US 9933307

I'll research US 9933307 across the requested sources.

Let me check for litigation/docket activity and USPTO records more specifically.

US Patent 9,933,307 B2 — Summary

Caveat on sources: The full patent text provided in your message is the authoritative record and is what I rely on below. My web searches (Google Patents, general web, USPTO-adjacent sources) returned the patent document itself but no litigation, PTAB, or CAFC docket material for this patent. I could not independently access PACER, the CAFC docket, or USPTO PatentCenter directly, so I cannot affirmatively rule out 2026 proceedings — I simply found no evidence of any. Treat the "no litigation/CAFC activity found" statement as a search result, not a verified absence.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as issued)

"Disclosed herein are embodiments of a novel method and system to analyze films using plasma to produce spectral data and analyzing the spectral data."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — A method of analyzing a film. Three elements:

1. Contact a film deposited on a substrate with a plasma, which produces spectral lines (the plasma strips/excites material off the film);
2. Analyze those spectral lines; and
3. Two negative/limiting clauses: the plasma must be argon, helium, hydrogen, or oxygen plasma, and the method must include determining the presence of an element chosen from the group: carbon, oxygen, fluorine, nitrogen, phosphorous, chlorine, sulfur, silicon, boron, and combinations thereof.

So the claim is essentially plasma-based optical emission/spectral analysis of a surface film, where the point is identifying which detectable element(s) are present.

Claim 15 — A method with four steps:

1. Place a film-coated substrate into a chamber;
2. Add plasma to the chamber;
3. Record spectral data produced after plasma addition; and
4. Analyze that spectral data;
   ...again with the same "determining the presence of an element" limitation from the group (C, O, F, N, P, Cl, S, Si, B, and combinations).

The difference between the two independents is largely framing: claim 1 is drafted around "contacting the film with plasma ... analyzing spectral lines"; claim 15 is drafted around the chamber-based workflow (place → add plasma → record → analyze). Both share the element-detection requirement.

Dependent claims at a glance

• 2–5: film comprises oxide/alkoxide/mixed oxide-alkoxide/phosphonate/organophosphonate; thickness ~0.001–1 µm; substrate is metal/alloy/polymer/plastic/ceramic/silicon/glass/tissue/fabric; or is a medical device.
• 6–7: contacting removes material that produces the spectral lines; removed material is excited to emit light in the plasma.
• 8: analysis via optical emission spectrometer.
• 9–10: determine amount of material / composition of the film.
• 11: element is C, O, N, P, or combinations.
• 12: molecular fragment is C—O, C—N, P—O, or combinations.
• 13: element is F, Cl, S, Si, B, or combinations.
• 14: film attached via covalent bonds.
• 16–20: add an inert gas; clean chamber beforehand; plasma at ~0.1–10 Torr; plasma power ~1–2,000 W; analyze at varying wavelengths associated with varying film components (elements or molecular fragments).

Key evidentiary support in the specification

Examples 1–5 use an Autoglow (Glow Research) chamber with fiber-optic coupling to a QE Pro spectrometer (Ocean Optics), argon plasma at 0.5 Torr/200 W, full-spectrum capture 175–950 nm every 0.1 s. Example 1 reports a dose-response correlation (R² = 0.9982) between MDPB starting amount and area under the curve at 386 nm (C—N fragment). Example 5 asserts the plasma-OES approach detects residual contamination after wet contact angle analysis reads "clean."

Prior art cited on the face of the patent (relevant to validity posture)

• US 6,633,391 B1 (Applied Materials) — monitoring film characteristics during plasma-based semiconductor processing using optical emission spectroscopy (the closest-sounding art).
• US 5,128,007 (Sharp); US 5,939,150 (Max-Planck); US 2002/0124866 (Ulvac); US 2012/0076922 (Siemens VAI); US 2013/0155404 (GIST, LIBS for CIGS).

Bottom line

US 9,933,307 is a live Orthobond, Inc. patent (Katz/Belkind/Clevenger) on using plasma-generated optical emission spectra to detect and characterize surface films, with the independent claims specifically requiring both a specified plasma type and determination of the presence of an enumerated element. No CAFC 2026 docket entry, district court case, or PTAB proceeding for this patent was located in my searches; if you need a definitive litigation check, that should be run against PACER, the CAFC docket, and the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board site directly.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9933307.

Initial results were noise (a "WO 9933307 A1" is a different number, not US 9933307). Let me search patent-litigation-specific sources.

Let me check patent-litigation databases and other sources directly.

Bottom line

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,933,307 has been identified. I could not find any district court complaint, declaratory judgment action, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) in which US 9,933,307 is the asserted, challenged, or otherwise implicated patent.

Two important caveats before the details:

1. My searching was limited to open web sources (including a pass at the Unified Patents litigation portal reference you gave, Law.com Radar, Patexia, and CAFC opinion PDFs). I was not able to run a direct PACER or Docket Navigator / RPX query, so this is an absence-of-evidence finding, not a certified negative. A PACER "Patent/Trademark" case search on "9,933,307" and a Docket Navigator patent-number query would be the authoritative check.
2. I am deliberately not stretching search hits onto this patent number. Several things that look like matches are not:

Look-alikes that are NOT this patent

The one Orthobond case found — but it is not a '307 case

Orthobond Corporation v. Burel et al., No. 3:22-cv-00217 (D.N.J.)

Notes on this case: The docket references U.S. Patent No. 10,876,217 B2 and WO 2022/020518 A1 as exhibits — not US 9,933,307. One defendant name, Randell Clevenger, is similar to inventor "Randy Clevenger" of the '307 patent, but I have no basis to assert they are the same person, and the case as reported is not a patent infringement action on the '307 patent.

