a requirement. → best as §103.

4. US 5,991,046 A — Valmet Automation (filed 1998-07-14; issued 1999-11-23) (third-party cite)

• What it discloses: optical measurement of a moving web with sensor heads on opposite sides, providing illumination and radiant detection on both sides (i.e., transmission and reflection channels).
• §102 relevance: bears directly on claim 1's "source on an adjacent side" plus "transmission sensor on the opposite side and/or reflection sensor on the same side," and on the moving-web context. → §103 supporting claim 1; §102 only for isolated structural features, not the blend-determination element.

C. Tier-2 / supporting references (best used in §103 combinations)

• US 5,270,787 (Shofner, 1990-03-14 / 1993-12-14) and US 5,321,496: single-entity optical/extinction sensing with optical filtering giving composition (natural vs man-made); these are the two references the applicant itself acknowledged in the Background, so they are the intended "starting point" art. Their sample-presentation regime (individualized fibers in a fluid stream / trash counting) differs from the claimed drawn web → §103.
• US 7,880,156 B2 (Honeywell) — simultaneous multi-band tomography: supports the "at least two clearly distinct wavelengths" element of claim 1.
• US 7,307,729 B2 (Green Vision Systems) — internal-property inspection of a longitudinally moving rod; supports the moving-material optical-inspection element.
• WO 2000/008448 (Zellweger Luwa) — fiber color grading; spectral characterization of fiber.
• US 5,786,894 (International Paper) — spectral visual-characteristic measurement of pulp/fiber.
• US 5,311,290 (Pulp & Paper Research Inst. of Canada) — fiber-analysis imaging.
• US 5,367,747 / 5,483,844 / 5,491,876 (Zellweger Uster needle-based family) and US 7,418,767 (Premier Evolvics) — individualization / sample preparation; bear on claims 2 and 16 (first-movement-set / web-preparation concepts).
• US 2006/0010655 A1 (Trutzschler) — mass/density measurement of fiber material in a spinning-preparation machine; bears on claim 2/16's density-monitoring concept (though by microwave, not optics).
• US 5,594,544 (Hitachi), US 5,530,551 & WO 1995/029396 (CSIRO), US 6,407,819 (Rieter), GB 2,095,828, EP 0 652 432 (BARCO), WO 1993/013407 (Peyer), US 5,383,017 (Loepfe), US 5,414,520 (Zellwager Uster), US 5,420,439 (Rieter Ingolstadt), US 2003/0107729 (Furter), US 2004/0156044 (Pirani), WO 2010/009565 (Uster) — general textile optical-inspection background; §103 only.
• US 9,180,653 (Toray), US 2016/0077019 (Snecma) — peripheral; §103 background at most (third-party cites, likely surfaced by a search but weak on-point).

D. Family-level citations (foreign)

These appear in the "Family Cites Families" group and are directly on-point for blend-composition by spectroscopy:

E. Bottom line — claim-by-claim §102 map

• Independent claim 1 (apparatus) and claim 15 (method): No cited reference appears to disclose every element in a single disclosure — specifically the combination of a multi-wavelength source, transmission and/or reflection spectral sensor(s), a "third set of fiber movements" drawing the web at a "second speed," and a controller that sends control signals to both the source and that movement set while computing blend composition/ratio. The closest single reference is US 5,355,561 (Rieter); it is better characterizable as a §103 starting point than as clean §102 anticipation, with the strongest §102 argument available on claim 11 (spectrometer) and claim 10 (source type).
• Claims 12 / 19 (plurality of sensors across the width, perpendicular to motion): US 5,533,145 (Shofner) is the best §102 candidate (multiple stripe locations scanned across the web transverse to motion).
• Claims 2 / 16 (preparation module, drafting/density control): supported by the needle-individualization family (US 5,367,747 / 5,483,844 / 5,491,876; US 7,418,767) and, for density measurement, US 2006/0010655 (Trutzschler) — §103.
• Claims 4 / 5 (illumination and collection optics): US 6,967,721 (Am-Vision) and US 5,991,046 (Valmet) — §103.
• Claims 6–9 (machine interface / database): general control-interface art; §103.
• Claims 10 / 11 (source and sensor types): US 5,355,561 (FT-NIR spectrometer) is the most concrete §102 fit for claim 11.
• Claim 14 (rollers and/or belts): ubiquitous in the cited textile-transport art — §103.

