US 11402466

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Search result: no litigation or appellate docket found

I searched for the specific number 11402466 / "11,402,466" against litigation and CAFC material. No CAFC 2026 docket, and no district-court or PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceeding, involving U.S. Patent No. 11,402,466 was returned. The hits that came back were unrelated Audi matters (e.g., WirelessWerx IP, LLC v. Audi of America, Inc., E.D. Mich. 4:25-cv-11147, concerning a different patent; Signal IP and Velocity Patent cases concerning other patents). I cannot confirm a definitive negative from docket databases I did not directly query, so treat "no litigation" as unverified rather than authoritative. All bibliographic and claim content below is taken from the patent document itself.

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Bibliographic summary — US 11,402,466 B2

Abstract (as filed): A motor vehicle having a radar sensor mounted behind a radome formed by a vehicle component to be radiated through, and/or having a radome. The vehicle further includes a reference structure with at least one radar-detectable marker that an adjusting apparatus can move into a measuring position in the radar sensor's detection area outside the radome. A control apparatus, based on a trigger signal, controls the adjusting apparatus to move the reference structure into the measuring position and evaluates radar data describing the reference structure in the measuring setting by comparison with a comparison data set stored in the control apparatus and recorded without deposition on the radome, in order to detect the potential deposition. The trigger signal indicates a potential deposition on the radome that restricts radar sensor performance.

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Motor vehicle (apparatus)
A vehicle with:

• at least one radar sensor mounted behind a radome, the radome being formed by a vehicle component that the radar waves pass through;
• an adjusting apparatus;
• a reference structure with at least one radar-detectable marker that the adjusting apparatus moves into a measuring position inside the radar sensor's detection area but outside the radome; and
• a control apparatus that (a) drives the adjusting apparatus to move the reference structure into the measuring position, and (b) evaluates radar data from the sensor corresponding to the reference structure in that position, by comparing it against a stored comparison data set — where that stored data set was recorded without deposition on the radome — to detect the potential deposition.

Literal reading note: the granted text of claim 1 does not expressly recite the "trigger signal" limiter that appears in the abstract and summary; the trigger-signal language appears verbatim in independent claim 6 (method), not in claim 1. I am reporting the claim as printed rather than inferring the missing limitation.

Claim 6 — Method of operating a motor vehicle

1. Record and store a comparison data set of the reference structure in the measuring setting, at a time when there is no deposition on the radome covering the radar sensor;
2. When a trigger signal is present indicating deposition on the radome that restricts radar sensor performance, move the reference structure into the measuring setting; and
3. Evaluate radar data from the sensor describing the reference structure in the measuring setting by comparison with the stored comparison data set (recorded without deposition) to detect the deposition.

Dependent claims (for context):

• 2/3: the marker is at least one retroreflector in a predetermined position relative to the sensor — specifically a triple mirror — optionally mounted on a carrier member in the form of a bow.
• 4/5: forward-looking sensor mounted covered in the vehicle front section, with the reference structure extended via a hatch from a covered rest position; radome is a bumper element or grille, adjusting apparatus mounted in the bumper/grille, reference structure covered in the rest position.
• 7/8: if deposition is determined, the control apparatus triggers a measure parameterized with a deposition strength; the measure may be a driver instruction, a correction procedure of the radar data, and/or output of a reduced-reliability value.
• 9/10/11: the trigger signal is determined by evaluating radar data, deposition-sensor data, or weather data; claim 11 (depending on claim 9) adds evaluation of noise behavior or proximity-area reflection behavior from the radar data.

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Uncertainty / caveats

• No litigation or CAFC docket confirmed for this patent; absence of results is not proof of absence.
• I did not directly access USPTO Patent Center/Assignment or CAFC PACER in this session; the bibliographic data above is from the patent document as provided and Google Patents, and could not be independently re-verified.
• Maintenance-fee events in the record end with a fee reminder mailed 2026-03-23 (large entity); current fee compliance is not something I can confirm from the record shown.

I'll search for litigation records involving US 11,402,466.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me check litigation-specific sources directly.

Litigation Search Results for US 11,402,466

No litigation is known involving US Patent No. 11,402,466.

I searched the sources you identified (Unified Patents litigation portal references, PACER/CourtListener-style records, CAFC opinions, and general web indices) using the exact identifier "11402466" and its formatted equivalent "11,402,466." Every result returned was either (a) unrelated to this patent — e.g., a Hong Kong company registration number (BRN 11402466), a Montana real-estate MLS number, a chess FIDE ID, a Smithsonian entomology record, and a German HVAC product number — or (b) litigation concerning other patents (e.g., the Signal IP v. Volkswagen/Audi radar cases involving U.S. 5,714,927, and various Unified Patents IPRs on third-party patents). Nothing ties any case to US 11,402,466.

Why this is consistent with the record

Supporting evidence from the patent's own file (authoritative, fetched from the USPTO/Google Patents record you supplied):

• The record lists 9 prior-art citations and only one "family citing" document (DE 102022115261A1, BMW, a later calibration method) — there is no litigation or PTAB section in the patent record.
• Audi AG is an operating automotive manufacturer (not a non-practicing entity), and the patent has a relatively recent grant date (Aug. 2, 2022), which reduces the likelihood of asserted litigation to date. Nothing in the supplied record indicates the patent has been asserted.

Required fields (as none are established)

Because no case was located, the following fields have no entries:

• Plaintiff(s): none identified
• Defendant(s): none identified
• Jurisdiction: none identified
• Case number: none identified
• Filing date: none identified
• Outcome/status: none identified

Caveats on confidence

I have moderate-to-high confidence that no federal district court, ITC, CAFC, or PTAB action involving US 11,402,466 existed as of the search date. Reasons for residual uncertainty:

1. My search returned surface-level web results rather than authenticated, exhaustive docket queries (e.g., a direct Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or paid PACER run), and the Unified Patents portal requires an authenticated litigation search that I could not fully execute.
2. State-court or foreign (e.g., German/Chinese) proceedings would not appear in U.S. patent-litigation databases and were not covered.
3. Very recent filings (within the last few weeks) may not yet be indexed.

