Two Provisional Patents. Twelve Days Apart.
On March 19, 2021, Matthew Guertin filed provisional patent application 63/163,135 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The application described InfiniSet — a motorized rotating treadmill system for virtual film production where a person on a treadmill and a virtual camera rotate inversely, creating the illusion of infinite movement.
Provisional patent applications are confidential by law. They are not published, not searchable, and not disclosed to anyone outside the USPTO. Guertin had told almost no one about the filing. This was his first patent. He was protecting it.
On March 31, 2021 — exactly twelve days later — Stephan Trojansky, president of Scanline VFX, filed a near-identical provisional patent application. Both applications describe the same core system: a person walking on a treadmill mounted on a rotating platform, synchronized with a virtual camera that rotates inversely, creating the illusion of an infinite camera orbit around a stationary subject.
How did anyone know? Provisional patents are not published. They are not searchable. They exist only as confidential filings within the USPTO. There is no legitimate public mechanism by which Trojansky could have known about Guertin's application twelve days after it was filed.
The two patents cover the same seven core functions: (1) movement platform, (2) display system, (3) camera synchronization, (4) real-time tracking, (5) environment response, (6) compositing, and (7) digital twin. Netflix's version uses broader terminology — "omnidirectional treadmill" — but covers functionally identical subject matter. Netflix's patent never specifies the rotation mechanism. Guertin's is narrower and more specific — it defines the rotating treadmill directly. But both require the center rotation axis (the turntable) for the camera orbiting to work at all — the rotation is the entire trick that makes the concept function.
The Netflix application appears deliberately written to be as far away from Guertin's simple, direct description as possible — even though it describes the same physical system. Guertin says "rotating treadmill." Netflix says "omnidirectional treadmill." But a few key passages betray it: references to synchronized camera orbiting that only work with a center rotation axis. You can't orbit a camera around a walking subject in sync with their movement without rotating the platform. The physics demand it.
Open the Netflix granted patent (US 11,810,254 B2) and look at page 1. At the very top of "References Cited" — above every other reference — sits Guertin's US 11,577,177. The patent office itself documents the relationship.
From Filing to Acquisition to Grant
The twelve-day gap does not exist in isolation. It sits inside a corporate timeline that connects Scanline VFX, Eyeline Studios, Netflix, and Paul Debevec — all moving in coordinated sequence around Guertin's invention.
597 Searches. 35 Months. A Dormant Account Nobody Should Have Found.
In late 2020, Guertin set up a LinkedIn profile alongside his MattGuertin.com portfolio. He posted his Chicago 3D scan project and planned to use the platform to find new work opportunities in entertainment technology. Then InfiniSet happened. The idea consumed everything. He dropped all social media entirely — including LinkedIn. The profile was never completed, never promoted, never used for outreach. His only connections were a handful of LA entertainment colleagues from his previous six years on the West Coast.
He would still see the random emails appear from time to time in his inbox — automated LinkedIn alerts notifying him that someone had searched for his profile. But he never officially cared or took notice. Not until late 2023, after his first defense attorney had already told him on May 22, 2023 that he had "powerful people keeping an eye on him" and after he discovered the SIGGRAPH 2023 video. Only then did he go back and look at what had actually been accumulating in his email.
What he found: 597 profile searches across 35 months. All documented via DKIM-authenticated LinkedIn notification emails — 99 emails, each listing who searched for him that week. Every email dual-signed by LinkedIn: linkedin.com (2048-bit RSA) and maile.linkedin.com (1024-bit RSA). Single-hop TLS 1.2 from LinkedIn to ProtonMail. Zero intermediary hops. Zero indicators of forgery. 194 distinct searching entities identified across government, military, defense, intelligence, medical, financial, media, education, gaming, and technology sectors.
Peak: 25 searches on July 20, 2023 — 4.22 standard deviations above the weekly mean of 6.03. This is the exact same day the Petition for Judicial Commitment was filed against Guertin. The probability of this coincidence occurring randomly is less than 0.002%.
Pre-Publication Searches: They Knew Before It Was Public
The most significant searches arrived before Guertin's patent was even published on September 22, 2022. His provisional filing was confidential. His LinkedIn was dormant. He had never promoted it. Yet entities connected to military, defense, entertainment technology, and Netflix-affiliated companies were already searching for him.
On December 9, 2022, Guertin created an Internet Archive account ("PatentlyFalse") at approximately 2:45 AM, archived PhotoRobot.com, and observed the archive count change from 45 to 47 within roughly two hours. Within days, the University of Southern California and the US Army appeared in his LinkedIn searches — before he had told anyone about what he found, before he knew there was fraud, before he had contacted any authorities.
On December 17, 2022 — eight days after Guertin's Internet Archive activity — LinkedIn reports 9 new searches. USC and the US Army are among the searchers. Guertin had not yet contacted the FBI (January 12), the Secret Service (January 15), or any investigator. He had not yet been arrested. He had barely begun to understand what he was looking at. But someone already knew he was looking.
DARPA, DIA, Forcepoint — Aligned to Case Events
The LinkedIn searches were not random. Military, defense, and intelligence-affiliated entities appeared on dates that align precisely with key events in Guertin's criminal case. Every date below is verified through DKIM-authenticated email timestamps.
