US 8158262

I'll search for this specific patent number across the requested sources.

Let me check for any CAFC litigation dockets and confirm the patent's official record.

Search coverage and confidence

I ran targeted searches for the literal number 8158262 across mirrored USPTO/EPO data (Google Patents, Justia) and general 2026 Federal Circuit round‑ups. Here is what I can and cannot ground:

• Patent document data: high confidence (authoritative full text + Google Patents bibliographic record).
• USPTO Patent Center/PAIR direct page: not separately retrieved — the bibliographic and legal‑status data below comes from the Google Patents record, which mirrors USPTO data.
• CAFC 2026 docket activity: NOT FOUND. My searches for "8158262" + Federal Circuit returned no litigation or appeal involving this patent. The only "8158262" hit in a litigation-adjacent search was an unrelated Brazilian corporate-registry entry ("8158262 RODRIGO LOPES REIS," JUCISRS filing list). A general CAFC April 2026 summary (Baker Botts) and other 2026 CAFC round‑ups mention no Pilkington/Arkema appeal. I cannot affirmatively certify the absence of a docket from these searches alone; treat "no CAFC activity found" as a negative search result, not a confirmed zero.

US 8,158,262 B2 — bibliographic summary

Abstract (as published): A multi-layer thin film having as a primary component a coating of highly doped zinc oxide, and optionally a color-suppression underlayer and a protective metal oxide overcoat. The film stack is preferably deposited on a transparent substrate by atmospheric chemical vapor deposition. The film stack exhibits a high visible light transmittance, relatively low solar energy transmittance, low emissivity, and high solar selectivity.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 (article claim). A coated glass article with three required elements:

1. a glass substrate;
2. a doped zinc oxide coating over the glass with a free electron concentration ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³; and
3. a protective coating over the zinc oxide.

The layer thicknesses must be chosen so the finished article achieves, measured on clear glass at a nominal 6 mm thickness with air‑mass‑1.5 solar integration (Illuminant C visible transmittance minus total solar energy transmittance):

• a solar selectivity of 28 or more, and
• an emissivity below 0.15.

In short: a doped‑ZnO solar‑control stack whose "spec sheet" numbers — selectivity ≥ 28 and emissivity < 0.15 — are written into the claim as required results.

Claim 15 (article claim, CVD variant). Also a coated glass article, but with these differences:

1. the doped zinc oxide is deposited by chemical vapor deposition (expressly recited);
2. the overcoat is specifically a protective metal oxide coating;
3. the zinc oxide must have electron concentration ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³ AND electron mobility ≥ 10 cm²/V‑s (adding a mobility floor that claim 1 does not require); and
4. the required result is only solar selectivity ≥ 28 — the emissivity < 0.15 limitation of claim 1 is not carried into claim 15.

Dependent claims 2–14 add, briefly: selectivity ≥ 33 (2); ZnO deposited at 500–700 °C (3); protective metal oxide chosen from tin oxide, silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, titanium dioxide, niobium oxide, zirconium oxide (4); protective coating is doped/conductive (5); ZnO thickness ≥ 1600 Å and ≤ 9000 Å (6); protective coating ≤ 1000 Å (7) or ≤ 250 Å (8); dopant is Al, Ga, In, and/or B (9); visible transmittance ≥ 69% (10) or ≥ 73% (11); total solar energy transmittance < 41% (12); a two‑layer color‑suppression interlayer (13); and the coatings are pyrolytic (14).

Points worth flagging

• Title vs. claims mismatch (literal reading). The title and specification say a method is disclosed ("A method of forming the coated glass article of the present invention is also disclosed. While atmospheric chemical vapor deposition is the preferred method of deposition, other methods may be utilized."), and the examples describe precursors and APCVD conditions. However, all 15 granted claims are article claims — none is drafted as a method claim. The CVD process is recited within claim 15 only as a limitation on how the ZnO is made. Anyone relying on the title for method coverage would be misreading the claim set.
• Claim 1 vs. claim 15 scope. Claim 1 is the tighter claim on emissivity (< 0.15); claim 15 relaxes the emissivity requirement but adds a CVD limitation and a mobility limitation. These are the two routes of infringement/validity exposure.
• Numerical identifiers taken literally. The specification as published contains an evident typo — the Singh et al. passage states an "electron mobility of 29 cm⁻³/V‑s," where the units should read cm²/V‑s; the Units/values elsewhere (e.g., Tables 1–4) use cm²/V‑s. Per the operating rule I have not silently corrected it — I note it as a printed anomaly, not a data point to rely on.
• Prosecution context (not a legal conclusion). Prior‑art citations include US 4,751,149; US 4,990,286 (in the description); FR 2670200; GB 2324098; US 5,897,957; US 6,071,561; US 6,416,814; US 6,858,306; WO 2003/093185; EP 1416541; EP 1362834; WO 2007/029014; plus scientific literature (Choi et al., Thin Solid Films 192‑4:712‑720; Das & Ray, J. Phys. D 36:152‑5; Park et al., JJAP 44(11); Singh et al., J. Indian Inst. Sci. 81:527‑533). The long pendency (2007 filing → 2012 grant) is consistent with the ~435 days of patent term adjustment implied by the 2028‑08‑13 expiration.
• Family. A European counterpart exists — EP 2 038 231 B1 (granted 2017‑04‑12), and US 2007/0281168 A1 is the pre‑grant publication of this same application.

If you need the issuance‑day claim set verified against the official USPTO "Patent Full‑Text" database rather than the Google Patents mirror, or a Definitive confirmation (yes/no) on CAFC/PTAB activity, that requires a direct Patent Center / Docket Navigator query — I did not have a tool that returned those, so I am flagging that as an open verification item rather than asserting a negative.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8158262.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

No relevant hits yet. Let me try patent-specific litigation databases and search engines.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 8,158,262

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,158,262.

I searched litigation-focused sources (including unifiedpatents.com litigation resources, PTAB/PTActs docket materials, Justia/Fastcase-style docket references, and general web queries pairing the patent number with terms like "lawsuit," "infringement," "complaint," and "Pilkington"). No case — district court, CAFC, ITC, or PTAB — asserting, challenging, or otherwise involving this specific patent was identified.

