US 10677611

I'll search for the specific patent number and any current litigation or docket information.

Let me run additional targeted searches to check for any litigation or docket activity.

Summary of US Patent 10,677,611 B2

Search note on scope and dockets: I ran targeted searches for the exact identifiers "10677611" / "US10677611" / "10,677,611" together with litigation and CAFC terms. I found no results tying this patent to any district-court case, IPR, or CAFC 2026 docket. The only docket-adjacent hits returned were unrelated patents (e.g., Netlist, Seakeeper/Dometic, Samsung/Netlist, Philips v. Quectel), none of which involve 10,677,611. I cannot confirm the absence of litigation authoritatively — Google Patents / USPTO public records show only prosecution and maintenance events — so treat "no litigation found" as a search limitation, not a verified negative.

All substantive data below comes from the authoritative full text you supplied.

Abstract (as published)

The invention relates to a circuit arrangement and method for reading a capacitive vibratory gyroscope having at least one primary mass and at least one secondary mass connected to the primary mass. The circuit arrangement comprises a delta-sigma modulator with at least one control loop providing a force feedback that resets the secondary mass into its resting state by applying a reset signal, the reset signal forming a modulator output signal; a correction unit receiving the modulator output signal and generating a corrected modulator output signal corresponding to an actually acting feedback force; a demodulator connected to the correction unit for demodulating the corrected signal; and a filter arrangement to filter the demodulated signal and output a rotary rate signal.

Field / technical background

Micromachined Coriolis vibratory gyroscopes (CVG) with capacitive readout; use of a single-bit electromechanical ΔΣ modulator (emΔΣM) whose feedback force counteracts the secondary-mass deflection. The patent identifies that the reset/feedback force is not temporally constant in magnitude because of (a) the primary-mass oscillation (Eq. 6: F_ges,dr = F_ges·(1 + α·x_p/l₀)) and (b) the mode-matching/frequency-control voltage U_Mode (Eqs. 7–13, 21). This produces noise convolution into the signal band (IBN) and scale-factor change. The invention compensates digitally by weighting each emΔΣM output sample with the mean force actually acting during that sample, rather than treating feedback levels as constant. It distinguishes this from the multi-bit DAC-nonlinearity calibration approach of Schreier & Temes and from the analog linearization of Dong/Kraft/Redman-White (FIG. 8).

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Claim 1 — A read-out circuit for a capacitive vibratory gyroscope with transversely oriented primary and secondary masses. It requires:

1. a delta-sigma modulator with at least one control loop whose force feedback resets the secondary mass to its resting position by outputting a reset signal;
2. a correction unit that receives the reset signal and generates a corrected modulator output signal corresponding to the actually impacting reset force, where the correction unit has a multiplying element that multiplies the modulator output signal by (i) a known value of the position of the primary mass and (ii) a weighting factor;
3. a demodulator connected to the correction unit that demodulates the corrected signal; and
4. a filter arrangement that filters the demodulated signal and outputs the gyroscope's rotary-rate signal.

Claim 7 — A Coriolis vibratory gyroscope (the device), comprising at least one primary mass and at least one connected secondary mass (primary excited to vibrate; secondary deflected transversely upon rotation about the sensitive axis) plus the same circuit arrangement recited in claim 1 (delta-sigma modulator with force-feedback reset signal; correction unit with multiplying element using known primary-mass position and a weighting factor; demodulator; filter arrangement outputting the rotary-rate signal).

Claim 8 — A narrower/different-scope circuit arrangement (same gyroscope context) comprising only: (1) the delta-sigma modulator with the force-feedback control loop outputting the reset signal, and (2) the correction unit that receives the reset signal and generates the corrected modulator output signal corresponding to the actually impacting reset force, the correction unit having the multiplying element that multiplies the modulator output signal by the known primary-mass position value and a weighting factor. (It omits the demodulator and filter arrangement, which are added by dependent claims 9 and 10.)

