Florida Patent of the Month – February 2026

The February 2026 Selection

In the dynamic and rapidly evolving landscape of American intellectual property, the state of Florida has emerged as a critical hub for high-technology manufacturing, particularly in the fields of photonics and nanotechnology. This report provides an exhaustive analysis of U.S. Patent No. 12,523,804, which has been distinguished as the Florida Patent of the Month for February 2026. The patent, titled “Ultra-thin, flexible thin-film filters with spatially or temporally varying optical properties and methods of making the same,” was officially granted to Everix, Inc., an Orlando-based innovator in optical components. The application for this groundbreaking technology was filed on September 12, 2022, marking the culmination of a rigorous research and development cycle aimed at overcoming the physical limitations of traditional optical manufacturing.

The selection of Patent 12,523,804 was not arbitrary. It was identified from a competitive field of over 1,000 potential candidates issued within the relevant period. This identification was achieved using advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology deployed by Swanson Reed, a specialist R&D tax advisory firm. The firm’s proprietary algorithms scan the vast repository of USPTO data, filtering not just for novelty, but for patents that demonstrate exceptional “real-world impact,” economic viability, and the resolution of persistent industrial challenges. The AI-driven selection process prioritized this patent because it represents a fundamental shift in the manufacturing paradigm—moving from the batch-processed, rigid constraints of vacuum deposition to a continuous, scalable, and flexible thermal drawing process. This report details the technical superiority of the invention, benchmarks it against legacy competitors, explores its transformative market potential, and analyzes the eligibility of such innovations for the federal Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit under Internal Revenue Code Section 41.

The Genesis of Innovation and Reason for Award

The Selection Criteria: Real-World Impact

The designation of “Florida Patent of the Month” is reserved for inventions that promise to reshape industries. While many patents cover incremental improvements or theoretical concepts, Patent 12,523,804 was chosen specifically for its immediate and tangible real-world impact on the consumer electronics, medical device, and automotive sectors. The AI algorithms utilized by Swanson Reed flagged this patent due to its potential to disrupt the global optical filter market—a mature industry that has seen little fundamental process innovation in over four decades.

The core reason for this high-impact classification lies in the “bottleneck” problem of modern optics. As devices such as smartphones, wearable health monitors, and autonomous vehicle sensors have miniaturized, the optical components within them have hit a physical wall. Traditional glass-based filters are too thick, too brittle, and too expensive to scale for disposable or ultra-compact applications. The Everix patent addresses this bottleneck directly by introducing a manufacturing method that produces filters that are flexible, shatterproof, and significantly thinner than any competing product, thereby enabling new form factors for hardware designers.

Patent Metadata and Assignee Context

• Patent Number: 12,523,804
• Title: Ultra-thin, flexible thin-film filters with spatially or temporally varying optical properties and methods of making the same
• Application Date: September 12, 2022
• Grant Date: January 13, 2026 (noted as February Patent of the Month selection cycle)
• Assignee: Everix, Inc. (Orlando, Florida)
• Inventors: Esmaeil Banaei, Justin Boga, Patricia Ximena Coronado Domenge

Everix, Inc., the assignee, is a spin-out from the University of Central Florida’s CREOL (College of Optics and Photonics), one of the world’s leading photonics research institutions. The company has pioneered the “thermal drawing” of optical filters, a technique that adapts the scalability of fiber optic manufacturing to the production of planar optical films. This pedigree underscores the “Technological in Nature” aspect of the innovation, rooting it deeply in advanced materials science and optical physics.

Technological Superiority and Competitive Benchmarking

To appreciate the superiority of the technology described in Patent 12,523,804, it is essential to establish the baseline of the industry. The optical filter market has historically been dominated by two primary technologies: Absorption Filters (colored glass or dye-based plastics) and Thin-Film Interference Filters produced via Vacuum Deposition.

The Incumbent Competitor: Vacuum Deposition (Hard Coating)

For nearly half a century, high-performance optical filtering—where precise wavelengths of light must be blocked or transmitted—has been achieved using Vacuum Thin-Film Deposition. In this process, a rigid substrate (usually glass) is placed inside a vacuum chamber. Materials such as metal oxides or fluorides are vaporized using electron beams or ion guns, condensing onto the glass in alternating layers of high and low refractive indices.