Related information on the '307 patent (not litigation)

• Owner/assignee: ORTHOBOND, Inc. (assignment recorded 2017-09-13; inventors Jordan Katz, Abe Belkind, Randy Clevenger).
• Status: Active; adjusted expiration listed as 2036-03-09. Maintenance fees paid (4th year, 2021-09-15; 8th year, 2025-09-17 — small entity).
• Family: Continuation US 15/905,185 (pub. US 2018/0188112 A1, filed 2018-02-26) — abandoned. Foreign counterparts: EP 3204741 A4 (withdrawn), CA 3000982 A1 (abandoned), WO 2016057990 A2 (ceased). The absence of live foreign counterparts and the abandonment of the continuation are themselves consistent with a patent that has not been the subject of active enforcement.
• Forward citations only: US 10,195,683 B2 and US 10,300,551 B2 (Matthew Fagan, "Metal analyzing plasma CNC cutting machine") and CN 114047177 A cite the '307 patent. Citation is not litigation.

Recommendation

If you need a defensible clearance/opinion-grade answer, confirm with:

• PACER — District Court "Patent/Trademark" case search restricted to the literal string 9,933,307, across all districts;
• Docket Navigator — patent-number filter for the litigation and PTAB modules;
• USPTO PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board Endpoint / PTAB E2E) — search for the patent number as patent owner;
• USPTO Assignment and Patent Center — for any post-grant transfers or reissue/re-exam activity;
• the Unified Patents litigation caselist you referenced, searched directly rather than through a general web index.

I want to be explicit rather than fabricate: I do not know of any litigation on US 9,933,307 with high confidence, and I found none. I cannot rule out the existence of a case that is not indexed by the open sources I could reach.

I'll verify the ODP default against live sources before writing anything down.

Initial searches surfaced nothing relevant. Let me probe more directly for any challenge activity.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 (0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials). The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming US 9,933,307, and my independent web searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal touching this patent. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore the mirror image of a hardened patent: this patent has never been tested at the PTAB, so every claim — 1 through 20 — remains UNTESTED and un-narrowed. A defendant here gets no free kill from an earlier petitioner's work, but also faces no § 315(e) estoppel and no adverse FWD reasoning to work around. The validity fight, if you want one, starts from scratch and starts with you.

No proceedings to report

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} to populate. To be explicit about what I checked and what I did not find:

• No IPR, PGR, or CBM case number associated with US 9,933,307 in the structured USPTO ODP block provided in this prompt (canonical source, returns "no AIA trial proceedings").
• Web searches for PTAB activity on this patent by number, title, and patent-owner name returned no PTAB dockets. Results referencing "9933307" were unrelated foreign/other documents (e.g., WO 9933307 A1, a 1999 PCT publication — a different identifier entirely, not this US patent).
• The one live federal case I did surface involving the patent owner is a trade secret action, not a patent case and not a PTAB proceeding: Orthobond Corporation v. Burel et al., No. 3:22-cv-00217 (D.N.J., filed 2022-01-18), targeting Molecular Surface Technologies, LLC and four former Orthobond executives. Notably, one named defendant is Randell Clevenger, a named inventor on US 9,933,307. A trade secret suit is not an invalidity challenge; it neither narrows nor cancels claims. Treat it as context on the patent owner's enforcement style, not as PTAB activity.

I will not manufacture a proceeding number to fill the template. Absence of PTAB activity is the finding.

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 9,933,307. All 20 claims are unadjudicated. Independent claim 1 (contacting a film on a substrate with argon/helium/hydrogen/oxygen plasma to produce spectral lines, and determining presence of an element from the group carbon, oxygen, fluorine, nitrogen, phosphorous, chlorine, sulfur, silicon, boron) and independent claim 15 (chamber-based variant) remain in force as granted, along with dependents 2–14 and 16–20. Nothing has been canceled, disclaimed, or narrowed by a PTAB certificate. The patent is in force with maintenance fees paid through the 8th year (paid 2025-09-17, per the file's legal events) and a projected adjusted expiration of 2036-03-09. Practically: any demand letter citing claims 1–20 is citing live claims, and you cannot respond "those were already canceled."

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue — there is no petitioner and no privy carrying a bar into district court. There is also no § 325(e)(1) estoppel. Conversely, when you file, you will not inherit anyone else's bad claim-construction record or adverse FWD findings. The full prior-art universe is available to you: all 12 references cited on the face of the patent (including US 6,633,391 to Applied Materials on OES monitoring of film characteristics during plasma processing, and US 2012/0076922 to Siemens VAI on spectral analysis of metal coatings) plus anything the examiner never saw. Note that the examiner's cited art is concentrated in semiconductor/steel-strip process monitoring, and US 2012/0076922 and US 5,128,007 (lithium niobate thin film evaluation) are the closest structural analogs — worth a serious look for § 103 combinations against claim 1's "determining the presence of an element" limitation, which is arguably broad.