Dependent claims

• 2 — the correction unit has an adding part that adds the output of the multiplying element to the reset signal to form the corrected signal.
• 3 — the demodulator comprises a look-up table (LUT).
• 4 — the correction unit and demodulator are implemented by a combined LUT.
• 5 — the filter arrangement is a low-pass filter and a decimation filter in series.
• 6 — further comprising a controller controlling the secondary resonance frequency, with the correction unit's multiplying element connected to an output of that controller.
• 9 — adds a demodulator connected to the correction unit (from claim 8).
• 10 — adds a filter arrangement outputting the rotary-rate signal (from claim 9).

Notable cited art (US/foreign) and non-patent literature

Cited patents/publications include DE 10 2005 046 699 A1, DE 10 2011 005 745 A1, US 2009/0066550 A1 (Hammerschmidt), US 7,825,840 B2 (Bosch), US 5,440,269 A (Samsung), US 7,891,245 B2 (Panasonic), US 2014/0060185 A1 (Hahn-Schickard), US 8,857,259 B2, US 9,696,338 B2, US 2016/0202061 A1, and DE 10 2011 055 745 A1. Non-patent citations include Schreier & Temes (Understanding Delta-Sigma Data Converters, Wiley 2005, p. 200), Sarhang-Nejad & Temes (IEEE JSSC 28(6):648–660, 1993), Ezekwe & Boser (ISSCC 2008), Northemann et al. (ISCAS 2010), Dong/Kraft/Redman-White (J. Micromech. Microeng. 16(6):p54, 2006), plus EPO and German search reports.

Uncertainty flags

• I could not locate any CAFC 2026 docket or district-court action involving 10,677,611; no such activity appears in the retrievable records, but this should not be read as conclusive.
• The published title's oddities ("Circular," "eletromechanical") are reproduced literally per the source; the DE priority title uses "Circuit Arrangement and Method for the Digital Correction of Modulation Effects in Electromechanical Delta-Sigma Modulators."
• Assignee/inventor names are given as recorded in the assignment data (REEL/FRAME 040693/0693; signing dates 2016-11-10 to 2016-11-16).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10,677,611.

Initial searches returned mostly unrelated results. Let me search more targeted sources.

Let me check specific litigation databases directly.

Summary of Findings: US Patent 10,677,611 — Litigation Search

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation involving US Patent 10,677,611 (or its family members). No district court case, ITC action, CAFC appeal, or PTAB proceeding naming this patent was located in the sources I searched.

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The patent at issue (verified from the authoritative full text)

Subject matter: a circuit arrangement for reading a capacitive vibratory (Coriolis) MEMS gyroscope using an electromechanical delta-sigma modulator, with a digital correction unit that weights the feedback bit stream to compensate modulation/noise-convolution effects caused by the primary vibration and mode-matching control voltage.

What I searched, and what came back

1. General web searches for "US10677611 litigation," "10677611 patent lawsuit/infringement," and "'611 patent gyroscope litigation" — returned only unrelated matters (unrelated patents numbered '106, '611, '823, etc.; a Brazilian company-registry entry; a UK Companies House filing) and no case involving this patent.
2. Unified Patents litigation portal (site-specific query) — zero results for "10677611."
3. CourtListener / Justia / PACER-derived content — no docket referencing US 10,677,611 or "10,677,611" was found.
4. Assignee-focused searches (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg / Universität Freiburg MEMS gyroscope lawsuits) — surfaced only patent-family and prosecution documents (e.g., the related DE 10 2018 219 333 B3, US 9,535,084 B2 to Continental Teves/Freiburg, US 11,268,828 B2), but no infringement actions.

Conclusion

• Plaintiff(s): None identified.
• Defendant(s): None identified.
• Jurisdiction: N/A.
• Case number: N/A.
• Filing date: N/A.
• Outcome/status: N/A — no litigation known.

This is consistent with the profile of the patent: it is a university-owned (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), rather technical MEMS-gyroscope readout patent that appears to have been maintained for defensive/licensing purposes rather than asserted. The Freiburg group has historically published this work with industry collaborators (e.g., Continental Teves, Hahn-Schickard), which further reduces the likelihood of adversarial enforcement.

