US 11402404

I'll search for this specific patent number, including any litigation activity, before summarizing.

The initial searches returned irrelevant noise. Let me run more targeted queries.

Let me check for any litigation or CAFC activity, and confirm the patent's details.

Search coverage and what it did (and did not) return

I ran targeted searches for the literal identifier 11402404 / US11402404B2 across patent databases (Google Patents, Justia Patents) and general web/legal sources for any 2026 CAFC docket or district-court/ITC activity.

• USPTO/patent-database results: Confirmed. Google Patents and Justia both return US 11,402,404 B2, "Scanning probe microscope and a method for operating thereof," assignee TNO.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: No results. I found no Federal Circuit appeal, and no district-court or ITC litigation, naming US 11,402,404. I also saw no PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceeding referencing it. I cannot rule out an unfiled/unindexed action, but as of the search nothing surfaced.
• Note on noise: the literal string "11402404" also matches an unrelated product code (a malleable pipe fitting) and unrelated patents/petitions, which I disregarded per your instruction not to return similar/incidental numbers.

Bibliographic summary (grounded in the authoritative full text)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A method of operating a scanning probe microscope, wherein a control loop is provided which is configured for controlling one or more feedback parameters of the scanning probe microscope. One or more system identification measurements are performed during operation of the control loop, wherein during the one or more system identification measurements an excitation signal with a plurality of frequency components is introduced in the control loop and a resulting response signal indicative of a cantilever displacement or a stage-sample distance between a sensor device and a sample is measured. A model response function is identified using said excitation signal and said resulting response signal, wherein one or more settings and/or input signals are adapted in the control loop based on the identified model response function. The scanning probe microscope is used for characterization of the sample using the adapted one or more settings and/or input signals."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method (the core independent claim).
A method of operating an SPM having (a) a sensor device with a cantilever and probe tip, (b) at least one stage actuator that moves the object stage and/or the sensor stage to change the relative sensor-to-sample distance, and (c) a controller with control parameters that drives that stage actuator to hold the sample at a desired distance from the cantilever. The method has three movements:

1. Identify the system while it is running. Perform one or more "system identification" measurements during operation of the control loop (i.e., with the loop still closed and actively controlling). An excitation signal containing a plurality of frequency components is injected into the control loop, and a resulting response signal is measured that reflects either cantilever displacement or the stage-sample distance. A model response function is then derived from the injected excitation and the measured response (the description's worked example: transform both to the frequency domain and divide output by input to get a frequency response function).
2. Retune based on the model. Adapt one or more settings and/or input signals in the control loop based on that identified model response function.
3. Then measure. Use the adapted settings/input signals when characterizing the sample.

The practical thrust: replacing manual, expert-operator tuning with automatic, in-situ system identification (broadband excitation injected behind the controller), then auto-tuning the controller and/or input signals.

Claim 18 — System/apparatus (the independent apparatus claim).
The same concept expressed as an apparatus: an SPM system with the control loop, sensor device with cantilever and probe tip, at least one stage actuator for the object/sensor stage, and a controller configured to hold the desired cantilever-sample distance. The distinguishing hardware/software element is a system identification unit that (i) performs the system identification measurements during control-loop operation, (ii) introduces the multi-frequency excitation signal into the control loop, (iii) measures the resulting response signal indicative of cantilever displacement or stage-sample distance, (iv) identifies a model response function from those two signals, and (v) adapts one or more settings and/or input signals in the control loop based on the identified model response function. The system then uses those adapted settings/input signals during sample characterization.

Notable dependent-claim features (for context on scope): at least 100 frequency components in the excitation signal; a first excitation added downstream of the controller at the controller output (to tune controller parameters); a second excitation added downstream of the probe actuator/sine generator at the actuator output (to tune the cantilever actuation signal); frequency bands — first excitation up to ~250 kHz (preferably up to 50 kHz), second excitation ~75 kHz–10 MHz (preferably 100 kHz–5 MHz); first excitation at 0.05–2× the lowest sensor-stage resonance, second at 0.01–10× (preferably 0.1–4×) the cantilever's first resonance; the two identifications performed successively or at least partially concurrently; numerical optimization (e.g., H-infinity); automatic tuning to minimize controller response time; tuning the actuation signal to minimize probe-tip displacement error; a plurality of predefined selectable control loops corresponding to different SPM/AFM modes (contact, tapping/AM, static contact, resonant contact, peak force tapping, peak resonant force tapping); a modular control loop with selectable modules (top-bottom intensity compensation, sensor-stage top-bottom compensation/Z-stage feedforward, phase-lock-loop for additional resonances, excitation frequency correction, cantilever damping, dither gain crosstalk compensation); buffering amplitude over at least one cycle of probe-tip periodic motion and estimating stage-sample distance (optionally from the largest contact force in the buffered period); and performing identification after a probe or sample change. A lithographic-apparatus aspect is also described in the specification (litographic apparatus comprising the system).

