US 11402444

I'll run targeted searches for this patent number, including its litigation/docket footprint.

Initial results were irrelevant (the first returned unrelated EPO/AU documents; the docket query returned nothing). Let me try more precise queries.

No CAFC hits yet. Let me probe docket-focused and litigation-focused sources specifically.

Search results for US 11,402,444 (interpreted literally — no auto-correction)

Note on search conduct: I queried for the exact number 11402444 / US11402444 together with assignee, litigation, CAFC, and docket terms. Results returned the correct patent on Google Patents, plus a 2025 conference paper from the same assignee. No CAFC 2026 docket reference to US 11,402,444 appeared in any search result. Searches for "CAFC docket 11402444" returned only unrelated appeals — Micron v. Netlist (2024‑1312/1313) and IdeaHub v. Unified Patents (2024‑1684) — which do not involve this patent and must not be conflated with it. I therefore cannot confirm any litigation or appellate activity; treat "no litigation found" as a search limitation, not proof of absence.

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Bibliographic data (source: Google Patents, US11402444B2)

Abstract (as published)

An arrangement enabling both magnetic particle imaging (MPI) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and a device incorporating it, comprising at least one primary magnetic element pair to generate a selection magnetic field (SMF1/SMF2) for MPI, at least one secondary magnetic element pair to generate a driving magnetic field, and at least one tertiary magnetic element pair to generate a focus magnetic field (FMF).

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the arrangement (the core hardware).
A single coil arrangement does both MPI and MRI:

• a primary magnetic element pair makes the MPI "selection field" and, on the X–Y plane, a magnetic field gradient;
• a secondary pair makes the MPI drive field and, for MRI, a gradient along the Z axis (perpendicular to the X–Y plane);
• a tertiary pair makes the MPI focus field and, for MRI, a first high-homogeneity field (the main B₀-like field);
• a transmitting pair excites nuclear spins in a second high-homogeneity field for MRI; and
• a first receiving pair picks up the MRI signals.

The point of the claim is that the same imaging region (IR) and the same element pairs are reused between modalities — the pairs are simply driven differently in each mode.

Claim 10 — method-of-use claim.
"A method for using the arrangement according to claim 1, comprising: applying the arrangement to a device suitable for the magnetic particle imaging and/or the magnetic resonance imaging." This is essentially a use claim, not a method of imaging.

Claim 11 — the device/system claim.
A device containing the claim‑1 arrangement plus (a) driving circuits that apply current/voltage waveforms to the primary, secondary, tertiary and transmitting element pairs per the selected MPI or MRI mode; (b) a driver unit with a receiving circuit that processes and digitizes signals from the first receiving pair and the second receiving pair; and (c) a control unit that generates waveforms, adjusts timings, and monitors current, voltage and temperature in near‑real time.

Claims 2–9 are dependent arrangement claims (frequency/amplitude ranges for the primary, secondary and tertiary pairs; the split of the primary pair into X‑gradient and Y‑gradient sub‑pairs; a minimal two-primary/single-others configuration; the optional second receiving pair; insulation against eddy currents; shimming coils). Claims 12–14 depend from claim 11 (rotation arrangement; current source plus first matching/filtering circuit; second matching/filtering circuit, amplifier, A/D converter).

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Observations and caveats (flagged, not legal conclusions)

• Possible antecedent-basis issue in claim 11: claim 11 recites "the at least one second receiving magnetic element pair," but the second receiving pair is introduced only in dependent claim 7, not in claim 1. The independent device claim thus refers to structure not previously introduced in its own chain. This is worth a formal §112(b) look if the claim matters to you.
• Label reuse in claim 1: the transmitting pair is said to excite spins in "a second high homogeneity magnetic field (FMF)," while the tertiary pair forms "a first high homogeneity magnetic field (FMF)." The same abbreviation, FMF, is used for both.
• Truncated claim 20: the fetched text ends claim 20 at "The arrangement according to claim 4" without its body. I do not have the full text of claim 20 and will not guess at it.
• No litigation/CAFC record located. I found no court, PTAB, ITC or CAFC docket entry naming US 11,402,444. Do not rely on this as a clearance opinion.
• Forward citations found incidentally: Google Patents shows US11402444B2 cited by CN115054222A and appearing in the reference list of US12383754B2 (Magnetic Insight, "System and apparatus for combined magnetic resonance imaging with magnetic spectroscopy of Brownian motion and/or magnetic nanoparticle imaging"). These are citations, not validity determinations.
• Assignee technical context (not part of the patent record): a 2025 iWMPI proceedings paper, "Initial MRI Results Using Open-Sided Hybrid MPI and Low-Field MRI Scanner," by Karaca, Alptekin Soydan, Top and Saritas (Aselsan/Bilkent), describes a preclinical open-sided hybrid MPI/LF-MRI scanner with coils used interchangeably between modes. This is consistent with the patent's subject matter but is not evidence of the patent's scope, validity, or enforcement. Source: journal.iwmpi.org.

If you need authoritative confirmation on legal status, ownership chain, or docket activity, the primary sources to pull directly are USPTO PatentCenter (application 17/244,978), the USPTO Assignment record (the 2021‑04‑30 assignment from inventor Top to Aselsan), and PACER/CourtListener docket searches — none of which I was able to exhaust within the search budget for this run.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11402444 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more specifically, including the patent owner and litigation databases.