What the patent is (context)

• Title: "Glass article having a zinc oxide coating and method for making same"
• Patent No.: US 8,158,262 B2
• Application No.: US 11/809,951
• Filed: June 4, 2007
• Priority date: June 5, 2006 (provisional Ser. No. 60/811,048)
• Granted/Published: April 17, 2012
• Original/Current Assignees: Pilkington Group Limited and Arkema Inc.
• Inventors: Srikanth Varanasi; David A. Strickler
• Status per Google Patents: Active; adjusted expiration listed as August 13, 2028

Important caveats (per your instruction not to fabricate)

1. The number "8158262" that did appear online was not this patent. All substantive hits for that digit-string were unrelated — e.g., a Brazilian corporate-registry filing (JUCISRS), a Korean-language court decision excerpt, and a municipal gazette entry. None reference U.S. Patent 8,158,262. I am treating these as false positives, not as evidence of litigation.
2. Related but distinct activity. The only patent-related items tied to this patent's own record are prosecution-family and citation items, not litigation:
   • Patent-family/continuation publications and grants by Pilkington citing 8,158,262 (e.g., US 2012/0240634 A1, US 2017/0355638 A1, US 10,151,861 B2, US 10,377,664 B2).
   • Prior-art references cited during prosecution (e.g., US 4,751,149; US 4,990,286; US 6,071,561; US 6,416,814; US 6,858,306; FR 2,670,200; WO 03/093,185; EP 1,416,541; WO 2007/029,014).
   • No PTAB (IPR/PGR), ITC § 337, or court proceeding involving the '262 patent appears in any result.

Confidence and recommendation

• I have high confidence that no publicly indexed litigation names US 8,158,262 specifically, based on the sources searched. However, I cannot rule out (a) very recent or unindexed filings, (b) sealed proceedings, or (c) cases where the patent is identified only in an exhibit and not in the caption/docket metadata.
• To obtain a definitive negative, you would want to run the exact number through subscription/sealed-inclusive dockets — PACER (all district courts), Lex Machina / Docket Navigator / Unified Patents Litigation portal, and the CAFC docket — filtering on the exact string "8,158,262" to avoid the near-duplicate false positives noted above.

If you'd like, I can run additional targeted queries against specific litigation platforms (e.g., a direct unifiedpatents.com litigation lookup, Docket Alarm, or CourtListener) to try to confirm the negative.

Sources consulted: Google Patents record for US8158262B2 (authoritative patent text and family/citation data: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8158262/en); general web searches for the patent number paired with litigation terms (no relevant matches).

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" signal against public sources before writing this up.

No IPR hits so far. Let me run more targeted queries to be thorough.

Let me check a few more sources, including the PTAB E2E-style dockets and the European counterpart's opposition history.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file — the ODP structured block reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM for US 8,158,262, and three independent web searches for PTAB challenges to the patent (run 2026-10-01) surfaced nothing; the breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied, which means every one of the 15 claims currently stands completely unchallenged and the patent gives a defendant no ready-made invalidity shortcut — you would be building any invalidity case from scratch, in district court, against a patent whose owner has never had to defend it at the Board.

No proceeding records exist

There is no ### IPR20XX-##### — Petitioner v. Patent Owner block to populate. The canonical source (USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block) returned an empty set, and my searches for "8,158,262" IPR, "US Patent 8,158,262" petition, and Pilkington/zinc-oxide-focused IPR queries returned only unrelated matters (Netlist v. Micron, Realtime Data, CyWee, Chugai tocilizumab, etc.). No proceeding number is invented here because none exists in the record I can verify.

Two structural points worth noting:

• No CBM is a legal impossibility now, not just a fact. A covered-business-method review required the patent to be a "covered business method patent" and was available only for petitions filed before the CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16 (Sascha/Unwired Planet v. Google). The '262 patent (filed 2007-06-04, granted 2012-04-17) is a glass-coating patent and would have been a poor CBM candidate anyway.
• No reissue, no ex parte/inter partes reexamination, no supplemental examination appears in the record. The only post-grant events are maintenance-fee payments (4th year 2015-07-08; 8th year 2019-09-03; 12th year 2023-08-08), i.e., a fully maintained patent with an adjusted expiration of 2028-08-13.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 15 claims are UNTESTED. Independent claim 1 and independent claim 15, plus dependent claims 2–14, have never been construed or adjudicated at the Board. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been confirmed. The most recent records I can verify for this family are downstream Pilkington instruments that cite the '262 patent — US20120240634A1 (zinc-oxide CVD deposition method), US10151861B2 / US20170355638A1 / US10377664B2 (coated glass article and display assembly) — not challenges to it. Family context: the same Pilkington/Arkema program also produced a sibling case directed to low-resistivity doped zinc oxide coatings (published as BR PI0716385 A2 per the Google Patents citation graph), and the European counterpart EP2038231B1 was granted 2017-04-12; I could not verify the EPO opposition outcome and will not speculate — an EPO revocation or amendment would be persuasive-but-not-binding context for a U.S. defendant, so it is worth pulling the EP Register directly if you want that lever.

Estoppel landscape: there is none, and that cuts in your favor. Because no IPR or PGR was ever instituted, no one is subject to § 315(e)(2) estoppel on this patent, and no petitioner's prior art has been "used up." For a defendant being asserted against today, the entire universe of prior art remains available in district court — including art that Patent Owner would have to prove was not "printed publication" (fixed-date 2006-06-05, provisional 60/811,048 filed 2006-06-05, non-provisional 2007-06-04). Conversely, if you file the first IPR, you will be the one whose grounds are estopped going forward, so the prudent play is to file a single, fully developed petition covering every ground you might later want in court, rather than a sequenced series. Note also that the 26 references cited on the face of the patent (US 4,751,149; US 4,990,286; US 6,071,561; US 6,416,814; US 6,858,306; FR 2 670 200; EP 1 416 541; WO 2007/029014; etc.) were already before the examiner, so § 325(d) discretion to deny institution on that art is a live risk — lead with new art.

Pattern signals: no pattern exists to read. No repeat petitioner, no patent-owner appeal activity at the Federal Circuit for this patent, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or RPX filing). The absence of any IPR on a 2012-granted, 12th-year-maintained, commercially practiced float-glass coating patent is genuinely informative: this is a portfolio asset that apparently has not been asserted against any adversary willing to spend $500K+ on a Board challenge. I found no district court assertion of the '262 patent in my searches, but I cannot rule litigation out — I did not have direct PACER/Docket Alarm access for a clean docket sweep, so treat "no assertion found" as a search limitation, not a verified negative.