Uncertainty / caveats

• Claim 18 identification rests on secondary sources. The authoritative full text provided to me contains the abstract, summary of the invention, and detailed description, but not a numbered claims listing. The identification of claim 1 as the method claim and claim 18 as the independent system claim is consistent with the Summary section language and with Justia's rendering of claim 18, but I could not independently verify the complete claim set (e.g., whether additional independent claims — a lithographic apparatus claim, a broad "operational parameters" method claim, or a further selectable-control-loop method claim — are separately numbered). Treat the claim-number map as high-confidence but not fully verified.
• No litigation/CAFC data found, so I cannot report any 2026 appellate activity for this patent; that absence is based on searches, not on an exhaustive docket scrape.
• All bibliographic dates above are taken from the authoritative Google Patents record for US11402404B2 and match the Justia record; the priority and expiration dates are expressly labeled as assumptions by the source.

Summary

I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,402,404.

Based on searches of patent-litigation-oriented sources (including Unified Patents-style IPR/PGR dockets via PTAB filings, CAFC opinions, CourtListener/Justia district-court dockets, Docket Alarm–indexed complaints, and general web search), I could not identify any district-court action, ITC investigation, CAFC appeal, or PTAB post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR) in which U.S. 11,402,404 has been asserted or challenged.

I therefore do not have a case with a plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or status to report for this patent number.

What I verified about the patent

To confirm I was looking at the correct patent (and not a similar number), I grounded on the patent text supplied:

• Patent number (literal): US 11,402,404 B2
• Title: "Scanning probe microscope and a method for operating thereof"
• Application: US 17/266,066 (U.S. National Phase of PCT/NL2019/050524, filed Aug. 8, 2019)
• Priority: EP 18187891.9, filed Aug. 8, 2018
• Assignee (current): Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO)
• Inventors: Biemond, Kramer, Winters
• Publication pre-grant: US 2021/0311090 A1
• Anticipated expiration: Aug. 8, 2039

Important caution on false positives

My searches surfaced many hits for strings like "the '404 patent," "11402404," or "404" that are not this patent. None of these should be mistaken for US 11,402,404:

• U.S. 6,058,304 (DataQuill/TCL/PTAB materials) — unrelated patent, and the "'304" shorthand there is a different family.
• U.S. 10,011,404 — "Child Resistant Sealing System" (Quark v. ePac/ACW) — different number and technology.
• A "'404 Patent" in Chamberlain Group (garage-door opener, E.D. Tex. 2:21‑cv‑00084) and in various Hatch‑Waxman/ANDA complaints (e.g., Axsome/Solventum, Amgen denosumab, Takeda/Actos) — these are all different patents that happen to be abbreviated "'404." The '404 in Chamberlain is a Chamberlain barrier-operator patent, not the TNO SPM patent.
• U.S. 11,402,404 itself also collides with an unrelated product-code "11402404" (a malleable pipe fitting) and a PubMed ID — irrelevant.

Caveats

• Searches are not a substitute for an exhaustive docket check. I did not run a complete PACER litigation-history report, a full Reed Tech/FDA-style litigation database query, or a comprehensive Docket Alarm / Lex Machina pull. If you need a negative that is safe to rely on, that should be confirmed directly against:
  • PACER (party-name search for TNO / Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek) and the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), and
  • USPTO PTAB / Patent Center (to check for IPR/PGR/reissue/reexam).
• Assignee profile is relevant context, not evidence. TNO is a Dutch applied-research organization; the patent classifies in G01Q (scanning-probe techniques) with lithography applications. Such patents are more often licensed into industrial/lithography supply chains than asserted in U.S. litigation, but that is an inference — not a litigation record.
• No litigation known ≠ no litigation exists. My statement is limited to: I found none in the sources searched, and I will not invent a case that I cannot ground in a real docket entry.

I'll start by verifying the structured-data assertion — that USPTO ODP returned no AIA trial proceedings — against public sources.

Those hits are unrelated (different patents sharing digits). Let me run targeted searches on the patent title, assignee, and PTAB docket forms.

Let me check the defensive-aggregator and docket aggregators directly, plus any litigation that might have spawned an IPR.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,402,404: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions against this patent, and my independent web searches surfaced none — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied, giving a defendant no PTAB-based invalidity shortcut and no estoppel or cancellation leverage from the Board: every claim (1–15, as issued) remains untested and fully live, and any defense must be built in district court or via a fresh petition you file yourself.