Litigation Search Results: US Patent No. 11,402,444

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation involving US 11,402,444. Based on the sources I was able to search, there appear to be no district court cases, ITC investigations, CAFC appeals, or PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) in which this specific patent has been asserted or challenged.

What I searched and what came back

Important caution on false-positive "044" hits

My searches surfaced several documents referencing other patents that also end in "044," which must not be confused with US 11,402,444. Examples:

• U.S. Pat. No. 11,404,444‑family "the '044 Patent" (Rotolight / Videndum LED lighting IPR dispute, Rotolight Ltd. v. Videndum PLC, D. Del. Case No. 22-928-MN-JLH; IPR2022-00099). This is a lighting-effects patent, a different patent entirely.
• Various Pfizer/Wyeth '024, '060, '708 patents; Stratasys cases; Medtronic v. Axonics — all unrelated.

None of these involve US 11,402,444.

About the patent itself (context, not litigation)

• Patent: US 11,402,444 B2, "Arrangement allowing the performance of both magnetic particle imaging and magnetic resonance imaging and a device comprising this arrangement"
• Owner / assignee: Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (Ankara, Turkey)
• Inventor: Can Baris Top
• Priority: 2020-05-13 (Turkish App. No. 2020/07444); Filed: 2021-04-30; Granted: 2022-08-02
• Anticipated expiration: 2041-04-30
• Legal status (per Google Patents): Active, with no litigation events listed in the source text I retrieved.

Notably, Aselsan is a large defense/electronics manufacturer that generally enforces its IP, and a related Aselsan family member (EP 3,582,687, "Open configuration magnetic particle imaging system with field-free line") also appears in the EPO register — but I found no assertion activity on US 11,402,444.

Confidence and limitations

• Confidence that no litigation exists: moderate-to-high, but not absolute. Unified Patents' portal, PACER, and Docket Navigator are not fully indexed by general web search; a case could exist that simply isn't surfacing.
• Recommended verification steps for a definitive answer:
  1. Docket Navigator or Lex Machina — search by patent number 11,402,444.
  2. Unified Patents portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (and the patent-specific page: portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11402444-B2).
  3. PACER — search "11,402,444" as a text term across district courts.
  4. PTAB / USPTO PatentCenter — Fintiv/appeal tabs for the patent, to confirm no IPR/PGR.
  5. USPTO Assignment records — to confirm the patent has not been transferred to a litigation vehicle (NPE), which would be a common precursor to assertion.

If you'd like, I can run additional targeted searches (e.g., specific defendants in the MRI/MPI device space such as Philips, Siemens Healthineers, GE HealthCare, Bruker, or Magnetic Insight) to check for any disputes that might be indexed under a party name rather than the patent number.

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

No hits so far. Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 11,402,444: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming this patent, and my independent web checks (PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions, Docket Alarm, CourtListener-adjacent sources, and general press/industry coverage of Aselsan's MPI portfolio) surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal involving the '444 patent. The breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied.

The defensive posture this gives a defendant is genuine but narrow: the patent is completely untested at the PTAB, and every one of claims 1–20 remains live and unchallenged. That is materially different from "hardened by surviving IPRs." A patent with no PTAB history has never had its claims construed by the Board under the Phillips standard, has never been subjected to an invalidity record built by a well-funded petitioner, and its claim 1 — which is written in purely functional "configured to" language with no structural detail — has not been pressure-tested. The absence of IPRs here almost certainly reflects the absence of assertion activity rather than the patent's strength; there is no evidence in my searches of any district court complaint asserting the '444 patent.

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No proceedings to report

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} entry to populate. I will not manufacture one. For completeness, the fields the task asked for would be resolved as follows:

• Type: N/A — no IPR, PGR, or CBM on file.
• Filed: N/A.
• Status: N/A. (The '444 patent itself shows "Active" legal status on Google Patents, with anticipated expiration 2041-04-30 — that is the patent's status, not a proceeding status.)
• Judge panel: N/A — no panel has ever been assigned.
• Petition grounds: N/A.
• Institution decision: N/A.
• Final Written Decision: N/A. No claim of the '444 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the Board.
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: None found. No CAFC docket number exists because there is no Board decision to appeal.
• Defensive value: Untested, not hardened. Using IPR to invalidate is fully available on a clean slate — but that also means you get no free roadmap from a prior petitioner.

Two caveats on the completeness of this negative finding. First, my verification rests on web-search results, which are not a substitute for a direct PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End docket query by patent number; the ODP block in the prompt is the authoritative source, and it says none. Second, PTAB filings that are still within the 9-month post-grant preliminary window or newly filed petitions can lag third-party indexes. My searches returned nothing even for recent filing years (IPR2022–IPR2025), so I rate a missed proceeding as unlikely but not impossible.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of US 11,402,444 is UNTESTED. None is canceled, and none has been sustained. Claim 1 — the sole independent arrangement claim — remains fully intact, as do device claims 11–14 (claim 11 being the independent device claim) and dependent claims 2–10, 15–20. There is no narrowing claim amendment, no certificate of correction changing scope, and no reissue or reexamination on file that I could find. For a defendant, this means the full breadth of the asserted claims must be met on the merits, and there is no cancellation order you can point to in a demand-letter response.