Recommendation: To obtain a definitive answer, run a docket-number search on the patent in Docket Navigator or Lex Machina, or query PACER's national case index (NCI) for "11,402,466." If you'd like, I can attempt further targeted searches against specific litigation aggregators.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" result against public sources before reporting.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks to rule out recent filings or a Federal Circuit appeal.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 11,402,466: 0. Zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs — no institution decisions to report, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, no Federal Circuit appeals from any PTAB proceeding. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns an empty set, and my independent web checks surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal involving this patent. The bottom-line defensive posture: the patent is completely untested at the Board. All 11 claims (independents 1 and 6 plus dependents 2–5 and 7–11) stand exactly as granted on 2022-08-02. There is no IPR estoppel, no adverse claim-construction record, and no cancellation to leverage — but equally, nobody has done your invalidity work for you, and there is no petitioner-side art or expert record to borrow.

⚠ Collision warning — do not get this wrong. Several searches for "the '466 patent" return proceedings involving a different patent: Silicon Motion, Inc. v. K.Mizra LLC, IPR2024-01240, challenges U.S. Patent No. 9,160,466 (claim charts of Meaney/Nguyen/Greeff/Allee; 19 claims), and a separate PTAB patent-owner response discusses "the '466 Patent" with claims 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and a "second clasping mechanism" (Kuhn/Carnevali/Richardson/FR857). Neither is US 11,402,466. Our patent is an Audi AG radar/radome patent with claims 1–11 and no clasping mechanism. If a vendor search or a paralegal's docket pull hands you an IPR number "on the '466 patent," verify the patent number digit-for-digit before you rely on it.

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Per-proceeding detail

None to report. Because no proceeding exists, I will not manufacture the "### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER}" blocks — doing so would require fabricating numbers, panels, and holdings, which the constraints forbid. What I can report is the negative verified against available sources:

Confidence level: High that no proceeding exists as of the ODP ingest date, moderate-to-high that nothing was filed in roughly the last quarter (search-index lag is the residual risk). If you need a litigation-grade negative, pull the case list directly from USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb) and Docket Alarm / CourtListener's PTAB docket (https://www.courtlistener.com/?type=r&court=ptab) on the day you file — the ODP snapshot is not a substitute for a live query.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all 11 claims UNTESTED. Nothing is canceled, nothing is confirmed. Claims 1–11 carry their full original scope into any dispute. There is no FWD to quote and no narrowing amendment or certificate to rely on. For a defendant, the practical consequence is that the patent's scope is whatever a district court says the plain claim language means — and the granted claim 1 is worth reading closely: as I flagged in the earlier summary, granted claim 1 does not expressly recite the "trigger signal" limitation that appears in the abstract and specification. That gap between the disclosed invention and the granted apparatus claim is a genuine § 112 / claim-construction pressure point (written-description support for the broad "control the adjusting apparatus for moving the reference structure" language, and whether the trigger condition is implicitly required), and it is currently unadjudicated because no petitioner has raised it.

Estoppel landscape: a clean slate, in both directions. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not bind anyone. Any defendant is free to raise any prior-art ground — § 102 or § 103 — in district court, at the ITC, or in a fresh IPR, without the "raised or reasonably could have raised" limitation. Likewise, Audi is not estopped in any way. The prior art cited on the face of the patent is the place to start: US 6,278,399 (Honda), US 7,486,222 (Mitsubishi), US 2009/0079618 (Harwood, time-of-flight radar calibration), DE 10 2009 032 124 (Valeo — blocked-state detection for radar via reception-signal analysis), DE 10 2010 018 782 (IAV — test device with triple-mirror radar target point), DE 10 2013 010 922 (MAN — production-line radar test arrangement with triple mirrors), DE 10 2017 209 591 (VW — body part with integrated radar reflectors), plus the family citations US 6,469,659 (Delphi — radar obstruction detection), DE 102 09 927 B4 (DaimlerChrysler — performance monitoring for radar systems), US 9,653,802 / DE 10 2013 214 324 (Vega), and DE 10 2016 223 068 (Bosch — detecting blindness in vehicle radar sensors). Notably, several of these were cited only as family members cited by third parties, not as examiner citations — assembly and motivation-to-combine work is untapped.

Pattern signals: this is an operating-company portfolio patent, not a monetization asset. Audi AG is an OEM, the sole inventor is an Audi employee, the family tracks to DE 102019211375 B4 and CN 112305544 B, and the only forward citation is a BMW calibration patent (DE 102022115261A1) — i.e., the patent is cited by competitors in the same technical conversation, not asserted against them in litigation. The absence of IPR activity is consistent with that: there is no troll defendant class here generating petitions. The absence is thus not strong evidence of "hardened" claims — it is evidence of "never tested." The exposure risk on US 11,402,466 is primarily as (a) a defensive counter-assertion or cross-license chip in an OEM/supplier dispute, or (b) part of a broader Audi portfolio package, rather than a standalone assertion vehicle.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to a client that this patent has been "validated" or "hardened" by surviving IPRs. It has not been through the Board at all. Likewise do not represent that any claim has been canceled.
2. If you are a defendant being asserted on: you are starting from zero at the PTAB. Budget a full prior-art and motivation-to-combine search against granted claim 1 — with particular attention to the missing trigger-signal limitation and to whether the reference-structure-moved-into-the-radar-path concept is taught by the German radar-test arrangements already of record (DE 10 2010 018 782, DE 10 2013 010 922), which use triple mirrors as radar targets and were not examiner-cited against claim 1.
3. If an IPR is contemplated: § 315(b)'s one-year bar from service of a complaint governs; a § 315(a)(1) declaratory-judgment bar also applies if you filed first. Confirm both before drafting, because no prior petitioner has litigated any of these threshold questions for this patent.
4. Run the live checks before filing time: USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb) for AIA trials, and CourtListener's PTAB and CAFC dockets (https://www.courtlistener.com) for any recently filed petition or appeal that post-dates the ODP ingest. The ODP block is canonical but not real-time.
5. Watch the maintenance-fee clock. The record shows a maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2026-03-23 (large entity) with no subsequent payment event visible. A lapse — if it occurred — would moot much of this analysis and open a petition-to-revive / intervening-rights question worth checking on USPTO Patent Center. I cannot confirm payment status from the record shown.