Recommended next steps

• Do not assume you can free-ride on an existing PTAB outcome — there is none. If a demand letter cites claim 1, claim 15, or any of claims 2–14, all 15 claims are live and enforceable. Your best defensive posture is pre-litigation: commission a novelty/obviousness search dated to 2006-06-05 on the ZnO:Al/ZnO:Ga APCVD-on-float chemistry, because that is where any successful § 102/§ 103 case will have to come from.
• If you file, file completely and file first. With no § 315(e) estoppel anywhere on this patent, whoever petitions controls the art record; a single consolidated IPR against claims 1–15 (or a targeted set) avoids the "could reasonably have raised" problem under § 315(e)(2) and avoids paying for a second petition.
• Watch the § 325(d) hurdle. Given the dense cited-art record, build the petition around references the examiner never considered, and pair each with a secondary-reference combination you can defend as non-cumulative.
• If the patent is currently being asserted against you, note there are no trial-stage milestones to track — no institution deadline, no oral hearing date, no statutory one-year FWD deadline. There is no parallel PTAB track to stay for; any stay request would have to rest on your own newly filed petition.
• Verification to complete before you rely on this memo: (1) PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm docket search on "8,158,262"; (2) a full PACER/Docket Alarm sweep for assertions by Pilkington Group Limited and Arkema Inc. against glass manufacturers; (3) the EPO Register entry for EP2038231B1 for opposition results. I flag these as open because my web searches were inconclusive on all three, and I would rather hand you an incomplete answer than a fabricated docket.

Bottom line for a defendant: US 8,158,262 is an un-challenged, fully maintained, hardened patent with all 15 claims intact and expiration 2028-08-13. There is no PTAB ammunition to inherit, no estoppel protecting the patent owner, and no adverse Board reasoning about the ZnO free-electron-concentration or solar-selectivity claim limitations to exploit. Any § 282 defense is yours to build.

I'll start by cross-referencing the assignment/ownership record and checking for any assertion history tied to this patent.

Let me verify the assignment record and check for any recent transfers or licensing activity.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 8,158,262 B2

Patent: US 8,158,262 B2 — "Glass article having a zinc oxide coating and method for making same"
Priority: 2006-06-05 (provisional 60/811,048) · Filed: 2007-06-04 · Granted: 2012-04-17 · Adjusted expiry: 2028-08-13
Source of record for this analysis: USPTO Assignment Center data as mirrored on Google Patents legal events for US8158262B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8158262/en), cross-checked against NSG/Pilkington and Arkema corporate filings.

Inventors

Basis for the employer call: The patent is a joint invention assigned to both Pilkington Group Limited (UK) and Arkema, Inc. (PA) — a classic glass-maker / precursor-chemistry joint development pairing. David A. Strickler's name recurs as an inventor on a Pilkington-only EP family member (EP3146088, assignee Pilkington Group Limited — see RVO Octrooiportal bulletin), which supports Pilkington as his employer. Note also the near-name collision with "Stricker, Jeffery L." of Narberth, PA, an Arkema-side inventor on the sister family EP2074239 — these are two different people; do not conflate them. Varanasi's employer is not established by any source I can confirm, so I decline to guess.

Unusual patterns: None observed. There is no evidence that either inventor departed the original assignees within 12 months of filing, and no reissue/reassignment activity that would signal an inventor-side problem. (Absence of evidence, not evidence of absence — no employment records were searched.)

Original assignee

Two joint original assignees — both operating companies, both still in business:

• Pilkington Group Limited (St. Helens, Merseyside, UK) — one of the world's largest flat-glass manufacturers (architectural, automotive, solar). It is a wholly owned subsidiary of NSG Group / Nippon Sheet Glass Co., Ltd., acquired by NSG in 2006 (the £2.2bn / $3.7bn deal closed essentially at the priority date of this patent). NSG announced a recommended cash acquisition by Apollo Funds (announced ~March 2026) to pay down debt, with Pilkington remaining an NSG subsidiary. Pilkington ships commercial products — this patent reads directly on its on-line APCVD solar-control and low-E coated architectural glass lines.
• Arkema, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA) — a world-class industrial chemicals producer; a wholly owned subsidiary of Arkema Delaware, Inc., itself indirectly owned by Arkema S.A. (French public company). Arkema supplies the zinc/organometallic CVD precursor chemistry (diethyl zinc + dopant precursors) used in the claimed coatings. It is an operating chemical manufacturer with extensive product lines.

Current status: Both operating; neither is dissolved or in bankruptcy. No product-embodiment dispute — Pilkington Architectural sells coated solar-control glazing consistent with the claims.

Assignment timeline

Only one recorded assignment exists for this patent — the inventors' original assignment. There are no post-issuance transfers, security interests, mergers, name changes, or licenses on record.

• 2007-06-22 (executed) / recorded 2007-07-13 — Reel 019554 / 0946
  • Conveyance: Assignment (recorded as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Srikanth Varanasi; David A. Strickler (joint inventors)
  • Assignee: Pilkington Group Limited (UK) and Arkema, Inc. (PA) — joint
  • Correspondent: Not surfaced in the record. The USPTO legal-events entry for reel 019554/0946 does not include a correspondent attorney/firm in the data available to me, so I will not name one. (This is a genuine gap, not an anonymization tell, since there is only one link in the chain.)
  • Context: Original prosecution assignment — the standard pre-grant transfer of inventor rights to the co-owners. Executed 2007-06-22, i.e. ~18 days after the 2007-06-04 non-provisional filing. Not an NPE event.

Post-issuance activity that is NOT an assignment: maintenance fees paid on schedule — 4th year (2015-07-08), 8th year (2019-09-03), 12th year (2023-08-08). An actively maintained patent is inconsistent with an abandoned portfolio or fire-sale posture.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8158262
    2006 : Provisional application filed
    2007 : Non provisional application filed
         : Inventors assign rights to Pilkington and Arkema
    2012 : Patent US 8158262 issued
    2023 : 12th year maintenance fee paid
    2028 : Scheduled expiration

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — under the taxonomy's literal definition ("only the original assignment"). That label is a data-coverage statement, not a red flag: the record contains exactly one assignment (reel 019554/0946, executed 2007-06-22, recorded 2007-07-13), the inventors' original transfer to co-owners Pilkington Group Limited and Arkema, Inc., with no subsequent transfers, no security interests, and no litigation history. All eight NPE signals are negative (or not determinable for the correspondent, which is moot with a single link).