Estoppel landscape. With zero AIA petitions, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone. No party is barred from raising any § 102 or § 103 ground, and no party has forfeited the ground it "reasonably could have raised" in a prior IPR. That is the single most favorable feature of this posture: a defendant today has the complete prior-art universe available — including the three references cited on the face of the patent (US 2015/0276902 to Weaver, US 2015/0316628 to Heidenreich, US 2018/0148795 to Hoffmann) and the art discussed in the specification's own background section, namely US 9,927,500, US 10,191,130, and US 8,666,473. Notably, the applicant distinguished all three background references on the ground that they use only field-free points rather than field-free lines, and that they require mode-switching between MPI and MRI — those are the exact loci an obviousness challenge should attack, and nobody has yet tested them.

Pattern signals. There is no chain to analyze: no repeat petitioner, no patent owner appellate activity, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) appears anywhere in the record for this patent. Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. is the sole assignee and Can Baris Top the sole named inventor, per the USPTO assignment record, with no reassignment. Aselsan holds a family of related MPI patents (e.g., the open-bore field-free-line system, US 10,478,087) and related applications (US 2021/0244309 on coded calibration scenes; US 2025/0199096 on ODMR-based magnetic field measurement) — meaning a future campaign asserting the '444 patent would likely be a portfolio campaign, and validity attacks should be planned family-wide rather than patent-by-patent.

Recommended next steps

1. Treat this as a greenfield IPR opportunity, subject to one timing check. Confirm the § 315(b) one-year bar: if your client has already been served with a complaint asserting the '444 patent, the clock runs from that service date. I found no such complaint, which suggests the patent may not have been asserted at all — verify that independently before budgeting.
2. PGR is off the table; IPR is the vehicle. The patent issued 2022-08-02, so the § 321(c) nine-month post-grant review window closed on 2023-05-02. Any AIA challenge now must be an IPR under §§ 311–319 (or an ex parte reexamination, which carries no estoppel and is not an AIA trial).
3. Build the invalidity case around the field-free-line distinction. The specification concedes that FFP-based combination systems were known (US 9,927,500; US 10,191,130) and expressly frames the invention's advantage as avoiding mode-switching and using an FFL in a shared imaging region with no mechanical patient transfer. That concession is a § 103 roadmap: find art teaching electronic FFL rotation with shared coils, and the "no switching requirement" and "same center" advantages collapse into predictable design choices.
4. Get the prosecution history before filing. Claim 1 as issued contains functional limitations ("configured to generate a first magnetic field gradient… in the same imaging region") that appear to have been added or emphasized during prosecution. The full file history (application 17/244,978) will show exactly what the applicant argued to overcome the examiner — likely a position on the "same imaging region" / simultaneous dual-modality limitation that defines the estoppel-proof boundary of the claim.
5. Monitor, don't wait. Because there is no PTAB precedent, there is also no scheduling benchmark. If an IPR is filed, the statutory milestones would be: institution decision within 6 months of the petition's filing date (§ 314(b)), and Final Written Decision within 12 months of institution, extendable to 18 months for good cause (§ 316(a)(11)).
6. For a demand-letter scenario: you have no cancellation order to cite. Do not tell a client "these claims are dead" — they are not. The honest assessment is that claim 1 is broad, functionally claimed, and completely unchallenged in front of the Board.

Sources checked: USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical — returns none); the patent text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402444/en (assignee, inventor, dates, claim set); Justia patent page https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11402444](/patent/11402444); PTAB E2E/PTAB Decisions and Docket Alarm searches (no match for patent number 11402444 as a PTAB patent-in-suit); Federal Circuit / CourtListener (no appeal).

I'll search for the recorded assignment data for this patent from the USPTO Assignment Center and related sources.

Let me try more specific searches for the assignment reel/frame and correspondent data.

Let me try a few more targeted searches to pin down the reel/frame and correspondent of record.

I hit the search-step ceiling before I could pull the Assignment Center detail page (reel/frame, correspondent). Below I reconstruct the record from what I did retrieve and flag every field I could not verify rather than inventing it.

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Inventors

• No unusual departure pattern found. I found no evidence that the inventor left Aselsan within 12 months of filing. Aselsan remains the assignee of the related MPI patent family, and the 2025 iWMPI scanner paper (Karaca, Alptekin Soydan, Top, Saritas) still lists the inventor in the Aselsan/Bilkent hybrid-scanner effort — a continuity signal, not a departure signal.
• Caveat: inventor employment is inferred from public CV/register artifacts, not from the assignment instrument itself (which I could not open). Treat as high-confidence but not record-verified.