I'll reconstruct the assignment chain, starting with the primary USPTO Assignment Search and cross-checking the patent's own legal-events record.

The patent's own legal-events table gives one recorded assignment (reel 053577/0405). Let me verify that reel/frame and probe for any later transfers, plus check defensive-aggregator membership.

I was able to retrieve the patent's full legal-events record and one recorded assignment, but I hit my tool-call limit before I could complete authenticated queries against the USPTO Assignment Center's correspondent fields. Below is everything I can ground, with gaps marked explicitly rather than filled in.

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Inventors

• No unusual patterns detected. There is only one inventor, so the "mass inventor departure within 12 months" pattern cannot arise in the typical form.
• I found no evidence that Jianu departed Audi AG, and I found no data on his employment status at all. Treat employer attribution as an inference from the assignment instrument, not verified personnel data.
• The assignment was executed 2020-07-31 — ten days after the 2020-07-21 US filing and one day after the 2019-07-30 DE priority year closed. That timing is the signature of a routine, contemporaneous employee-invention assignment filed as a matter of corporate hygiene, not of an inventor retaining or later selling rights.

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Original assignee

Audi AG (Auto-Union-Str. 1, 85057 Ingolstadt, Germany) — named on the issued patent and still the current assignee per the record.

• Primary line of business: operating premium automobile manufacturer; wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen AG / Volkswagen Group. Legal entity type appears as a joint-stock company (Aktiengesellschaft) in Audi's USPTO trademark filings.
• Shipped a product embodying the claims: Yes, as a practical matter — the patent claims a motor vehicle with a covered front radar sensor, a retractable reference structure behind a bumper/grille hatch, and a control apparatus comparing fresh radar returns from that reference structure against a clean-radome baseline. Audi ships front-radar-equipped vehicles (A8, e-tron, Q-series) and holds the mirror-image prosecution family members (DE 102019211375 B4; CN 112305544 B). I did not, however, find any Audi marketing or service literature confirming that the specific retractable-marker diagnostic of claims 1/6 is fielded in a production vehicle. Call that unverified — the claims are implementable in Audi's product line, but I cannot show they practice it.
• Current status: operating, not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Extensive Audi-assignee patent listings (Justia/companyprofiles) confirm ongoing, high-volume prosecution activity.
• Family status note (relevant to portfolio-maintenance behavior): the German counterpart DE 102019211375 B4 shows "not_active / Expired – Fee Related" in Google Patents, while CN 112305544 B is active and the US member is active with an adjusted expiration of 2041-03-02. A lapse of the DE member for non-payment of renewal fees is a maintenance-cost decision, not an ownership event — but it is worth flagging because it means the German right is no longer available as leverage.

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Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center record for this patent, as reflected in the Google Patents legal-events table for US 16/934,648, contains exactly one post-filing conveyance. There are no post-issuance assignments.

• 2020-07-31 (executed) / recorded 2020-08-21 — Reel 053577/0405
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST" (per the recorded abstract of title)
  • Assignor: Jianu, Alin (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: AUDI AG, Germany (large entity status; undiscounted fee entity)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable in this session. The Google Patents legal-events table exposes the reel/frame, conveyance type, assignor, assignee and effective date, but not the correspondent of record. I could not complete an authenticated USPTO Assignment Center query to pull the correspondent name/firm/address. This is a gap, not a null finding — see the NPE signal 3 entry below.
  • Context: Routine employee-invention assignment. Contemporaneous with filing (executed 10 days after the 2020-07-21 US filing), assigned directly from the sole inventor to the operating-company employer. No consideration of a sale, no intermediary, no holding entity.

Everything else in the legal-events record is procedural, not ownership: entity-status notation on filing (2020-07-21, undiscounted large entity), docketing (2020-08-30), notice of allowance (2022-05-16), issue-fee/publishing verification (2022-06-22), patent grant (2022-07-13 STCF / 2022-08-02 publication), and a maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2026-03-23. None of these are conveyances.

No other assignee has ever held this patent. Per the rule you gave: the chain consists solely of the original inventor-to-employer assignment.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402466
    2019 : DE priority application filed 30 July
    2020 : US application filed 21 July
         : Inventor-to-Audi assignment executed 31 July
         : Assignment recorded at USPTO 21 August
    2022 : Patent granted 2 August
    2026 : Maintenance fee reminder mailed 23 March
    2041 : Adjusted expiration 2 March

(Event text kept free of commas, slashes and parentheses for parser safety. The "granted" and "reminder" rows are legal events, not assignments — included only to show the chain has no transfer at grant or at the fee-reminder stage.)

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — no records beyond the original assignment.

Justification: the entire ownership history of US 11,402,466 B2 consists of a single conveyance — the inventor-to-employer assignment of 2020-07-31, recorded 2020-08-21 at reel 053577/0405, from Alin Jianu to AUDI AG — executed ten days after filing and roughly two years before grant. Under your stated rule, a chain with only the original assignment yields "Insufficient data." Substantively, every affirmative NPE signal returns not present: no shell LLC, no listed asserter, no cascading transfers, no pre-suit transfer, no bankruptcy, no privateering, and no litigation naming the patent (per the earlier litigation section, which also flagged that negative as unverified). The patent is owned by an operating OEM that continues to prosecute and maintain radar-sensor IP, so the absence of NPE indicia is real even though the data set is thin.

Caveats worth carrying forward: (a) the correspondent of record for reel 053577/0405 was not retrievable, so signal 3 is untested rather than negative; (b) Audi's LOT Network / Unified Patents membership is unconfirmed, so the defensive-aggregator signal is unresolved; (c) the German counterpart DE 102019211375 B4 has lapsed for non-payment, narrowing the family's non-US leverage.

Verify the reel/frame and pull the correspondent directly at the USPTO Assignment Center:
https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11402466) — mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Search by patent number and open the reel/frame entry to read the correspondent block; that field is the one gap I could not close here.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 11,402,466 and verify the cited references.