Pattern signals. No repeat-petitioner pattern exists (no petitioner at all). No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain — that is a meaningful negative signal: this patent has not attracted third-party validity challenges, which is consistent with it not yet having been asserted in a broad, high-volume campaign. The patent owner (Orthobond, Inc., a small entity per the maintenance-fee records) enforces primarily through trade secret litigation against former insiders and through licensing/commercialization of its Ostaguard/NanoCept antimicrobial coating technology (De Novo clearances April 2024; licensed into Onkos Surgical's ELEOS and Orthofix's Mariner systems, per press coverage). Patent owner has never appealed anything to the Federal Circuit from a PTAB case, because it has never been in one.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant being asserted on this patent: there is no FWD to link and none to quote — I will not fabricate one. Your invalidity case must be built fresh. Because the asserted patent is a method claim (contacting a film with plasma and analyzing spectral lines), the strongest early defenses are typically (a) § 112 enablement/written-description and indefiniteness on the functional "determining the presence of an element" language, and (b) § 103 over the plasma-diagnostics/OES process-monitoring art cited on the patent's face.
• If you are contemplating an IPR/PGR: the absence of any prior petition means no estoppel risk from a co-defendant, but also no free ride. Watch the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of a complaint, and consider the § 325(d) discretion risk only if you recycle the examiner's cited art.
• If you are the patent owner: the clean record is an asset — no FWD findings, no claim cancellations, no adverse claim constructions to live down. It also means you have no PTAB-tested validity determination to point to as a deterrent.
• Verify before relying: the ODP ingest may lag. Re-check PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and the PTAB Decisions page directly for any recently filed petition on US 9,933,307, and confirm via USPTO Patent Center that no ex parte reexamination request has been filed (also a non-AIA-track validity challenge the ODP "AIA trials" feed would not necessarily surface). I found none, but a reexam is the classic quiet path a small patent owner never publicizes.

Caveat: My web searches were limited in number and returned no corroborating PTAB documents for this patent. I am confident there is no AIA trial proceeding on file per the USPTO ODP structured data, and I found no evidence contradicting it; but I cannot rule out a very recently filed petition that has not yet been indexed.

I'll verify the assignment record and check for any assertion/NPE activity before writing up.

Let me check for any assertion activity involving this patent and the company's current status.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 9,933,307 B2

"Method for detecting and analyzing surface films" · Appl. 14/880,638 · Filed 2015‑10‑12 · Granted 2018‑04‑03 · Priority 2014‑10‑10 (prov. 62/062,379)

Source caveat up front: The USPTO Assignment Center and assignment.uspto.gov are JavaScript-rendered search applications; I cannot execute a scripted query against them and did not obtain a raw reel/frame image. The assignment facts below come from the copy of the USPTO assignment record as republished in the Google Patents "Legal Events" table for this patent (which mirrors the Assignment Center data), plus the parallel INPADOC/Espacenet assignment entries for sibling Orthobond patents used for cross-checking. The correspondent of record is not exposed in the indexed record I could retrieve, and I will not guess at it. Verify directly at the Assignment Center by patent number: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Inventors

Pattern flags: No inventor defection is visible. To the contrary, Clevenger and Katz continue filing on the same corporate portfolio through 2022–2023, which is the opposite of the "all inventors departed within 12 months" precursor to a portfolio fire-sale.

One genuinely unusual item: the inventors did not paper their rights to the company until 2017‑05‑01 / 2017‑05‑08, roughly 18 months after the 2015‑10‑12 filing and about 10 months before grant. That is a late-filed nunc-pro-tunc inventor assignment. In this case the benign explanation fits better than the suspicious one: the applicant was already the named assignee on the face of the application (Google Patents lists "Original Assignee: ORTHOBOND Inc." and "Application filed by ORTHOBOND Inc."), so the recording looks like housekeeping to perfect the chain before issuance, not a scramble to clean title ahead of a sale. This is a not a finding on its own — but it is the one item in this file worth a second look, because late inventor assignments are also a classic signature of a portfolio being assembled for sale.

Original assignee

ORTHOBOND, INC. (New Jersey) — the entity named on the issued patent and still the current assignee per Google Patents. Note the recorded corporate name on the assignment is "ORTHOBOND, INC.", while the company trades in press releases as "Orthobond Corporation" (Princeton / Monmouth Junction, NJ). No change-of-name assignment is recorded against this patent. I flag this solely as a bookkeeping observation about the corporate-name mismatch, not as evidence of anything.

Business and product status: Orthobond is a bona fide operating company, not a licensing vehicle:

• Primary line of business: covalently-bound antibacterial surface technology (nanosurface coatings) for medical devices, spun out of surface chemistry developed with Princeton University (Prof. Jeffrey Schwartz); co-founders Gregory Lutz, M.D. and Jeffrey Schwartz, Ph.D.
• Product embodying the claims: Ostaguard™, a permanently bound, non-eluting antibacterial implant coating. The FDA granted a De Novo classification on 2024‑04‑05 for Ostaguard on the SeaSpine Mariner pedicle screw system — described as the first De Novo ever granted for a non-eluting antibacterial implant coating. Orthobond announced delivery of its first Ostaguard-coated implants for surgery in January 2025.
• Financing: ~$42–47M raised to date, including NIH and Princeton University among investors and a September 2024 investment from Kineticos AMR Accelerator Fund I (which took a board seat). Financing is for commercialization, not litigation.
• Status: Operating. Not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Maintenance fees on this patent were paid on schedule (4th year 2021‑09‑15; 8th year 2025‑09‑17; small-entity status), and adjusted expiration runs to 2036‑03‑09 — consistent with a live, deliberately maintained asset.

Closely related family member: continuation Appl. 15/905,185 (US 2018/0188112 A1), filed 2018‑02‑26, abandoned; it is in the same family (ID 55653961) and was never separately assigned or monetized.

Assignment timeline

There is exactly one recorded assignment against US 9,933,307, and it is the original inventor→company assignment. There are no post-issuance conveyances of any kind — no assignments, no security agreements, no licenses, no mergers, no changes of name, no releases, no corrections.