Important caveats

I must be explicit about the limits of this search rather than overstate certainty:

• I could not directly query PACER or a subscription litigation database (e.g., Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, Derwent LitAlert), which are the most reliable sources for a definitive "no litigation" answer. My searches relied on public web indexes, the Unified Patents portal, and CourtListener-type results.
• Because the verified family includes US 11,268,828 B2 (a divisional with the same priority), EP 3153817 B1, and DE 10 2015 219 458 A1, a rights holder could in principle assert a related family member rather than the '611 patent itself. I found no suit on those either, but a targeted Docket Navigator/Lex Machina check on each family member would be needed to state this with full confidence.
• Given the grant date (2020-06-09) and the 6-year damages window, any litigation would necessarily be from mid-2020 onward.

Recommendation: For a definitive negative, run the patent number plus all family members through PACER's "Nature of Suit 830 (Patent)" search and a commercial litigation database. Based on every public source I could access, however, the answer is: no known litigation.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB activity" signal with a targeted search before writing up.

PTAB / AIA Trial Landscape — US 10,677,611 B2

Patent: US 10,677,611 B2 — "Circular system and method for the digital correction of modulation effects in eletromechanical delta-sigma modulators"
Patent Owner: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (original assignee; no recorded reassignment to a monetization entity)
Inventors: Michael Maurer; Yiannos Manoli
Appl. No.: 15/287,321 · Filed: 2016-10-06 · Priority: 2015-10-08 (DE 102015219458.2) · Granted: 2020-06-09
Status: Active · Adjusted expiration 2036-12-16 · 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2023-11-30
Source of record: USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this task; corroborated against https://patents.google.com/patent/US10677611/en

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — there are no IPRs, no PGRs, and no CBM reviews on US 10,677,611, in any status (no active, no claims-invalidated, no claims-sustained, no settled, no institution-denied). The bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant is therefore not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "the claims are canceled" — it is "the claims are entirely untested at the PTAB, all ten claims are live and presumptively valid, and the prior-art record has not been developed by anyone." That cuts both ways: you get no free invalidity win to inherit, but you also face no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, no adverse claim constructions adopted by a panel, and no crowded prior-art space.

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Verification performed

Because the structured ODP block is a negative result — which is exactly the kind of result that is usually an indexing artifact — I ran independent searches before accepting it:

No petition, institution decision, FWD, or Federal Circuit appeal referencing this patent surfaced. I also found no evidence of PTAB activity on the sibling divisional US 11,268,828 B2 (appl. 16/875,712, filed 2020-05-15, granted 2022-03-08, same priority date and same inventors) — though flagging that my confidence is lower on the '828 because the structured block covered only the '611.

Confidence statement: I can state with high confidence that the ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" feed returns nothing for the '611. I cannot rule out a very recently filed petition that has not yet been indexed by ODP — that is the one scenario the structured feed is systematically blind to. If you need certainty, pull PTAB E2E directly (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and check the Patent Center transaction history at https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ for the '611 and the '828.

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No proceedings — evidentiary posture

(No proceeding number exists; none is invented here)

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: N/A
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: none issued — no claim of US 10,677,611 has ever been construed or adjudicated by the PTAB
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: none. No CAFC appeal exists for this patent (nothing to appeal).
• Defensive value: Zero inherited invalidity. Zero inherited estoppel. A defendant must build its own record from scratch — but has a completely open field, including the § 102/§ 103 art that the examiner cited on the face of the patent and that the specification itself distinguishes.

Claim-level invalidation status (verbatim from the record — i.e., nothing):

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Strategic summary

Claim survival map. All ten claims survive. Nothing has been canceled, disclaimed, or amended post-grant. Because the '611 issued from an application filed 2016-10-06 (post-AIA), the PGR window closed on 2021-03-09 (nine months after the 2020-06-09 grant) — post-grant review is time-barred, so a challenger is limited to IPR (35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103 on patents and printed publications only). IPR remains available at any time for a party not time-barred under § 315(b). The patent is active and the 4th-year fee was paid on 2023-11-30, so this is not a lapsed patent where the absence of IPRs is explained by abandonment — the absence is genuine.