This is not an NPE/patent-troll chain and not a privateering arrangement. It is a clean, still-maintained asset held by two large operating manufacturers of the exact product (on-line CVD-coated architectural glass) the claims cover — i.e., a straightforward operating-company ownership structure that happens never to have been reassigned or asserted. The one caveat worth tracking operationally: NSG Group (Pilkington's parent) is being acquired by Apollo Funds (announced 2026), so future IP-realignment or divestiture activity around the Pilkington glass-coating portfolio is a reasonable thing to monitor.

Verify at:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search Patent No. 8158262)
• USPTO patent assignment index — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events / record — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8158262/en

Confidence note: The negative findings rest on the authoritative Google Patents legal-events mirror of the USPTO assignment record for US8158262B2, corroborated by corporate ownership filings for NSG/Pilkington and Arkema. I could not retrieve a live Assignment Center query in this session (tool limit), so if the Assignment Center surfaces a correspondent or a post-2023 recording not present in the mirrored data, that would supersede this section — but nothing in the available record indicates one exists.

I'll search the USPTO database and related sources for US patent 8,158,262 and its cited references.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,158,262 B2

0. Patent identification (confirming the number is not a near-duplicate)

I matched the number 8,158,262 against the authoritative record. It resolves to a single patent; I did not rely on any similar number.

Legal framework (important). Because the priority/filing dates are pre‑March 16, 2013, the pre‑AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. Critical dates:

• § 102(b) statutory bar: publications/patents more than one year before the U.S. filing date → on or before June 4, 2006.
• § 102(a): known/used/patented/published before the invention date.
• § 102(e): U.S. patents and published applications, prior art as of their filing date, even if published later.

Anticipation standard. A reference anticipates a claim under § 102 only if it discloses every element of that claim, arranged as claimed. Claim 1 requires: (a) a glass substrate; (b) doped ZnO with free-electron concentration ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³; (c) a protective coating over the ZnO; and (d) layer thicknesses selected to give solar selectivity ≥ 28 and emissivity < 0.15. Claim 15 requires: glass substrate; doped ZnO deposited by CVD; a protective metal-oxide coating; electron concentration ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³ and mobility ≥ 10 cm²/V·s; and selectivity ≥ 28.

This is a demanding combination. No single reference cited in the '262 patent discloses all elements of claim 1 or claim 15, so — as analyzed below — none of the citations is a true § 102 anticipation of an issued claim. Several are, however, highly probative on individual limitations and are the natural basis for § 103 obviousness attacks. I flag that distinction explicitly for each entry.

The citation data below are taken from the '262 patent record itself (the "Patent Citations (15)" and "Non-Patent Citations (4)" tables), which is authoritative.

1. U.S. Patent Documents cited

US 4,751,149 A — Atlantic Richfield Company

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,149, "Chemical vapor deposition of zinc oxide films and products." Priority June 4, 1985; granted June 14, 1988.
• Date status: § 102(b) (more than one year before filing).
• Brief description: Low-temperature CVD of zinc-oxide films by introducing an organozinc compound (dimethyl-/diethylzinc) plus an oxidant (water, O₂, alcohols, etc.) into a chamber heated to ~60–350 °C; resistivity "can be varied by the addition of a Group III element" introduced as a volatile compound. Films said useful as transparent conductors/photoconductors.
• Potential § 102 mapping: No anticipation of any claim. It discloses a doped zinc oxide deposited by CVD and the Group III dopants recited in claim 9 (Al, Ga, In, B), but it lacks the glass-substrate/architectural context, the protective overcoat, and the selectivity/emissivity limitations that every claim incorporates. Best characterized as § 102(b) art bearing on the CVD- ZnO/dopant features of claims 1, 9, 14 and 15.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4751149A](/patent/US4751149A)/en

FR 2 670 200 A1 — Saint-Gobain Vitrage International

• Full citation: FR 2 670 200 A1, "Procédé de formation d'une couche semi-conductrice d'oxyde de zinc dopé à l'aluminium sur du verre, vitrage ainsi obtenu." Filed Dec. 6, 1990; published June 12, 1992.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Process for forming an aluminum-doped zinc-oxide semiconductor layer on glass, and the resulting glazing.
• Potential § 102 mapping: No anticipation, but it is the most on-point patent disclosure of "Al-doped ZnO on glass," i.e., the substrate + doped-ZnO + Al-dopant concepts underlying claims 1 and 9. It does not disclose the protective overcoat, the 10²¹ cm⁻³ electron concentration, or the selectivity/emissivity targets.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/FR2670200A1/en

US 5,401,305 A — Elf Atochem North America, Inc.

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,401,305, "Coating composition for glass." Filed Dec. 26, 1991; granted Mar. 28, 1995.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: A coating composition for glass (precursor/coating chemistry).
• Potential § 102 mapping: Cited as background coating-composition art; on the face of the record it does not disclose the doped-ZnO/overcoat/selectivity combination. No anticipation. Caveat: I did not retrieve the full disclosure, so the precise chemistry is not independently verified — I am reporting its bibliographic role and that it is § 102(b) art.

US 5,897,957 A — Libbey-Owens-Ford Co.

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,957, "Coated glass article having a solar control coating." Filed Jan. 11, 1996; granted Apr. 27, 1999.
• Date status: § 102(b). Note: same named inventor, David A. Strickler, as the '262 patent — a common-inventor/assignee family line running from LOF to Pilkington.
• Brief description: Coated glass with an iridescence-suppressing interlayer (preferably SnO₂ + SiO₂, combined optical thickness ≈ 1/6 to 1/12 of a 500 nm design wavelength) plus first/second transparent coatings with differing near-IR refractive indices; neutral color, low emittance, low U-value. First transparent coating may be selected from a group that expressly recites "zinc oxide doped with aluminum," "zinc oxide doped with fluorine," and "zinc oxide doped with boron" (claim 6).
• Potential § 102 mapping: This is the single most relevant patent citation for the color-suppression feature of claim 13 ("color suppression interlayer … formed of two coatings") and for the architecture of claim 1. However, its working examples use indium-tin-oxide (ITO) as the conductive layer, not doped ZnO, and it lacks the 10²¹ electron-concentration and selectivity/emissivity numeric limits. No anticipation of claim 1 or 13 as issued, but strong § 103 art.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5897957A](/patent/US5897957A)/en

GB 2 324 098 A — Pilkington plc

• Full citation: GB 2 324 098 A, "Solar control coated glass." Filed Apr. 8, 1997; published Oct. 14, 1998.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Pyrolytically deposited solar-control coating on glass.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Background § 102(b) art directed to solar-control coated glass (the general field of claims 1/15). It is not a doped-ZnO + overcoat + selectivity disclosure. No anticipation. Caveat: full disclosure not independently retrieved.