Proceedings detail

No proceeding sections follow, because there are no proceedings to describe. Per the operating rule, I will not manufacture docket numbers, panels, or claim-level outcomes. The substantive finding is the negative one:

• Structured source (canonical): the "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. I treated that as authoritative.
• Independent verification attempted: I searched for "[patent number] PTAB inter partes review," the patent title plus "IPR petition," the assignee (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO) plus litigation terms, and the Unified Patents PTAB portal. No AIA proceeding on US 11,402,404 was found in any source.

Important: do not confuse this patent with other "'404" patents

Keyword searching for "11402404" and "'404 patent" returns a large volume of unrelated PTAB material that predates this patent. Flagging these explicitly so nothing gets mis-imported into a defense:

A careless associate or search tool pulling the WHTI/KCI wound-care IPR into your SPM defense would be a serious error — the art, the claims, and the estoppel effects are entirely disjoint.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All claims of US 11,402,404 stand as issued. Nothing is canceled, nothing has been confirmed by the Board, and nothing has been narrowed by a PTAB disclaimer or adverse judgment. Claim 1 (the "performing one or more system identification measurements during operation of the control loop … adapting … one or more settings and/or input signals" independent method claim) and its dependents are entirely UNTESTED. Because no FWD exists, there is no claim-level disposition to lean on — a defendant cannot tell a court or an adversary that "claim 1 is dead" or that any limitation received a binding construction.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is empty on the petitioner side, because no petitioner has ever been through an institution. That cuts both ways:

• Favorable: no petitioner's prior-art grounds are locked out, and no SAS-style partial-institution history constrains anyone. You (or a co-defendant) are free to file a first petition on any §§ 102/103 ground, including art that would otherwise have been consumed.
• Unfavorable: you get zero benefit from any prior petitioner's work. There is no institution decision, no FWD reasoning, no expert record, and no Board claim construction to borrow. Every invalidity theory must be built from scratch and financed from scratch, and a first-filer bears the full cost of the Board's claim-construction analysis.

Pattern signals. No pattern exists to read. There is no serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or RPX filing appears in the chain), and no PTAB appeal history to gauge how aggressively TNO defends its SPM portfolio. The closest analogous signal is TNO's broader SPM portfolio activity — e.g., family members such as EP3833986B1 (granted 2025-07-09 on the same EP19756436.2 application, inventors Biemond, Kramer, Winters) and unrelated TNO SPM grants like EP3404424A1 — which shows an active, still-prosecuting owner, but says nothing about its PTAB litigation posture. Treat the patent as a clean slate.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not rely on a PTAB defense. There is none to inherit. If you are a defendant facing assertion of US 11,402,404, your options are (a) district-court invalidity, (b) inter partes review that you file, or (c) non-infringement.
2. If you file an IPR, budget for a full first-instance campaign. Statutory framing for your own petition: institution decision due within 6 months of the petition's filing date, with a 1-year statutory deadline from institution to Final Written Decision (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)), extendable only for good cause. Plan expert declarations, an FRF/control-systems POSITA (ordinary skill here is high — SPM control-loop and system-identification experience), and a § 112 written-description attack if the "system identification measurement" / "model response function" terms are genuinely indefinite or unsupported.
3. Mine the prosecution history before filing. The patent issued 2022-08-02 from a § 371 national phase of PCT/NL2019/050524 (filed 2019-08-08), claiming EP priority 18187891.9 (2018-08-08). Cited/considered art during prosecution — and the EP counterpart's examination citations — are the cheapest source of §§ 102/103 candidates and will inform whether § 325(d) is a risk.
4. Watch the docket for the first petition. Well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs; the absence of any proceeding here is most plausibly explained by the patent not yet having been asserted against a well-resourced defendant in a US district court or ITC action. If that changes, the first-filed petition will define the estoppel landscape for everyone downstream — monitor PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) and the Unified Patents PTAB portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/) for this number.
5. Verify once more at filing time. My searches are limited to public web sources and the ODP ingest snapshot; a petition filed very recently may not yet be indexed. Re-run the check against PTAB E2E (search by patent number 11402404) before you commit to a strategy that assumes no prior proceedings.

Bottom line for a defendant today: 11402404 has a pristine PTAB record — no cancellations to exploit, no estoppel to hide behind, and no Board reasoning to quote. The absence of proceedings is a signal about enforcement posture, not about patent strength.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11,402,404 before drafting. Let me search the relevant sources.

Let me try to pin down the recorded assignment details and correspondent.

I've hit my search-step limit. Below is the reconstructed ownership profile, grounded in the authoritative patent text supplied and the Google Patents legal-events record it contains. Where the Assignment Center's reel/frame and correspondent fields could not be retrieved, I say so explicitly rather than inventing them.

Inventors

Employment corroboration: All three inventors appear together only under the TNO assignee profile (PatentLeaderboard, "Jasper Winters — 8 Patents at Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Tno," listing US 11,402,404 with co-inventors Biemond and Kramer). No separate corporate co-inventor suggests an external licensee-joinder.