Limitations of the Competitor:

1. Batch Processing Constraints: Vacuum deposition is inherently a batch process. The number of filters produced is limited by the surface area of the vacuum chamber. This creates a high cost-per-unit floor that does not scale well for mass-market, disposable applications.
2. Rigidity and Thickness: The resulting filters are “hard-coated” on glass. They are brittle and cannot bend. To maintain structural integrity, the glass substrate must be relatively thick, typically between 2.0 mm and 5.0 mm. Even “thin” versions rarely drop below 1.0 mm without becoming dangerously fragile.
3. Planar Geometry: Because they are deposited on flat glass, these filters are restricted to planar geometries. They cannot conform to curved surfaces, limiting their integration into aerodynamic automotive designs or ergonomic wearable devices.
4. Angle of Incidence (AOI) Sensitivity: Traditional interference filters suffer from “blue shift,” where the transmission spectrum shifts toward shorter wavelengths if light hits the filter at an angle. While Everix filters also experience physics-based AOI shifts, the ability to curve the filter allows designers to mechanically correct for this by maintaining a normal angle of incidence relative to the source, a feat impossible with rigid glass.

The Innovation: Thermal Drawing of Nanostructured Polymers

The technology protected by Patent 12,523,804 radically departs from the vacuum chamber model. Instead, it utilizes a thermal drawing process analogous to how optical fibers are made.

The Process Mechanism:

The manufacturing begins with a “preform”—a macroscopic block of polymer materials arranged in the exact layer structure desired for the final filter. This preform, which may be centimeters thick, contains hundreds or thousands of alternating polymer layers. The preform is heated in a furnace until it reaches a viscoelastic state and is then “drawn” (pulled) into a thin ribbon or fiber.

The Critical “Spatially Varying” Advancement: The specific genius of Patent 12,523,804 lies in the dynamic control of this drawing process. The patent abstract describes varying environmental conditions—such as heat, pressure, tension, and drawing speed—over time or distance. By modulating these parameters in real-time, the inventors can precisely control the thickness of the nanoscale layers in the final film. Since the optical properties of an interference filter (i.e., which color it blocks) are determined by the thickness of these layers, this method allows Everix to create a single strip of filter that has different optical properties at different points.

Superiority Analysis:

• Scalability: The process is continuous. A single draw can produce kilometers of filter material, offering economies of scale that vacuum batch processing cannot match. This reduces the cost structure significantly, enabling “high-performance optics at plastic prices”.
• Ultra-Thin Form Factor: The resulting filters are incredibly thin, typically ranging from 100 to 400 microns (0.1 mm – 0.4 mm). This is an order of magnitude thinner than standard commercial filters.
• Flexibility and Durability: Being polymeric, the filters are shatterproof and flexible. They can be bent, rolled, or laminated onto curved surfaces without delaminating or breaking.
• Customizability: The “spatially varying” capability means a manufacturer could produce a “chirped” filter (a gradient filter) on a single roll, or a filter that corrects for the curvature of a lens, simply by programming the draw tower’s speed motor.

Competitive Benchmark Data

The following comparative data, synthesized from industry specifications and the patent details, highlights the stark performance and physical differences between the Everix technology and the industry standard.

Real-World Impact and Future Potential

The “real-world impact” cited by the Florida Patent of the Month award is best understood by examining the specific industries that this technology unlocks. The transition from rigid to flexible optics is an “enabling technology”—it allows engineers to design devices that were previously impossible due to size or weight constraints.

Medical Wearables and Diagnostics

The most immediate impact is evident in the medical technology sector. Modern healthcare is transitioning from reactive hospital-based treatment to proactive home-based monitoring.

• Wearable Health Monitors: Devices like smartwatches and pulse oximeters use Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors to measure heart rate and blood oxygen. These sensors emit light into the skin and measure the reflection. However, ambient light (sunlight, room lighting) creates noise.
• The Problem: Traditional glass filters are too thick to fit inside a slim watch casing and too brittle to survive the daily impacts a watch endures.
• The Everix Solution: The patent enables ultra-thin (100µm) notch filters that can be laminated directly over the sensor detector. This blocks ambient light noise, significantly improving the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). A higher SNR means more accurate readings and, critically, lower power consumption (as the LED does not need to be as bright), extending the device’s battery life.
• Point-of-Care (POC) Diagnostics: In diagnostic devices (e.g., for COVID-19 or flu testing), fluorescence detection is the gold standard. It requires high-performance filters to separate the excitation light from the emission signal.
• The Impact: The ability to produce high-performance interference filters that are as cheap as plastic films allows for “lab-quality” optical sensitivity in disposable, single-use cartridges. This democratizes access to high-end diagnostics, bringing them to remote clinics or patient homes.