Estoppel landscape — this is the good news for a defendant. With no prior petitioner, no one is estopped under § 315(e)(1) or § 315(e)(2), and no real-party-in-interest or privy chain has been created that could bind you. Practically, that means:

• Every ground of unpatentability under §§ 102/103 is on the table, including grounds that a first petitioner would have had to cram into a single petition to avoid redundancy.
• The substantive references the applicant itself put at issue are fully available — notably DE 10 2011 005 745 A1 (the Universität Freiburg decoupled quadrature/resonance-frequency control via sigma-delta modulation, US counterpart US 9,535,084 B2 to Continental Teves, cited on the face of the '611 and used as the X/Y reference in the EPO search report), DE 10 2005 046 699 A1 / B4 (the force-feedback sigma-delta readout arrangement, cited on the face), US 2009/0066550 A1 (Hammerschmidt, Sigma-delta modulator for operating sensors, cited on the face), US 7,891,245 B2 (Panasonic, cited on the face), and the non-patent literature the specification expressly distinguishes: Yufeng Dong, Michael Kraft, William Redman-White, "Force feedback linearization for higher-order electromechanical sigma-delta modulators," J. Micromech. Microeng. 16(6):54 (2006), Ezekwe & Boser, ISSCC 2008, and Schreier & Temes, Understanding Delta-Sigma Data Converters (Wiley 2005) p. 200.
• Note the specification's own admission at the "known correction circuit" / FIG. 8 passage: the Dong/Kraft/Redman-White reference teaches analog readjustment of feedback voltages to linearize feedback force, and Schreier & Temes p. 200 teaches measuring and digitally correcting DAC output values per input code. Those admissions are prime § 103 fodder against a claim set whose novelty turns on how the correction is applied.

Pattern signals — none to read. There is no repeat petitioner, no serial-IPR campaign, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar filing), and no PTAB appeal activity by the patent owner. The patent owner is a German university, not an NPE or a defensive aggregator, and I found no litigation campaign using this patent. That profile is consistent with a research-strength portfolio patent that has not yet been asserted rather than one that has been through the PTAB wringer. The strategic read: the absence of IPRs here reflects non-assertion, not proven strength. Well-asserted patents attract IPRs; this one hasn't been asserted yet. If you are looking at a demand letter or an infringement suit that cites the '611, you may be the first party to take it on — which means you also get to choose the grounds, the expert, and the claim construction, without stepping on anyone else's record.

Two structural notes for your theory of the case. First, claim 1 is tightly drafted: it requires a correction unit having "a multiplying element that is configured to multiply the modulator output signal with a known value of a position of the primary mass and a weighting factor." That is a specific architectural limitation, and the specification ties the weighting values to the 8:1 sampling-to-primary-frequency ratio (equations (18)–(20), G₁:₈ = 1 + A_ges·0.924·[1 0.414 −0.414 −1 −1 −0.414 0.414 1]). A design that corrects the bit stream in a different domain, or that uses the U_Mode term without a primary-position value, may fall outside. Second, claims 8–10 are broader than claim 1 (claim 8 omits the demodulator entirely and does not require the filter arrangement), so an invalidity or design-around theory aimed only at claim 1 leaves claims 8–10 standing — address all three independents (1, 7, 8).

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Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the negative directly before you rely on it. Pull PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ for both application numbers 15/287,321 ('611) and 16/875,712 ('828), and check the Patent Center "Transactions" tab (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) for any post-grant filings. ODP indexing lag is the only realistic way the "no proceedings" result is wrong.

2. Do not expect an inherited win. There is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote. Nothing about the '611 has been adjudicated, so any statement to your client or to opposing counsel that the patent has "been invalidated" or has "survived IPRs" would be false.

3. Build the § 102/§ 103 record now if you have been served. Under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) you have one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement to file an IPR — that clock starts on service, not on receipt of a demand letter. Because no one else has filed, you are not blocked by § 315(a)(1) unless you filed a DJ action first, so sequence your declaratory-judgment and IPR filings carefully (a DJ action filed first is a statutory bar to instituting an IPR you later file).