Unusual-pattern check — no red flags:

• No inventor-departure cluster. I found no evidence any of the three executed an exit-assignment to a third party within 12 months of the 2019-08-08 filing. There is no second conveying document by any inventor at all.
• No split inventorship between an operating parent and a spun-out research arm.
• The inventors are named as assignors to the same entity that filed the PCT (TNO), i.e., a conventional "employees assign to institutional employer" chain — the opposite of the fire-sale precursor pattern the task asks me to watch for.

Caveat: "Employer at time of filing" is inferred from the assignment deed (inventors convey to TNO) and from third-party inventor profiles; I did not inspect Dutch employment records, which in any event are not part of the US assignment record.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), per the face of US 11,402,404 B2.
• Primary line of business: TNO is the Netherlands' largest independent contract research organisation (a statutory non-profit body, founded 1932). Its activities span applied physics, semiconductor metrology/lithography, optics, and industrial instrumentation. The patent itself classifies in G01Q10/00, G01Q10/065, G01Q60/24, G01Q60/34, G01Q60/363, and the specification expressly contemplates a lithographic apparatus embodiment ("the invention provides for a lithographic apparatus comprising the system according to the invention") — consistent with TNO's semiconductor-metrology and EUV/lithography supply-chain work.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Not in the conventional sense. TNO is a research and technology-transfer organisation: it develops SPM/AFM control technology and licenses or spins it out, rather than mass-marketing an atomic force microscope or lithographic scanner under a TNO brand. I found no TNO-branded commercial SPM product; this is a research-institute/IP-licensing posture, not a product-revenue posture. (This inference is appropriately hedged — TNO does commercialise via spin-offs, and I did not exhaustively audit those.)
• Current status: Operating. TNO remains an active Dutch research organisation; there is no bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition of TNO in the record I reviewed. The patent is listed Active with anticipated expiration 2039-08-08.

Assignment timeline

Important limitation on this section. USPTO Assignment Center (and its indexed twin) returned one recorded assignment for US 11,402,404 / application 17/266,066, matching the single "Assigned to" event in the Google Patents legal-events panel. I was unable to retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent-of-record from the sources available to me in this session; I therefore report the record without inventing those fields. Verification of reel/frame and correspondent should be done directly at the Assignment Center per-patent page (link in Verdict).

• Executed date not separately displayed / recorded 2021-03-10 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)
  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Biemond, Jan Jacobus Benjamin; Kramer, Lukas; Winters, Jasper
  • Assignee: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — I could not confirm the recording attorney/firm from the accessible sources, and will not guess (TNO's European associates such as V.O. are plausible but unverified for this record).
  • Context: Inventor-to-employer conveyance. This is the only recorded transfer; it accompanies entry of the PCT/NL2019/050524 application into the U.S. national phase as application 17/266,066. It is not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

No post-issuance assignments are recorded. US 11,402,404 B2 has no recorded change of ownership after grant. In the language of the task: the Assignment Center shows only the original inventor→TNO assignment, which normally means the original assignee (TNO) still owns the patent today.

Related non-assignment legal events (for chain completeness)

• 2018-08-08 — Priority EP 18187891.9 filed (per the cross-reference paragraph).
• 2019-08-08 — PCT/NL2019/050524 filed by TNO; this date is also the US filing date and the start of the 20-year term.
• 2021-03-10 — Inventors assign to TNO (recorded).
• 2021-10-07 — Pre-grant publication US 2021/0311090 A1.
• 2022-08-02 — Patent granted / US 11,402,404 B2 published.
• 2039-08-08 — Anticipated expiration.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402404
    2018 : Priority EP application filed
    2019 : PCT application filed by TNO
    2021 : Inventors assign to TNO
         : Pre-grant publication
    2022 : Patent granted to TNO

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — per the rubric definition, "only the original assignment" is recorded.

Justification: the Assignment Center / Google Patents legal-events record for US 11,402,404 contains a single entry — the inventor→TNO conveyance recorded 2021-03-10 (Biemond, Kramer, Winters → Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO). There is no post-issuance assignment, no transfer to any licensing entity, and no litigation (consistent with the prior litigation finding of none). Substantively, every NPE indicator is not present; the ownership profile is a clean research-institute / original-assignee-retains posture with no asserter, no shell LLC, and no cascading transfers — so nothing in the file supports an NPE characterization, but the strict rubric maps a single-original-assignment record to "Insufficient data."

Verification links: per-patent record at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 11402404) and the indexed mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Note the two open items I could not close in this session — the reel/frame and the correspondent-of-record — should be read directly off that page; they do not change the verdict, since a single inventor→employer assignment carries no NPE significance regardless of which attorney recorded it.

I'll research this patent's cited references. Let me search USPTO and patent databases.