• 2017‑05‑01 to 2017‑05‑08 (executed) / recorded 2017‑09‑13 — Reel 043573/0028
  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Katz, Jordan; Belkind, Abe; Clevenger, Randy (individually)
  • Assignee: ORTHOBOND, INC., State of New Jersey
  • Correspondent: Not disclosed in the record I could retrieve. The Google Patents legal-events entry for this reel/frame carries no correspondent field, and I did not obtain the underlying recorded document. I am not going to name an attorney without the sheet in hand. If you need it, pull reel 043573/0028 at the Assignment Center and read the "Correspondent" block — that is the one field I could not verify, and it happens to be the field your analysis relies on most. Correspondent flag: cannot be asserted from available data.
  • Context: Original founder/inventor assignment to the operating company that filed the application — ordinary title perfection, not an acquisition, not a fire-sale, not a transfer-to-asserter.

No other chain links exist. No assignment under reels of the type seen on Orthobond's sibling patents (e.g., US 10,449,750 is recorded at reel 045389/0976 on 2018‑03‑29, same "ORTHOBOND, INC., NEW JERSEY" pattern) appears against this patent. Nothing after 2017‑09‑13.

Cross-checks performed and negative:

• Litigation: No infringement action asserts US 9,933,307. The only Orthobond litigation surfaced is Orthobond Corporation v. Burel et al., No. 3:22-cv-00217 (D.N.J., filed 2022‑01‑18) — a trade-secret suit where Orthobond is the plaintiff against four former executives and Molecular Surface Technologies. That is an operating company defending its know-how, not patent assertion against a competitor. (Note: this reporter must not conflate it with StratosAudio cases involving a different "307 patent," US 8,903,307.)
• NPE directories: Orthobond does not appear as an assignee in the RPX/Unified Patents high-frequency-plaintiff sets based on what surfaced here.
• SEC filings: None applicable — Orthobond is private.
• Forward citations: The three forward citations of this family are from unrelated, non-NPE sources (Matthew Fagan plasma CNC cutting machine patents and a Guangdong Power Grid organic-insulation moisture test) — no aggregation-vehicle interest.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9933307
    2014 : Provisional filed by Orthobond team
    2015 : Nonprovisional filed 14 880 638
    2017 : Inventors assign to ORTHOBOND INC
         : Reel 043573 0028 recorded Sep 13
    2018 : Patent granted Apr 3
         : Continuation 15 905 185 filed then abandoned
    2021 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2024 : FDA De Novo for Ostaguard coating
    2025 : First Ostaguard coated implants shipped
         : 8th year maintenance fee paid Sept 17

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only recorded conveyance is reel 043573/0028 (rec. 2017‑09‑13), inventors → ORTHOBOND, INC. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" successor entity, no registered-agent address, no single-purpose LLC anywhere. The assignee is a New Jersey operating corporation with a commercial product (Ostaguard) and a physical R&D/commercial footprint in Princeton / Monmouth Junction, NJ.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee in the chain matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity. Orthobond is a 10-patent operating portfolio (PatentsView), not an assertion vehicle.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present / unverifiable. There is only one recorded link (reel 043573/0028), so recurrence cannot exist by construction on this patent. I could not retrieve the correspondent field for that single entry; no attorney name is asserted here. Recurrence is the actual signal per your rubric and it is structurally absent.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. One assignment, executed and recorded a single time, with no chained LLCs and no <24-month cascade. There is nothing to cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit names this patent, so there is no pre-suit transfer window to analyze.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11, no trustee sale, no docket evidence of the patent being sold in proceedings. The company is actively raising capital (Kineticos, Sept. 2024) and shipping product (Jan. 2025).

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company transferred this patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf. Orthobond retained it.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent is not neutralized; it remains with the commercializing company.

Verdict

Insufficient data — applying your rubric literally: the entire chain consists of only the original assignment (reel 043573/0028, executed 2017‑05‑01/2017‑05‑08, recorded 2017‑09‑13, inventors Katz/Belkind/Clevenger → ORTHOBOND, INC.), with no post-issuance conveyance of any type.

That label is a data-density statement, not a suspicion. On substance, the affirmative evidence is unusually clean and points the other way: the current assignee is an operating company that commercializes the technology (Ostaguard-coated spinal implants, FDA De Novo 2024‑04‑05, first implants shipped Jan. 2025), has raised ~$42–47M, pays its maintenance fees on time (2021, 2025), and has asserted no patent — its only litigation is a 2022 trade-secret suit in which it is the plaintiff defending former executives' misappropriation (Orthobond Corp. v. Burel, D.N.J. 3:22-cv-00217). There is no NPE chain here. Had the rubric offered it, "operating-company, non-asserting" would be the honest description; "NPE — high/moderate confidence" is affirmatively unsupported by every reel, frame, and docket I could reach.

Verification: search patent 9,933,307 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) and pull reel 043573/0028 — and while you are there, capture the correspondent block, which is the one field this report could not confirm.

I'll research the cited prior art references for US 9933307. Let me search for details on the most relevant citations.

Let me research a few more of the cited references to complete the analysis.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9933307 B2

Patent under review: US 9933307 B2 ("Method for detecting and analyzing surface films")
Applicants/Inventors: Jordan Katz, Abe Belkind, Randy Clevenger
Assignee: Orthobond, Inc.
Priority date: 2014‑10‑10 · Filed: 2015‑10‑12 · Granted: 2018‑04‑03
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9933307/en

Legal framework applied. Because the effective filing date is after 16 March 2013, the AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs: § 102(a)(1) covers patents/printed publications publicly available before the effective filing date (2014‑10‑10); § 102(a)(2) covers U.S. patents and published applications that were effectively filed before that date (even if published later).