Let me research the remaining cited references.

Verification of the patent number (literal interpretation)

The identifier 11402466 resolves to US 11,402,466 B2 — "Motor vehicle with a radar sensor and method for operating the motor vehicle," application US 16/934,648, inventor Alin Jianu, assignee Audi AG, priority 2019-07-30 (DE 102019211375.3), filed 2020-07-21, granted 2022-08-02. This is the same document provided as the authoritative source, so the number is confirmed and I did not substitute any similar number (e.g., I did not drift to US 11,402,446 or US 11,204,466).

⚠️ Note on dates: the task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026" while the session date is 2026-09-29. This does not affect the prior-art analysis below (all cited art predates the 2019-07-30 priority date), but I flag the inconsistency rather than silently resolving it.

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The prior-art list actually of record for US 11,402,466

Two distinct lists appear in the patent record and they must not be conflated:

• "Citations (9)" — U.S./EP/DE references cited against the application (EPO/IDF-style list; US 7,486,222 and the three DE documents carry the examiner asterisk).
• "Family Cites Families (6)" — JP/DE references cited in the foreign family members (DE/CN/JP counterparts).

Combined, that is 15 references (the "Patent Citations (11)" table in the record merely adds duplicates and family equivalents — DE 60016064 T2 = the German family member of US 6,278,399, and US 9,653,802 B2 = the US family member of DE 10 2013 214 324).

Because of this, every reference below is prior art for §102 purposes (all published before 2019-07-30), with the exception of nothing — none postdates the priority date.

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The claim-1 / claim-6 "gist" I am testing each reference against

For §102 anticipation, a reference must disclose all elements arranged as claimed. The novel combination of US 11,402,466 is:

1. a radar sensor behind a radome formed by a vehicle component;
2. a reference structure bearing radar-detectable markers that is movable by an adjusting apparatus into a measuring position in the detection area outside the radome (i.e., a deployable in-vehicle target, normally stowed);
3. a control apparatus that deploys it on a trigger and compares the recorded radar data against a stored comparison data set that was recorded without deposition on the radome.

As flagged in the earlier bibliographic section, claim 1 as granted does not expressly recite the trigger signal — that limitation sits verbatim in claim 6. I keep that asymmetry in the analysis.

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Reference-by-reference citation and §102 analysis

A. Examiner-cited references ("Citations (9)")

1. US 6,278,399 B1 — Honda Giken Kogyo K.K.
"Radar apparatus and method for detecting malfunction of radar apparatus."
Priority 1999-02-22; published/granted 2001-08-21. Family: DE 60016064 T2 (2005-11-03).
Description: Vehicular radar with a malfunction detector. A wiper member intermittently crosses the radar beam; the processor expects a characteristic "wiper passing signal." If that signal is absent when the wiper is activated, the system infers malfunction or sensitivity degradation. Background expressly notes that snow/mud on a bumper- or grille-mounted radar degrades sensitivity.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. It is the closest reference conceptually because a moving member (wiper) intrudes into the radar beam and its echo is used as a self-check. But (a) the wiper is not a reference structure with radar-detectable markers deployed into a defined measuring position; (b) there is no comparison data set recorded without deposition stored for later comparison; (c) the purpose is wiper/malfunction correlation, not deposition quantification. Potential §103 art for the "moving element in the beam" idea.

2. US 7,486,222 B2 — Mitsubishi Denki K.K. (examiner-cited)
"Automotive radar device."
Priority 2005-10-14; granted 2009-02-03. (Pre-grant pub. US 2007/0085728.)
Description: Detects dirt/snow adhering to a vehicle-side radome based on signal level of a reflected wave. A reflection board 300 ("guiding unit") is arranged between the vehicle-side radome 100 and the radar 200 and redirects the wave reflected off the adhering matter back to the receiver; an "adhering matter judging unit" evaluates the signal level. The reflection board is static and inside the radome, not a deployable marker structure outside it.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. This is the most technically on-point reference for the problem (radome contamination detection) and is the reference most likely to be combined in an obviousness attack on claims 1/6, but it lacks the movable reference structure, the external measuring position, and the stored no-deposition comparison data set. It maps, at most, to the "detect deposition on a radome" purpose.

3. US 2009/0079618 A1 — Shaun Philip Harwood
"Time-of-flight radar calibration system."
Priority 2007-08-10; published 2009-03-26.
Description: Radar calibration using a known reference/return path (time-of-flight based) to calibrate range measurement.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Relevance is limited to the generic concept of a known reference reflection for radar calibration. It does not disclose vehicle mounting behind a radome, a deployable marker structure, or deposition-triggered comparison. (Confidence: moderate — I did not re-fetch the full text in this session; description is from the title/classification and record entry.)

4. DE 10 2009 032 124 A1 — Valeo Schalter und Sensoren GmbH
"Method for detecting blocked state of radar device …"
Priority 2009-07-08; published 2011-01-13.
Description: Analyzes a portion of the reception signal to detect a blocked ("verdeckt") state of a radar device — blind-spot monitoring example.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Directly relevant to the trigger-signal aspect of claim 9 (blockage inferred from radar data), but discloses no reference structure, no moving marker, and no stored clean-state comparison set. (Confidence: moderate — title/abstract-level analysis.)

5. DE 10 2010 018 782 A1 — IAV GmbH Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr
"Test device for driver assistance system …"
Priority 2010-04-29; published 2011-11-03.
Description: A test device towed/coupled to the rear of a carrier vehicle, drivable on a wheel, with first and second carrier parts adjustable against each other; an artificial radar target point, e.g. a triple mirror, is provided on the first carrier member. (The patent's own Background reproduces this.)
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. It is relevant to claims 2 and 3 (retroreflector/triple mirror on a carrier member) — but as an external, towed test bench, not an in-vehicle, stowable, control-apparatus-driven reference structure mounted on the motor vehicle with a stored comparison set. Its triple-mirror disclosure is §103 fodder for claims 2/3 only if claim 1/6 are already met, which they are not.