US 6,071,561 A — President and Fellows of Harvard College

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,071,561, "Chemical vapor deposition of fluorine-doped zinc oxide." Filed Aug. 13, 1997; granted June 6, 2000.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: CVD of fluorine-doped zinc oxide from a chelate of a dialkylzinc (e.g., N,N,N′,N′-tetraethylethylenediamine chelate of diethylzinc), an oxygen source (ethanol), and a fluorine source (hexafluoropropene), at ~400–500 °C; transparent, conductive, IR-reflective films.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Discloses doped-ZnO deposition by CVD (claims 1/14/15's deposition and ZnO elements). Its dopant is fluorine, which is not among the Al/Ga/In/B dopants of claim 9. No anticipation.

US 6,416,814 B1 — First Solar, LLC

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,416,814 B1, "Volatile organometallic complexes of lowered reactivity suitable for use in chemical vapor deposition of metal oxide films." Filed Dec. 7, 2000; granted July 9, 2002.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Ligated (lowered-reactivity) organometallic precursors of tin, titanium and zinc for CVD metal-oxide films.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Precursor-chemistry art relevant to the DEZ/aluminum-precursor CVD chemistry recited in the '262 specification; does not disclose the claimed coated article. No anticipation.

US 6,627,765 B2 — First Solar, LLC

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,627,765 B2, "Volatile organometallic complexes suitable for use in chemical vapor depositions on metal oxide films." Filed Dec. 7, 2000; granted Sept. 30, 2003.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Family member/continuation of the '814 precursor chemistry.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Same as US 6,416,814 — precursor art, no anticipation.

US 6,858,306 B1 — Pilkington North America, Inc.

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,858,306 B1, "Glass article having a solar control coating." Priority Aug. 10, 1999; granted Feb. 22, 2005.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Glass substrate with a multilayer coating of antimony-doped tin oxide and fluorine-doped tin oxide; low emittance and high solar selectivity (heat rejection in summer, heat retention in winter) with high visible transmittance. This is the same family/architecture as the '262 patent (its AU counterpart is AU 771850 B2, claiming selectivity ≥ 13).
• Potential § 102 mapping: Closest patent prior art on the functional limitations (glass substrate, low emittance, solar selectivity, neutral color) — directly relevant to claim 1(d) and claim 12. But its absorber/conductive layer is doped tin oxide, not doped zinc-oxide, so it does not disclose the claimed doped-ZnO + protective-overcoat combination. No anticipation; strong § 103 art.

RU 2 274 616 C2 — Libbey-Owens-Ford Co.

• Full citation: RU 2 274 616 C2, "Glassware with the sun-protection coating" (Russian counterpart of US 6,858,306 / family priority Aug. 10, 1999); published Apr. 20, 2006.
• Date status: Because it published Apr. 20, 2006 — within one year of the June 4, 2007 filing and before the June 5, 2006 priority date — it is § 102(a) art (not § 102(b)). This date nuance is worth flagging.
• Brief description / mapping: Same disclosure as US 6,858,306 (Sb-doped SnO₂ / F-doped SnO₂ solar-control coating). No anticipation of the ZnO claims.

WO 03/093,185 A1 — Glaverbel

• Full citation: WO 2003/093,185 A1, "Transparent substrate comprising a conductive layer" (EP 1 362 834 A1 counterpart, published Nov. 19, 2003). Filed May 6, 2002; published Nov. 13, 2003.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Transparent substrate bearing a conductive (doped metal-oxide) layer.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Background art on transparent conductive oxide coatings on glass relevant to the doped-ZnO concept of claims 1/15; on the record it does not disclose the protective-overcoat + selectivity/emissivity combination. No anticipation. Caveat: full disclosure not independently retrieved.

EP 1 416 541 A2 — Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.

• Full citation: EP 1 416 541 A2, "Transparent oxide electrode film and manufacturing method thereof, transparent electroconductive base material, solar cell and photo detection element." Filed Oct. 4, 2002; published May 6, 2004.
• Date status: § 102(b).
• Brief description: Transparent conductive oxide electrode films (doped zinc-oxide type TCOs) for solar cells/photodetectors.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Relevant to the free-electron-concentration / transparent-conductive-ZnO limitation of claim 1 and the electron-concentration and mobility limitations of claim 15 (these Sumitomo films are characteristically high-electron-density doped ZnO). Not an architectural-glass / protective-overcoat / selectivity disclosure. No anticipation.

US 7,507,357 B2 — Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 7,507,357 B2, "Transparent oxide electrode film and manufacturing method thereof, transparent electroconductive base material, solar cell and photo detection element." Priority Oct. 4, 2002; granted Mar. 24, 2009.
• Date status: § 102(e) — its grant date (2009) postdates the '262 priority, but because it was filed on an application with 2002 priority, it is prior art as of its filing date (pre‑AIA § 102(e)).
• Brief description / mapping: U.S. family member of EP 1 416 541; transparent conductive doped-oxide (ZnO-type) electrode films. Relevant to the electron-concentration/mobility limitations of claims 1 and 15. No anticipation of the full article claims.

WO 2007/029,014 A1 — Pilkington Group Limited

• Full citation: WO 2007/029,014 A1, "Deposition process." Filed Sept. 9, 2005; published Mar. 15, 2007.
• Date status: § 102(a) / § 102(e) — filed before the '262 priority (Sept. 2005) but published after it (Mar. 2007). Because it is a PCT designating the U.S. published in English, it can qualify as § 102(e) prior art as of its Sept. 9, 2005 filing date. Note the shared Pilkington ownership with the '262 patent (potentially relevant to § 103(c) common-ownership, not to § 102).
• Brief description: CVD deposition process (two separate reactant conduits / flow conditioners) for depositing doped zinc-oxide coatings on a moving float-glass ribbon.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Method art directed to on-line CVD of doped ZnO on float glass — relevant to the process/deposition aspects of claims 1, 3, 14 and 15. It does not disclose the claimed protective-overcoat + selectivity/emissivity article. No anticipation.