Original assignee

• Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. — Ankara, Türkiye (Mehmet Akif Ersoy Mah., Macunköy), the assignee named on the issued patent.
• Business: Türkiye's largest defense-electronics firm — radar, electronic warfare, communications, avionics, and a medical-imaging R&D line that produced the MPI/FFL work here. Publicly listed on Borsa Istanbul (ticker ASELS); a controlling stake is held by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation (TSKGV). (Corporate-status detail is from general knowledge of the company; verify against a current SEC-equivalent/BIST filing before relying on it.)
• Product embodying the claims: Yes, at least at the development/demonstration stage. A 2025 iWMPI proceedings paper from the same group ("Initial MRI Results Using Open-Sided Hybrid MPI and Low-Field MRI Scanner", Karaca, Alptekin Soydan, Top, Saritas) describes a preclinical open-sided hybrid MPI/low-field-MRI scanner with coils reused between modes — squarely consistent with claim 1's shared-hardware architecture. This is evidence of a real, operating manufacturer, not a licensing shim.
• Current status: Operating. (No record of acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy found.)

Assignment timeline

The only recorded transaction appearing in the sources I could retrieve is the original inventor→company assignment, recorded the same day the US application was filed:

• 2021-04-30 (executed) / recorded 2021-04-30 — Reel/Frame NOT RETRIEVED (see caveat below)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: TOP, Can Baris
  • Assignee: ASELSAN ELEKTRONIK SAN. VE TIC. A. S.
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED — this is the field I most wanted and could not get.
  • Context: Standard pre-issuance employee/inventor assignment to the operating employer at filing — not a fire-sale, reorg, or asserter transfer.

No post-issuance assignments were found. Google Patents' legal-events tab shows only: (1) 2021-04-30 application filed and assigned to Aselsan; (2) 2021-11-18 pre-grant publication US 2021/0356536 A1; (3) 2022-08-02 grant of US 11,402,444 B2; and the 2041-04-30 anticipated-expiration entry. There is no further conveyance, security interest, license record, or change-of-name event in the retrieved text.

Honesty caveat — required verification. I could not retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent attorney/agent of record for the 2021-04-30 assignment within my search budget (targeted Assignment Center and reel/frame queries returned nothing usable). I am therefore not supplying those values — fabricating a reel/frame or a correspondent name would be worse than reporting the gap. To complete this row, pull the record directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 11,402,444) or the indexed mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Both surface reel/frame + correspondent from the same underlying dataset.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402444
    2020 : Turkish priority filed
    2021 : US application filed
         : Inventor assigns rights to Aselsan
         : Pre-grant publication
    2022 : Patent granted to Aselsan

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment is on record).

Justification: the single recorded conveyance — 2021-04-30, inventor Can Baris Top → Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. — is the ordinary employee-to-employer assignment filed the same day as the US application, and I found no subsequent transfer, security interest, or license record. Because the chain contains only that original assignment, this lands in the "Insufficient data" bucket by the stated definition, but note the substantive reading: the evidence affirmatively shows a clean, single-owner, operating-manufacturer chain with zero NPE signals — Aselsan is a large defense/medical-imaging company that has publicly demonstrated a hybrid MPI/low-field-MRI scanner consistent with claim 1, so there is no shell-entity, asserter, or fire-sale pattern to report.

One open item: the reel/frame and correspondent of record are unverified. Confirm them at the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) before finalizing — a single correspondent name is the only way to move signal #3 off "unclear."

I'll run targeted searches on the USPTO/Google Patents record for US 11,402,444 to pull its patent citations.

Let me pull the citation lists from patent databases directly.

Scope note — what I could and could not retrieve

My searches for US 11,402,444 returned mostly noise, and one important clarification is needed before the analysis:

A literal ID collision to flag. The string 11402444 matches a different record: US application 11/402,444 → US 2007/0242209 A1, "LCD having switchable viewing angles" (Chi‑Huang Lin, filed 2006‑04‑12, published 2007‑10‑18). That is a serial-number match, not the patent you asked about. Likewise US 11,404,444 (Rotolight/Videndum lighting IPR) and US 11,233,445 appeared as unrelated near-misses. None of these is US 11,402,444 and none is treated as prior art here.

What I could not retrieve: I was unable to pull the machine-readable front-page "References Cited" (examiner-cited) list for US 11,402,444 B2 from Google Patents / Espacenet / USPTO in this run — the queries surfaced search-report fragments from unrelated families rather than the 11,402,444 citation table. So the citation set below is the applicant-cited prior art recited in the patent's own specification (which I have authoritatively from the full text you supplied). I did not obtain the examiner's front-page citations. Treat that as an explicit gap; the front page is the right place to confirm the full §102/§103 art-of-record.

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Citations grounded in the authoritative patent text

The specification of US 11,402,444 identifies three U.S. patents by number as the state of the art it distinguishes over:

1. U.S. Pat. No. 9,927,500

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 9,927,500 (as cited in US 11,402,444 B2, Background).
• Filing/publication dates: Not verified in this run. I could not retrieve the front-page dates from a reliable source, and I will not guess them. Verify at USPTO PatentCenter by number.
• What the specification says it discloses: a magnet of reverse polarity placed next to another magnet that generates a homogeneous field for MRI; the low-field region required for MPI is formed between the two magnets, so two spatially distinct imaging regions are created. MRI and MPI images are obtained sequentially by shifting the imaged object, and the two images are aligned using fiducial markers visible in both modalities. The patent criticizes it as: independent hardware per modality (high cost); separate field-of-view centers requiring patient translation and image overlay; field-free point (not line) scanning, i.e. slow for human-scale volumes; and a closed-bore geometry unsuitable for interventional use.
• §102 relevance: On the description given, this reference cannot anticipate claim 1. Claim 1 requires a single arrangement in the same imaging region (IR) in which the primary pair forms the in-plane gradient, the secondary pair forms the Z-gradient, and the tertiary pair forms the high-homogeneity field, plus dedicated transmitting and first-receiving pairs. U.S. 9,927,500 teaches the opposite architecture — spatially separated regions and modality-specific hardware. It is best characterized as §103 background art, not §102 anticipation. It also does not reach dependent claims 2–9 or device claim 11 on this record.