6. EP 2 394 882 A1 — Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH
"Scanner with secured function."
Priority 2010-06-09; published 2011-12-14.
Description: A scanner (access/ticketing or radar-based scanning) with a device ensuring/safeguarding its function, e.g. a built-in self-check.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11, and is the weakest link to the claimed subject matter — different field, no automotive radome, no deployable marker structure. (Confidence: low-to-moderate on substance; I relied on the record entry and title, as full text was not retrieved.)

7. DE 10 2013 010 922 A1 — MAN Truck & Bus AG (record entry; the German original is commonly attributed to the IAV/Man test-arrangement lineage)
"Test arrangement to ensure the reliability of a built-in at the front or at the rear of a motor vehicle radar sensor."
Priority 2013-06-29; published 2014-12-31.
Description: A separate production-line test rig with laser sources on a crossbeam, first target marks, and radar reflectors (triple mirrors) of different counter-radiation characteristics to simulate radar targets at defined directions and distances. (Reproduced in the patent's Background.)
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Highly relevant to the marker concept (radar reflectors at known positions) and to claims 2/3, but it is explicitly a producer-side, off-vehicle test arrangement; the reference structure is not part of the vehicle, not movable by an in-vehicle adjusting apparatus, and there is no stored no-deposition comparison data set.

8. DE 10 2013 214 324 A1 — Vega Grieshaber KG
"Radar level gauge with a safety device." Family: US 9,653,802 B2 (2017-05-16).
Priority 2013-07-22; published 2015-01-22.
Description: Fill-level radar with a safeguard/monitoring device for detection reliability.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. A radar level gauge is a different technical field (though same G01S class); no vehicle radome, no deployable marker reference structure. Family member US 9,653,802 is cited in the record.

9. DE 10 2017 209 591 A1 — Volkswagen AG
"Body part for a vehicle and device for detecting a vehicle."
Priority 2017-06-07; published 2018-12-13.
Description: A vehicle body part with a plurality of defined radar reflectors integrated into the body part (e.g., at the rear) that retroreflect incident radar toward the source, to improve radar-based vehicle detection cost- and space-effectively.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Closest on the idea of radar reflectors integrated into/behind a body component — but these reflectors are fixed and serve other-vehicle detection, not deposition self-diagnosis; there is no adjusting apparatus, no deploy-into-detection-area measuring position, and no stored comparison data set.

B. Family-cited references ("Family Cites Families (6)")

10. JP 3428009 B2 — Toyota Jidosha K.K.
"Radar equipment for vehicles." Priority 1998-07-03; granted 2003-07-22. (Confidence: moderate; substantively described only at title level.)
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11.

11. US 6,469,659 B1 — Delphi Technologies, Inc.
"Apparatus and method for detecting radar obstruction." Priority 2001-05-03; granted 2002-10-22.
Description: Detects an obstruction/blockage of a vehicle radar (obstruction of the beam path) and signals it. It is itself cited by US 7,486,222 (per that patent's citation list).
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Good §103 art for the broad notion of obstruction detection, but no deployable reference structure and no stored clean-state comparison set. (Confidence: moderate — did not re-fetch full text this session.)

12. DE 10 209 927 B4 — DaimlerChrysler AG
"Performance monitoring for radar systems." Priority 2002-03-07; granted 2004-04-29. (US family: US 6,954,172 B2, cited by US 7,486,222.)
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Relevant to monitoring radar performance generally.

13. JP 2007-051888 A — Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
"Radar equipment." Priority 2005-08-16; published 2007-03-01.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11, on the basis of the record entry and family context.

14. DE 10 2007 016 869 A1 — Robert Bosch GmbH
"Method for detecting losses on a radiated surface of a radar sensor, radar sensor and driver assistance system with such a radar sensor."
Priority 2007-04-10; published 2008-10-23.
Description: Detects losses (attenuation) on the radiated face/radome surface of a radar sensor via the radar sensor's own mixer operating-point shift; a fault signal is output when the shift exceeds a threshold (family: CN 101349750 B, "雷达传感器…用于确定损失的方法").
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. Strong §103 art for the "attenuation/loss on radome" problem and for a threshold-based fault signal — but the measurement is internal (mixer operating point), with no reference structure and no stored comparison data set.

15. DE 10 2016 223 068 A1 — Robert Bosch GmbH (family: US 10,557,920 B2, granted 2020-02-11; CN 108089165 A)
"Method for detecting blindness in radar sensors for motor vehicles."
Priority 2016-11-23; published 2018-05-24.
Description: Determines a degree of blindness of a vehicle radar behind a radome (slush/coating) by: determining an expected value E for the object's radar cross-section, estimating the actual RCS S from measured receive power, and computing an indicator (range prefactor K) as a monotonically increasing function of S−E; then deactivating specific assistance functions.
§102 relevance: Does not anticipate claims 1–11. This is the best §103 reference for the "deposition strength" parameter of claims 7/8 (a quantitative, not merely binary, contamination indicator) and for the trigger-signal concept — it even measures relative to an expectation/known reference. But the "reference" is the RCS of surrounding traffic objects, not a vehicle-borne deployable marker structure, and the comparison baseline is a class expectation, not a stored data set of a physical reference structure recorded without deposition.

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Consolidated §102 result

No cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–11 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Since every dependent claim (2–5, 7–11) incorporates all limitations of independent claim 1 or 6, a reference that cannot anticipate the independent claim a fortiori cannot anticipate a dependent claim. The §102-anticipation columns are therefore uniformly "No," and the practical question for this patent is § 103 obviousness, not anticipation.

The single element that no reference discloses — and that defeats §102 across the board — is the combination of: (a) a vehicle-borne reference structure carrying radar-detectable markers, (b) an adjusting apparatus that deploys it from a stowed rest position into a measuring position in the sensor's detection area outside the radome, and (c) comparison of the resulting radar data against a previously stored comparison data set of that same physical structure recorded without deposition on the radome.

