US 11402410

I'll search for authoritative information on US 11402410, including any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Let me search specifically for litigation/docket activity.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11402410 across patent litigation sources.

The initial results are largely matches on an unrelated "'024 patent" (10X Genomics, ITC 337-1068) — a different patent entirely. Let me search more specifically for the Micatu patent.

Found a promising lead — a Micatu case in the Northern District of California (courtlistener cand.354096). Let me investigate.

Summary: No confirmed litigation found involving U.S. Patent No. 11402410

Based on my searches, I was unable to identify any litigation — district court, ITC, or CAFC — specifically asserting or challenging U.S. Patent No. 11402410. I want to be explicit about what I found and, importantly, what I did not find, because this search space is full of false positives.

Important caveat on false positives

Nearly every "result" my searches returned involves a different patent that is coincidentally also informally called the "'024 patent":

None of these concern the Micatu optical Pockels voltage sensor patent. I explicitly excluded them. A search citation match on "'024" is not evidence of litigation over US 11,402,410.

What I did find (relevant, but not litigation over this patent)

1. Micatu in N.D. Cal. — CourtListener recap for case No. cand.354096 (N.D. Cal.) shows an order dated June 22, 2020 denying "Micatu's motion to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1)."

   • This predates the grant of US 11,402,410 (granted Aug. 2, 2022), and a Rule 12(b)(1) subject-matter-jurisdiction motion in that timeframe is more consistent with a commercial/contract or IP-ownership-type dispute than an infringement suit on this patent. I could not verify the parties, case number, or subject matter, and I could not confirm the '410 patent was at issue.

2. Patent ownership/security history (from the Google Patents bibliographic record, not litigation):

   • Original/current assignee: Micatu Inc.
   • Security interests recorded to Silicon Valley Bank (2021) and Transamerica Life Insurance Company (2022) — these are collateral assignments, not lawsuits.
   • Inventors: Atul Pradhan, Michael Oshetski, Scott Stelick, Joshua Sperrick, William Laratta.
   • Priority date 2016-08-17; filed 2020-04-17; granted 2022-08-02; anticipated expiration 2037-08-17.

Honest limits of this answer

• I could not access the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER docket data, or a Docket Navigator/PlainSite entry keyed to 11,402,410 within my available searches. My searches returned no case record asserting this specific patent number.
• The patent is relatively recent (granted 2022-08-02) and held by a small company (Micatu), so an absence of reported litigation is plausible — but absence of search hits is not proof of absence of litigation, since many complaints, settlements, and small-company suits never appear in accessible databases or press.
• I did not find any PTAB petition (IPR/PGR) challenging 11,402,410 either.

Bottom line

No known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11402410 could be confirmed. All apparent matches were false positives tied to unrelated "'024" patents (10X Genomics, Wyeth). The only Micatu-related court activity I located (N.D. Cal. case 354096, June 2020) cannot be confirmed as involving this patent and likely concerns a different dispute.

Recommended next verification steps (which I could not complete here): query PACER for "Micatu" as a party; run the patent number directly through Docket Navigator, Unified Patents Portal, Lex Machina, or Google Patents' "Litigation" tab; and check PTAB for IPR/PGR filings against 11,402,410. If you'd like, I can attempt targeted searches against any one of those specific sources.

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

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,402,410: 0. There are no IPRs, PGRs, or CBMs on file — nothing active, nothing with claims invalidated, nothing settled, no institution denials. The structured USPTO ODP block in this prompt returns no AIA proceedings, and my web searches did not surface any unindexed or recently filed petition, FWD, or CAFC appeal naming this patent. Defensive posture: the patent is completely untested and unhardened at the PTAB. Unlike the fact pattern your prompt template anticipates ("survived two IPRs"), there is no IPR record here at all — no claim has been cancelled, and equally no claim has been confirmed by the Board. For a defendant, that flips the usual analysis: you are not working around estoppel or a hardened claim set; you are looking at a virgin patent whose validity has never been adversarially tested.

No proceeding entries to report

I cannot populate the per-proceeding template (type, panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD, settlement, appeal) because no proceeding exists to describe. I am explicitly declining to generate proceeding numbers, APJ names, or dispositions — inventing any of that would be fabrication.

Searches run and their results:

• "11402410" IPR petition PTAB — no hits tying that number to a Board proceeding. The one superficially responsive result (a petition citing Guoshi CN 103280164A and Tucker US 6,813,853, with Samsung as petitioner and a modular display panel accused product) is an unrelated IPR about an LED display patent — not Micatu, not this patent, and it should not be counted.
• Micatu Inc patent inter partes review PTAB optical voltage sensor — no Micatu PTAB proceeding surfaced.
• Micatu Inc litigation patent infringement defendant — no infringement suit surfaced that would seed a petition.
• Micatu assignee listings (Justia, PatentGuru, OnScope) and the Google Patents record for US11402410B2 show no PTAB proceeding link.

Where I checked: Google Patents US11402410B2, PTAB E2E / PTACTS, and general web indices. A definitive confirmation requires a live PTAB E2E party-name search for "Micatu" (the ODP ingest returns nothing).

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything UNTESTED. No claim of US 11,402,410 has been cancelled, confirmed, or even construed by the Board. That is a materially different posture from a patent that has been through IPR. The patent issued 2022-08-02 from App. 16/851,945 (filed 2020-04-17), as a continuation of App. 15/679,624, and carries a 2016-08-17 priority date with anticipated expiration 2037-08-17 and current status Active. The parent application 15/679,624 appears to have issued as US 10,634,704 (same title, same provisional priority) — I did not find PTAB activity on the parent either, but I'm flagging that serial-to-grant mapping as an inference from the Google Patents continuation statement, not as a verified ODP record.

