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BILLERICA, Massachusetts -- August 20, 2009 – The Japan Patent Office (JPO) has recently decided to invalidate Japanese patent (3 076 013) on a Focal Plan Array (FPA) based imaging attenuated total reflection (ATR) spectrometer system.

Bruker Optics successfully challenged patent (3 076 013), that was granted to formerly known Digilab, LLC, now a part of the Varian Inc. The revocation of this patent allows Bruker Optics Japan, as well as other manufacturers to sell Imaging FT-IR spectrometers and FT-IR microscope systems with ATR imaging capabilities to customers in Japan.

Infrared microscopy is a powerful technique for the chemical analysis of small sample areas. Applications include the identification of impurities, defects, and inhomogenieties in a wide range of materials from polymers to pharmaceuticals. Measurements need to assess a complete distribution of a molecule or functional group across the sample, which requires many individual infrared spectra to be acquired. The acquired spectra makes up a chemical image that provides valuable information on the complete sample analyzed, which could be time consuming utilizing a traditional infrared microscope system. Recent advances on infrared spectrometers allow the use of multi-element detectors, such as focal plane array (FPA) and line-array detectors to capture the chemical composition of samples rapidly. Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) is an established and very popular infrared sampling technique for probing the surface layers of solids. The combination of ATR and FT-IR Imaging techniques provide a fast and powerful analysis solution.

For more information on Bruker’s HYPERION 3000 FT-IR Imaging Spectrometer, please visit www.brukeroptics.com/hyperion3000