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Bragg grating with asymmetric reflectance spectrum; Redfern Integrated Optics, Inc.; U.S. Pat. No. 8,121,449

25 Apr

U.S. Patent No. 8,121,449, issued on February 21, 2012 to Redfern Integrated Optics, Inc. (RIO) of Santa Clara, CA, discloses a planar photonic waveguide with a Bragg grating having an asymmetric reflectance spectrum.

The ’449 patent explains that a Bragg grating formed in a planar waveguide generally has a reflectance versus wavelength with a central peak at the Bragg wavelength and multiple side lobes with lower reflectances located on either side of the peak.  For some applications (e.g., filtering), these side lobes are desirably as small as possible, so that the Bragg grating reflects only light having the Bragg wavelength.  For other applications (e.g., external-cavity lasers), suppression of the side lobes on the longer-wavelength side of the peak are more important than those on the shorter-wavelength side.  The ’449 patent discloses a structure of the planar waveguide’s Bragg grating that has a cross-sectional dimension that varies symmetrically in both directions along the grating from a center of the grating such that the longer-wavelength side lobes are suppressed relative to the shorter-wavelength side lobes.

According to its website, RIO “develops and manufactures optical sources and subsystems based on its proprietary planar external cavity laser technology.”  RIO’s PLANEX™ series of narrow linewidth single frequency external cavity laser diodes is described as consisting of “a gain chip and a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) that includes a Bragg grating.”  There’s no indication on its website whether RIO’s products utilize the type of Bragg grating described in the ’449 patent.

The ’449 patent almost was never issued because of a missed deadline.  The USPTO mailed an office action to RIO’s representative in April 2008 in which most of the claims were rejected, but some claims were deemed to include allowable subject matter.  Applicants are given a maximum of six months to respond to such office actions, however, RIO never filed a response within this time period, so the application was deemed abandoned by the USPTO.  Nearly three years to the day after the office action was mailed, in April 2011, RIO filed its response to the office action, along with a petition and fee to the USPTO to revive the patent application on the basis that the entire delay in responding was unintentional.  The petition was granted soon afterwards, and the ’449 patent eventually issued. 

Under its rules, the USPTO does not require evidence be submitted in support of the statement that the entire delay was unintentional.  The USPTO can request additional information if there is a question that the entire delay was unintentional, but basically, the USPTO merely checks to see that the required forms and fees have been submitted.  However, even when the petition is granted and the patent is issued, there can be a black mark on the patent that can give a competitor an opening to get away with infringement.

For example, if RIO ever sues an accused infringer of the ’449 patent, the accused infringer will likely challenge the validity of the ’449 patent on the basis that RIO’s entire delay in responding actually was not unintentional (e.g., by proving that RIO knew of the abandonment for a period of time before preparing and filing the petition to revive).  If the accused infringer is successful, the patent would be deemed invalid, so there would be no infringement.  Thus, by being abandoned and then revived, the ’449 patent has a shadow on it that could affect its ability to exclude others from making, using, and selling the claimed invention. 

 
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Posted by on April 25, 2012 in Bragg grating, filter, laser, planar waveguide, semiconductor

 

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Photonic crystal-based lenses; Aptina Imaging Corp.; US Pat. No. 8,093,091

15 Apr

U.S. Patent No. 8,093,091, issued on January 10, 2012 to Aptina Imaging Corp. of George Town, KY, discloses a photonic-crystal-based lens for an image sensor.

 

According to the ’091 patent, micro-lenses can increase the optical efficiency of image sensors, such as charge-coupled devices (CCDs) or CMOS active pixel sensors, and can reduce the cross-talk between pixel cells.  Conventional micro-lenses use curved surfaces to refract and focus the received light onto the corresponding pixels.  As the size of pixels gets smaller, the size of the micro-lenses must also decrease, which results in a degradation of performance.  The photonic crystal lenses disclosed by the ’091 patent are described as using negative refraction, which can avoid the need for a curved surface to focus the light.  Free of the constraint of curved surfaces, photolithographic techniques can be used to fabricate flat, photonic crystal lenses that are aligned with the underlying pixels with horizontal dimensions that are the same as those of the pixels.