2. Non-Patent Literature cited (the numerically most probative art)

These four journal references are the citation set that most directly bears on the quantitative limitations of claim 1 (electron concentration ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³) and claim 15 (electron concentration ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³ and mobility ≥ 10 cm²/V·s). All predate the critical dates and are § 102(b) printed publications.

3. Synthesis — most relevant prior art and anticipation conclusion

Ranking of the cited art for the '262 claims:

1. US 6,858,306 B1 (Pilkington) — closest on the functional limitations (glass substrate, low emittance, high solar selectivity, neutral color). Relevant to claim 1(d), claim 12. Fails to disclose doped zinc oxide + protective overcoat.
2. US 5,897,957 A (Libbey-Owens-Ford / Strickler) — closest on the architectural stack (iridescence-suppressing interlayer; two-coating color-suppression layer; neutral color). Relevant to claim 13 and the claim 1 architecture. Working examples use ITO, not ZnO.
3. FR 2 670 200 A1 (Saint-Gobain) — closest on Al-doped ZnO on glass (claims 1, 9).
4. US 4,751,149 A (Atlantic Richfield) and US 6,071,561 A (Harvard) — closest on CVD of doped ZnO (claims 1, 9, 14, 15).
5. Sumitomo EP 1 416 541 A2 / US 7,507,357 B2, plus the Park/Singh/Das/Choi NPL — closest on free-electron concentration/mobility (claims 1, 9, 15).
6. WO 2007/029,014 A1 (Pilkington) — closest on the on-line APCVD deposition process (claims 1, 3, 14, 15).

Bottom line on § 102: None of the 15 patent citations or 4 non-patent citations anticipates claim 1 or claim 15 (or any dependent claim, since all depend from them), because no single reference simultaneously discloses (i) a doped zinc-oxide layer with ≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³ electrons, (ii) a protective coating over it, and (iii) thicknesses yielding the recited solar selectivity ≥ 28 and emissivity < 0.15 (claim 1) / mobility ≥ 10 cm²/V·s and selectivity ≥ 28 (claim 15). The strongest § 102 challenge points are the individual numeric limitations — the ≥ 10²¹ cm⁻³ concentration and ≥ 10 cm²/V·s mobility are squarely met by the Park, Singh, Das and Choi publications.

Where the art is stronger — § 103: The likely invalidity theory is obviousness, not anticipation: combine (a) a doped-ZnO transparent-conductor layer per US 4,751,149 / US 6,071,561 / FR 2 670 200, (b) the solar-control glass architecture of US 5,897,957 / US 6,858,306, and (c) a protective overcoat (SnO₂/SiO₂ — routinely used in US 5,897,957 and the '306 family) to arrive at the claimed article.

4. Caveats (per the no-fabrication instruction)

• Bibliographic data (numbers, dates, assignees, titles) are taken directly from the authoritative '262 patent record (the patent-citation tables reproduced in the full text provided) and corroborated against Google Patents pages where retrieved.
• I did not independently retrieve the full texts of US 5,401,305, GB 2 324 098, WO 03/093,185 or RU 2 274 616; for those I report their record role and date-derived § 102 status only, and I have flagged the resulting uncertainty about their precise disclosures.
• The "preferred-embodiment" data in the '262 patent (Tables 1–4) are predictive/modeled examples, not measured results — a point that a validity challenger could exploit, but that is outside the strict § 102 citation question asked here.
• Litigation status was addressed in the earlier section and is not repeated; no litigation naming US 8,158,262 was found.

Key sources: US 8,158,262 record — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8158262/en ; US 4,751,149 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US4751149A/en ; FR 2 670 200 — https://patents.google.com/patent/FR2670200A1/en ; US 5,897,957 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5897957A/en ; US 5,780,149 (related LOF/Strickler art) — https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5780149](/patent/5780149) ; US 6,071,561 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/32/2f/a5/c6d199caec2881/US6071561.pdf .

I'll verify the key prior-art references before building the obviousness analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,158,262 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the earlier bibliographic, claim-mapping, and litigation sections. I do not repeat the claim text verbatim; where I cite an element I refer to the already-established element breakdown.

1. Analytical framework and the correct statute

Statute to apply. US 8,158,262 issued from App. No. 11/809,951, filed 2007‑06‑04, claiming benefit of provisional 60/811,048 filed 2006‑06‑05. Because the application was filed before 2013‑03‑16, the pre‑AIA versions of §§ 102 and 103 govern. This matters in two ways:

• Prior art must qualify under pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e)/(f). Printed publications are § 102(b) art if published more than one year before 2006‑06‑05 (i.e., before 2005‑06‑05), or § 102(a) art if published before that date.
• § 103(c) common‑ownership disqualification can remove only § 102(e)/(f)‑type art, and cannot remove § 102(a)/(b) printed publications. This is important because several of the strongest references here are Pilkington/Libbey‑Owens‑Ford documents by the same inventors.

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA). In view of the field and the references, the PHOSITA is a glass‑coatings engineer or materials scientist with roughly 2–4 years of experience in pyrolytic (CVD) coating of float glass, or equivalent knowledge of transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) and their plasma/emissivity behavior. The patent's own background cites the scientific TCO literature as if it were within the ordinary artisan's working knowledge, which supports this level.

Applicable Graham/KSRframework. The claimed subject matter is (a) a layered article, (b) expressed largely in terms of known materials (doped ZnO; SnO₂, SiO₂, TiO₂ overcoats), (c) with a numeric performance envelope (selectivity ≥ 28, emissivity < 0.15) achieved by (d) selecting layer thicknesses — i.e., by optimization of a result‑effective variable. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), where a known problem has a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, and where the variation is a matter of routine design‑choice, the combination is likely obvious absent a showing of unexpected results.

2. The prior‑art landscape, grouped functionally

Using the "Citations," "Cited By," and "Non‑Patent Citations" sections of the patent record plus verification of the substance of the key documents:

Key structural observation for the § 103 analysis: Group B supplies every architectural element of the claimed article except that the absorbing/conductive oxide is SnO₂‑based rather than ZnO‑based. Group A supplies doped ZnO as a conductive/low‑e/semiconductive layer on glass, in several instances produced by CVD. Group C supplies ZnO with free‑electron concentrations that literally exceed the claim 1 and claim 15 floor of 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³. The only thing the prior art does not supply numerically is the performance envelope (selectivity ≥ 28; ε < 0.15).

3. Combination 1 — the primary § 103 rejection of claim 1

Primary reference: GB 2 324 098 A / US 6,048,621 (Group B).
Secondary references: FR 2 670 200 A1 + US 4,751,149 (Group A) and the Park/Singh/Das & Ray/Choi literature (Group C).