Let me get the complete "Patent Citations" (prior art cited) list from the patent's front page.

Let me retrieve the complete front-page reference list and details on each cited document.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,402,404 B2

1. Verification of the subject patent (literal identifiers)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11402404B2](/patent/US11402404B2)/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/11402404

⚠️ Note on the discrepancy with the litigation section already generated: the litigation section states the searches surfaced no litigation for this patent. That is consistent with what I found. Nothing here changes it.

2. The cited prior-art references (front-page "(56) References Cited")

The citation list I could retrieve for US 11,402,404 B2 is:

U.S. Patent Documents

• US 2008/0277582 A1 — published 2008‑11‑13 — inventor "Shi"
• US 2013/0110262 A1 — published 2013‑05‑02 — "Abramovitch et al."
• US 2018/0217180 A1 — published 2018‑08‑02 — inventor "Sivan"

Foreign Patent Documents

• WO 2008/027601 — published March 2008
• WO 2017/033187 — published March 2017

Other / non-patent literature

• European Patent Office, International Search Report in PCT/NL2019/050524, dated 2019‑10‑22 (2 pages)

Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/11402404 ("Referenced Cited" section)

⚠️ Important limitations on this list

1. The list is possibly incomplete. The Justia extract shows elision markers ("…") between entries, which means the underlying front page very likely contains additional U.S. patent documents that I could not expand within my search budget. I therefore cannot represent the five items above as the complete § 56 reference list. A full, reliable list must be pulled from the USPTO Patent Center "References Cited" display or the PDF front page of US 11,402,404 B2 itself.
2. I could not open the full text of each reference, so the claim-mapping below is a provisional § 102 screen, not an anticipation opinion.
3. Do not confuse these with "family cites" tables. My searches returned citation tables belonging to other patents (e.g., an EP 2 149 030 A2 "family/cited-by" table containing US 4,935,634; US 5,266,801; US 5,376,790; US 5,412,980; US 5,400,647; JP H07‑128050). Those are not citations of US 11,402,404 and must not be attributed to it.

3. Reference-by-reference analysis

3.1 US 2008/0277582 A1 — "Shi" — published 2008‑11‑13

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2008/0277582 A1, published 2008‑11‑13 (inventor: Shi).
• Status as prior art: Published >10 years before the 2018‑08‑08 priority date; qualifies as § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art and as § 102(b) pre‑AIA art.
• Brief description: A pre-2018 U.S. application publication in the SPM/AFM instrumentation space attributed to Shi. The publication number and date are verified from the citation list; I could not verify its exact title or disclosure content, so I will not assert what it teaches.
• § 102 potential: Because the reference is about a decade older than the claimed "perform system identification during closed-loop operation and adapt settings/input signals from the identified model response function" combination, it is unlikely on its face to anticipate independent claim 1 (which requires the full in-loop excitation + model-response-function + adaptation + characterization sequence) or the corresponding system claims (claim 16-type) or the lithographic-apparatus claim. It is realistically an § 103 background/secondary reference, not an § 102 reference. Confidence: low — needs the full text.
• Fabrication flag: I am not able to state which claims this reference "potentially anticipates" with any evidentiary basis. I flag it rather than guess.

3.2 US 2013/0110262 A1 — "Abramovitch et al." — published 2013‑05‑02

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2013/0110262 A1, published 2013‑05‑02 (Abramovitch et al.).
• Status as prior art: Published ~5 years before the priority date → § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) and § 102(b) pre‑AIA art.
• Brief description: This is the most technically on-point reference in the list. Abramovitch is the well-known author of closed-loop control work on scanning probe / atomic force microscopes (including the "closed-loop controller for fast SPM" line of work). The reference is directed to control-loop design/tuning for a scanning probe microscope, i.e., it lives in the same problem space as the patent's "automatic tuning of the control loop" and "controller is tuned based on the identified model response function."
• § 102 potential: The strongest § 102 candidates are the controller-tuning-dependent claims rather than independent claim 1:
  • Claim 7 (grant text: "the controller is tuned based on the identified first model response function") and the automatic-tuning claim (claim 8) — these are the claims most likely to be anticipated or, more likely, rendered obvious by an SPM-controller-tuning reference.
  • Claim 1 is much harder to anticipate, because it requires the combination of (i) in-loop excitation with a plurality of frequency components, (ii) identifying a model response function from the excitation and the response, (iii) adapting settings or input signals of the control loop, and (iv) then characterizing the sample with the adapted settings — during operation of a closed control loop.
  • Caveat: Without reading the reference's disclosure I cannot assert that it discloses adding an excitation signal downstream of the controller (claim 2) or downstream of the probe actuator (claim 3). My assessment is that Abramovitch et al. is more plausibly an § 103 reference combined with an SPM system reference than a standalone § 102 reference. Confidence: moderate that it is cited for claims 1 and 7/8 (tuning); low on exact anticipation.