According to its website, Aptina Imaging is “the synthesis of foundational CMOS image sensor technology, stunning innovation, and second-to-none manufacturing quality.”  The company began as Photobit Corp. in 1995, started by a team of Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers, and was the first source of commercial CMOS image sensors.  In 2001, Photobit was acquired by Micron Technology, and Aptina Imaging was spun out as an independent privately held company in 2009.  A short video explains the evolution of the company from its JPL roots to present day.

According to the USPTO database, Aptina Imaging recieved 93 US patents in 2011, and 28 in the first three months of 2012. 

 
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Posted by on April 15, 2012 in detector, imaging, negative refraction, photonic crystal

 

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Doing the examiner’s work for faster patents

06 Apr

I want to mention one last method of speeding up the patent process, which entails doing the patent examiner’s work for him/her using the USPTO’s “Accelerated Examination” (AE) program.  The AE program has the goal of completing examination of the application within twelve months.

In normal patent examination, when an application eventually reaches the top of the examiner’s queue, the examiner reviews the application, focusing on the claims, and performs a search of the existing prior art to find references relevant to the claim’s patentability.  The examiner then applies these references and the standards of patentability to the claims, including novelty and non-obviousness, and decides whether the claims are patentable or unpatentable.  The examiner’s conclusions are then sent to the applicant, who then has a chance to rebut the examiner’s reasoning or to modify the claims.

However, using the AE procedure, instead of the examiner performing the prior art search, the applicant does the searching (the search can’t be half-hearted; it has to satisfy certain requirements) and submits the results for the examiner along with the filed application.  In addition, the applicant must also provide the initial analysis to the examiner by submitting an “accelerated examination support document” (AESD) which explains the relevance of the key references to the claims, and provides a rationale for why the claims are patentable in view of these references.  Basically, the applicant has to do much of the work that is normally done by the examiner.  In exchange for lightening the load on the examiner, the USPTO puts such applications on a fast track through the USPTO.  

One contributing factor to the speed of getting the examination done quickly is that the AE program requires that an interview be conducted with the examiner before he/she writes up the first office action.  During this interview, both the examiner and the applicant try to resolve potential impediments to allowance of the application.  I discussed the power of such interviews in my previous blogpost.

Since the applicant must make statements on the record regarding the claims and the various prior art references, even those not yet cited by the examiner, the added potential of making characterizations or admissions may give some applicants pause in using the AE program.  In addition, it can be rather expensive, since performing the search and preparing the AESD can take considerable attorney time.  This factor is mitigated somewhat though because the rapid examination avoids multiple back-and-forths with the examiner, and the corresponding costs.  However, given the other avenues available for expedited examination (particularly the new “Prioritized Patent Examination” program I described in a previous blogpost), the attractiveness to the AE program is now muted.

 
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Posted by on April 6, 2012 in accelerated examination, patent law

 

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“Face Time”: A tried-and-true way to faster patents

15 Mar

Spending time speaking with the patent examiner reviewing your application can be a simple way to get your patent application to reach issuance faster than it would otherwise.  To explain why this “face time” can be beneficial, let me first provide a bit of background … 

Most of the communication between the USPTO and patent applicants is done in written form: the application itself (both text and figures), the written “office actions” laying out the USPTO’s evaluations regarding the patentability of the invention (typically based on prior art publications), and the applicant’s written responses to the USPTO’s evaluations, which can include arguments and/or claim amendments to refute rejections of the claims. 

Having all of these communications done in written form (called the “file history” or “prosecution history”) provides documentation of both the USPTO’s positions and the applicant’s positions regarding what the application and its claims cover and what the prior art publications disclose.  If the patent is ever the subject of litigation or a post-grant proceeding, this file history can be informative, and even dispositive in some circumstances, regarding the scope of the patent and its validity.  Therefore, any patent attorney worth his/her salt tries to keep the file history as “clean” as possible, not making any unneeded assertions or concessions regarding claim terms or prior art disclosures.

But doing everything in written form can be frustrating, and at times, inefficient.  For example, the office actions sent out by the USPTO are often not paragons of clarity, so it can be difficult to discern by reading the office action exactly what issues the examiner sees with the claims.  In addition, having the sword of “file history” hanging over the patent attorney’s head can result in some arguments being presented in ways that are less than crystal clear.  It’s also often true that explaining some nuanced distinction between the application and the cited prior art publications can be done more easily verbally than in written form. 