Estoppel landscape: empty — in your favor. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no "grounds raised or reasonably could have been raised" bar. A defendant today can build an IPR petition on any art it chooses, with no risk of being estopped by an earlier challenger's trial and no risk of a § 315(e)(1) Board-side estoppel. The only timing constraint that matters is your own § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint alleging infringement. Conversely, if you don't file, you preserve full invalidity arguments for district court — no estoppel is created by inaction.

Prior-art landscape worth mining. The patent's own face cites Pockels-effect art that was not substantively applied by the examiner — US 5,731,579 (Woods), US 5,939,711 (Crawford), US 6,492,800, plus CN 105425020 A and Sima et al., "Temperature Characteristics of Pockels Electro-Optic Voltage Sensor With Double Crystal Compensation," AIP Advances 6, 055109 (2016). The specification disparages the Sima double-crystal approach at 0–50 °C, which makes Sima an interesting § 103 starting reference. Note the § 325(d) trade-off: art cited on the face of the patent but never applied in a rejection is generally not "previously considered" for § 325(d) purposes, so these references are usable — but expect the patent owner to argue the Board should exercise discretion. That is an argument to rebut, not a bar.

Pattern signals: none present. No repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners), no PTAB appeals by the patent owner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents / RPX / LOT Network proceeding). The one non-PTAB signal worth noting is financial: the public assignment record shows a security interest to Silicon Valley Bank (2021-01-08), a security interest to Transamerica Life Insurance Company (2022-01-25), and a release by SVB (2023-01-09). Encumbered patents are sometimes asserted for revenue, but I found no litigation and no demand-letter campaign to corroborate that here — treat it as background, not as a conclusion.

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Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the negative directly in PTAB E2E by searching party name "Micatu" and patent number 11402410 before you rely on "no proceedings." The ODP block is authoritative but lags; a party-name search is the cheap double-check. PTAB E2E
2. Do your own invalidity search now — this is the whole ballgame. With zero Board record, there is no FWD to lean on and no cancelled claim to cite. Prioritize (a) the face-of-patent references the examiner didn't apply, especially CN 105425020 A and Sima 2016; (b) the Sima, et al. double-crystal compensation literature the patent owner itself admits was known; and (c) § 112 written-description/enablement attacks on the "integrated, no-airgap, polarizer-analyzer-only" claims, given the specification's heavy reliance on equations (5)–(8) and numerical examples for only one crystal geometry (d = 4 mm, L = 6 mm, LiNbO₃).
3. Map the family. The '410 patent is a continuation of 15/679,624 and shares a 2016-08-17 priority date. Any IPR must be run against the specific claim set of '410 — check whether asserted claims read on subject matter added post-priority (the switchgear elbow / modular pick-off rod / bronze-and-silicon-steel claim family is a continuation-only disclosure candidate). If so, that added subject matter is not entitled to the provisional date, and mid-2016-to-2020 art opens up as § 102 prior art. This is often the highest-value line in a continuation patent and it is entirely untested here.
4. Calendar your § 315(b) bar immediately if you have been served. With no prior petitioner, there is no joinder shortcut — you file your own petition or you forfeit the IPR path.
5. On discretionary denial: Board practice on § 314(a)/Fintiv discretionary denial has shifted multiple times under recent Directors and is genuinely in flux. I am not confident stating the current controlling guidance, so verify the operative memo/practice before drafting a Fintiv section. Do not assume the 2020-era Fintiv factors are being applied as written.
6. If no litigation is pending, the absence of PTAB activity is itself informative: this patent has not been asserted hard enough or long enough to attract a challenger. That cuts against an urgent-filing rationale and in favor of a patient, well-funded invalidity prep — but keep the → one-year clock in view the moment a complaint lands.

Confidence note: I am highly confident there is no PTAB proceeding on record for US 11,402,410 as of 2026-09-29, based on the structured ODP block plus multiple web searches. I am not asserting that none exists — the ODP ingest lags, and I could not open a live PTAB E2E party search. Anything beyond the "zero proceedings" holding (claim counts, panel identities, FWD dispositions) is not knowable and is not stated.

I'll research the ownership chain for US 11402410, starting with the legal events already surfaced and cross-checking against public sources.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records, the parent patent, and Micatu's corporate status.

I hit the tool-call limit mid-research, so I'm synthesizing from the authoritative patent text you supplied (Google Patents legal-events block) plus the search results I did retrieve. Important scope caveat up front: I could not pull the reel/frame numbers, execution dates, or correspondent-of-record fields from USPTO Assignment Center in this session, and I will not invent them. I flag every place where that gap matters.

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Inventors

Pattern check: No unusual inventor-departure pattern. The founder (Oshetski) is still the public face of the assignee as of June 2023, and Pradhan is co-inventing on Micatu's 2024 continuation-family filings. There is no evidence of the "all inventors gone within 12 months" precursor to a fire-sale. The named inventors appear to be company personnel, which is normal for a startup patent — it tends to argue against an NPE read rather than for one.

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Original assignee

Micatu Inc. (also styled "MICATU", Corning / Horseheads / Big Flats, NY; founded 2010–2011 by Michael Oshetski).

• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — this is unusually well documented. Micatu commercialized the Gridview optical sensing platform (optical current/voltage/vibration/temperature sensors) plus the "m410B Optical Signal Processor." Public markers include a 2018 supply agreement with Eaton Corp., an Oracle Industry Lab partnership, NYSERDA 76West $1M grand prize (2016), ~$10M in aggregate state/federal grants, a 2021 Environment + Energy Leader Top Product award, and a 2021 S&P Global Platts Global Energy Award. The patent's own spec describes switchgear-elbow and low-voltage metering embodiments consistent with those products.
• Primary line of business: optical (Pockels/Faraday) sensing hardware for grid-edge voltage/current measurement.
• Current status: Operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition-of-Micatu found in the record. Note separately that Micatu was a defendant in a contract dispute — Fabrinet USA, Inc. v. Micatu, Inc., N.D. Cal. 5:20-cv-00382 (a manufacturer suing over unpaid purchase orders; settled, stipulated dismissal with prejudice 2020-09-25). That is a supply-chain fight, not a patent assertion, and it actually corroborates that Micatu was building real hardware through a contract manufacturer.
• Micatu continues to prosecute new applications (e.g., US20240361361, DEVICES AND METHODS FOR AN ELECTRO-OPTIC DUAL CRYSTAL VOLTAGE SENSOR, published 2024-10-31), which indicates an active R&D function rather than a monetization shell.

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Assignment timeline

Google Patents records four post-filing assignment/security events against this patent. Reel/frame, execution dates, and correspondent are NOT reproduced in the source I have — the Google Patents legal-events block strips them. Verify these fields directly at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11402410 or by application 16/851,945).

1. ~2021-01-08 (recorded) — Reel unverified

   • Conveyance: Intellectual Property Security Agreement (lien, not a title transfer)
   • Assignor: Micatu Inc.
   • Assignee/secured party: Silicon Valley Bank
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session — cannot flag recurrence
   • Context: Securitization of Micatu's IP as loan collateral.

2. ~2022-01-25 (recorded) — Reel unverified

   • Conveyance: Security Interest (see document for details)
   • Assignor: Micatu Inc.
   • Assignee/secured party: Transamerica Life Insurance Company
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session
   • Context: Securitization — a junior or replacement lender taking a lien on the IP collateral. (A life insurer as secured party is consistent with a venture-debt facility, not with ownership.)

3. ~2022-12-05 (recorded) — Reel unverified

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Interest
   • Assignors: Laratta, William; Stelick, Scott; Oshetski, Michael; Pradhan, Atul; Sperrick, Joshua Andrew (i.e., the inventors)
   • Assignee: Micatu Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session
   • Context: Confirmation / backfill of the inventor→company chain of title. Worth flagging: this was recorded roughly four months after the 2022-08-02 grant. On a continuation filed 2020-04-17, the inventors' assignment should normally already be in the chain; a post-issuance confirming assignment of interest from all five inventors is a classic fix-up recording. It is benign in substance here (it runs to the operating company, not away from it), but a prosecution analyst should treat it as a data point that the recorded chain had a gap.

4. ~2023-01-09 (recorded) — Reel unverified

   • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
   • Assignor/secured party: Silicon Valley Bank
   • Assignee/releasee: Micatu Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session
   • Context: Lien release — the SVB security interest was terminated (recorded about two months before SVB's March 2023 collapse/First Citizens acquisition, so this is a scheduled or negotiated payoff, not a receivership event). Open question: the record I have does not show a matching release of the Transamerica (2022-01-25) security interest — it may still be of record. That is exactly the kind of thing to confirm at Assignment Center.

No conveyance out of Micatu to any third party appears anywhere in the record. Ownership has never left the operating company.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402410
    2016 : Priority provisional filed
    2017 : Parent application filed Aug 17
    2020 : Continuation filed Apr 17
    2021 : SVB security agreement recorded
    2022 : Transamerica security interest recorded
         : Patent granted Aug 2
         : Inventors assign to Micatu Dec 5
    2023 : SVB release recorded Jan 9

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No assignment to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity appears. Every recorded link runs to or from Micatu Inc., a named operating company with a public HQ, a manufacturing build-out, and named executives (Oshetski; VP Eng. Bjorn Hansson hired 2023). Supported by all four recorded events (2021-01-08, 2022-01-25, 2022-12-05, 2023-01-09).

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee in the chain matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff that I can identify. Chain assignees are Micatu Inc., Silicon Valley Bank, and Transamerica Life Insurance Company — none is an NPE. (RPX/Unified directory lookups were among the searches cut off by the tool limit; treat this as high-confidence-but-not-exhaustive.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unable to assess. The correspondent-of-record field is not exposed in the source text I have and I could not reach Assignment Center before hitting the tool limit. This is the single most important field left blank in this analysis and the first thing to pull manually.

4. Cascading transfers through chained LLCs < 24 months — Not present. The only post-filing events are two lender liens, one lender release, and one inventor→company confirming assignment. No chained-LLC pattern, no shared-principal shell sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming US 11402410 was found; the only Micatu litigation located (Fabrinet, 2020) is a contract case in which Micatu is the defendant, and it predates the patent's 2022-08-02 grant.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Micatu Chapter 7/11 found. The Jan 2023 SVB release precedes SVB's own failure and is not linked to any Micatu insolvency. (Micatu's current financial condition is not definitively established in what I retrieved — see Verdict caveat.)

7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer of the patent to a third-party assertion vehicle; Micatu retains title.

8. Defensive aggregator — Not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with the explicit caveat that no assertion of this patent has been observed. The recorded chain never leaves the original operating assignee: Micatu Inc. is assignee on all four post-filing recordings (2021-01-08 SVB lien, 2022-01-25 Transamerica lien, 2022-12-05 inventor→company confirming assignment, 2023-01-09 SVB release), and the two "assignments to" third parties are security interests held by lenders, not ownership transfers. Micatu is a documented product company — Gridview sensors, Eaton and Oracle commercial relationships, a physical manufacturing/clean-room build-out, and continuing 2024 patent filings out of the same family — which is the opposite of the no-products/single-purpose-LLC profile that defines the NPE signals above. Strictly speaking it is an operating company holding its own patents non-assertively; under the required taxonomy, "Operating-company assertion" is the closest fit, and I flag the mismatch rather than overstate it.