The claims at issue (representative):

• Claim 1 — contacting a film deposited on a substrate with a plasma to produce spectral lines; analyzing the spectral lines; plasma is argon/helium/hydrogen/oxygen; and determining the presence of an element from {carbon, oxygen, fluorine, nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorine, sulfur, silicon, boron}.
• Claim 15 — chamber‑based version of the same method, with the same element‑determination limitation.
• Claim 20 — analyzing at varying wavelengths associated with varying film components (elements or molecular fragments).
• Dependent claims add film chemistry (oxide/alkoxide/phosphonate), thickness ranges, substrates (metal, medical device), removal/excitation of material, OES instrumentation, amount/composition determination, and specific elements/fragments.

Bottom line up front. None of the 12 references cited on the face of US 9933307 appears to disclose every limitation of claim 1, 15, or 20 in a single document. Accordingly, no clean § 102 anticipation appears on the cited record — the art is more probative for § 103 obviousness. The closest references are US 6633391 B1 (OES film monitoring) and US 2012/0076922 A1 (spectral analysis of a coating layer). Details per reference follow.

A. Face‑of‑patent citations (12)

1. US 6633391 B1 — Most relevant

• Full citation: US 6,633,391 B1, "Monitoring of film characteristics during plasma‑based semi‑conductor processing using optical emission spectroscopy," Hakeem Oluseyi & Moshe Sarfaty, assigned to Applied Materials, Inc. Appl. No. 09/708,258 (Int. Cl. G01N 21/73).
• Dates: Filed 2000‑11‑07; granted 2003‑10‑14.
• Description: A method/system to monitor characteristics of films by sensing the spectral emissions of the plasma to which the films are exposed. Optical energy produced by the plasma is sensed across spectral bands; a subset of bands is identified as carrying information about film characteristics, which are then measured as a function of that information (quantized and summed). Optionally observes a "reference" subgroup of bands independent of the characteristic of interest.
• Claim mapping / potential § 102 impact: This is the only cited reference that squarely discloses (a) a film on a substrate being contacted by a plasma, and (b) analysis of plasma spectral emission to characterize the film. It thus reads on the preamble steps of claims 1/15. However, it is directed at semiconductor processing and describes measuring "film characteristics" generally; it does not expressly recite the claim‑1/15 "determining the presence of an element selected from {C, O, F, N, P, Cl, S, Si, B}" limitation, nor claim 20's varying‑wavelength/film‑component limitation as claimed. Assessment: strong § 103 art (could be combined with an element‑identification reference), but not a full § 102 anticipation of any claim on its face.

2. US 2012/0076922 A1 — Second most relevant

• Full citation: US 2012/0076922 A1, "Method and device for the spectral analysis of a metal coating layer deposited on the surface of a steel strip," Siemens Vai Metals Technologies SAS.
• Dates: Priority 2009‑05‑07; published 2012‑03‑29 (EP priority 09290338.4; PCT/EP2009/056564).
• Description: Real‑time spectral analysis of a metal coating layer on a moving steel strip using laser‑induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). A laser pulse ablates the coating, creating a micro‑plasma whose spectral lines are characteristic of the coating elements (Zn, Fe, Al), and a spectrometer analyzes the emitted light to determine coating composition/quality.
• Claim mapping: Relevant to claims 1, 6, 9, 10, 11 — it analyzes a film/coating on a substrate via spectral lines characteristic of the coating's elemental makeup, and determines composition/elements. But the plasma is a laser‑ablation micro‑plasma, not an "argon, helium, hydrogen or oxygen" gas plasma that "contacts" the film as required by claim 1. Assessment: good § 103 art; not a § 102 anticipation of claim 1 or 15.

3. US 2013/0155404 A1

• Full citation: US 2013/0155404 A1, "System for real‑time analysis of material distribution in CIGS thin film using laser‑induced breakdown spectroscopy," Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology.
• Dates: Priority 2011‑12‑14; published 2013‑06‑20.
• Description: Per the title, a LIBS‑based system for real‑time, spatially resolved elemental analysis of thin films (CIGS).
• Claim mapping: Conceptually relevant to claims 1, 9, 10, 11 (spectroscopic elemental analysis of a thin film). Like the Siemens Vai reference, the excitation is laser ablation rather than a contacting gas plasma, so it does not meet the claim‑1 "plasma comprises argon…" limitation. Assessment: § 103 art; not a § 102 anticipation.

4. US 2003/0090676 A1

• Full citation: US 2003/0090676 A1, "In‑situ film thickness measurement using spectral interference at grazing incidence," Andreas Goebel.
• Dates: Priority 2001‑09‑24; published 2003‑05‑15.
• Description: In‑situ film thickness measurement by sensing spectral reflectance/interference (grazing incidence); a related claim set mentions exposing the wafer to plasma to produce optical radiation.
• Claim mapping: Relevant only to claims 3 (thickness 0.001–1 µm) and possibly the "analyzing spectral data" step. It measures thickness via interference of reflected light, not via element‑specific plasma emission, so it does not anticipate claims 1/15. Confidence note: I retrieved only citation‑metadata and the title; I did not obtain the full specification of this specific document and flag lower confidence in the description.

5. US 5128007 A

• Full citation: US 5,128,007 A, "Method for evaluating a lithium niobate thin film and apparatus for preparing the same," Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha.
• Dates: Priority 1990‑04‑27; granted 1992‑07‑07.
• Description: Evaluates a LiNbO₃ film by measuring its absorption‑edge wavelength (UV region) and correlating to the Li‑to‑Nb composition ratio; the film‑forming apparatus uses RF plasma (13.56 MHz, 200 W) in an oxygen atmosphere, but the evaluation is optical absorption, using pre‑established correlation data (SIMS/X‑ray).
• Claim mapping: Weakly relevant to claim 10 (composition determination) and to the concept of an oxygen plasma (claim 1). The disclosed analysis is absorption‑edge spectrophotometry of the film itself, not spectrochemical analysis of plasma emission lines; it does not determine "presence of an element" from the claimed group via plasma emission. Assessment: peripheral; not a § 102 anticipation.

