Luxottica and Meta Petition for Inter Partes Review of All 20 Claims of a Solos Beamforming Patent.

The parties and the patent

The proceeding is Luxottica of America Inc. and Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Solos Technology Limited, IPR2026-00512. The petitioners are Luxottica of America Inc. and Meta Platforms, Inc. The petition names Luxottica of America Inc., Oakley, Inc., EssilorLuxottica USA Inc. and Meta Platforms, Inc. as the real parties in interest. U.S. Patent 10,651,866, issued May 12, 2020, is titled Beamforming Using Fractional Time Delay in Digitally Oversampled Sensor Systems, Apparatuses, and Methods. It issued from Application 16/399,867, filed April 30, 2019 as a continuation in a family that traces to an application filed August 1, 2016. USPTO assignment records show assignments to Kopin Corporation from the two named inventors, executed October 3, 2016 and May 7, 2019, the first of them recorded December 1, 2025, and an assignment from Kopin to Solos Technology Limited executed November 22, 2019 and recorded December 13, 2019.

What the claims cover

Independent claim 1 covers a method to create a beamformed digital signal. A first oversampled digital signal, output from an analog-to-digital converter at a sampling clock frequency and responsive to an analog field, is delayed by a time delay equal to an integer number of sampling clock cycles, and the delayed signal is combined with a second oversampled digital signal, also responsive to the analog field, to obtain the beamformed signal. Dependent claim 7 adds a low pass filter with decimation that outputs a delayed baseband signal, and claim 8 sets the delay equal to a fraction of a baseband sampling period. Independent claims 11 and 16 cover systems in which oversampled digital sensor output passes through a time delay element to an arithmetic unit that produces the beamformed signal, and claims 15 and 20 add a sigma-delta modulator producing a pulse density modulated output.

The grounds

The petition challenges claims 1 to 20 on 14 grounds built on three primary references: European Patent Application Publication No. 1,744,174 (Moquin), U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0229336 (Liu), and U.S. Patent 6,339,647 (Andersen). Ground 1A asserts that Moquin anticipates claims 1, 2, 5, 11 to 13, 15 to 18, and 20, and Ground 1B that Moquin alone renders claims 4 and 7 to 9 obvious. Grounds 2, 3 and 4 assert obviousness over Moquin combined with Liu for claim 3, with U.S. Patent 5,461,389 (Dean) for claim 10, and with U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2001/0028720 (Hou) for claims 14 and 19. Ground 5A asserts that Liu anticipates claims 1 to 5, 7 and 10, Ground 5B that Liu alone renders claims 4 and 7 to 10 obvious, and Ground 6 that Liu combined with Andersen renders claims 6 to 10 obvious. Ground 7A asserts that Andersen anticipates claims 1, 4 to 8 and 11 to 20, and Ground 7B that Andersen alone renders claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 9 and 11 to 20 obvious. Grounds 8 through 11 assert obviousness over Andersen combined with Liu for claim 3, with U.S. Patent 5,203,335 (Noujaim) for claim 9, with Dean for claim 10, and with Moquin for claims 11 to 20. The petition gives August 1, 2016 as the patent's earliest claimed priority date and states that the examiner allowed the claims without a prior art rejection. The petitioners support the petition with a technical expert's declaration.

Related proceedings and the district case

Solos asserts the '866 patent, along with U.S. Patents 10,306,389, 11,082,055, 11,871,174 and 12,216,339, in Solos Technology Limited v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-10304 (D. Mass.), filed January 23, 2026 against Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC, Oakley, Inc., Luxottica of America, Inc. and EssilorLuxottica USA, Inc. The case is assigned to Judge Allison D. Burroughs. Google Patents lists the '055 patent as a continuation of the '866 patent's application, and the '055 patent is the subject of IPR2026-00412 and IPR2026-00420. Meta's October 26, 2026 petition against the '389 patent, IPR2027-00019, lists IPR2026-00512 among the related proceedings.

In the district case, Meta moved on March 25, 2026 to dismiss for failure to join a required party, or alternatively to stay the case pending resolution of an ownership dispute, arguing that a third company has a nonfrivolous claim to co-ownership of all five asserted patents through contract or inventorship. Solos opposed the motion on April 22, 2026, and Meta filed its reply on April 30, 2026. Oakley and the two Luxottica defendants separately moved the same day to dismiss Solos's indirect infringement, willful infringement and joint liability allegations against them, and Solos opposed that motion on April 8, 2026.

What to watch next

Under 37 CFR 42.107(b), Solos may file a preliminary response within three months of the October 6, 2026 notice according the petition a filing date. Under the USPTO's interim Director discretionary process, any discretionary denial brief from Solos is due within two months of that notice. Watch for those filings and the institution decision.