Two open items that could change the read, both unresolved by tool limits:

• Correspondent-of-record on all four reel/frame entries was not retrievalable — signal #3 is genuinely unassessed, not cleared.
• Status of the Transamerica (2022-01-25) security interest — no corresponding release found; confirm whether it remains of record.

Also flagging a contradiction with the prior section stub: that section referenced possible "CAFC 2026 docket activity" for this patent. I found no CAFC, PTAB, or district-court activity naming US 11402410 in any source I retrieved. Treat the appellate-activity suggestion as unverified pending an independent docket check.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search US11402410 / application 16/851,945) — capture reel/frame, execution date, and correspondent for each of the four entries above before relying on this chain.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 11402410. Let me run several searches in parallel.

I have a partial citation list. Let me gather the complete citations, the claims of US11402410, and the "Cited By" data.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 11,402,410 B2 ("Optical Pockels Voltage Sensor Assembly Device and Methods of Use Thereof")

Builds on the previously-generated summary. That section is largely a promise-to-search plus abstract text; it contains no antecedent analysis, so there is nothing to contradict. One gap to flag: the earlier section states it will report "any CAFC 2026 docket activity," but no such content was actually produced. I could not confirm any CAFC/PTAB 2026 activity for US 11,402,410 in this session — treat that as unverified.

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1. Scope, sources, and explicit limitations

Per the operating rules, I am interpreting every identifier literally and not auto-correcting anything.

• Source used: Google Patents citation data for US11402410B2 (which mirrors the USPTO "References Cited" front-page data), the US 10,634,704 B2 grant PDF's own (56) field, and the EPO/Global Patent Index search report for the same family (EP 3501068 A4 / WO 2018/035313 A1).
• I could not query USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Full-Text directly in this session. The Google Patents "Citations (16)" list was truncated in retrieval; I captured 13 of the 16, not all 16. I flag this rather than guess.
• I could not retrieve the exact granted claim set of US 11,402,410 itself. I retrieved the claim set of its parent, US 10,634,704 B2 (same specification; continuation relationship). Because US 11,402,410 is a continuation (not a division), the disclosure is the same but the claims may and likely do differ. My §102 mapping below is therefore stated by claim category, with the specific parent claims noted where useful.
• §102 standard applied: every element of a claim must be disclosed in a single reference, arranged as claimed. Anticipation should be asserted only for the narrow references that map to the broadest independent claims; most of the others are §103 (obviousness) references, not true anticipatory art, and I say so.

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2. Identification and legal posture (for grounding)

Critical consequence of the 2016-08-17 priority date: for §102(a)(1) purposes a reference must be publicly available before 2016-08-17. Everything in the list below except CN 105425020 A (≈ Mar 2016) and any 2017/2018 US publications does. Any 2017–2018 US publication would only qualify as §102(a)(2) art if its effective filing date predates 2016-08-17 (none of those identified below appear to).

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3. US patent citations (the applicant's/examiner's "References Cited")

3A. The three references the applicant itself admitted in the Background

The specification expressly concedes: "U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,731,579; 5,939,711; and 6,492,800, describe Pockels effect-based voltage sensors that include a polarizer at the input and a beam splitter at the output." This is a self-inflicted §102/§103 admission for the broad assembly claims.

1. US 5,731,579 A — Woods et al., "Electro-optical voltage sensor head"

• Assignee: Lockheed Idaho Technologies Company; filed 1995-12-11; granted 1998-03-24.
• Description: Fiber-fed Pockels-effect voltage sensor head with input polarizer and output beam-splitter/analyzer detection of the electro-optic phase shift.
• §102 relevance: Potentially anticipates broad assembly claims reciting an input collimator, a Pockels crystal receiving the input beam, and an output optical element focusing the output beam onto a detector (parent claim 1-type subject matter). The distinguishing point applicants relied on is the beam-splitter/polarization-diversity architecture and its thermal instability — so this reference is a strong §103 base and a plausible §102 hit only against the very broadest independent claim.

2. US 5,939,711 A — Crawford et al., "Electro-optic voltage sensor head"

• Assignee: Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies Company; filed 1995-12-11; granted 1999-08-17.
• Description: Same family of technology — Pockels voltage sensor head; input polarizer, crystal, output beam splitter.
• §102 relevance: Same as above; also reaches the "non-centrosymmetric crystal" / crystal-material genus claims (parent claim 2).

3. US 6,492,800 B1 — Woods et al., "Electro-optic voltage sensor with beam splitting"

• Assignee: Bechtel BWXT Idaho, LLC; filed 1995-12-08; granted 2002-12-10.
• Description: Electro-optic voltage sensor that splits the output beam for detection.
• §102 relevance: Broad sensor-assembly and detection-path claims; again principally a §103 base because of the beam-splitter difference.

3B. Temperature-compensation cluster (the crux of the patent's purported novelty)

The patent's stated contribution is temperature/environmental stability via (a) an all-bonded, air-free optical stack and (b) a temperature sensor feeding a calibration factor C(T). The following references bear directly on that.

4. US 6,307,666 B1 — Davidson et al., "Voltage sensing systems and methods for passive compensation of temperature related intrinsic phase shift"

• Assignee: Bechtel BWXT Idaho, LLC; filed 2000-01-13; granted 2001-10-23.
• Description: Passive temperature compensation of the intrinsic (non-Pockels) phase in an electro-optic voltage sensor.
• §102 relevance: The most dangerous single reference for the temperature-calibration claims. It is directed squarely at the same problem and the same solution family (compensating the intrinsic/birefringent phase term — cf. the Φ/C(T) term in applicant's Eq. 7–8). Potential anticipation of parent-claim-1-type claims that recite "a temperature sensor" + "apply one or more calibration factors … based on the measured temperature … to determine a corrected voltage." Expect applicants to distinguish on the passive/optical vs. tandem temperature-probe + computing-device implementation — a §103 battleground.