Recognizing the inherent limitations of operating soley in written form, the USPTO gives applicants the opportunity to speak with their patent examiners, either by telephone or by in-person interviews.  These discussions can provide a way for the examiner and the patent attorney to have a conversation about the application and the prior art references without the overhead of every single word being written down in the file history.  While a summary of the discussion is placed in the file history, this summary typically only lists the claims and prior art references that were discussed, and whether agreement was reached or not regarding the issue at hand. 

On the personal level, I find such interviews are helpful just by giving the examiner a human face to associate with the application.  Examiners seem to be less inclined to put forward flimsy or off-the-wall rejections once they’ve met me face-to-face (but my friendly visage is not infallible; some examiners put forward such rejections regardless). 

At times, it can be especially helpful to bring the inventor along for the interview.  When the technology is complex, or we have a persuasive story regarding how the invention was conceived or the problem being solved, having the inventor speak directly with the examiner can go a long way towards issuance.  Examiners are typically glad to meet the inventor, since from the examiner’s viewpoint, the invention is more important or interesting than a run-of-the-mill application for which the inventor did not take the time to meet with him.  Also, it can give an examiner a good feeling that his/her work actually has an impact in the development of a technology.

While interviews have long been permissible, historically they have only been available, upon request by the applicant, after the examiner has mailed out the first office action.  However, the USPTO has begun making interviews available even earlier in the process.  Under its “First Action Interview Pilot Program,” if an applicant requests an interview prior to the first office action (no fee required), the examiner will conduct a prior art search and will provide a condensed pre-interview communication that cites the relevant prior art publications and any proposed rejections of the claims.  The applicant then has 30 days to schedule the interview and to submit proposed amendments and/or arguments.  If agreement is reached during the interview regarding patentability, the examiner will mail out a Notice of Allowance.  If agreement is not reached, then the examiner will mail out a first office action, and prosecution proceeds normally.   

Under an earlier version of this program which was only open to applications in certain technologies, about 41% of the applications received a Notice of Allowance right after the interview (i.e., without an office action being mailed out).   The program is currently scheduled to expire May 16, 2012, but based on its success, I expect that it will be extended by another year, or even made permanent. 

To help the USPTO meet its goals for reduced pendency and faster prosecution, the USPTO is also encouraging its examiners to conduct, or even initiate, interviews where the examiner thinks that it would advance prosecution of the application.  In this way, the USPTO is acknowledging the power of a simple conversation that can be had via an interview.

 
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Posted by on March 15, 2012 in interview, patent law

 

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USPTO Director Kappos to present at Knobbe’s OC office on March 15th

06 Mar

My firm, Knobbe Martens, will be hosting a presentation by USPTO Director David Kappos on March 15, 2012 at our OC office (2040 Main Street, Irvine, CA 92614). 

Director Kappos will be discussing “Building a 21st Century Patent and Trademark Office: Stimulating Technology and Fostering Innovation.”  The presentation will start at 5:00pm, followed by a brief Q&A period, and a networking reception from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.

Space is limited, but if you would like to attend, please contact stephanie.vadas@knobbe.com (tell her you heard about it on OC TechInnovation). If you have a question for Director Kappos you’d like considered, please send it along to stephanie.vadas@knobbe.com. 

I often visit Director Kappos’ blog which gives news and updates regarding U.S. patents, such as the efforts of the USPTO to reduce patent pendency.

 
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Posted by on March 6, 2012 in patent law

 

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“To serve man”: Newest pathway for faster patents

05 Mar

On occasion, the USPTO enacts various initiatives that are designed to reward innovations in particular technological areas.  Examples are the various fields (e.g., energy, security, HIV/AIDS or cancer) which are eligible for petitions to have a patent application be placed on the “special” docket for expedited examination, as I described in my previous blogpost.

Recently, the USPTO announced its newest intiative: “Patents for Humanity,” a new 12-month awards competition which is intended to ”create business incentives for patent holders to engage in humanitarian issues.”  The program identifies four eligible categories (medical technology, food and nutrition, clean technology, and information technology), and gives examples as:

life-saving medicines and vaccines, medical diagnostic equipment, more nutritious or heartier crops, food storage & preservation technology, water sterilization devices, cleaner sources of household light and heat, or information devices promoting literacy and education.

A video accessible on the USPTO website gives an overview of the program, and mentions “fiber optics” as a technology that “benefits society and improves citizen’s lives in countless ways.”