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Most relevant prior art, ranked (for the §103 combinations you will likely need)

1. US 7,486,222 B2 (Mitsubishi) — radome contamination detection; provides the problem and a reflection board, prompting "modify to use a discrete reference target."
2. DE 10 2016 223 068 A1 / US 10,557,920 B2 (Bosch) — quantitative blindness/attenuation indicator versus an expected value; supplies the deposition-strength concept of claims 7–8 and the trigger of claim 9.
3. US 6,278,399 B1 (Honda) — teaches a moving member traversing the radar beam whose echo is expected/checked; the nearest structural analogue to a deployable element in the beam.
4. DE 10 2013 010 922 A1 (Man) and DE 10 2010 018 782 A1 (IAV) — triple-mirror radar targets at known positions/distances on a carrier member; supply the marker limitations of claims 2–3.
5. DE 10 2017 209 591 A1 (VW) — radar reflectors integrated into a vehicle body part; supplies the in-vehicle, covered reflector notion.
6. DE 10 2007 016 869 A1 (Bosch) and US 6,469,659 B1 (Delphi) — radome-surface loss / obstruction detection with threshold signalling.

A combination of #1/#2 (radome-contamination detection with a quantitative indicator) with #3 or #4/#5 (a movable or in-vehicle discrete radar reflector target) is the most plausible obviousness theory, with the remaining gap being the pre-recorded no-deposition comparison data set for a physical deployable reference structure — the point on which the Audi claims most plausibly survive.

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Caveats on confidence (stated explicitly, per operating rules)

• Verified full text this session: US 6,278,399 B1, US 7,486,222 B2 (and its citation families), DE 10 2016 223 068 A1 (and US 10,557,920 B2), DE 10 2007 016 869 A1 (via its CN/EP family equivalents). Not fully re-fetched this session: US 2009/0079618 A1, DE 10 2009 032 124 A1, EP 2 394 882 A1, DE 10 2013 214 324 A1, JP 3428009 B2, US 6,469,659 B1, DE 10 209 927 B4, JP 2007-051888 A, DE 10 2017 209 591 A1 — for these the description rests on the patent's own record entries, titles, classifications and family context, and is marked at moderate confidence. I did not fabricate reference content for any of them.
• Assignee discrepancies in the record: the Google Patents citation table lists DE 10 2013 010 922 A1 with assignee "Man Truck & Bus AG" in the "Citations" list and "IAV GmbH" in the Background text of the patent itself. I have not auto-corrected either; both attributions are reported as they appear.
• Strict number fidelity: I analyzed only 11,402,466 / US 16/934,648. No similar-number results were substituted.
• Litigation: as noted in the earlier section, no U.S. district-court, ITC, CAFC or PTAB action involving this patent was found; that finding remains unverified against authenticated docket databases and is not a definitive negative.

I'll research the cited prior-art references to assess what each teaches before building the § 103 combinations.

Now let me research the German and remaining references, which are central to the combination analysis.

Let me research the remaining key references, especially those involving movable/retroreflector targets and calibration structures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,402,466 B2

"Motor vehicle with a radar sensor and method for operating the motor vehicle"

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 | Priority date: 2019-07-30 | Granted: 2022-08-02

Scope note. This analysis builds on the prior generated sections (bibliographic summary, claim summary, litigation summary) and does not repeat them. It uses the prior art listed in the "Citations," "Family Cites Families," and "Similar Documents" sections of the patent record you supplied. Where I could retrieve the reference text I quote/paraphrase it and cite a URL; where I could only see the patent record's own one-line characterization or the reference's title, I say so explicitly rather than inventing content. I flag one contradiction with the earlier section at the end.

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1. The governing legal framework

1. A claim is obvious under § 103 if the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) at the effective filing date. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
2. The analysis requires: (a) the scope and content of the prior art; (b) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (c) the level of ordinary skill; and (d) where appropriate, objective indicia. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966).
3. The prior art may be combined where a motivation or reason exists — an express teaching, or a KSR-permitted inference from "design incentives and other market forces," "any need or problem known in the field," a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions," or the "interchangeability of familiar elements." KSR, 550 U.S. at 418–22.
4. Obviousness cannot be defeated merely by arguing the elements came from different references, unless a reference teaches away or the proposed modification would change the principle of operation of the primary reference. In re Ratti, 270 F.2d 810 (CCPA 1959); In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381 (Fed. Cir. 1983).

Level of ordinary skill (proposed)

Given the subject matter (automotive radar sensors, FMCW/SiGe or CMOS radar, vehicle electrical/electronic architecture, driver-assistance subsystems), a PHOSITA would be a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, physics, or mechanical engineering and ~2–5 years of experience in automotive radar or driver-assistance sensor design and calibration — or equivalent experience.

Claim construction points that drive the outcome

• Claim 1 does not recite the "trigger signal." As flagged in the prior section, the granted text of claim 1 requires only: radome-mounted sensor + adjusting apparatus + movable marked reference structure ("outside the radome") + control apparatus that (i) drives the adjusting apparatus and (ii) compares recorded radar data of the reference structure against a stored comparison data set "recorded without deposition on the radome." This makes independent claim 1 materially broader and more vulnerable than the specification's framing suggests.
• "Reference structure … moved into a measuring position in a detection area of the radar sensor outside the radome" is the structural heart of the claim. Any movable/retractable radar target external to the radome reads on this.
• "Comparison data set … recorded without deposition" is a data acquisition condition (a clean-state baseline), not necessarily a distinct structural element — relevant because several references expressly teach establishing a baseline while the sensor surface is clean.
• Claims 2 and 3 are highly specific ("retroreflector … wherein the retroreflector is a triple mirror"; "carrier member … a bow"). These will rise or fall almost entirely on whether the prior art expressly discloses a triple mirror on a movable carrier.

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2. The prior-art references and what each teaches

Key observation: the art clusters cleanly into two groups, and the '466 claim sits precisely at their intersection:

• Group I — "there is deposition/attenuation on the radome and here is how you suspect it": Honda '399, Delphi '659, Bosch '869 / US 8,749,429, Valeo '124, Bosch '068, Daimler DE 10209927.
• Group II — "use a known radar target at a known position and compare its echo to an expected value": Delphi '659 (express), MAN '922 (express, with a permissible range + standby/disable), IAV '782 (adjustable carrier with triple mirror), VW '591 (reflectors in the vehicle body), JP 3428009 (vehicle radar equipment).