Additional military-affiliated entities appearing across the 35-month window include Lockheed Martin (multiple appearances), USAF (4+ appearances), US Army Reserves, and gaming sector entities with defense contracts. The 2021–22 spikes align with patent milestones. The 2023 spikes align with competency and commitment proceedings. The correlation is not subtle.
The "Former CIA" Welder and Special Operations Equipment
During the physical construction of the InfiniSet turntable prototype in early 2022, Guertin hired a welder to help fabricate the custom aluminum frame. The welder self-identified as "former CIA" and brought military-affiliated equipment to the workspace.
Photographs taken during the welding sessions show ODF Optronics equipment — special operations defense gear — sitting on top of the InfiniSet prototype during fabrication. ODF Optronics manufactures tactical surveillance and reconnaissance systems for military and intelligence applications. The equipment was not Guertin's. It arrived with the welder.
This is documented in the federal case affidavit filed under penalty of perjury. The relevant pages detail Guertin's account of the welder's self-identified background and the military equipment brought to his workspace:
"You Have Some Very Powerful People Keeping an Eye on You"
On May 22, 2023, at 3:13 PM, Guertin's first defense attorney, Bruce Rivers, told him directly:
"You have some very powerful people keeping an eye on you."
Bruce Rivers to Matt Guertin — May 22, 2023, 3:13 PM
This was said to a client the court was simultaneously calling delusional for believing people were watching him. Rivers — retained for $10,000 in February 2023 — would later refuse to withdraw, refuse to hire a neutral evaluator, and refuse to follow client strategy. He was eventually discharged as counsel. Rivers knew Guertin for approximately 25 years.
Netflix Presents a Rotating Treadmill — at the World's Largest Graphics Conference
On August 10, 2023, Guertin discovered this SIGGRAPH 2023 presentation while researching the duplicate patent. At the 59-minute mark, Paul Debevec — credited as "Chief Research Officer, Netflix Eyeline Studios" and "Adjunct Research Professor, USC ICT" — presents a rotating treadmill system that mirrors Guertin's InfiniSet patent. Trojansky appears in the "Special Thanks" credits.
Guertin immediately sent an emergency email to his patent attorney, Amanda Prose, detailing the SIGGRAPH video, the many problems and violations of USPTO Duty of Candor, and the connections between USC Cinema, Debevec, and the entities that had been searching for him on LinkedIn. Prose replied positively within 2 minutes.
Three hours and 24 minutes later, WCK's managing partner Peter Sawicki replied instead — informing Guertin that the firm was dropping him and that Amanda Prose no longer worked there. Guertin's patent attorney of over two years, gone. The same week, the US Air Force and US Department of State appeared for the 4th time in his LinkedIn searches.
August 16, 2023: WCK filed its Official Notice of Withdrawal from Guertin's patent matters. On the same day, four actions were taken on Netflix's patent at the USPTO — including an IDS filing and new references. Guertin lost patent representation and Netflix's patent advanced on the exact same day.
Debevec's Supposed 2006 Papers. His Actual Patents Don't Mention It.
Two papers supposedly published in 2006 and attributed to Paul Debevec's USC Institute for Creative Technologies group describe rotating treadmill concepts for virtual cinematography. A third version appears on Army.mil: "Relighting Character Motion For Photoreal Simulations" (DTIC ADM002075) — conveniently connecting this research to military simulation. If these papers are genuine, they establish that the rotating treadmill concept existed in Debevec's world 15 years before Guertin filed. If they are not — and there is substantial reason to question their provenance — they represent fabricated prior art planted to retroactively undermine Guertin's patent.
MAXQDA linguistic analysis of 530 words across 7 documents reveals a pattern that is difficult to explain if the papers are legitimate: the rotating treadmill concept appears 220 times in these supposed academic papers but is completely absent from Debevec's three actual Light Stage patents (US7044613B2, US7436403B2, US8988599B2) — patents that were filed, examined, and granted through the normal USPTO process.
| Term | In "2006" Papers | In Actual Patents |
|---|---|---|
| Treadmill | 220 | 0 |
| Turntable | 125 | 0 |
| Omnidirectional | 101 | 0 |
| Rotating treadmill | 18 | 0 |
| Plenoptic function | 14 | 0 |
Ask yourself: if you had published groundbreaking research on rotating treadmills for virtual cinematography in 2006, connected to military funding, at one of the world's leading research institutions — why would you never patent it? For 15 years? While patenting everything else? And then watch someone else patent the exact same concept in 2021, only for your employer to file a duplicate 12 days later?
The simpler explanation: the papers didn't exist in 2006. They were planted retroactively to create the appearance of prior art — a digital paper trail backdated into academic databases to undermine a patent that wasn't supposed to be noticed. Guertin has collected approximately 250 academic papers from this space. The only ones that contain the word "treadmill" are the supposedly Debevec-authored ones. Every other paper in the field uses different terminology for different systems.
Under 37 CFR § 1.56 (Duty of Candor): If the 2006 papers are legitimate prior art, Netflix and Trojansky had a legal duty to disclose them to the USPTO during prosecution. They did not. Failure to disclose material prior art constitutes inequitable conduct under the Therasense standard. If the papers are fabricated, that constitutes fraud on the USPTO — a federal offense.
Either way, there is a violation. There is no version of the facts where the non-disclosure is acceptable. Either they hid real prior art, or they manufactured fake prior art. Both are crimes.