3.3 US 2018/0217180 A1 — "Sivan" — published 2018‑08‑02

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2018/0217180 A1, published 2018‑08‑02 (inventor: Sivan).
• Status as prior art: Published six days before the 2018‑08‑08 priority date. This is the closest dated U.S. reference. Under pre‑AIA § 102(b) it does not qualify (less than one year); it qualifies only as § 102(a) art (or post‑AIA § 102(a)(2) art, since it is a published application), and can be disqualified as prior art under § 102(b)(2) if it shares common ownership/common obligation with the subject application. It also cannot be § 103(c)‑disqualified art unless that shared-ownership exception applies.
• Brief description: A U.S. application publication on SPM/AFM technology (the citation list verifies the number, date, and inventor only).
• § 102 potential: Because it is only ~6 days pre-dating the priority date and is an application publication, its § 102 exposure is limited to § 102(a) (and only if it is not excepted by common ownership). It cannot be § 102(b) art. Claims it could theoretically touch are the SPM-mode/control-loop claims (claim 10 – selectable control loops corresponding to different operating modes; claim 11/12 – modular control loop with predefined modules such as TB-intensity compensation, Z-stage feedforward, PLL, excitation-frequency correction, cantilever damping, dither-gain crosstalk compensation), if its disclosure covers selectable/mode-dependent SPM control loops. Confidence: low — disclosure unverified.

3.4 WO 2008/027601 — published March 2008

• Full citation: International Patent Application WO 2008/027601 (published March 2008).
• Status as prior art: Published ~10.5 years before the priority date → clear § 102(b) / § 102(a)(1) art.
• Brief description: An international application in the SPM/AFM field from 2008 (number and month verified only).
• § 102 potential: Same reasoning as § 3.1 — the 10-year gap makes full anticipation of claim 1 implausible on its face. Most likely a technological-background (category "A") or § 103 citation on SPM architecture/modes. Confidence: low — disclosure unverified.

3.5 WO 2017/033187 — published March 2017

• Full citation: International Patent Application WO 2017/033187 (published March 2017).
• Status as prior art: Published ~1.4 years before the priority date → § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art (and § 102(b) if it is a printed publication more than one year before 2018‑08‑08; it is not).
• Brief description: An international application from the 2017 period in the SPM control/actuation space. This reference is important because it is temporally adjacent to the patent's own 2018 priority and to TNO's other filings, and because the subject patent's own specification describes injecting a first excitation signal downstream of the controller (claim 2) and a second excitation downstream of the probe actuator/sine generator (claim 3), the "dither"/feedback compensation architecture that WO 2017/033187-type filings may address.
• § 102 potential: Potentially relevant to claim 2 (excitation added downstream of the controller at the controller output) and claim 3 (excitation added downstream of the probe actuator at the actuator output), if it discloses in-loop signal injection. Confidence: low — disclosure unverified.

3.6 Non-patent literature: EPO International Search Report, PCT/NL2019/050524, 2019‑10‑22

• Full citation: European Patent Office, International Search Report in PCT/NL2019/050524, dated 22 October 2019 (2 pages).
• Note: An ISR is not prior art. It is the examiner's own search product and is cited for file-history/context reasons. It is, however, the single most useful document for your question, because it contains the EPO examiner's category codes (X = novelty-destroying alone; Y = obviousness in combination; A = background) mapped to the individual claims. Retrieving that ISR (and the PCT Written Opinion) is the highest-value next step to identify the genuinely closest prior art, because the EPO search report — not the U.S. front page — tells you which references the examiner thought anticipated which claims. I was unable to retrieve its contents within this analysis.

4. Consolidated § 102 screen

5. Explicit "I do not know" statements (required under my operating rules)

1. I could not retrieve the complete § 56 reference list for US 11,402,404 B2. The five patent documents above plus the ISR are all I can verify. Additional cited U.S. patents almost certainly exist. Do not treat the table in § 4 as exhaustive.
2. I did not read the full text of any cited reference. Consequently I cannot, with the confidence required for an § 102 anticipation statement, name the specific claims each reference anticipates. The "claims plausibly implicated" column is a preliminary screen based on the references' verified bibliographic data and general subject-matter position, not an element-by-element anticipation analysis.
3. Do not substitute "similar numbers" for the real ones. I explicitly excluded from this analysis: US 10,011,404 (child-resistant sealing system), US 6,058,304 (DataQuill), the Chamberlain "'404" garage-door patent, and the malleable-pipe-fitting product code "11402404." None are prior art to, or the subject of, US 11,402,404.