A panel of experts will judge entries to the program and will award up to 50 winners in the pilot year with certificates for accelerated processing at the USPTO.  Each certificate can be used to accelerate any one matter in the certificate holder’s portfolio, even a technology different from the one that qualified for the award. 

Interestingly, besides patent examination, the certificate can also be used to accelerate an appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences.  Such appeals can currently add two or more years to the pendency of a patent application, so the ability to shorten this process can be extremely valuable, especially since there is currently no other options available for accelerating such appeals.

 
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Posted by on March 5, 2012 in patent law

 

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“Isn’t that special”: Getting your application on the special docket at the USPTO

27 Feb

My previous two blogposts, “Paying a Premium” and “Hitting the Highway,” explained two ways that patent applicants can get their applications examined by the USPTO faster than normal.  A third way to obtain expedited examination is described below.

Isn’t That Special: The USPTO has identified numerous criteria that warrant having patent examination expedited.  If one of these criteria is satisfied, applicants can file a “Petition to Make Special,” which if granted, place the patent application on the examiner’s “special” docket resulting in a faster track for examination.  Many of these criteria can apply to applications in the field of photonics/optics.

Filing a petition based on one of the following criteria does not require any extra fee to be paid to the USPTO:

  • Applicant’s age or health:  An applicant qualifies under this criterion if (i) one of the inventors is 65 years old or older, or (ii) the health of one of the inventors is such that he/she might not be able to assist in the prosecution of the application.  This criterion is probably the one most commonly used for petitions to make special.
  • Environment: The invention will enhance the quality of the environment, for example, by contributing to the restoration or maintenance of the basic life-sustaining natural elements (air, water, or soil).
  • Energy: The invention will contribute to the development or conservation of energy resources, for example, by contributing to the discovery, development, or efficiency of use of energy resources.
  • Security: The invention will contribute to countering terrorism, for example, detecting/identifying explosives, aircraft sensors/security systems, and vehicular barricades/disabling systems.

Filing a petition based on one of the following criteria does require an extra fee of $130:

  • Prospective manufacture: To qualify, resources for manufacturing the invention must be lined up, and manufacturing in the U.S. must be dependent on the patent being granted.  Applicant must also identify the prior art references deemed to be most closely related to the invention.
  • Actual infringement: To qualify, an analysis comparing a device/method that is actually in the market or in use to the claims of the application must show that infringement unquestionably is occurring (in the view of the petitioner).  Applicant must also identify the prior art references deemed to be most closely related to the invention.
  • Recombinant DNA: The invention relates to safety of research in the field of recombinant DNA.
  • Superconductivity: The invention relates to superconducting materials, or their manufacture or application.
  • HIV/AIDS or cancer: The invention contributes to the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of HIV/AIDS or cancer.
  • Biotechnology being developed by a small entity: To qualify, development of the technology must be significantly impaired if patent examination is delayed.

While there has been some debate regarding exactly how much time is gained by having an application deemed to be “special,” for applications for which speed of examination is desired, it can be a relatively inexpensive and easy option.

 
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Posted by on February 27, 2012 in patent law, petition to make special

 

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“Hitting the Highway” to faster patents

08 Feb

My last blogpost, “Paying a Premium,” described the problem of excessively long pendency of patent applications at the USPTO, and how the “Prioritized Patent Examination Program” can be used to expedite an application through the USPTO within one year by paying an extra fee ($2,400 or $4,800, depending on the size of the applicant).  Below I describe another way to obtain faster examination by the USPTO.

Hitting the Highway:  One of the ways that the USPTO is seeking to increase the speed of examination is by leveraging the results of examination that has already been performed by the patent offices of other countries and regions via one of the many “Patent Prosecution Highways” (PPHs).  Based on a favorable examination which finds at least one patentable claim in a related foreign patent application (in one of the eligible countries or regions), a U.S. applicant can file a “Petition to Make Special,” which is a request to have the examination of the U.S. application fast-tracked at the USPTO.  Once the petition is granted, the USPTO strives to provide a first office action within two to three months.  The requirements for the petition are easy to provide, and in contrast to the “Paying a Premium” option of my previous blogpost, there is no additional fee for filing the PPH petition.

By allowing U.S. examiners to reuse search and examination results generated by these foreign patent offices, the PPH program is designed to “streamline patent processing” and to “allow applicants to obtain patents faster and more efficiently.”  According to a video on the USPTO website, applications that go through the PPH program have an allowance rate more than double that of non-PPH applications.  Also, PPH applications generally receive fewer office actions than do non-PPH applications, so the cost of prosecution can be reduced by using the PPH program. 