5. US 2004/0095570 A1 — Stanimirov et al., "Method for the temperature-compensated, electro-optical measurement of an electrical voltage and device for carrying out the method"

• Priority 2001-02-06; published 2004-05-20.
• Description: Temperature-compensated electro-optic voltage measurement method and apparatus.
• §102 relevance: Method claims (e.g., parent claim 11-type) directed to measuring voltage electro-optically with temperature compensation.

6. US 2004/0239307 A1 — Bohnert et al., "Temperature-compensated electro-optical voltage sensor"

• Assignee: ABB Research Ltd; filed 2003-03-28; published 2004-12-02.
• Description: Electro-optical voltage sensor with temperature compensation.
• §102 relevance: Same subject matter as item 5; assembly + compensation claims.

7. US 2009/0290165 A1 — Bohnert et al., "Optical high voltage sensor"

• Assignee: ABB Research Ltd; filed 2006-12-22; published 2009-11-26.
• Description: Optical high-voltage sensing arrangement.
• §102 relevance: Modular/insulated high-voltage sensor housing and packaging claims.

3C. Crystal-material and modulator references

8. US 5,157,324 A — Chollet et al., "Improved electro-optical crystal"

• Assignee: Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique; filed 1989-12-26; granted 1992-10-20.
• Description: Electro-optic crystal (Pockels-cell materials/geometry) improvement.
• §102 relevance: Genus claim to the crystal material (parent claim 2 "non-centrosymmetric crystal material"; parent claim 4 material list). Genus-of-materials claims are frequently anticipated by a single-species disclosure only if the claim is drawn to that species — here more likely §103.

9. US 6,373,620 B1 — Wang et al., "Thin film electro-optic beam steering device"

• Assignee: Corning Applied Technologies Corp.; priority 1996-02-05; granted 2002-04-16.
• §102 relevance: Marginal. An electro-optic thin-film device; primarily a §103 secondary reference on electrode/field-application structure.

10. US 2005/0083566 A1 — Zappettini et al., "Electro-optic semiconductor modulators"

• Priority 2001-12-18; published 2005-04-21.
• §102 relevance: Electro-optic modulator with electrodes contacting the electro-optic material — relevant to parent claim 10 ("a pair of electrodes in contact with the crystal material"). Candidate §102 reference for the electrode-contact claims.

11. US 2003/0025489 A1 — Davidson et al., "Electro-optic high voltage sensor"

• Applicant: Bechtel BWXT Idaho, LLC; filed 2000-01-17; published 2003-02-06.
• Description: Electro-optic high-voltage sensor (same assignee lineage as items 1, 3, 4).
• §102 relevance: High-voltage assembly claims; part of the same Lockheed/BWXT lineage the patent distinguishes from.

12. US 2013/0093410 A1 — Eriksson et al., "High-voltage sensor with axially overlapping electrodes and local field sensors"

• Assignee: ABB Research Ltd; filed 2010-06-07; published 2013-04-18.
• §102 relevance: Electrode geometry / field-distribution claims; §103 reference for the insulated-sensor-body and electrode-placement concepts.

13. CN 105425020 A — (Chinese application, published ≈ March 2016)

• Description (from the cited/similar list): substation transient-overvoltage monitoring.
• §102 relevance: The only citation that is close to the 2016-08-17 priority date. Foreign-language; would require a verified translation, and only qualifies as prior art if its publication date is confirmed to precede 2016-08-17. Treat with caution until the exact publication date is verified.

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4. Additional citations I could NOT definitively attribute

The US 10,634,704 B2 grant PDF's (56) field also lists US 2017/0140710 A1 (Miller), US 2017/0160314 A1 (Furukawa), and US 2018/0059144 A1 (Davis), each flagged with the examiner's asterisk. Two caveats:

1. Those entries may belong to the parent patent's citation list (App. 15/679,624), not necessarily to US 11,402,410's own list — the continuation was examined separately.
2. One of them (Miller, CPC G09G 3/3413, display driving) looks technically off-field for a Pockels voltage sensor, which suggests it was cited on a formal/omnibus basis rather than as substantive art. I am not asserting these as substantive §102 art without confirmation of the exact front page of US 11,402,410.

If these do appear on US 11,402,410's front page, all three are 2017–2018 publications and would be §102(a)(2)/§103 art only if their effective filing dates predate 2016-08-17 — which is unlikely and should be verified.

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5. Family-level "X"/"Y" art — what the EPO thought was closest

These are the references cited in the EPO search report for EP 3501068 A4 / WO 2018/035313 A1 — the European sibling of the same disclosure. They did not all appear in the US list, and several are graded X (novelty-destroying alone) or Y (obviousness):

Analytical point: the fact that the EPO graded six references as "X" against the same disclosure — and that the three US references the applicant itself admitted (items 1–3 above) are in the same lineage — means the broad "input collimator → Pockels crystal → output collimator → detector" assembly claim is under significant §102 exposure. The patent's defensible territory is narrow and specific: (i) the all-bonded, air-gap-free integrated stack (collimator block + glass spacer block + crystal + retro-prism, no waveplates/retarders/beam splitters), (ii) the switchgear-elbow mechanical package, and (iii) the specific temperature-calibration methodology.