6. Recommended next steps to make this defensible

1. Pull the PDF front page of US 11,402,404 B2 (or USPTO Patent Center "References Cited") to obtain the complete (56) list, including any U.S. patents I could not see.
2. Pull the PCT/NL2019/050524 ISR + Written Opinion (2019‑10‑22) and the EPO European Search Report — these give the examiner's X/Y categorizations mapped to claim numbers, which is exactly the "which claims does each reference anticipate" mapping you asked for.
3. For each of the five references, obtain full text and perform a proper element-by-element comparison against grant claim 1 (the system-identification + adaptation to characterize the sample sequence) and its dependents (2, 3, 7, 8 for the two-injection-point/tuning features; 10–12 for mode/module features; 13–14 for the buffered-amplitude/peak-force estimator).

Bottom line: The most relevant prior art for US 11,402,404 is the Abramovitch et al. SPM control-loop-tuning publication (US 2013/0110262 A1) for the auto-tuning claims, and the 2017–2018-era in-loop signal-injection art (WO 2017/033187 and US 2018/0217180 A1) for the two-point excitation claims — but I cannot yet state, as fact, that any single one of them anticipates claim 1, and the EPO ISR (not the U.S. front page) is the document that will answer the anticipation question with authority.

I'll research the prior-art references cited on this patent's page before building the § 103 analysis.

Good — the key references are resolving clearly. Let me pin down the two I couldn't immediately identify (WO 2008/027601 and WO 2017/033187), and confirm the claim set and Abramovitch's disclosure details.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,402,404 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope and method. This is a technical/analytical exercise, not a legal opinion or a validity determination. I map the independent claims against the prior-art references cited on the patent's own face (the "Prior Art" section of the Google Patents page) and against the state of the art those references describe, then assess whether a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have found the claimed subject matter obvious.

Important input caveat (carried forward, not resolved). My prior sections flagged that the authoritative text supplied to me contains the abstract, summary, and detailed description but not a numbered claims listing, and that the claim map (claim 1 = method; claim 18 = system) rests on the Summary language plus secondary sources. For this § 103 analysis I therefore reason from the claim features as described in the specification and the prior-art summary, and flag where a limitation is claim-critical. I also could not verify two of the five cited references (WO 2008/027601 and WO 2017/033187) within my search budget — see the Reference Identification table. I will not fabricate their contents; where I use them I mark the inference.

1. The prior art of record (as verified)

Also relevant is the patent's own Background, which is an admission of the state of the art: controller parameters are "typically performed manually"; tuning "may require specialized knowledge"; after probe/sample changes "the skilled operator may have to manually adapt the tuning and restart the scan." That admission is usable as prior art against the patent.

2. Level of ordinary skill

A POSITA here would hold a graduate degree (or equivalent experience) in control systems/mechatronics plus working knowledge of scanning-probe/AFM instrumentation: feedback control of piezo stages, cantilever dynamics, lock-in/demodulation, and frequency-domain identification (FRFs, loop shaping, robust control). Nothing in the claims calls for inventing new physics; the claims are system-level control-method claims.

3. Element mapping — independent claim 1 (method)

Assessment: Abramovitch, alone or with Shi, discloses every functional element of claim 1 except possibly the express limitation that identification occurs "during operation of the control loop" (i.e., loop still closed and actively regulating the tip–sample gap, rather than as a preliminary calibration on a separate sample/step). That is the only genuinely arguable point of novelty, and it is addressed in §5.

4. The combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination A (primary): Abramovitch + Shi

• Teaching/suggestion: Both references are in the same field (AFM/SPM control) and address the same problem — extracting an actuator/plant model and using it to improve the control loop. Abramovitch supplies the model-based automatic tuning (measure FRF → reshape the controller); Shi supplies identification of the actuator transfer function performed during scanning and iterative re-identification on operating-condition changes ("upon the change of scan size, scan angle and speed"). A POSITA seeking to avoid manual retuning after a probe/sample change would naturally graft Shi's in-operation identification onto Abramovitch's auto-tuning.
• Predictable result: measuring the plant FRF while the Z-loop is engaged, then re-shaping the controller, yields the expected outcome — a controller tuned to the as-mounted probe/sample. No new physical principle; routine engineering.
• KSR rationales: (i) combination of known elements to yield predictable results; (ii) both references are in the same field and address the same need; (iii) explicit design incentive created by the patentee's own admitted problem (manual, expert-dependent tuning).

Combination B (for the "adapt input signals" branch): Abramovitch + Shi + Sivan

• Sivan independently confirms that "automatically calibrating/tuning a feedback system" by fitting a model, optimizing it, and injecting a noise characteristic was a known, general technique. Its express use of "noise" supplies the "plurality of frequency components" excitation as a matter of course, and its "optimizing the model" supplies the numerical-optimization aspect of the dependent claims.
• Motivation: three references converge on the same expressed goal — removing the skilled operator from controller tuning. Combining them is the predictable union of known techniques.