Automotive Lidar and Autonomous Systems

The autonomous vehicle industry relies heavily on Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), which uses lasers to map the environment.

• The Design Conflict: Lidar systems need to “see” the world, but car designers do not want bulky boxes protruding from the vehicle. Ideally, sensors should be integrated into the headlights, taillights, or bumpers.
• The Curved Surface Challenge: Bumpers and lights are curved for aerodynamics and aesthetics. Rigid glass filters cannot conform to these curves.
• The Patent’s Impact: The flexibility of the thermally drawn filters allows them to be applied to curved surfaces. A Lidar sensor can now be hidden behind a curved fascia that blocks visible light (hiding the sensor) while transmitting the infrared laser light. Furthermore, the “spatially varying” property allows the filter to compensate for the changing angle of the curve, ensuring consistent performance across the entire field of view.

Consumer Electronics and Imaging

In the highly competitive smartphone market, internal volume is the most valuable real estate.

• Miniaturization: Every fraction of a millimeter counts. A standard 0.3mm or 0.5mm glass filter is “thick” in the context of a camera module. The Everix filter, at 0.1mm, frees up critical Z-height, allowing for larger sensors or thinner phones.
• Spectral Sensing: New phones are incorporating multi-spectral sensors to improve skin tone rendering and white balance. The ability to mass-produce these complex filters at low cost enables their ubiquity in mid-range and budget devices, not just flagships.

Future Potential: Augmented Reality (AR)

Looking further ahead, the technology holds immense promise for Augmented Reality (AR) smart glasses. The “holy grail” of AR is to create glasses that look like normal eyewear but can overlay digital information.

• Waveguide Optimization: AR systems use waveguides to direct light into the user’s eye. Controlling the coupling of light into and out of these waveguides is complex.
• Gradient Filtering: The patent’s ability to create filters with spatially varying optical properties suggests the potential for gradient index filters or filters that change their transmission characteristics across the lens. This could allow for more efficient light management, reducing the “glow” often seen in AR glasses and improving the contrast of the holographic image against the real world.

R&D Tax Credit Analysis (IRC Section 41)

The development of Patent 12,523,804 serves as a quintessential case study for the Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit under IRC Section 41. For high-tech manufacturing companies like Everix, this federal incentive is vital for recouping the substantial costs associated with innovation.

However, claiming the R&D credit is not automatic. It requires adherence to a rigorous statutory framework known as the Four-Part Test. Swanson Reed, the firm that identified this patent, specializes in helping companies navigate these complex regulations to ensure their claims are defensible.

The Four-Part Test: Application to Patent 12,523,804

To qualify as “Qualified Research Expenses” (QREs), the activities undertaken by the inventors must satisfy all four of the following criteria:

Permitted Purpose

The Requirement: The activity must relate to a new or improved business component (product, process, software, technique, formula, or invention) aimed at improving performance, functionality, reliability, or quality.

Application to the Patent:

The project behind Patent 12,523,804 clearly satisfies this test. The “Business Component” is the thermal drawing manufacturing process itself, as well as the resulting ultra-thin filter product. The purpose was not merely aesthetic; it was to improve:

• Performance: Achieving spatially varying optical properties.
• Functionality: Enabling flexibility and shatter resistance.
• Quality: Reducing defects associated with rigid glass coatings.
• Swanson Reed’s Role: The firm helps the company articulate this purpose in technical terms, distinguishing between “routine maintenance” (not qualified) and “evolutionary development” (qualified).

Technological in Nature

The Requirement: The research must fundamentally rely on the principles of the “hard sciences”—physical, biological, engineering, or computer sciences.

Application to the Patent:

The development of this technology is deeply rooted in polymer physics, optics, and materials science.

• Physics: The inventors had to model constructive and destructive interference of light waves through thousands of nanolayers.
• Materials Science/Rheology: The core of the invention involves controlling the flow (rheology) of different polymers as they are heated and drawn. Understanding the viscoelasticity and glass transition temperatures (Tg) of incompatible polymers was critical.
• Swanson Reed’s Role: The firm’s technical analysts (often engineers) gather the necessary evidence—CAD drawings, simulation logs, and material data sheets—to prove that the work relied on scientific principles rather than trial-and-error based on style or taste.