To qualify for the PPH program, the application must be related to a foreign application and its claims must sufficiently correspond to the claims deemed allowable by the foreign patent office.  Also, examination of the U.S. application must not have already begun.  Currently the list of eligible foreign patent offices includes: Australia  Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, European Patent Office, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.  The USPTO also has a PPH program for Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications, and it is continuing to pursue additional partnerships with other foreign patent offices as well.

These PPH programs also can be used to leverage a favorable examination in the U.S. to get faster examination in the participating foreign countries.  I’ve had good success in traveling these highways in both directions to expedite prosecution.

 
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Posted by on February 8, 2012 in patent law, patent prosecution highway, petition to make special

 

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Paying a Premium: How to get a U.S. patent within one year

23 Jan

One of the most common gripes I hear about the patent process cites the excessively long time it takes between filing a patent application and getting the patent to issue.  For example, the latest statistics out of the USPTO show that for applications in the “Semiconductor, Electrical, Optical Systems & Components” category, it takes an average of 26.5 months after filing to get the first office action, and an average of 29.3 months for the patent to issue.  This technical category is actually one of the fastest, with ”Computer Networks, Multiplex Communication, Video Distribution, and Security” being the worst, with averages of 33.6 and 40.7 months, respectively.

The USPTO has been working to reduce this pendency time, and has announced its “2010-2015 Strategic Plan” that sets the goal of reducing the average total pendency of patent applications to 20 months by 2015.  Much of this effort is focused on the USPTO’s internal processes, and as a patent practitioner, I support these improvements.

But even beyond these improvements, there are ways that applicants can help themselves and position their applications to be among the fastest through the USPTO.  In my opinion, these measures are currently underused in general, and many companies, especially those in high-tech fields such as photonics and optics, can reap the substantial benefit of getting a patent in hand within one to one-and-one-half years.  In this blogpost (and following blogposts), I’ll explain some of the measures that can be used by applicants to expedite their applications through the USPTO.

Paying a Premium: The easiest and most potent way to get a U.S. patent to issue within one year is to use the USPTO’s newly-enacted “Prioritized Patent Examination Program” (also known as “Track I”) which started this past September as part of the “America Invents Act” (“AIA”).  Under this “fast track” program, an applicant can file a petition and pay an extra fee to the USPTO ($2,400 for small entities, $4,800 for large entities).  Upon approval of the petition (99% approval rate so far), the USPTO will expedite the application with the goal of having the patent processed to completion within 12 months. 

The early results from the program are very attractive:

  • Over half of the approximately 1,200 “fast-track” requests filed since the program began in September 2011 have already received their first office action, with an average time of 66.4 days after filing.
  • There have already been 23 allowances under the program, with the average time to allowance being 39.2 days from petition approval.  The first allowance came 103 days after the application was filed (U.S. Pat. No. 8,094,942 issued to Google).
  • The program was initially open to only newly-filed applications.  However, it has recently been expanded to include pending applications for which a “Request for Continued Examination” has been filed.

Acceptance into the program is not a guarantee of issuance.  The USPTO will still apply the same standards of patentability as are used for all other applications.  For example, some applications in the program have already received their final rejections, with the average being 34.3 days measured from approval of the petition to enter the program.  In addition, the program is limited to accept only 10,000 applications during the fiscal year. 

For a company planning on going through the due diligence accompanying funding events or acquisition in the foreseeable future, it can make sense to improve its IP portfolio in the eyes of the VCs or acquisition entity by getting patents in hand sooner rather than later using the “Prioritized Patent Examination Program.” 

 
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Posted by on January 23, 2012 in aia, america invents act, patent law, prioritized examination

 

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U.S. Patents of the 2012 Prism Awards Finalists: Defense and Security

06 Jan

For the “Defense and Security” category, the three finalists for the 2011 “Prism Awards”are:

According to Headwall’s website, the company “has been at the forefront of hyperspectral imaging since 1994″ and “[w]ith its patented, aberration-corrected Hyperspec™ sensors, the company has established a worldwide reputation for exceptional imaging performance.”  Using hyperspectral imaging, spectral data at wavelengths outside the range seen by the human eye are acquired and the generated images distinguish items within the sensor’s field of view based on their chemical composition.  Headwall touts its RECON™ handheld sensor as being ruggedized and providing “very rapid hyperspectral scene rendering of small targets at distances up to 1.5 kilometers.”  Its defense and security uses are explained as allowing a user ”to spectrally resolve a 6 by 6 inch target from a distance of one mile” such as “a face in a treeline.”  Last year, Headwall’s “Hyperspec™ Point & Stare” sensor was a finalist for the 2010 Prism Award in the same category.