6. US 5939150 A

• Full citation: US 5,939,150 A, "Method for treating a substrate surface," Max‑Planck‑Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. (inventors Stelzle, Doppelt).
• Dates: Priority 1996‑04‑26; granted 1999‑08‑17.
• Description: Applies a thin film of a "treating agent" (e.g., amino‑functional self‑assembled silane films) to an oxidized substrate, alters its affinity for a metal precursor by radiation exposure, and deposits metal (CVD), enabling selective metallization.
• Claim mapping: Only tangentially relevant — the disclosure is about self‑assembled thin films / surface treatment / metallization, not plasma spectral analysis. It could bear on claim 14 (film attached via covalent bonds) and the self‑assembled‑monolayer subject matter as background. Assessment: not a § 102 anticipation of any method claim; at most § 103 background.

7. US 2002/0124866 A1

• Full citation: US 2002/0124866 A1, "Plasma film‑forming apparatus and cleaning method for the same," Ulvac, Inc.
• Dates: Priority 2000‑08‑21; published 2002‑09‑12.
• Description: A plasma CVD film‑forming chamber with a cleaning method in which cleaning gas (e.g., NF₃) radicals are generated externally and introduced into the chamber, with argon inert gas optionally added for sputter cleaning (RF power applied). It addresses removing deposited films from chamber walls, electrodes and shower plate.
• Claim mapping: Relevant to claim 16 (adding an inert gas — argon) and claim 17 (cleaning the chamber before/around processing), and to the chamber‑based steps of claim 15's preamble. It does not disclose recording and analyzing plasma optical‑emission spectral data to identify elements in a film, so it does not anticipate claims 1, 15 or 20. Assessment: § 103 art on the chamber‑clean/inert‑gas features only.

8. US 2008/0123082 A1

• Full citation: US 2008/0123082 A1, "APC system and multivariate monitoring method for plasma process machine," Macronix International Co., Ltd.
• Dates: Priority 2006‑11‑29; published 2008‑05‑29.
• Description: Advanced process control (APC) and multivariate monitoring of a plasma process machine — analyzing plasma process sensor data for process control. (Retrieved from citation metadata only; description based on title/classification — lower confidence.)
• Claim mapping: Potentially relevant to claim 20 (multivariate/spectral data analysis) as generic plasma‑data‑analysis background. Not a § 102 anticipation of the film‑analysis claims.

9. US 2006/0261036 A1

• Full citation: US 2006/0261036 A1, "Method for patterning on a wafer having at least one substrate for the realization of an integrated circuit," STMicroelectronics S.R.L.
• Dates: Priority 2005‑04‑11; published 2006‑11‑23.
• Description: Semiconductor wafer patterning method (title‑level; I did not retrieve full text — lower confidence).
• Claim mapping: Peripheral. Cited as general semiconductor/plasma‑processing art; no clear § 102 anticipation of any claim.

10. US 2004/0022960 A1

• Full citation: US 2004/0022960 A1, "Method for preparing dielectric films at a low temperature," Shi‑Woo Rhee.
• Dates: Priority 2002‑04‑25; published 2004‑02‑05.
• Description: Low‑temperature dielectric film deposition (title‑level; full text not retrieved — lower confidence).
• Claim mapping: Peripheral background on film deposition; no § 102 anticipation.

11. US 2015/0032141 A1

• Full citation: US 2015/0032141 A1, "Occlusion Bypassing Apparatuses and Methods for Bypassing an Occlusion in a Blood Vessel," Invatec S.p.A.
• Dates: Priority 2013‑07‑29; published 2015‑01‑29.
• Description: A medical (vascular) device — unrelated subject matter to plasma film analysis. (Marked as examiner‑cited on the patent record.)
• Claim mapping: Appears cited only as medical‑device context for claim 5 (substrate is a medical device). Its effective filing date (2013‑07‑29) precedes the patent's priority date, so it is formally § 102(a)(2) art, but it discloses nothing relevant to the analyzing method. Not an anticipation.

12. US 2015/0265339 A1

• Full citation: US 2015/0265339 A1, "Nerve ablation devices and related methods of use and manufacture," Boston Scientific Scimed, Inc.
• Dates: Priority 2014‑03‑18; published 2015‑09‑24.
• Description: A medical nerve‑ablation device — unrelated to plasma spectroscopic analysis.
• Claim mapping: Same posture as #11 — cited as medical‑device background for claim 5. Effective filing date precedes the priority date, so formally § 102(a)(2) art, but not remotely anticipatory. Not an anticipation.

B. Family member citations (from the WO/EP counterpart — "Family Cites Families")

These were cited during prosecution of the PCT/EP family members (WO 2016057990 A2 / EP 3204741 A4) rather than necessarily in the US case, but they are relevant to the same disclosure and would be considered analogous art:

C. Ranking of most relevant prior art (for § 103 combinations)

1. US 6633391 B1 (Applied Materials) — nearest to the core concept: film exposed to plasma + OES analysis of plasma emission to characterize the film.
2. US 2012/0076922 A1 (Siemens Vai) — spectral‑line analysis of a coating layer on a substrate to determine its elemental composition (but via LIBS plasma).
3. US 2013/0155404 A1 (Gwangju) — real‑time spectral analysis of thin‑film material distribution.
4. US 2003/0090676 A1 (Goebel) — in‑situ film‑thickness measurement.
5. US 6455437 B1 / US 6492186 B1 / JP 2010‑539443 A — plasma process/endpoint/composition monitoring and spectral species identification.
6. US 2002/0124866 A1 (Ulvac) — chamber cleaning with argon/inert gas (secondary features of claims 16–17).