The '466 invention is the intersection: when Group I raises a suspicion, deploy a Group II known target that is stowed on the vehicle itself and compare the fresh echo to a stored clean-state baseline.

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3. Combination #1 (primary) — Independent claim 1

Primary reference: DE 10 2013 010 922 A1 (MAN), alone or in view of Honda '399.
Secondary references: DE 10 2010 018 782 A1 (IAV), DE 10 2017 209 591 A1 (VW), US 6,278,399 (Honda), Bosch US 8,749,429.

Element-by-element mapping (claim 1)

Why a PHOSITA would have combined these — the KSR rationales

1. The problem was known and articulated. Honda '399 states the exact problem: radar in a bumper/grille has "[t]he radar sensitivity decreases when snow or mud is thickly attached," and it expressly seeks to "check the sensitivity of the radar apparatus under normal conditions of a vehicle without transporting the vehicle to a testing station." That is the very problem the '466 patent sets out to solve ("an improved and particularly faster way of reliably detecting depositions"). A PHOSITA facing the '466 problem is directly led to Honda.
2. The solution technique was known in a neighboring context and was a finite, predictable set. MAN '922 and IAV '782 already use a known reflector with a defined reflection characteristic + comparison to a permissible range. Delphi '659 confirms this was the conventional approach ("[o]ne conventional radar blockage detection technique includes calibrating the radar system using an external target of known reflectivity at a specified distance, and then periodically testing the system using this calibration technique"). Adapting the same test rig to live on-board is a predictable use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way — one of the KSR rationales (550 U.S. at 417).
3. Simple substitution of a known element. Replacing the external traverse-mounted reflector (MAN '922 / IAV '782) with a vehicle-resident reflector (VW '591: "defined radar reflectors … integrated into the body part") is a substitution of one known element for another to obtain the predictable result of avoiding external test equipment. VW '591 supplies the motivation directly: reflectors on the body "improve the radar-based detection of vehicles … in a cost-effective and space-saving manner."
4. Design incentives / market forces. Avoiding dealership/production-line test rigs, keeping the vehicle's outer appearance unchanged (the '466 specification itself stresses the "covered rest setting [that does] not affect the outer appearance"), and reducing the "compromise … to achieve an acceptable false positive rate" that the '466 background section complains of are all classic market-motivated design incentives.
5. Explicit teaching in the primary reference of the two-state operation. MAN '922's "third means … switches [the sensor] into a standby state and otherwise [disables] it" anticipates the '466 dependent-claim measures (claims 7–8, e.g., "deactivat[ing] the radar sensor at least temporarily").

Conclusion for claim 1 (Combination #1): All elements are disclosed or would have been obvious. The one element that is not literally in a single reference — the reference structure being stowed on the vehicle and deployed on demand — is supplied by VW '591 (onboard reflectors) combined with Honda '399's on-board self-test during driving. Claim 1 is, in my assessment, likely obvious.

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4. Combination #2 (alternative for claim 1) — Honda as primary

US 6,278,399 (primary) + DE 10 2013 010 922 A1 (MAN) + DE 10 2010 018 782 A1 (IAV)

Honda '399 supplies: bumper/grille-mounted radar, the deposition/sensitivity problem, the "without a test station" motivation, and the concept of a known structure deliberately moved into the radar beam on demand, with the processor checking for the expected return. What Honda lacks is (a) a dedicated radar marker rather than the vehicle's wiper, and (b) a stored clean-baseline comparison rather than mere presence/absence of a wiper signal.

MAN '922 + IAV '782 cure both defects: MAN supplies the reflector-with-defined-characteristic + permissible-range comparison; IAV supplies the adjustable carrier carrying a triple mirror.

Deficiency to note: Honda is arguably not a "baseline comparison" reference — it is a go/no-go check (does the wiper-passing signal appear?). A patentee will argue that Honda's detection is binary and lacks any stored "comparison data set recorded without deposition." Bosch US 8,749,429 / WO 2008/052825 closes that gap: it expressly teaches recording a reference/characteristic while the sensor surface is "free of contamination" and comparing the current characteristic against the stored one. This gives a strong, express teaching for the "without deposition" limitation.

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5. Combination #3 — Delphi '659 + MAN '922 (and the teaching-away issue)

Delphi '659 is the most dangerous single reference for the "clean baseline" concept, because it recites the full two-step method in terms: "calibrating the radar system using an external target of known reflectivity at a specified distance, and then periodically testing the system using this calibration technique." Combined with MAN '922's reflector/range comparison, this discloses baseline + retest.

But note the built-in teaching-away argument the patentee will press: Delphi '659 immediately follows with "while this technique may work well for stationary systems or systems that can easily transport and accurately position an external target, it is impractical for use with a mobile platform for detecting obstructions in real time." That is a discrete statement of disparagement of the external-known-target-then-periodically-retest approach in mobile platforms.

How does this cut?

• It strengthens the patentee's non-obviousness position for any claim reading on "periodically testing with an external target."
• It weakens the patentee's position for the actual claimed subject matter, because the '466 invention removes the very defect Delphi identifies: Delphi's objection is that the target must be transported and accurately positioned. Putting the target on the vehicle (VW '591) and stowing it in the bumper/grille eliminates the "transport/position" objection — so the claimed solution responds to the known deficiency rather than being contradicted by it. Under KSR and In re Urbanski, 809 F.3d 1237 (Fed. Cir. 2016), a reference that "criticizes, discredits, or otherwise discourages" only a narrower approach does not necessarily teach away from the broader claimed invention.
• Bottom line: the Delphi teaching-away argument is a genuine but, in my view, non-dispositive obstacle to Combination #1. It is a better argument against Combination #3 than against Combination #1.

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6. Dependent claims 2–5

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7. Method claims 6–11

Independent claim 6 requires: (1) baseline recording without deposition; (2) move reference structure into measuring setting in the presence of a trigger signal; (3) compare to stored baseline to detect deposition.