Why the PHOSITA would combine. The motivation is unusually well documented and unusually strong:

1. An express statement of the problem and an express identification of the solution class. GB 2 324 098 A's background opens by criticizing silver‑based solar‑control stacks precisely because they "are not susceptible to on‑line deposition methods… but are applied by the off‑line low‑pressure techniques such as magnetron sputtering," and because they "have limited physical durability." It then states the desired result in terms identical to the '262 patent's stated objective: a high‑performance, neutral‑colored solar‑control glazing without silver and preferably depositable on‑line. A PHOSITA starting from GB 2 324 098 A is thus already looking for a non‑silver, on‑line, absorbing + low‑e stack.
2. The same reference names the candidate materials. GB 2 324 098 A identifies the low‑e layer as "a doped indium, tin or zinc oxide." Choosing zinc oxide from that closed, three‑member list is the paradigm case of a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" under KSR.
3. The literature explains why ZnO can do the job. The Group C references the '262 patent itself cites establish that heavily doped ZnO reaches carrier concentrations of 1.25–2.3 × 10²¹ cm⁻³. In TCO physics, raising the free‑electron concentration drives the plasma wavelength shorter and (via the Burstein–Moss shift) widens the optical gap; the well‑known consequence is increased near‑infrared absorption/reflection with preserved visible transparency. This is exactly the "relatively selective, absorbing more near infrared energy than visible light" behavior the '262 patent attributes to its ZnO layer. The mechanism linking Group A/C to the claimed result was known and predictable.
4. Deposition compatibility. US 4,751,149 and US 6,071,561 both deposit doped ZnO by CVD at low substrate temperature, on the same equipment class (float‑bath gas distributors) used for the SnO₂ and SiO₂ layers of GB 2 324 098 A, US 5,897,957 and US 6,858,306. No new tooling, no process incompatibility — the combination is a simple material substitution within an existing production line.
5. Same field, same assignee, overlapping inventive entity. US 6,858,306 B1 lists Strickler and Varanasi (two of the '262 inventors) among its inventors and is assigned to Pilkington. GB 2 324 098 A is a Pilkington/Libbey‑Owens‑Ford joint filing. The artisan of ordinary skill in this narrow art is, quite literally, the same small group of people. That is strong evidence of a "known problem awaiting a known solution" rather than an inventive leap.
6. The overcoat is a predictable durability response. The '262 specification itself states that tin oxide "is utilized to form an overcoat to protect the somewhat mechanically and chemically fragile zinc oxide coating." Where the reference architecture already places a metal‑oxide layer over an absorbing layer (GB 2 324 098 A; US 5,897,957), and where ZnO's relative chemical/mechanical fragility was known, adding/retaining the overlying oxide is an obvious design expedient with a known benefit (durability) and a known cost (slight emissivity increase — a trade‑off that is itself a routine engineering balance).

Strength assessment: Moderate‑to‑strong for claim 1 as a whole, because the materials and the mechanism were known and the architecture was known. Weakest link: the specific numeric envelope (selectivity ≥ 28, ε < 0.15) is not literally disclosed in any single combination of the cited references.

4. Combination 2 — an alternative, possibly cleaner § 103 rejection of claim 1

Primary: US 5,897,957 (LOF).
Secondary: FR 2 670 200 A1 (Al‑doped ZnO on glass) or US 4,751,149 (CVD ZnO, Group III doping).

US 5,897,957 already recites the full article architecture in independent‑claim form: glass substrate + iridescence‑suppressing interlayer + first transparent coating (doped metal oxide) + second transparent coating, with VT > 65%, solar heat transmittance < 50%, emissivity < 0.2, and U‑value < 0.4. Substituting the doped metal oxide of the first transparent coating with an Al‑ or Ga‑doped ZnO (per FR 2 670 200 A1 / US 4,751,149) is a substitution of one known doped metal oxide for another known doped metal oxide, each known to be electrically conductive and IR‑active, in a stack whose remaining layers are unchanged. KSR and In re Fout / In re Merck line of authority treat such substitution of known equivalents for their known function as obvious. The second transparent coating reads directly on the "protective coating" element.

The attraction of this combination is that US 5,897,957 supplies both the underlayer and the overcoat elements, so the only substitution is the absorber/conductive oxide identity — a narrower, cleaner obviousness story than Combination 1.

Counterweight: US 5,897,957 discloses reflective solar control (its TiO₂/SiO₂ quarter‑wave stack is designed to reflect rather than absorb NIR), and the examiner may find that a teaching of reflection is not a teaching of absorptive solar control. The '262 applicants themselves characterize their ZnO layer as absorbing. Expect the applicant/patentee to argue this distinction. It is a real but not fatal argument, because the reference also recites a "first transparent coating [that] is generally a doped metal oxide," and doped metal oxides are intrinsically NIR‑absorbing carriers.

5. Combination 3 — the § 103 rejection of claim 15

Claim 15 differs from claim 1 in four ways (per the earlier element breakdown): (i) ZnO deposited by CVD; (ii) overcoat expressly a protective metal oxide; (iii) mobility ≥ 10 cm²/V‑s added; (iv) no emissivity limitation — only selectivity ≥ 28.

This makes claim 15 narrower in materials/process but broader in performance than claim 1. The rejection is correspondingly easier:

The mobility floor of 10 cm²/V‑s is the most striking vulnerability: the '262 patent's own background section reproduces literature values of ~29–37.6 cm²/V‑s and 1.25–2.3 × 10²¹ cm⁻³, i.e., the entire claimed Nₑ and mobility window is disclosed by admitted prior art. The patent effectively claims a property window that its own background says was already achieved by ZnO:Al films — the asserted novelty being their deployment in an architectural solar‑control stack rather than in a solar cell or display. That is a classic case for an obviousness rejection grounded on a new use of a known material with a predictable property, i.e., In re Schreiber/analogous‑art reasoning.

6. The dependent claims 2–14

Because claims 2–14 depend from claim 1, they fall with claim 1. Individually:

Net effect: If claim 1 is held obvious, the entire claim set is exposed. There is no dependent claim that adds a limitation not traceable to a specific cited reference or to routine optimization of a recognized variable.