F. Confidence and caveats

• High confidence on the citation list, numbers, assignees, and filed/published dates — these come from the patent record and were corroborated against Google Patents/Justia listings.
• High confidence on the substantive content of the four Tier-1 references (US 5,355,561; US 5,533,145; US 6,967,721; US 5,991,046) and US 5,270,787, which I verified against full-text/abstract sources.
• Moderate confidence on descriptions for the lower-tier references, where in some cases I relied on title + abstract + citation metadata rather than a full-text read; I did not open every one of the 31 references (notably US 5,420,439, US 5,383,017, US 5,414,520, US 9,180,653, US 2016/0077019).
• No §102 conclusion should be treated as legal advice. As stated, the independent claims appear not to be cleanly anticipated by any single cited reference on the record I reviewed; the cited art is most naturally deployed in §103 (obviousness) combinations.
• One drafting artifact noted in the earlier section is worth repeating because it affects prior-art mapping: claims 7 and 18 do not restate the recipient of the communicated composition/ratio, so their scope relative to claim 6/17 is ambiguous.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 11,402,335 B2

Built on the Prior-Art section above (31 references of record + 5 family-level cites). No new references are introduced; every citation below is drawn from that section.

1. Framing: the claim scope that controls the analysis

Three scope facts make the § 103 case materially easier than it first appears, and they come from the record already generated:

1. Independent claims 1 and 15 are alternative-claiming. Each requires "at least one of" a transmission sensor "and/or" a reflection sensor, each "configured to receive electromagnetic radiation at least two clearly distinct wavelengths." Under ordinary claim construction, either the transmission branch or the reflection branch independently satisfies the limitation. A prima facie § 103 case therefore needs only to supply one optical path — reflection is enough. (Note: the phrase "are each configured to receive … at least two clearly distinct wavelengths" in claim 1 is grammatically tied to a sensor pair but, read in light of the "at least one of / and/or" antecedent, is satisfied by whichever sensor is chosen.)

2. The issued claim 1 is broader than the published application claim 1. As flagged in the Strategic Summary above, the "second/third electromagnetic radiation source/sensor" language of US 2021/0199593 A1 was rewritten at issuance to plain "an electromagnetic radiation source" / "transmission sensor" / "reflection sensor." Broader claims are easier to invalidate. Any § 103 theory must be run against the issued text, and the removal of the ordinal "second/third" restrictions eliminated a potential non-obviousness hook (a multi-source/multi-sensor ordered architecture).

3. The claims recite structure and control, not the algorithm. Claims 1 and 15 say nothing about Math. 1–Math. 10, multiple regression, calibration factors SWC, or the "seeded" database matching. All of that is specification-only disclosure. A POSITA attacking these claims cannot be met with the argument that the math is novel — the math is not claimed, and in any event the linear additivity model (Math. 2) is the textbook Beer-Lambert additivity assumption.

POSITA definition used throughout: a person holding a bachelor's degree in textile engineering, optical/electrical engineering, or applied physics, with roughly 2–5 years' experience in optical/spectroscopic measurement of moving textile materials (e.g., HVI/AFIS fiber testing, or machine-vision web inspection). This is a modest-skill art; the reference pool confirms that web-inspection controllers, spectral sensing, and driven-roller web transport were all conventional.

Procedural caveat (affects how the case must be framed): the prosecution history in the record shows a non-final action mailed 2021-12-22 and allowance 2022-03-29. The examiner therefore found something allowable over all 31 references. Any § 103 case must articulate why the allowance was wrong — i.e., a missing motivation-to-combine link in the examiner's analysis — rather than simply re-listing the references of record.

2. Headline combination

Combination A (primary) — directed at claims 1 and 15

Substitution pool (interchangeable with the secondaries on a "simple substitution" rationale): US 5,991,046 (Valmet) for Am-Vision; US 5,786,894 (Int'l Paper) or WO 2000/008448 (Zellweger Luwa) for spectral fiber characterization; US 5,270,787 (Zellweger Uster/Shofner) for optical filtering yielding composition (natural vs. man-made).

Bottom line: Rieter supplies the inventive heart (spectral blend-ratio measurement of a moving fiber structure with a feedback controller). Am-Vision and/or Valmet supply the optical architecture (moving-web illumination with transmission and reflection paths and a data-processing controller). Shofner '145 supplies the transverse sensor array. Honeywell supplies multi-band sensing. Nothing in the combination is asserted as a new physical principle; each element is applied to its known purpose.

3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Result: every limitation is disclosed across the combination, and the only "gap" for a single-reference § 102 case — that Rieter compresses the sliver at the measurement site and emphasizes reflection — is filled by Am-Vision/Valmet/Shofner, which teach moving-web optical measurement without that constraint.

