PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16124904
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-09
Publication Date: 2019-01
Patent Classification: ["422", "504000"]

Abstract:
Microfluidic structures and methods for manipulating fluids and reactions are provided. Such structures and methods may involve positioning fluid samples, e.g., in the form of droplets, in a carrier fluid (e.g., an oil, which may be immiscible with the fluid sample) in predetermined regions in a microfluidic network. In some embodiments, positioning of the droplets can take place in the order in which they are introduced into the microfluidic network (e.g., sequentially) without significant physical contact between the droplets. Because of the little or no contact between the droplets, there may be little or no coalescence between the droplets. Accordingly, in some such embodiments, surfactants are not required in either the fluid sample or the carrier fluid to prevent coalescence of the droplets. Structures and methods described herein also enable droplets to be removed sequentially from the predetermined regions.

Claim (Index 11):
A method for forming and collecting a plurality of droplets, the method comprising:\n providing a microfluidic device comprising a substrate comprising a microfluidic channel operably coupled to a fluidic region; providing a solution of an aqueous fluid containing at least one target molecule and one or more reagents for conducting a reaction with the at least one target molecule; introducing the solution of aqueous fluid into the microchannel and flowing the solution of aqueous fluid through the microfluidic channel to form a plurality of droplets of the aqueous fluid based, at least in part, on the flow of the aqueous fluid and surface tension of the aqueous fluid relative to a carrier fluid; positioning each of the plurality of aqueous droplets in the fluidic region, wherein each of the plurality of droplets is substantially surrounded by the carrier fluid; maintaining separation of each of the plurality of aqueous droplets from one another within the carrier fluid; and conducting the reaction on one or more of the plurality of droplets on the substrate.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 41.0
- Percentile: 97.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.09211
- Patent Class: 422.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15257017', '14577652', '12525749', '14294737', '11221585']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7321757659977979
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5223260049190585
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7111907898899239
- Mean Citation Score: 344.691728
- Max Citation Score: 359.83563
- Similarity Product: 293.7288612846315

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test