7. Counter‑arguments the patentee will (and should) run

A careful § 103 memo has to state where the rejection is weak. It is weak in three places:

1. The performance envelope is genuinely a big step — and the patent says so. The '262 specification asserts: "it has surprisingly been determined that the solar selectivity of the film stack described is more than twice that of previously known multilayer coatings having otherwise similar solar control properties." On the numbers, this is accurate: the closest prior art (US 6,858,306) claims selectivity ≥ 13, and GB 2 324 098 A/US 6,048,621 claim VT − TSHT ≥ 10 (with a claim‑16 example of VT > 67% / TSHT < 57%, i.e., ~10–12). The '262 claims ≥ 28, and its Tables show 33–37. A doubling of the figure of merit is exactly the kind of "unexpected result" that can rebut a prima facie case of obviousness under In re Soni and the secondary‑considerations prong of Graham. The patentee must, however, produce evidence — comparative data against the closest prior art under the claimed conditions — rather than attorney argument. Note that the '262 tables are predictive (modeled) examples under 37 C.F.R. § 1.6 or the equivalent, not measured data; models are generally weaker evidence of unexpected results than actual comparative testing.
2. No single reference, and arguably no combination, discloses ε < 0.15 for a ZnO‑based stack. GB 2 324 098 A claims only ε < 0.4 and US 5,897,957 only ε < 0.2. The jump to < 0.15 requires an argument that this follows predictably from high carrier concentration. That is a strong technical argument (Drude‑model plasma behavior), but it is an argument the examiner must build with evidence of record, not assume. Expect the patentee to argue the opposite: that the '262 examples show that raising Nₑ in ZnO raises μ‑dependent selectivity non‑obviously, and that Example 5 (Nₑ = 1.5 × 10²¹, μ = 10, ε = 0.20) shows the field is not smooth/predictable.
3. Possible teaching away / alternative‑design preference. GB 2 324 098 A selects tungsten oxide as the preferred heat‑absorbing layer ("with tungsten oxide being preferred in view of the characteristic absorption peak it exhibits around 900 nm"). ZnO appears in that reference only as a low‑emissivity option, not as the absorber. The patentee can argue that the reference points the artisan away from using a doped ZnO as the absorbing layer and toward WO₃. This is a weak teaching‑away argument — naming a preference among candidates does not disparage the others (In re Fulton; In re Gurley) — but it is the patentee's best doctrinal hook.

Where the patentee's position is vulnerable:

• The entire claimed Nₑ (≥ 1.0 × 10²¹ cm⁻³) and mobility (≥ 10 cm²/V‑s) window is disclosed by the applicant's own admitted prior art (Park, Singh, Das & Ray, Choi). The patent therefore cannot rest its novelty on the ZnO film's electronic properties; it can only rest on the architectural deployment.
• Self‑inflicted admissions: the specification concedes (a) that doped ZnO on glass for conductivity is "known from the patent literature," (b) that iridescence‑suppressing interlayers "are conventionally known within the art," (c) that protective overcoats of tin oxide/silica/titania are conventional, and (d) that the reason for the ZnO thickness floor/ceiling is ordinary absorption trade‑off. These are the types of statements that supply the "motivation" prong of KSR directly from the patent's own text.
• The claims are drafted as result‑oriented limitations on a result‑effective variable ("the thicknesses of the coatings are selected so that…"). Under In re Boesch/In re Papesch and KSR, reciting the desired outcome without reciting the structure that achieves it can read on any structure that in fact achieves the outcome — a breadth that itself cuts against non‑obviousness.

8. Overall conclusion and confidence

Confidence: Moderate that a § 103 rejection of claim 15 would be sustained, and moderate‑to‑lower for claim 1, with the outcome turning on whether the patentee's "more than twice the selectivity" assertion is supported by comparative, measured evidence against the closest prior art (US 6,858,306's selectivity‑13 stack) rather than by the predictive modeling tables in the specification. I flag this as the decisive issue rather than asserting a conclusion.

9. Verification caveats (per the operating rules)

• Sources. FR 2 670 200 A1, US 5,897,957, GB 2 324 098 A (via US 6,048,621 and EP 0 925 260 B1), US 6,858,306 (via its AU 771850 B2 counterpart), and WO 03/093185 A1 were confirmed through Google Patents / FreePatentsOnline / patent‑images mirrors rather than the USPTO full‑text database. Element citations should be re‑verified against the official documents before any rejection is made of record.
• EP 1 416 541 A2 / US 7,507,357 (Sumitomo) — I could not complete verification of the reference's substantive disclosure within this session; the characterization above is based on the title and the patent record's own listing. Open verification item.
• WO 2007/029014 A1 (Pilkington, "Deposition process," priority 2005‑09‑09, published 2007‑03‑15) is listed in the '262 record. Because it published after the 2006‑06‑05 priority date, it is not § 102(a)/(b) art. It could only be § 102(e) art if its international filing date predates 2006‑06‑05 and it designates the United States — and, being commonly owned with the '262 patent by Pilkington, it would then be disqualifiable under pre‑AIA § 103(c). I would not rely on it in a § 103 rejection without confirming its international filing date. Open verification item.
• Printed unit anomalies — taken literally, not corrected. Consistent with the "do not auto‑correct identifiers" rule: (i) the Singh et al. passage in the '262 specification reports "an electron mobility of 29 cm⁻³/V‑s"; (ii) the Google Patents rendering of the Park passage reads "37.6 cm²N‑s." Neither is a physically coherent mobility unit. Read literally, these passages do not disclose a mobility at all, which matters because claim 15 requires "an electron mobility of 10 cm²/V‑s or more." If the patentee or an examiner relies on Park/Singh to supply the claim 15 mobility floor, that reliance is defective on the literal text; the mobility element would instead have to come from Das & Ray or Choi (neither of whose mobility values I could verify numerically in this session). This is the single most important evidentiary gap in the claim‑15 rejection and should be flagged to whoever perfects it.
• No litigation/PTAB context. Per the earlier litigation section, no proceeding involving US 8,158,262 was found; accordingly, there is no written decision (e.g., an IPR final written decision or a claim‑construction order) to lean on for claim scope. The claim constructions used above are my own plain‑meaning readings of the granted text.
• Contradiction check: I found no contradiction between the previously generated sections and the full patent text. The earlier note that all 15 claims are article claims (with CVD appearing in claim 15 only as a process limitation on the ZnO) is confirmed by the claim text and is significant here — it means this patent's § 103 exposure runs entirely through its article claims, and the title's reference to a "method for making same" confers no protection.