2. U.S. Pat. No. 10,191,130

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 10,191,130 (as cited in US 11,402,444 B2, Background).
• Filing/publication dates: Not verified in this run (see caveat above).
• What the specification says it discloses: a two-part resistive solenoid electromagnet that produces the homogeneous field needed for MRI when both parts are fed the same current, and an inhomogeneous gradient suitable for MPI when the two parts are fed opposite currents. The patent criticizes it because all other MRI and MPI equipment remains separate (not cost-effective); because the electromagnet must be switched between modes, so the transition is not instantaneous; and again because it scans a field-free point in a closed bore.
• §102 relevance: Potentially relevant to the concept of a single coil providing both an MRI-homogeneous field and an MPI-inhomogeneous field — but that concept is narrower than claim 1. It does not disclose the three-pair division of labor of claim 1, the dedicated transmitting pair, or the first receiving pair, and it requires mode switching rather than the claim's shared same-region operation. No full anticipation of claim 1; §103 candidate at most. Note that the "same coil, two current modes" idea is structurally close to claims 3/4's secondary/tertiary pair functions, so if an examiner were to combine this with another reference, claims 3–4 could be in play — but not by this reference alone.

3. U.S. Pat. No. 8,666,473

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 8,666,473 (as cited in US 11,402,444 B2, Background).
• Filing/publication dates: Not verified in this run (see caveat above).
• What the specification says it discloses: the closest of the three. It proposes using the same equipment for MRI and MPI: protons are pre-polarized ~100 ms with a high-amplitude homogeneous field using the MPI electromagnets, then imaged in a low homogeneous field, which drops the proton resonance frequency into a range usable by MPI hardware. It uses a field-free-point system with 7 pairs of electromagnets for 3D imaging. Criticized because the MPI gradient coil must be switched into an MRI homogeneous-field coil and the MPI focus coils must be made to generate a gradient, producing performance compromises in both modes; and because field-free-point scanning is slow at human scale.
• §102 relevance: This is the most likely §102/§103 reference of the applicant-cited set, because it expressly discloses reusing the same coil hardware for both modalities — the general aim of claim 1. But it still fails the claim-1 limitations as written: it lacks the specific allocation (primary = in-plane gradient; secondary = Z-gradient; tertiary = high-homogeneity field), lacks the dedicated transmitting pair and first receiving pair, and requires coil switching, whereas claim 1 describes the pairs as configured to serve both modalities in the same IR. The "7 pairs" field-free-point architecture also does not map onto claim 6's minimal "two primary / single secondary / single tertiary / single transmitting / single first-receiving" configuration. On this record: no clean anticipation of any claim, but it is the reference most worth pulling in full for an invalidity analysis.

Bottom line on the three applicant-cited patents: each is directed to a different hybrid (or non-hybrid) architecture, and each is criticized in the specification precisely for the feature that distinguishes claim 1 (shared hardware, shared imaging region, field-free line, no switching requirement). As recited, none appears to anticipate claim 1, and none reaches claims 2–9 or 11 on a single-reference §102 theory. They are §103/background art.

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Non-patent literature cited in the specification

These are cited as technical support, not as §102 art against the hybrid claims, but they are part of the citation set:

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Forward citation (not prior art)

• US 12,383,754 B2 (Magnetic Insight, Inc.) lists US 11,402,444 B2 in its references. A later-dated document citing 11,402,444 is not prior art under §102 and has no anticipation effect.

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Caveats you should carry forward

1. The examiner-cited front page ("References Cited") was not retrieved. The analysis above rests on the applicant-cited art recited in the specification. A full §102 review requires the front-page U.S. patent documents / foreign documents / NPL listed by the examiner — pull US 11,402,444 B2 directly from USPTO PatentCenter (application 17/244,978) or Google Patents.
2. Dates for US 9,927,500 / 10,191,130 / 8,666,473 are unverified here. I deliberately did not supply filing or grant dates I could not confirm; verify each by number before relying on them as §102 art (the reference must pre-date the 2020‑05‑13 priority / 2021‑04‑30 filing to qualify).
3. No reference identifies a specific anticipating claim with confidence. Anticipation under §102 requires a single reference disclosing every limitation of a claim. On the descriptions available, none of the cited references does so for claim 1, 10, or 11.
4. If you need the authoritative citation table, the primary sources are USPTO PatentCenter (17/244,978) and the Google Patents "Patent Citations / Cited By" tabs — neither of which I could fully surface within this run's search budget.

I'll flag one thing up front and then work with the prior art that's actually available to me.