According to the USPTO database, the latest U.S. patent awarded to Headwall was U.S. Pat. No. 7,518,722 in 2009, and there are not any published applications assigned to Headwall.  Perhaps the company has stopped filing patents, or perhaps they are filing their patent applications via an unidentified subsidiary or “holding company.”

A military technology summary on its website describes the MEPAD system as “a compact, field-ready pathogen detection system that implements a full ELISA sandwich assay in a microfluidic format,” that is powered by a USB connection, and ”can detect an array of biological and chemical threats, and identify them within a 1/2 hour processing time.”  The system was described back in April 2011 as including “a disposable microfluidic chip,” “a highly sensitive portable microfluidic fluorescence measurement unit that also controls the flow of samples and reagents through the microfluidic channels of the chip,” ”a commercial 635-nm diode laser, an avalanche photodiode (APD) that measures fluorescence, and three filtering mirrors that provide more than 100 dB of excitation line suppression in the signal detection channel.”  In 2006, Physical Optics received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the Department of Homeland Security of nearly $100,000 to develop the MEPAD system, which is “based on a novel, disposable, microfluidic lab-on-a-chip (LOC) that performs conventional ELISA and is equipped with a unique fiber optic measurement system.”

According to the USPTO database, Physical Optics owns more than 100 U.S. patents, and numerous pending U.S. patent applications, but I was unable to find any that described the MEPAD system.  This could mean that such a U.S. patent application does not exist, but it could also be that the patent application has not yet been made public by the USPTO.  Under current U.S. patent law, U.S. patent applications are published 18 months after their earliest priority date, so a search will not turn up the application until then.  Furthermore, if an applicant plans to only file a U.S. patent application, then the applicant can request that the USPTO not published the patent application at all.  This way, the contents and the existence of the patent application can be kept secret, until the application eventually issues as a U.S. patent, at which time the U.S. patent is made available to the public.

There are conditions under which even a U.S. patent is kept secret from the public.  When a technology of a U.S. patent application is deemed to be sensitive enough, a “secrecy order” is imposed that keep the existence and the content of the patent application and its resulting U.S. patent secret in the interest of national security.  We can be sure that a patent application describing the MEPAD system isn’t subject to a secrecy order, because if there were such an order, Physical Optics wouldn’t be able to present its system at the Photonics West conference.

According to its website, the micro-Z is “a compact, handheld, battery-powered Terahertz Time Domain spectrometer which has the total freedom of operation previously unattainable with stationary instruments” and “can be targeted for a variety of on-site inspection tasks using THz waves, including real-time chemical identification.”  A company video shows the micro-Z in action.

Zomega’s Chairman and President is Dr. Xi-Cheng Zhang, recent winner of the IEEE Photonics Society’s 2011 William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award.  Dr. Zhang is inventor or co-inventor on 26 U.S. patents, many of which are assigned to Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, where Dr. Zhang is the Eric Josson Professor of Science.  Reviewing the titles of Dr. Zhang’s U.S. patents and pending patent applications, only one is directed to a compact THz spectrometer (US2009/0066948 A1, now abandoned), which is assigned to Hydroelectron Ventures, Inc. (HEV) of Westmount, Quebec, Canada.  A video on HEV’s website explains that Zomega has partnered with Hydroelectron Ventures on a THz “spectroscopy at a distance” imaging system.

If you like, you can register your guess regarding which product you think will win the Prism Award in the poll below.  There is not much to go on in terms of U.S. patents, but I’m guessing that Headwall Photonics will win this year.

Also, if you’re planning on being at the Photonics West conference and are interested in talking about patents, I’d enjoy meeting you, so feel free to contact me at @Itchkawitz or at bsi “at” kmob “dot” com.

 
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Posted by on January 6, 2012 in detector, imaging, materials, pathogen detection, remote sensing, spectroscopy

 

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