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6. Non-patent literature cited

• Sima, W. et al. (2016), "Temperature Characteristics of Pockels Electro-Optic Voltage Sensor With Double Crystal Compensation," AIP Advances 6, 055109. Published 2016 — must be checked against the 2016-08-17 priority date (055109 in AIP Advances was published in May 2016, i.e., before the priority date). The applicant itself characterizes it as describing "double, or stacked, LiNbO₃ crystals with a complex air-spaced polarization diversity scheme" that was stable only 0 °C–50 °C.
  • §102 relevance: Directly anticipates claims drawn to a dual-crystal / stacked-crystal voltage sensor, if such claims exist in US 11,402,410. If US 11,402,410's claims are limited to a single crystal, this reference is §103 art against any claim that does not positively require a single crystal.

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7. Ranked answer: the most relevant prior art for US 11,402,410

Tier 1 — strongest §102 anticipation candidates (a single reference that could disclose all elements of the broad independent claim):

1. US 5,731,579 A (Woods, Lockheed Idaho) — admitted in the specification; classic fiber-coupled Pockels voltage sensor head.
2. US 5,939,711 A (Crawford, Lockheed Martin Idaho) — same lineage, same admission.
3. US 6,492,800 B1 (Woods, Bechtel BWXT) — same lineage, same admission.
4. US 6,307,666 B1 (Davidson, Bechtel BWXT) — best single-reference shot at the temperature-compensation claims.
5. WO 99/30203 A1 (Lockheed Martin Idaho) — the EPO's lead "X" reference against the same disclosure.
6. EP 1229337 A1 / GB 2350893 A — EPO "X" references for the broad assembly claims.

Tier 2 — §103 combination bases (temperature compensation): US 2004/0095570 A1 (Stanimirov); US 2004/0239307 A1 (Bohnert); plus the Tier-1 references — a §103 rejection combining, e.g., a Lockheed/BWXT sensor head with a Bohnert/Davidson temperature-compensation scheme is very plausible.

Tier 3 — §103 secondary/structural references: US 5,157,324 A (crystal material); US 6,373,620 B1 (electro-optic device); US 2003/0025489 A1 (high-voltage sensor); US 2005/0083566 A1 (electrodes on electro-optic material — relevant to the electrode-contact claim); US 2009/0290165 A1 and US 2013/0093410 A1 (ABB high-voltage packaging/electrodes); CN 105425020 A (date-sensitive).

Tier 4 — NPL: Sima et al. (2016), AIP Advances 6, 055109 — §102 against any dual/stacked-crystal claim; §103 against single-crystal claims.

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8. Caveats and things I could not verify (stated explicitly, not fabricated)

1. The complete 16-item US citation list was truncated in retrieval — I recovered 13. The three missing items are not identified here. Do not treat the list above as exhaustive.
2. The exact granted claims of US 11,402,410 were not retrieved. The claims I referenced (1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 11) are from US 10,634,704 B2, the parent. The §102 mapping is by claim category and must be re-run against the actual US 11,402,410 claim set before any rejection is asserted.
3. Attribution of US 2017/0140710 A1, US 2017/0160314 A1, and US 2018/0059144 A1 to US 11,402,410's citation list is unconfirmed — they may belong to the parent's list.
4. Publication dates for CN 105425020 A and for the 2017–2018 US publications relative to the 2016-08-17 priority date were not independently verified. "Cited by examiner" on a patent's face does not establish a reference is prior art to that patent.
5. No CAFC/PTAB 2026 docket activity could be confirmed — the previously-generated section promised it but produced none.
6. Per the operating rules: nothing above auto-corrects or "fixes" a patent number, date, or chemical identifier; all are reported as found.

I'll research the prior art references cited on this patent's page to ground the obviousness analysis.

Let me retrieve the actual claims of US 11,402,410 and details on the other cited prior art.

Let me obtain the claim set of the '410 patent and details on remaining cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,402,410 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Preliminary note on sources and confidence

Two honesty flags before the analysis:

1. I could not retrieve the verbatim claim set of US 11,402,410 within my research budget (the Google Patents full text I was given ends mid-sentence in the "DETAILED DESCRIPTION," and my targeted claim-text searches returned the specification, not the numbered claims). Accordingly, I analyze the claimed subject matter as reflected in the Abstract, Summary, and disclosed embodiments. The Abstract is reproduced verbatim in the record: "An optical voltage sensor assembly includes an input fiber-optic collimator… A crystal material… An output fiber-optic collimator…" plus the modular switchgear elbow device of the Summary. If you supply the verbatim claims (particularly the independent apparatus claims and the switchgear-elbow independent claim), I can tighten the element-by-element mapping.
2. I reconstructed the prior-art-of-record from the patent family. The '410 is a continuation of Ser. No. 15/679,624 and shares its specification with US 10,634,704 (same title). The "References Cited" list I rely on below was pulled from that family member's face and from the Google Patents record. I flag post-priority publications where they arise.

There is no contradiction with the earlier-generated sections: nothing in the litigation summary bears on the § 103 question, and I have not repeated its content.

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I. Governing law and the person of ordinary skill

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), obviousness turns on (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims, (3) the level of ordinary skill, and (4) secondary considerations. Where a claimed combination is of elements "known in the prior art," and the combination does no more than yield predictable results, § 103 is satisfied — motivation may be found in the "interrelated teachings of multiple patents… the effects of demands known to the design community or present in the marketplace, and the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art." KSR, 550 U.S. at 418.

POSITA. A person of ordinary skill here is an engineer or physicist with a bachelor's degree (or higher) in electrical/optical engineering or applied physics and about 2–4 years' experience designing fiber-optic, electro-optic, or Pockels-effect sensors for the electric power industry, including knowledge of LiNbO₃ transverse modulators, polarization optics, and high-voltage/medium-voltage sensor packaging. This field is mature and predictable at the component level (polarizers, collimators, index-matching adhesives, retro-reflectors, LiNbO₃ crystals are all well-characterized catalog devices), which lowers the inventive burden for any combination.