Good — I have solid grounding now. Let me confirm bibliographic details on the two most important references and check for the examiner's own cited art.

Preliminary note on the "Prior Art section"

Flagging a gap: your instructions say to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page," but no Prior Art section was included in the material supplied to me (I received the full patent text plus your previously generated Patent Summary and Litigation Summary — nothing else). I also could not retrieve the examiner's own "References Cited" front page for US 11,402,444 within this run.

So rather than stall, I have built the § 103 analysis on three clearly-labeled tiers of art:

1. Applicant-admitted prior art — the references US 11,402,444 itself discusses in its BACKGROUND (these are admissions and are the strongest § 103 anchors);
2. Non-patent literature cited by the patent (Gleich 2005, Bente 2015, Cho 1998, Nayak 2005);
3. Art I located independently by search (Philips, Siemens, Bruker, UC Berkeley/Conolly-Goodwill families, plus the Würzburg hybrid MPI-MRI literature).

Where a reference's content comes from a search snippet rather than a full document I have read, I say so. I have not auto-corrected any patent number; in particular US 11,402,444 is not the "11,404,444" LED-lighting patent discussed in your Litigation Summary.

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1. Legal framework applied

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 and Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), obviousness turns on (a) the scope/content of the prior art, (b) the differences between the art and the claims, (c) the PHOSITA's level of ordinary skill, and (d) objective indicia. KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007) supplies the combination test: a combination is obvious if the references are analogous art, the claimed combination was motivated (explicitly or by "any need or problem known in the field"), and the PHOSITA had a reasonable expectation of success. Where a design need or market pressure is known and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, the combination is obvious (KSR); ranges within the prior art are obvious absent a showing of criticality (In re Aller); and mere "obvious to try" suffices where the solutions are predictable.

Level of ordinary skill: a medical-imaging instrument engineer/physicist with a graduate degree in EE, physics or biomedical engineering and ~2–5 years' experience in MPI and/or MRI hardware, familiar with the co-axial Helmholtz/anti-Helmholtz (Maxwell) relationship between homogeneous fields and gradients.

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2. The critical scope observation

Claim 1 does not recite most of what the specification argues makes the invention special. Specifically, claim 1 contains no requirement of:

• a field-free line (MFL) — the claim merely says "a selection magnetic field (SMF1/SMF2)";
• an open-sided / stretcher geometry;
• the absence of mode switching between MPI and MRI;
• simultaneous (as opposed to sequential) MPI and MRI;
• the second receiving pair (that is introduced only in dependent claim 7);
• any specific field strength, homogeneity, gradient or frequency.

The MFL, the "no switching requirement," the "same center," and the open geometry are all described advantages that were deliberately not claimed. That matters enormously for § 103: the non-obviousness story the patent tells in the BACKGROUND (§§ on US 8,666,473, US 9,927,500, US 10,191,130) is largely outside the claim scope. The claim, reduced to essentials, is:

one coil set that (i) makes an MPI selection field and X-Y MRI gradients, (ii) makes an MPI drive field and a Z MRI gradient, (iii) makes an MPI focus field and the MRI B₀ field, plus an MRI transmit coil and an MRI receive coil, all acting in the same imaging region.

That is a remarkably broad proposition, and the art is crowded with it.

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3. Claim 1, limitation by limitation, against the art

Every element of claim 1 has a home in the art, and L1–L5 + L7–L9 are found in a single reference (Philips '739). That is a near-anticipation posture; § 103 is comfortably met even accepting some residual gap on L5.

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4. The obviousness combinations

Combination A (primary) — Philips '739 alone

US 2012/0119739 A1 (Koninklijke Philips N.V.) discloses a combined MPI/MRI arrangement whose "set of coils" generates (i) a stationary selection gradient with a low-field sub-zone, (ii) a temporally changing homogeneous field that moves the region of action (MPI focus), (iii) a "substantially homogeneous main magnetic field in a selected and changeable direction," and (iv) "a magnetic gradient field in at least two … changeable directions," plus an excitation means and a receiving means for MR and detection signals.

That is claim 1's entire architecture. Philips expressly frames it as using the MPI hardware as a pre-polarized MRI system operating in the same region of action — i.e., the "same imaging region (IR)" limitation is met.

Combination B — Philips '739 + US 8,666,473

US 8,666,473 B2 (Philips, granted 2014-03-04, "Arrangement and method for influencing and/or detecting magnetic particles and for magnetic resonance imaging" — confirmed as a real Philips document via the Google Patents citation table on the DE10151778A1 page) is the applicant's own admitted prior art. It teaches using the same equipment for MPI and MRI, and expressly teaches reconfiguring the coils between modes: "the coil that generates an inhomogeneous magnetic gradient field for the magnetic particle imaging must be switched into a coil that generates a homogeneous magnetic field, and the focus coils that create a homogeneous magnetic field for magnetic particle imaging must be made to generate a gradient magnetic field for magnetic resonance imaging."

That admission supplies exactly the transfer function claim 1 relies on: the same coil pair can serve as gradient-generator in one mode and homogeneity-generator in the other. A PHOSITA adding '473 to '739 arrives at claim 1's paired dual-function architecture with no more than routine re-assignment of which pair does which.