4. Motivation to combine (the KSR rationales)

The motivation analysis is where this case lives or dies, because the examiner presumably found the references individually known. The following rationales are grounded in the record:

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem. Rieter, Am-Vision, Valmet, Shofner '145, Green Vision '729, Zellweger Luwa, Trutzschler '655 and Zellweger Uster '787 are all directed to non-contact optical characterization of moving textile fiber material. A POSITA looking to improve on-line fiber-blend measurement would begin precisely here. KSR factor (a): combination of known elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.

2. Rieter itself supplies the primary motivation. Rieter's entire purpose is to measure blend ratio and feed the result back to a blending control. Adding a robust dual-path (transmission + reflection) optical head to Rieter's measuring station is not a change in principle — it is a use of a known technique (Valmet, Am-Vision, Shofner) to improve a similar device in the same way, i.e., to increase signal robustness across fiber types and densities. KSR factor (c).

3. The specification's own admissions supply the expectation of success. The Background of the '335 patent concedes that "optical filtering provides information about composition (natural or man-made) and appearance" and identifies US 5,270,787 and US 5,355,561 as known fiber-blend measurement approaches. The patent then frames its contribution as an additional or simpler way to obtain the same blend information. That framing is an admission that the goal (spectral blend determination) was known and achievable — the remaining question is mere implementation.

4. Transmission vs. reflection is a design choice with predictable results. For a fibrous web, transmitted and reflected spectral responses are complementary and their selection depends on web density/opacity — a POSITA would know that a denser web favors reflection and a thinner web favors transmission, and would include both as alternatives. That is a classic simple substitution of one known element for another. KSR factor (b). This also neutralizes any argument that the "and/or" architecture is inventive: the claim itself treats the two paths as interchangeable.

5. Drafting/thinning the web is standard textile art with a known benefit. The specification's rationale for the preparative drafting (speed differential between the first and second movement sets → thinner web → closer to individualized fibers → controllable density) is a known technique applied to a known device ready for improvement. The Zellweger Uster needle-individualization family (US 5,367,747 / 5,483,844 / 5,491,876) and Premier Evolvics US 7,418,767 address fiber individualization/preparation directly, and Trutzschler US 2006/0010655 A1 addresses closed-loop mass/density control in a spinning-preparation machine. KSR factor (d).

6. Multi-band sensing was known and available. Honeywell US 7,880,156 B2's "simultaneous multi-band tomography" makes the "at least two clearly distinct wavelengths" limitation a known technique applied to a new-but-analogous substrate. KSR factor (c).

7. Reasonable expectation of success. Because the patent's own model (Math. 2: the blend spectrum is the weighted sum of component spectra) is the standard linear-additivity assumption, and because Rieter plus CN 104865218 B confirm that spectral blend-content determination worked, a POSITA would reasonably expect that applying the same spectroscopy to a drawn web with known transmission/reflection optics would succeed.

5. Claim 15 (method) — parallel attack

Claim 15 is the method mirror of claim 1 and falls to the same Combination A. Rieter is a method-and-apparatus patent, so its disclosure maps to steps (a)–(f) directly: drawing a fiber structure (step a), directing NIR radiation (step b), receiving the spectral response (reflection branch of step c), receiving/processing the data (steps d, f), and controlling the measuring and blending apparatus (step e). The transmission alternative in step (c) is supplied by Am-Vision/Valmet/Shofner. Because step (c) is written as "at least one of … transmitted … and reflected," a single reflection path satisfies the step — meaning Rieter alone is a plausible primary reference for claim 15, with the secondaries needed only for the express "blend ratio/composition" output and the movement-set control features.

6. Dependent claims

Aggregate observation: all twenty claims are covered by the same reference set. There is no dependent claim that adds an element requiring a reference outside the record already assembled, which is itself a strong signal that the claims are a single inventive concept implemented with routine engineering.

7. Rebuttal exposure and the weaknesses of the § 103 case

An honest assessment requires naming the counterarguments a patent owner (Uster) would raise:

1. "The examiner already allowed these claims over all 31 references." True, and the burden is on the challenger to show the examiner had no articulated reason to combine. The best response is to attack the missing motivation framework — the examiner may have treated the references as separate fields (Rieter = blend measurement, Am-Vision = density measurement, Shofner = defect imaging) rather than recognizing the common problem of on-line optical characterization of a moving fiber web.