Elimination of Uncertainty

The Requirement: At the outset of the project, there must be uncertainty regarding the capability to develop the component, the method of development, or the appropriate design of the component.

Application to the Patent:

This is often the most scrutinized test. For Patent 12,523,804, the uncertainty was methodological.

• The Unknown: Could a multi-layer preform be drawn down to nanometer thickness without the layers mixing or delaminating? Could the optical thickness be controlled precisely enough (to the nanometer) using only draw speed and tension?
• The Evidence: The very existence of the patent argues for uncertainty; if the method were obvious or certain, it would not have been patentable. The abstract explicitly mentions varying “environmental conditions” to achieve the result, implying that the optimal conditions were unknown at the start.
• Swanson Reed’s Role: The firm documents the “knowledge gap.” They would interview the lead engineers (e.g., Dr. Banaei) to record the technical challenges faced at the project’s inception, ensuring the “uncertainty” is framed as a technological hurdle, not a financial risk.

Process of Experimentation

The Requirement: Substantially all (at least 80%) of the activities must constitute elements of a systematic process of experimentation. This involves identifying uncertainty, identifying alternatives, and evaluating those alternatives through modeling, simulation, or trial and error. Application to the Patent: The patent describes a method of “varying at least one environmental condition… over time or over a distance”. This describes a classic experimental loop:

1. Hypothesis: “Increasing draw tension by 5% will shift the bandpass by 10nm.”
2. Test: Execute a draw run under these conditions.
3. Analyze: Measure the spectral response of the resulting film.
4. Refine: Adjust the furnace temperature profile and re-draw.

• Swanson Reed’s Role: This is where the claim is won or lost. Swanson Reed uses tools to capture the “negative results”—the failed draws, the broken fibers, the off-spec filters. The IRS looks for proof of the process, not just the final success. The firm ensures that the iterative nature of the development is fully substantiated.

Swanson Reed’s Methodology: Ensuring Compliance

Claiming the credit for a high-tech manufacturing innovation requires more than just meeting the definitions; it requires robust documentation. Swanson Reed employs a specific methodology to assist clients like Everix.

1. The “TaxTrex” Technical Narrative: Swanson Reed utilizes proprietary AI-driven software called TaxTrex to build the technical defense. This system surveys engineers throughout the year, extracting the “technical narrative” of their work. For the Everix patent, TaxTrex would capture the specific dates of the draw trials, the variables tested (heat, speed), and the technical conclusions drawn, creating a contemporaneous audit trail.

2. The “6-Eye Review” Process:

To minimize audit risk, every claim undergoes a 6-Eye Review before submission.

• Eye Pair 1 (Technical Analyst): Verifies that the engineering activities meet the Section 41 definition of “Qualified Research.”
• Eye Pair 2 (Tax Attorney/CPA): Ensures the financial calculations (wages, supplies, contractor costs) align with the technical activities and statutory base periods.
• Eye Pair 3 (Audit Specialist): Reviews the entire file from the perspective of an IRS agent, looking for red flags or inconsistencies. This “mock audit” ensures the claim is battle-ready.

3. Start-Up Provisions (Payroll Tax Offset): For many high-tech innovators, profitability comes years after the initial invention. Swanson Reed helps qualifying start-ups (those with less than $5 million in gross receipts and less than 5 years of revenue) utilize the Payroll Tax Offset. This allows companies to use the R&D credit to offset up to $500,000 per year in employer Social Security taxes, providing immediate cash flow to fund further innovation.

Final Thoughts

The selection of U.S. Patent No. 12,523,804 as the Florida Patent of the Month for February 2026 is a recognition of the transformative power of materials science. By reimagining the fundamental process of making optical filters—moving from the vacuum chamber to the draw tower—Everix, Inc. has unlocked a new dimension of flexibility and scalability in photonics.

This report has demonstrated that the superiority of the technology lies in its ability to break the “form factor” barrier, enabling ultra-thin, flexible, and rugged optical components that are essential for the next generation of wearables, autonomous vehicles, and diagnostic tools. Furthermore, the development of this patent serves as a prime example of the type of high-risk, high-reward innovation that the R&D Tax Credit is designed to support. Through the expert guidance of firms like Swanson Reed, and the rigorous application of the Four-Part Test, innovators can secure the capital necessary to continue pushing the boundaries of what is technologically possible, solidifying Florida’s position as a global leader in high-tech manufacturing.