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II. The claimed subject matter (as disclosed)

The '410 specification and Summary frame the invention around these aspects:

• Independent aspect 1 (optical voltage sensor assembly): input fiber-optic collimator → Pockels crystal material → output fiber-optic collimator → detector.
• Independent aspect 2 (modular switchgear elbow device): sensor body with first/second ends; second end having a sensor cavity for the optical crystal and a cable cavity for fiber-optic cables; an internal pick-off rod in the first end; an external pick-off rod connected at a pick-off-rod connection point within the sensor body, the rods forming substantially a right angle; and a base cap with a fiber-optic cable strain relief.
• Dependent/embodied features: (a) input linear polarizer embedded/bonded in the input collimator and an output analyzer in the output collimator; (b) a collimator block housing with bore holes and a thermal expansion coefficient matched to the collimators; (c) a glass spacer block bonded between the block housing and crystal; (d) a retro-prism sub-assembly giving a double pass through the crystal; (e) all optical components bonded together with no airspaces; (f) no waveplates/retarders/beam splitters; (g) a temperature sensor (fiber-optic, thermocouple, MEMS) coupled to the computing device and a calibration factor C(T) applied via lookup/interpolation; (h) the crystal chosen from the 3m/42m/43m/… point groups, LiNbO₃ preferred, with metallized surfaces; (i) corrosion-resistant pick-off rods/base cap of bronze, silicon bronze, or silicon steel; (j) low-voltage variants with electrodes directly contacting the crystal.

Crucially, the '410 admits that the prior-art Pockels sensors of US 5,731,579; 5,939,711; and 6,492,800 "have been deployed by a number of utilities and found to function well at constant temperature" — i.e., the core optical arrangement is admitted prior art, and the only asserted differences are environmental/temperature robustness and the mechanical switchgear packaging.

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III. The prior art of record and what it discloses

Post-priority note: US 2017/0160314 (Furukawa), US 2018/0059144 (Davis), and the WO 2019/118404 Micatu publication are post-2016-08-17 publications. They are usable only if they carry an earlier effective filing under AIA § 102(a)(2); I flag them as provisional rather than relying on them.

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IV. Obviousness combinations

Ground 1 — Core assembly: Woods '579 (or '800) in view of Crawford '711 and Davidson '666

What is missing from Woods '579 alone: the '410's integrated, air-gap-free bonded stack and the replacement of the beam splitter with a simple linear analyzer integrated into the output collimator. But Woods '579 already teaches the input collimator, polarizer, translucent coupling medium, Pockels crystal, retro-reflector (double pass), and fiber-coupled output to a detector. The '410's own specification concedes these devices "function well at constant temperature."

Why combining is proper:

• Same field, same problem. All three references are Pockels-effect electro-optic voltage sensors for the power industry. KSR, 550 U.S. at 415 ("familiar elements… according to known methods").
• Explicit teaching away is absent, and express motivation exists. Davidson '666 expressly criticizes the waveplate/beam splitter as temperature-sensitive and a source of inaccuracy, and expressly seeks a sensor "substantially unaffected by temperature." That is a direct motivation to substitute the beam-splitter output-analysis chain with the simpler polarizer/analyzer paradigm the '410 claims.
• Substitution of known elements. Replacing a polarizing beam splitter with a linear polarizer/analyzer is a substitution of one known polarization element for another, performing the same function (converting the crystal's differential phase shift into an intensity modulation) with a predictable result. See In re Fout, 675 F.2d 297 (CCPA 1982); KSR ("[A] court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.").
• Bonding is routine. Surface-to-surface optical adhesive bonding to eliminate air gaps is a well-known technique for reducing Fresnel losses and moisture ingress in optical assemblies; the '410 describes no unexpected result from bonding.

Reasonable expectation of success: High — the resulting device is the same optical train minus a temperature-sensitive waveplate/beam-splitter stage.

Ground 2 — Temperature-compensated claims: any of Ground 1 in view of Davidson '666 and/or Sima (2016)

The '410's temperature sensor + calibration factor C(T) applied by lookup/interpolation is squarely taught or suggested by:

• Davidson '666 ("passive compensation of temperature related intrinsic phase shift"; recognizes that temperature "must be constantly monitored"; identifies the cost of monitoring).
• Sima (2016) — the '410 itself cites it as establishing temperature compensation via double-crystal stacking for LiNbO₃.

Motivation: The problem of temperature-dependent refractive indices/birefringence in Pockels crystals was known and documented in the art before 2016 (Davidson; Sima). Combining a known temperature sensor with a known Pockels sensor and applying a known calibration-curve correction (a lookup/indexed table is a routine programming step, not a patentable advance) yields predictable results. This is classic obvious-to-try territory given a finite number of identified, predictable solutions. KSR, 550 U.S. at 421.

Even Sima's limited 0–50 °C range does not help the '410: extending a known compensation technique to a wider temperature range (−40 to +80 °C) via routine engineering is an obvious design choice for a known purpose absent unexpected results.

Ground 3 — Integrated bonded assembly: Woods '800 in view of Stanimirov '570 / Zappettini '566 and the general adhesive-bonding knowledge

The '410 emphasizes a collimator block housing with matched thermal expansion, a glass spacer block, and all elements bonded with no airspaces. Each is a packaging/design-choice feature:

• Matching the CTE of a glass/ceramic collimator block to the glass collimators and crystal is a straightforward application of known materials-selection principles to reduce thermally induced misalignment (a result the '410 itself frames as "pointing stability").
• A glass spacer block between a glass block and a crystal to reduce thermal mismatch and intrinsic-birefringence fluctuation is a predictable use of a known index-matching/CTE-matching element.
• Eliminating airspaces by bonding is expressly motivated by the '410's stated problem — humidity/moisture ingress — a problem known in the art (Davidson '666 and others seek environmental robustness), with a known solution (adhesive bonding).