• (1) Baseline without deposition → Bosch US 8,749,429 / WO 2008/052825 (record reference when surface free of contamination); Delphi '659 (calibrate with known target, then periodically retest); MAN '922 (permissible range established a priori).
• (2) Trigger signal indicating a performance-restricting deposition → this is the entire subject matter of Group I art:
  • Honda '399 (malfunction/degradation detection from expected beam interruption);
  • Delphi '659 (blockage flags from mainbeam clutter peak below threshold, and from smoothed tracking amplitude below threshold — i.e., a degradation indicator);
  • Bosch DE 10 2007 016 869 (losses on the radiated surface);
  • Bosch DE 10 2016 223 068 ("blindness" detection in radar sensors);
  • Valeo DE 10 2009 032 124 (blocked-state detection by analyzing a portion of the reception signal);
  • Daimler DE 10209927 ("performance monitoring for radar systems").
• (3) Compare to baseline → MAN '922 (express "permissible range" comparison); Delphi '659.
• The trigger-and-deploy coupling → Honda '399 expressly contemplates that the self-test can be "automatically started by a driver's operation for activating the wiper device" and performed "at the same time as a start-up inspection or during driving." That is a trigger-then-test architecture.

Conclusion for claim 6: obvious over Group I (trigger) + Group II (comparison) + Bosch/VW (baseline + onboard target). The only new wrinkle is conditioning the deployment on the trigger, which is a straightforward logical gate that any engineer would add to avoid interrupting normal radar operation — precisely the reason the '466 spec gives ("to interrupt the other measuring operations only for a short time").

Conclusion for claims 7–11: each is supported by an express or readily combinable teaching; the differences are quantitative/design-choice refinements with predictable results.

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8. Summary of the strongest and weakest points

Strongest § 103 positions (most likely to succeed)

1. Claim 1 over MAN '922 + VW '591 + Honda '399 (+ Bosch baseline). Note especially that claim 1 does not recite the trigger signal, stripping the patentee of its most distinctive narrowing limitation.
2. Claims 2–3 over IAV '782 and/or MAN '922, both of which disclose triple mirror targets on carriers.
3. Claim 6 over Honda '399 (trigger & self-test) + MAN '922 (comparison against a permissible range) + Bosch '429/'869 (clean baseline).

Weakest positions / genuine patentee defenses

1. Teaching away (Delphi '659) — the express statement that external-known-target + periodic retest is "impractical for use with a mobile platform … in real time." Counter: the objection is to external targets that must be transported/positioned; VW '591's onboard reflectors remove that objection, so the claimed system is more like the fix than the criticized approach. See also In re Urbanski (narrow criticism ≠ teaching away from broader claim).
2. "Change in principle of operation" (In re Ratti) — MAN '922 and IAV '782 are production-line test rigs, not vehicle subsystems. A patentee will argue that turning a test rig into an on-vehicle, driver-unaware subsystem changes the principle of operation. Counter: VW '591 (onboard reflectors) and Honda '399 (on-drive self-test) show the field already moving onboard, defeating the Ratti argument.
3. Claim 3's "bow" — a patentee can argue "bow" is a specific structure not disclosed by a "traverse" or "carrier member." Expect a claim-construction fight; the intrinsic record (no stated criticality for a bow shape) undercuts the patentee. In re Pearson (design choice).
4. The "comparison data set … recorded without deposition" limitation is the patentee's best hook. If construed as requiring a specific stored dataset captured under as-new/ideal conditions and later compared, the patentee will distinguish MAN '922 (a permissible range) and Honda '399 (a binary signal test). Bosch US 8,749,429 / WO 2008/052825 ("measured … when a surface module of the sensor is free of contamination") is the best counter and should be the primary secondary reference on this limitation.

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9. Recommended combination matrix (for a petition/opinion)

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10. Confidence, caveats, and one contradiction to flag

• Confidence: moderate-to-high that at least independent claims 1 and 6 are obvious over the combinations above, with claims 2–3 and 7–11 being individually vulnerable. Confidence is highest for claim 1 because it omits the trigger-signal limitation; lowest for a hypothetical construction of "bow" in claim 3.
• Reference-text verification limits. I retrieved and quoted full or near-full text for US 6,278,399, US 6,469,659, DE 10 2013 010 922 A1, US 8,749,429 / WO 2008/052825, and the Valeo DE 10 2009 032 124 citation. For DE 10 2010 018 782 A1 (IAV), DE 10 2017 209 591 A1 (VW), DE 10 2007 016 869 A1 (Bosch), DE 10 2016 223 068 A1 (Bosch), JP 3428009 B2, DE 10209927 B4, US 7,486,222, EP 2 394 882 A1, and US 9,653,802, I was working from the '466 patent's own characterizations and/or reference titles (as the '466 record presents them). Before filing anything, the full texts of IAV '782 and VW '591 should be pulled, because claims 2–5 and the "onboard reference structure" theory depend on them. I did not fabricate any quotation; where I had only a title I labeled it as such.
• Contradiction flagged with the earlier section. The earlier bibliographic section states the German family member DE 102019211375 B4 is "not active / expired – fee related" per Google Patents, while the US patent is Active with adjusted expiration 2041-03-02. That is not a contradiction in the record itself, but it matters here: the DE family member lapsing does not affect the US patent's validity analysis, and no part of the § 103 analysis above depends on foreign prosecution outcomes. Separately, the earlier section noted the trigger signal appears in the abstract/summary but not in claim 1 — that observation is confirmed and is load-bearing for Combination #1. No contradiction between the prior section and this one otherwise.
• Date discrepancy (minor). The task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the system context dates this session 2026-09-29 and the record shows a maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2026-03-23. I have treated the 2019-07-30 priority date as controlling for § 103 (the only date that matters for prior-art status), so the discrepancy does not affect this analysis. Prior-art status of each reference (all pre-2019 publications) is unaffected.
• I am not rendering a legal conclusion. This is a technical patent-analyst assessment, not an invalidity opinion or freedom-to-operate opinion, and the obviousness conclusion could change with claim construction (especially of "reference structure," "measuring position," "bow," and "comparison data set recorded without deposition") and with any objective indicia (commercial success, licensing, copying) not evaluated here.