Invalidity dossier
US 7492855
System and method for detecting an object
Current assignee: Smiths Detection Inc
Added 9/21/2026, 9:26:25 AM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 7,492,855 B2
Title: System and method for detecting an object
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7492855/en (excerpted)
Identifiers and dates (as supplied): Application US10/743,195; filed 2003-12-22; priority date 2003-08-07; published as US20050031075A1 on 2005-02-10; granted 2009-02-17. Legal status shown as "Expired – Lifetime," with adjusted expiration 2025-11-27. The source lists Smiths Detection Inc. as current assignee and General Electric Co. as original assignee, with recorded reassignments to GE Homeland Protection, Morpho Detection, Inc., and Morpho Detection, LLC (these are shown as assignment records, not analyzed here). Inventors listed include Hopkins, Edic, Basu, De Man, LeBlanc, Wu, Walter, Ross, Wilson, Avila, and Kaucic, Jr. Classifications include G01V5/20, G01V5/22, G01V5/226, and A61B6/482.
Purpose (plain language): The patent addresses screening articles such as luggage, parcels, or mail to determine whether a harmful object — for example, an explosive device or material — is inside. The excerpt notes that existing screening produces high false-positive rates, forcing follow-on trace or manual inspection and lengthening screening time.
Stated scope: The described system combines an acquisition subsystem whose scanner uses stationary radiation sources and detectors to take intensity measurements, a reconstruction subsystem that converts measurements into view data and then image data, and (in several aspects) a computer-aided detection subsystem. Aspects also recite transportation means for the article, multiple reconstruction and computer-aided detection stages, at least one additional source of information about the object, and methods including scanning with a computed tomography machine and discriminating between high-energy and low-energy information to distinguish objects by x-ray energy-dependent material properties. The figures describe system schematics, acquisition subsystems, reconstruction, and detection process steps.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claims, complete description, or drawings; does not resolve exact claim scope or breadth; and does not address validity, enforceability, or litigation. No prior art is analyzed here.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:02:24 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.