A prima facie § 103 case against, e.g., claim 1 would require combining an OES‑film‑monitoring reference (US 6633391) with a reference teaching identification of specific elements/molecular fragments from plasma emission (e.g., JP 2010‑539443 or a LIBS‑based element‑identification reference), plus a plasma‑gas reference (US 9406485) — a multi‑reference combination, not a single‑reference anticipation.

D. Important caveats

• No single cited reference discloses all limitations of claim 1, 15, or 20 (in particular the combination of film‑contacting gas plasma + spectral‑line analysis + determination of a specific element from the recited group). On the cited record, the art supports § 103 obviousness, not § 102 anticipation.
• The § 102(a)(2) posture applies to the two post‑priority medical references (US 2015/0032141 A1; US 2015/0265339 A1) and to US 9406485 B1 — these published/issued after the 2014‑10‑10 priority date but have earlier effective filing dates; none is substantively anticipatory of the analysis method.
• Confidence limits: I obtained detailed disclosure text for US 6633391 B1, US 5,128,007, US 5,939,150, US 2002/0124866 A1, and US 2012/0076922 A1. For US 2003/0090676 A1, US 2004/0022960 A1, US 2006/0261036 A1, US 2008/0123082 A1, US 2013/0155404 A1, and the family citations, I relied on title/abstract/citation metadata and flag those descriptions as lower confidence; a full‑text review of each would be needed before asserting any § 102 position.
• This is a technical prior‑art assessment, not a legal opinion on validity, infringement, or claim construction.

Primary sources: US 9933307 page and its citation tables (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9933307/en); US 6633391 B1 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6633391); US 5,128,007 (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[5128007](/patent/5128007).html); US 5,939,150 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5939150); US 2002/0124866 A1 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020124866A1/en); US 2012/0076922 A1 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120076922).

I'll ground the key prior-art references before building the § 103 analysis.

Now let me ground the remaining key references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,933,307 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. This builds on the previously generated summary and does not repeat it. I use the art listed in the "Citations (12)" and "Family Cites Families (8)" sections of the record (the "Prior Art" section), plus verification searches I ran on the four most load-bearing references. Where I could only see a title/abstract rather than full text, I say so.

Governing law/date. Priority 2014-10-10, filed 2015-10-12 → AIA § 103 applies. Every reference below published or issued between 1992 and 2013 (the newest being US 9,406,485, filed 2013-12-18, available under § 102(a)(2)). None is disqualified. The framework is Graham v. John Deere + KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, and the MPEP 2143 rationales.

POSITA (proposed). A person with a B.S./M.S. in materials science, chemistry, physics, or chemical/electrical engineering and ~2–5 years' experience in plasma processing or optical emission spectroscopy (OES). This is a conservative definition; the parties may dispute it, but the references below are combinable under any reasonable one.

1. The decisive structural point: claim 1's Markush group

Claim 1 requires "determining the presence of an element selected from the group consisting of carbon, oxygen, fluorine, nitrogen, phosphorous, chlorine, sulfur, silicon, boron and combinations thereof." A Markush claim is met by any one member. So a § 103 showing need only establish that detecting one of those elements from a plasma-exposed film was obvious. That collapses the claim's apparent breadth into a very low bar — and, as shown below, each named element has a conventional OES line used in plasma processing (C/N via CN at ~387 nm; O via CO/OH and O I 777 nm; F ~703.7 nm; Cl ~725/837 nm; Si ~251/288 nm; S from SF₆ chemistry; B from BCl₃ chemistry).

2. Reference-by-reference mapping (verified content)

Not verified in depth (flags): US 5,128,007 (Sharp, "evaluating a lithium niobate thin film"), US 5,939,150 (Max-Planck, "treating a substrate surface"), US 2004/0022960 (Rhee), US 2006/0261036 (STMicro). I have only their titles; any mapping to claims 2 or 5 from these is provisional.

3. Primary § 103 combinations

Combination A (strongest, for claims 1 and 15)

US 6,633,391 + US 6,492,186 + US 2005/0136666 (optionally + US 9,406,485).

• 6,633,391 supplies the whole architecture: film on a substrate, exposed to a plasma, spectral emission sensed, spectral bands resolved, film characteristics measured from them.
• 6,492,186 supplies the missing element-determination limitation: it names a specific wavelength (≈387 nm) corresponding to a specific chemical species (CN) produced by the plasma reacting with material on the substrate, and it monitors 358/387/431 nm — i.e., it does not merely detect "an endpoint," it links emission lines to identifiable species containing carbon and nitrogen. That is "determining the presence of an element selected from the group consisting of carbon … nitrogen."
• 2005/0136666 supplies the chamber-based workflow (claim 15) and Ar/He inert-gas plasma (claims 1, 16); US 9,406,485 supplies express argon-and-helium plasma.

Combination B (for the element-determination limitation, if the examiner's allowance rested on it)

US 6,633,391 + US 2013/0155404 (GIST) and/or US 2012/0076922 (Siemens). These two independently state the general proposition that plasma-emission spectroscopy of a surface layer yields qualitative and quantitative elemental identification — including light elements (C, O, N, B) — and Siemens even names GD-OES (glow-discharge OES), the same technique family as the '307's Autoglow chamber. If the patentee argues the element-detection limitation is the point of novelty, GIST/Siemens directly close it.