Combination C — Philips '739 + US 10,191,130 + Franke 2016

US 10,191,130 B2 ("Device for sequential examination of a measurement object by means of MPI and MRI methods," Bruker Biospin) — also applicant-admitted — gives the enabling mechanism in terms: a two-part solenoid generates a homogeneous field when both parts carry the same current and a gradient when they carry opposite currents. Applied to the secondary ("drive") pair, that is L5 verbatim.

*Franke et al., "System Characterization of a Highly Integrated Preclinical Hybrid MPI-MRI Scanner," IEEE TMI 35(9):1993–2004 (2016)* supplies L9 and the motivation: it describes a hybrid system with "integrated dual-operation magnet coils … [that] enables sequential measurements of MPI and MRI within one seamless study and without the need for object repositioning," explicitly because "MPI lacks the detection of morphological information which makes it difficult to unambiguously assign spatial SPIO distributions to actual organ structures."

Combination D — Bruker/third-party hybrid art as the base

US 9,927,500 B2 ("Device for generating a magnetic field profile which meets the requirements for MPI and for MRI," Bruker Biospin, granted 2018-03-27), US 11,169,233 B2 (Siemens, "Hybrid MPI and MRI/CT imaging apparatus and method"), and CN 112684391 A (Siemens, hybrid imaging device with an MPI field-free line mode, an MPI excitation coil system, a focusing-field coil system, and an MRI mode generating a B₀ field) each disclose hybrid magnet arrangements satisfying both modalities. CN 112684391A is especially useful against the dependent claims because it expressly discloses the field-free line and the focus-field/field-shifting coil — i.e., it undercuts even the unclaimed-but-argued differentiators.

Combination E — for claim 11 (the device)

Add to any of A–D the conventional instrument-control layer: Philips '739 already recites "signal generation means … control means for controlling said signal generation means … processing means for processing said detection signals and said magnetic resonance signals." Driving circuits, matching/filtering networks, LNAs and A/D converters for MPI/MRI front ends are ubiquitous (e.g., WO 2010/008478's high-Q receive coils; the Bente 2015 relaxation-deconvolution receiver chain cited by the patent itself).

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5. Motivation to combine (the KSR prong)

The motivation is not merely inferable — it is stated in the prior art itself:

1. Known problem: MPI "can only image the distribution of magnetic nanoparticles, but it does not provide information about anatomy" (patent BACKGROUND; identical statement in Franke 2016's abstract). Combining MPI with anatomy-bearing MRI is the express, long-felt objective.
2. Known solutions, finite and predictable: KSR — "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions" existed: (a) side-by-side magnets with two FoV centers (US 9,927,500); (b) a single dual-mode solenoid (US 10,191,130); (c) a shared coil set with pre-polarized low-field MRI (US 8,666,473; Philips '739); (d) integrated dual-operation magnet coils (Franke 2016). Selecting the shared-coil-set route is routine design choice.
3. Cost/market pressure: The patent itself states the goal is to keep "the number of components … at a minimum and [achieve] a cost advantage." Both US 9,927,500 and US 10,191,130 are criticized in the patent's own BACKGROUND for high cost from independent hardware. Reducing part count by reusing coils is the ordinary engineering response to a cost constraint.
4. Same-region motivation: Franke 2016 and Vogel 2014 (ISMRM) both expressly state the benefit of not repositioning the subject and not requiring co-registration — the very "same imaging region" limitation of claim 1.
5. Field-strength harmony is known: the patent itself explains that low-field MRI (0.05–0.5 T) brings the Larmor frequency into the RF band reachable by MPI hardware. Philips '739 states the same premise ("use the MPI system as pre-polarized MRI system"). So combining is not merely possible but technically coherent.

Reasonable expectation of success is high: the hybrid systems of Franke 2016, Vogel 2014 and (later) the assignee's own 2025 iWMPI prototype were all actually built.

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6. Dependent claims 2–9 and 12–14

• Claims 2, 3, 4 (frequency/amplitude ranges). Pure ranges. "In re Aller": discovering optimum or workable ranges through routine experimentation is not inventive. Each range is the ordinary operating window of the corresponding MPI/MRI coil (selection gradient >0.1 T/m; drive 1 kHz–500 kHz & 1–50 mT; B₀ 0.05–0.5 T), and each is taught or rendered obvious by Weizenecker 2009, Gleich 2005, US 9,927,500 and US 11,169,233.
• Claim 5 (splitting the primary pair into X-gradient and Y-gradient sub-pairs). Standard MRI gradient architecture (X and Y gradient channels) and standard MPI selection-field practice (two orthogonal selection coil pairs rotating the FFL). Obvious design choice; also seen in the Bruker/Siemens hybrids.
• Claim 6 (two primary + single secondary/tertiary/transmit/receive). A minimal-parts configuration — the direct, predictable result of the cost constraint the patent itself articulates.
• Claim 7 (second receiving pair for MPI). Conventional: separate receive-only coils decoupled from drive coils by gradiometer geometry or notch/high-pass filtering — all described in the patent's own BACKGROUND as known, and disclosed in WO 2010/008478 (high-Q receive coils).
• Claim 8 (insulation / eddy-current and interference suppression). Routine; shielding and passive/active isolation of gradient and RF coils is standard MRI practice.
• Claim 9 (shimming coils). Shimming is a standard, decades-old MRI technique; the claim merely applies it.
• Claims 12, 13, 14 (rotation arrangement; current source + matching/filtering circuit; receive chain). Mechanical rotation of a selection coil for projection-angle acquisition is disclosed (CN 112684391A rotates the magnet arrangement; Cho 1998 uses a rotating DC gradient, cited by the patent); matching/filtering, amplification and A/D sampling are the universal MRI/MPI signal chain.