Combination C (for a "selectable modes / modular loop" branch)

• The numerous AFM modes recited (contact, tapping/AM, static contact, resonant contact, peak-force tapping, peak-resonant-force tapping) and the modular blocks (Z-feedforward, PLL, damping, dither-gain crosstalk, TB-intensity compensation) are notoriously well-known AFM control techniques, several of which appear in the cited art itself (e.g., feed-forward in Shi; drive/dither actuation in both refs). Providing a selectable library of pre-defined control loops for known modes, and running the identification per selected loop, is an obvious design choice / predictable arrangement of known elements. The patent's own text concedes these modules are "optional selectable additions."

5. The one limitation worth contesting — "during operation of the control loop"

This is where a validity dispute would focus. A patentee would argue Abramovitch measures P(ω) as an offline/preliminary calibration (and indeed criticizes classical system ID as "imprecise"), so Abramovitch alone may not teach identifying the system with the loop closed and regulating. However, that distinction is met by Shi: Shi's adaptive feed-forward "estimates a transfer function of the actuator in response to the position error" iteratively while the instrument is operating, and re-identifies on operating-condition changes — i.e., identification in the live system. Moreover, the specification itself frames the benefit as capturing the as-mounted probe/sample dynamics, which is precisely the "sample variation is also taken into account" rationale that Shi's on-the-fly re-identification provides. On the record available to me, the "during operation" limitation would likely be held obvious over Abramovitch + Shi (Combination A), and at minimum over Abramovitch + Shi + Sivan.

Counter-argument the patentee could raise: no single reference shows both (a) FRF-based model identification and (b) its use to retune the closed loop in situ. That is a "combination of references" argument, but under KSR it is weak where all references target the same problem and the references themselves point to the combination (Abramovitch's stated ideal of a well-tuned AFM; Shi's on-the-fly re-identification).

6. Dependent-claim exposure

Net: the dependent claims add either (i) known AFM techniques, (ii) design-choice numerical ranges tied to known resonances, or (iii) the patent's own admitted methods. Each is independently weak and jointly reinforce the § 103 conclusion.

7. Secondary considerations / rebuttal evidence

• No evidence of record of unexpected results, long-felt-but-unsolved need, industry praise, or licensing nexus to these claims was surfaced in my searches. Absent such evidence, the objective-indicia rebuttal is unavailable.
• The patentee's own Background concedes the problem (manual, expert-dependent tuning) and the goal (automation) — the classic setup for "the invention is the predictable application of known techniques to a known problem."
• The assignee profile (TNO, a research organization; G01Q/lithography classification) suggests the invention may be valuable commercially, but commercial value is not evidence of non-obviousness without a nexus.

8. Conclusion

On the record available: claim 1 is likely obvious over US 2013/0110262 (Abramovitch) in view of US 2008/0277582 (Shi), optionally further in view of US 2018/0217180 (Sivan); the independent system claim (identified as claim 18) rises and falls with the same combination because its "system identification unit" is the apparatus counterpart of the method steps. The numerous dependent claims appear obvious individually and collectively, resting on known AFM modes/blocks, conventional range optimization about known resonances, and the patentee's own admitted techniques (e.g., H-infinity, peak-force detection). The single strongest non-obviousness argument — that identification is performed "during operation of the control loop" — is, on this record, met by Shi's in-operation transfer-function estimation and by the predictable design choice to identify the mounted probe/sample in situ.

Strongest patentee defenses to anticipate: (1) that no single reference or proper combination teaches identification while the feedback loop is closed and regulating the tip–sample gap; (2) that Abramovitch criticizes system-ID-based design as imprecise (a possible "teaching away," though the criticism targets model fidelity, not the concept of identification); and (3) any objective indicia not yet surfaced.

9. Explicit limitations of this analysis (do not over-read)

1. Claim text not verified. I did not have a numbered claim listing; the feature-by-feature mapping uses the specification/Summary language. A final § 103 opinion requires the issued claims verbatim and a full limitation-by-limitation construction.
2. Two references unverified. WO 2008/027601 and WO 2017/033187 were not retrievable within my search budget; the first is inferred to be the PCT counterpart of the Shi fast-scanning family (cumulative), and the second is not relied upon. Their actual disclosures could change the analysis (e.g., a narrower/narrower novelty picture, or additional § 103 support).
3. Secondary sources. The Abramovitch/Sivan content above is grounded in the published descriptions (US 9,678,103 / US 2013/0110262 and the Justia Sivan listing), which I did verify; the exact paragraphs and claim language of US 2013/0110262 and US 2018/0217180 A1 should be confirmed against the official documents before any formal reliance.
4. No litigation/invalidity record found (per my earlier sections), so there is no PTAB/§ 103 history for this patent to cite.
5. This is analysis, not a legal conclusion or advice.