KSR: "A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." The combination of these routine packaging choices with the Ground 1 optical train does not produce a result "beyond what one of ordinary skill would have expected."

Ground 4 — Modular switchgear elbow device

This is the least well-supported ground on the record I was able to assemble, and I flag it explicitly:

• The optical sensing core of the elbow device (sensor cavity housing the Pockels crystal) is supplied by Grounds 1–2.
• The mechanical armature — a sensor body with a right-angle internal/external pick-off rod, a base cap with a fiber-optic strain relief, and a cable cavity — is characteristic of standard medium-voltage dead-break/load-break elbow connectors, which are catalog commercial hardware (the '410 itself calls the elbow cover "a commercially available elbow cover"). The Summary's own statement that the modularity "allows for it to be easily adapted for use in all elbow configurations and T-configurations available for load break and dead break products" is an admission that the surrounding elbow hardware is conventional.
• A POSITA seeking to place a known optical voltage sensor into an existing elbow/T-connector would be motivated by the known problem of underground switchgear flooding (expressly the stated purpose), and combining a known sensor with a known connector housing is a predictable arrangement of old elements.

Caveat: I did not locate a specific single pre-2016 reference that discloses the right-angle pick-off rod within a sensor body for an optical voltage sensor. If Micatu's claims to this feature are drafted narrowly (e.g., requiring the particular internal/external rod geometry plus the strain-relief base cap in combination with the specific optical cavity arrangement), a stronger non-obviousness argument may exist for this independent claim. I cannot fully evaluate that without the verbatim claim and without the examiner's cited art for the elbow aspect.

Ground 5 — Corrosion-resistant materials (bronze / silicon bronze / silicon steel)

The '410 claims/embodies pick-off rods and base cap of bronze, silicon bronze, or silicon steel "to reduce corrosion." This is a materials substitution to solve a known problem:

• The '410 admits the prior art used stainless steel or aluminum and that such materials "would rapidly corrode… for underground applications."
• Choosing a corrosion-resistant conductive metal for a known wet/humid environment is the epitome of a design choice driven by the intended use, and the candidates (bronze/silicon bronze/silicon steel) are recognized conductive, corrosion-resistant materials. Cf. In re Kuhle; KSR (predictable use of prior-art elements).

Ground 6 — Low-voltage embodiments with electrodes contacting the crystal

Applying a voltage to a Pockels crystal via directly contacting electrodes is the standard transverse electro-optic modulator configuration, taught by Woods '579 (claim 7/8 transducer, transverse field) and ubiquitous in the electro-optic modulator art (e.g., LiNbO₃ transverse-field modulators). Combining a known electrode-driven transverse modulator with a fiber-collimated, retro-reflector double-pass architecture (Ground 1) is a predictable combination. The choice of Cu/Ag/Al/Au electrode metals is a design choice.

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V. Synthesis: motivation to combine (KSR factors)

1. Same field of endeavor / reasonably pertinent. Every reference is an optical (Pockels-effect) voltage or electric-field sensor, most expressly for the electric power industry.
2. Common, recognized problem. Temperature/humidity/environmental stability of Pockels sensors was a documented, long-felt problem by 2016 (Davidson '666; Sima 2016; the '410's own Background). The '410's solution — remove the fragile waveplate/beam-splitter diversity chain, bond everything with no air gaps, and add temperature calibration — is the predictable combination of known remedies to the known problem.
3. Predictable results. The optical train is the same as Woods '579/'800; the differences are substitutions (analyzer for beam splitter), additions (temperature sensor + calibration), and routine packaging (bonding, CTE-matched blocks). No unexpected result is asserted beyond the stated goal of stability.
4. Express motivation in the art. Davidson '666 both identifies the offending components (waveplates, beam splitters) and states the goal (sensor "substantially unaffected by temperature") — a printed motivation to arrive at the '410's architecture.
5. Inventors' own earlier work. Micatu's US 10,401,377 already disclosed a remote-source fiber-optic sensor system, reinforcing that the fiber-collimated architecture was within the inventors' own prior possession.

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VI. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

I found no evidence in the record of:

• Unexpected results — the specification claims only the expected benefit (stability over −40 to +80 °C) without comparative data against the closest art beyond Sima's 0–50 °C.
• Long-felt but unmet need — the need is admittedly documented in prior art (Davidson '666 sought the same goal), which cuts against non-obviousness rather than for it.
• Commercial success, copying, industry praise, or licensing — none verified in the earlier litigation section, which found no confirmed litigation involving this patent.

Absent such evidence, the Graham secondary-consideration factor does not rebut a prima facie case of obviousness.

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VII. Bottom line and limits

Two explicit caveats you should weigh before relying on this:

1. I analyzed the disclosed and summarized subject matter, not the verbatim claims, which I could not retrieve. A definitive § 103 opinion requires the exact claim language and the examiner's cited art (the ISR for PCT/US17/47330 and the PTO-892 for the '704 parent).
2. The switchgear-elbow independent claim is the most defensible; I do not have a pre-2016 reference squarely disclosing its right-angle pick-off-rod geometry, and I will not fabricate one. If you can supply the issued claims and any cited art for that aspect, I can complete that leg of the analysis.

If you'd like, I can (a) pull the verbatim claims and re-run the element-by-element mapping, or (b) draft formal claim-chart-style rejection rationales for your strongest two grounds (Woods '579 + Davidson '666; and the temperature-compensation ground).