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7. Claim 10 (use claim) and claim 11 (device)

Claim 10 ("A method for using the arrangement according to claim 1, comprising: applying the arrangement to a device …") is a use claim that rises or falls with claim 1; if claim 1 is obvious, claim 10 is obvious.

Claim 11 adds only (a) driving circuits, (b) a driver unit with a receiving circuit digitizing both receiving pairs, and (c) a control unit generating waveforms, timing, and monitoring current/voltage/temperature near-real-time. The control/monitor loop is conventional instrument control (the patent's own BACKGROUND describes sampling, filtering, amplifying and reconstruction as known). Note also the § 112(b) antecedent-basis defect already flagged in your Patent Summary: claim 11 recites "the at least one second receiving magnetic element pair," which claim 1 never introduces. That is an indefiniteness/prosecution-history liability rather than a § 103 point, but it is relevant to any invalidity/validity posture.

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8. Anticipated patentee rebuttals, and why they likely fail

Objective indicia: I found no evidence of long-felt-but-unmet need (Franke 2016 and Vogel 2014 show the problem was being solved by others years before the 2020 priority date), no failure of others, and no unexpected results with a nexus to the claimed subject matter.

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9. Bottom line

Claim 1 is very likely obvious under § 103. The single most damaging reference is US 2012/0119739 A1 (Philips), which discloses the selection gradient + focus field + homogeneity field + MRI gradients + MRI excitation means + MRI receiving means, all in a shared region of action. The applicant's own admitted prior art — US 8,666,473 (same equipment, coils reconfigurable between gradient and homogeneous modes) and US 10,191,130 (same-current → homogeneous; opposite-current → gradient) — supplies the dual-function coil mechanism, and the Würzburg hybrid-MPI/MRI literature (Franke 2016 TMI; Vogel ISMRM 2014) supplies both the "same imaging region / no repositioning" element and an express motivation to combine. US 9,927,500 and US 11,169,233 / CN 112684391A close any remaining gap on the MRI-side homogeneity field and even on the unclaimed field-free-line feature.

The dependent claims add only conventional design choices, known ranges and standard MRI subsystems; claims 2–4 fall to In re Aller, and claims 12–14 to routine engineering. Claim 11 is obvious over the same combinations plus the conventional control/digitization layer, and independently carries an indefiniteness problem. Claim 10 is entirely derivative of claim 1.

Confidence: high on claims 1, 10 and 11; high on claims 2–4 (ranges) and 8–9, 12–14 (conventional subsystems); medium-high on claims 5–7.

Caveats I want on the record:

• I could not retrieve US 11,402,444's actual examiner-cited references or front page, so I cannot tell you what art the examiner considered — and I flag once more that no "Prior Art section" was provided in the task material.
• The Philips '739, Siemens CN 112684391A and Bruker US 11,169,233 discussions above rely on search-result extracts, not full documents I read end-to-end; before relying on this for a validity opinion, pull the complete documents (Google Patents / Espacenet) and verify the specific passages, and confirm the priority dates of each against US 11,402,444's 2020-05-13 priority.
• The Graphene/general rule: this is a technical analyst's § 103 read, not a legal opinion and not a freedom-to-operate or invalidity opinion.

Sources

• US 11,402,444 B2 full text — https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402444/en
• US 10,191,130 B2 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10191130B2](/patent/US10191130B2)/en
• US 9,927,500 B2 (Bruker Biospin MRI GmbH) — https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2003199767A/en (family citation table)
• US 2012/0119739 A1 (Philips) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b3/6c/12/68e32c95ee5753/US20120119739A1.pdf
• US 8,666,473 B2 (Philips) — confirmed in the citation table at https://patents.google.com/patent/DE10151778A1/en
• US 11,169,233 B2 (Siemens) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/da/c1/74/67c5af19a80152/US11169233.pdf
• CN 112684391 A (Siemens) — https://patents.google.com/patent/CN112684391A/en
• WO 2010/008478 A3 (Conolly/Goodwill, UC Berkeley) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/82/2d/6d/19457449541a22/WO2010008478A3.pdf
• Franke et al., IEEE TMI 35(9):1993–2004 (2016) — https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/[7433425](/patent/7433425)
• Vogel et al., "MPI meets MRI: A first MPI/MRI hybrid scanner," ISMRM 2014 — https://cds.ismrm.org/protected/14MProceedings/PDFfiles/4836.pdf
• Karaca, Alptekin Soydan, Top, Saritas, "Initial MRI Results Using Open-Sided Hybrid MPI and Low-Field MRI Scanner," iWMPI 2025 — https://www.journal.iwmpi.org/index.php/iwmpi/article/download/876/626/4922