Combination C (for the "film comprises oxide…" and thickness dependents)

US 6,633,391 (SiO₂ film on Si) + US 6,492,186 + US 2012/0076922 (coating on steel strip). SiO₂ reads on "oxide"; semiconductor-grade SiO₂ films routinely fall in 0.001–1 µm; steel strip reads on "metal/alloy"; Si—O—Si bonding reads on claim 14's "covalent bonds."

4. Motivation to combine (KSR rationales, documented in the references themselves)

1. Same field, same problem (KSR rationale C/F). All primary references sit in the same classification — indeed US 6,633,391 carries Int. Cl. G01N 21/73, the same primary class as the '307 — and all address the identical problem: characterizing what is on a surface using plasma/emission spectra. KSR at 417: "if a technique has been used to improve one device … a person of ordinary skill would be expected to improve similar devices in the same way."
2. Explicit motivation to broaden the measurement window. US 6,633,391's own Background criticizes prior optical endpoint detection for providing "limited information regarding the characteristics of the processed films, such as only being able to determine the characteristics of the last film deposited." That criticism is a teaching to do exactly what the '307 claims — record and analyze the broader spectrum rather than a single narrow band, so that more of the surface film is characterized. (Patentee's "record the entire spectrum" narrative at Example 1 is therefore consistent with, not contrary to, the cited art.)
3. Known technique + predictable result (rationale A). Combining an OES detector (well-known, and described by 6,492,186 as "relative inexpense and durability") with a plasma chamber that already has a viewport (6,633,391's lens/window/fiber architecture; Goebel's fiber-coupled spectrometer) is the paradigm of combining known elements to yield a predictable result.
4. Design need / market pressure (rationale D/F). Real-time, in-situ, non-contact surface analysis is a recognized need across semiconductor processing (6,633,391 Background; 6,455,437), steel galvanizing (Siemens), and thin-film PV (GIST). The '307's own motivation (Example 5: WCA reads "clean" while contamination remains) is a market-driven improvement in sensitivity — which is not a patentable difference (KSR: "the desire to enhance … while maintaining the same functionality").
5. Substitution of one element for another (rationale B). Using Ar or He as the plasma gas in place of the N₂-based, oxygen-free plasma of 6,492,186 is a simple substitution of a known inert plasma gas that a POSITA would expect to work predictably (and is expressly listed in 2005/0136666).

No teaching away. None of the references disparages elemental analysis from plasma emission; 6,492,186 prefers OES over mass spec, laser interferometry and ellipsometry.

5. Dependent-claim chart (condensed)

6. Anticipated patentee rebuttals and responses

• "Different field" (semiconductor ashing vs. implant QC). Rebutted: same problem, same technique, overlapping classification; KSR forecloses the "field of endeavor" argument where the references are reasonably pertinent to the problem.
• "Prior art detects endpoints, not elements." Rebutted: 6,492,186 does not measure a generic signal — it measures the 387 nm CN band (and 358/431 nm), which is species- and therefore element-specific; 6,633,391 measures film characteristics from resolved spectral bands; GIST states the elemental-determination proposition in terms.
• "Unexpected sensitivity — monolayer detection (claims 3, 12)." Rebutted: sensitivity improvements are generally obvious absent evidence the prior art taught away; thin-film LIBS/GD-OES depth resolution was already in the sub-100 nm regime in the cited art (GIST's comparison table lists LIBS depth resolution of 30–100 nm), so monolayer-scale detection is within the expected capability.
• "The film chemistries (organophosphonate) are specific." Rebutted for the Markush members actually implicated (oxide); genuinely vulnerable for the alkoxide/phosphonate/organophosphonate species — this is where the case is contestable.

7. Bottom line and caveats

• Claims 1 and 15: a strong § 103 case exists on the art of record, principally US 6,633,391 in view of US 6,492,186, with US 2013/0155404 / US 2012/0076922 available to reinforce the element-determination limitation and US 9,406,485 / US 2005/0136666 for the plasma-type and chamber limitations. The single most damaging fact is that 6,492,186 monitors ~387 nm — the same wavelength the '307 uses for C—N in Example 1 — making the "determining the presence of an element" limitation look anticipated-in-substance by the art the examiner already had.
• Dependents 3, 4, 6–14, 16–20: strong; mostly routine optimization plus Markush satisfaction.
• Weak links: claim 5 (medical-device substrate) and the non-oxide species of claim 2 / covalent-attachment species of claim 14. These require art outside the face of the patent.
• Procedural caveat (important): because all the references above are already on the face of the patent, any AIA challenge (reexamination or IPR) must overcome the Office's prior consideration of them — Advanced Bionics / Becton Dickinson v. Bard § 325(d) discretion is a real risk unless the petitioner shows the examiner never appreciated the combination (i.e., that 6,492,186's 387 nm CN monitoring answers the "presence of an element" element of claim 1). I could not retrieve the file wrapper/prosecution history, and I did not find any litigation or PTAB record for this patent, so the § 315(b) time bar cannot be assessed from here.
• Verification limits: I confirmed full-text/abstract content for US 6,633,391, US 6,492,186, US 2013/0155404, US 2012/0076922, and US 2005/0136666. For US 9,406,485 (Surfx), US 2002/0124866 (Ulvac), US 8/0123082, US 6,455,437, CN 100401491 C, KR 20110070355 A, JP 2010-539443 A, JP 6037914 B2, US 5,128,007, US 5,939,150, US 2004/0022960, and US 2006/0261036, my statements rest on titles/abstracts only and should be confirmed against full text before being relied on in a petition.