2. Rieter's compaction could be argued as a teaching away. Rieter's point of novelty is that the fiber structure is compressed at the measurement site, and the '335 Background uses that fact to distinguish it ("the fibers must be compressed at the location where they pass a commercially available measuring instrument"). Counter: claim 1 does not exclude compaction or require an uncompacted web; and the '335 claim 2 preparation module drafts (thins) the web rather than eliminating compaction as a concept. A teaching-away argument requires the reference to "criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage" the combination — Rieter does not disparage uncompacted measurement; it simply presents compression as its own solution. Risk level: moderate on paper, low after briefing.

3. Claim 1 requires the controller to control both the source and the third movement set. The art (Rieter, Am-Vision) controls the process, not necessarily the lamp and the drive explicitly. Counter: in any automated web-inspection instrument, source triggering/synchronization and web-drive speed are the two most basic control outputs; Valmet '046 and Shofner '145 disclose automated moving-web measurement stations with coordinated illumination and transport. This is the weakest link in the mapping. Risk level: moderate. Expect the patent owner to press here, and expect the challenger to rely on "routine control of the instrument's own subsystems" as the response. Because this limitation is stated in functional "configured for" terms, it may be met by any controller capable of performing it — a construction question worth resolving early.

4. No secondary considerations have yet been located. The prior sections report no US litigation, no PTAB proceedings, and no evidence of a commercial-success nexus for this patent. That cuts for the challenger: there is no objective-indicia record to overcome. Uster undoubtedly ships instruments in this space, but the record contains no evidence of a nexus between any product's success and the claimed optical architecture. Absent that, the WBIP/Wood secondary-considerations defense is unavailable on this record.

5. Additional independent art worth developing (not in the US prosecution record). The family-level cites are real prior art under § 102(a)(1): CN 104865218 B (published 2017-06-23; "quick method for determining cotton-ramie blended-spinning fiber content") and CN 101246121 B (published 2010-09-08; "yarn composition detection method based on polarized light microscope"). CN '218 is a compelling secondary reference on the blend-content determination element and should be run through a certified translation. CAUTION: these surfaced as family cites, so their precise US-prosecution status must be verified before relying on them as "of record."

8. Overall conclusion

The claims are vulnerable under § 103, but not trivially so.

• Full anticipation (§ 102) of independent claims 1/15 by a single reference is unlikely on this record; no single reference supplies the multi-wavelength source + transmission/reflection sensor + dedicated draw-off movement set + controller commanding both the source and the movement set, while computing blend composition/ratio. The one genuine § 102 pocket is claims 12 / 19 via Shofner US 5,533,145.
• A well-constructed § 103 combination is the right vehicle, and the strongest is:
  US 5,355,561 (Rieter) in view of US 6,967,721 (Am-Vision) and/or US 5,991,046 (Valmet), further in view of US 5,533,145 (Shofner), optionally with US 7,880,156 (Honeywell) — with the primary motivation drawn from the common field of on-line optical characterization of moving fiber webs, Rieter's own feedback architecture, and the patent's admissions that spectral composition measurement and multi-wavelength optical filtering were known.
• The single most contested limitation will be 1(b)(ii) — controller control signals to both the source and the third movement set. The case should be built to meet that limitation with a moving-web inspection station that coordinates illumination and transport (Valmet/Shofner), not merely with Rieter.
• The dependent claims add essentially no distance from the art: claims 2/16 (drafting + closed-loop density), 4–5 (optics), 6–7 (interface to a blending machine — taught by Rieter), 12–13/19–20 (transverse sensor array — taught by Shofner), and 14 (rollers/belts) are all routine applications of known techniques.

Verification items before relying on this analysis

1. Pull the 2021-12-22 non-final action and the 2022-03-16 response from Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) to see which limitations the examiner relied on and how the applicant argued around Rieter '561 and Shofner '787 — that history defines the estoppel-adjacent arguments the patent owner will re-use.
2. Obtain certified translations of CN 104865218 B and CN 101246121 B and confirm whether either was actually before the US examiner.
3. Verify the full text of the references I have mapped only by title/abstract in the prior section (notably the exact control-signal disclosures of Am-Vision '721 and the source/drive control of Valmet '046) before committing to limitation 1(b)(ii).
4. Confirm the "at least one of / and/or" construction claim chart — the entire economy of the § 103 case depends on a single optical path being sufficient for claim 1 and for step (c) of claim 15.

Confidence: High on the claim-element mapping and on the motivation rationales (grounded in the references of record and the patent's own specification admissions). Moderate on the outcome, because the examiner's allowance reason is not in the record I reviewed and because limitation 1(b)(ii) is the pivot point. This is a technical obviousness assessment, not a legal validity opinion.