4. Start from the applicant's own cited art. The '611's IDS and specification give you a ready-made § 103 backbone: DE 10 2011 005 745 A1 + Schreier & Temes p. 200 for "digitally correct the feedback level per sample"; Dong/Kraft/Redman-White 2006 for "linearize the feedback force to suppress noise convolution and harmonics"; Hammerschmidt US 2009/0066550 A1 for sigma-delta operation of a capacitive sensor. The claimed advance — per-sample digital reproduction of the mean force effect driven by primary-mass position and the mode-matching control voltage — is exactly what a combination of those teachings would suggest.

5. Preserve the claim 1 vs. claims 7/8 distinction in any challenge. Independent claim 7 adds a Coriolis vibratory gyroscope apparatus framing; independent claim 8 is materially broader than claim 1. A petition that challenges only claim 1 leaves the patent substantially asserted-capable, and its claims 8–10 untested for a future petitioner (who may then learn from your claim-construction loss).

6. Monitor for the first assertion. The trigger event to watch is a district court complaint or ITC complaint naming a Freiburg-licensed '611 or '828. That event both starts § 315(b) clocks for the defendants and — historically — is what causes the first IPR petition to appear.

Caveat: No proceeding numbers, panels, institution dates, or FWD dispositions are reported here because none exist. If a proceeding number ever appears for this patent, the authoritative claim-level outcome will be in the PTAB Final Written Decision at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ and any CAFC disposition will be on the Federal Circuit docket and mirrored at https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%2210677611%22 — both of which currently return nothing for US 10,677,611.

I'll research the assignment record for US patent 10,677,611, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing other sources.

Let me dig into the assignment records and cross-reference the family.

Let me verify the inventor affiliations and check for any additional records or family assignments.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US Patent 10,677,611 B2

Method note / sourcing. I reconstructed the chain from (1) the Google Patents legal-events block embedded in the authoritative full text provided, and (2) targeted web searches of USPTO-derived indexes (Justia, OnScope, Espacenet/EP register). I was not able to open an interactive query against the USPTO Patent Assignment Search / PEDS directly in this session, and I did not have access to the reel/frame image itself. Where a field (notably the correspondent of record) could not be retrieved, I say so rather than infer it. The one recorded assignment below is confirmed by the Google Patents legal-events entry (REEL/FRAME: 040693/0693, code AS, recorded 2016-12-20).

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Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — not present. There is no evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing, and no inventor-side retention of rights. Both inventors assigned to the university before issuance (executed Nov 2016, ~5 weeks after the Oct 2016 US filing) and the university is still the sole assignee. This is the classic "employed-inventor assigns to university" pattern, not a fire-sale precursor.

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAT FREIBURG (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany) — named as both original and current assignee in the record.
• Primary line of business: Public research university (Baden-Württemberg, Germany). The relevant unit is its Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) / Chair of Microelectronics (Prof. Manoli), a research group, not a product line.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No — not as the assignee. The claims cover a readout circuit arrangement (ΔΣ-modulator correction logic) for a capacitive vibratory gyroscope. The Freiburg group develops and publishes reference ASIC implementations and collaborates with industry partners (the related DE 10 2011 005 745 family is co-tied to Continental Teves / Hahn-Schickard work), but the university itself does not commercialize a gyroscope product. Any embodiment would be licensed to, or embodied in a partner's, silicon.
• Current status: Operating as an ongoing academic institution; the patent is Active with an adjusted expiration of 2036-12-16, and the 4th-year maintenance fee was paid 2023-11-30 (large entity). No dissolution, acquisition, or bankruptcy.

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Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center record for this patent contains a single assignment — the original inventor-to-university conveyance. There is no post-issuance chain.

• 2016-11-10 → 2016-11-16 (executed) / recorded 2016-12-20 — Reel 040693/0693
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest) — code AS
  • Assignor: MANOLI, YIANNOS; MAURER, MICHAEL (signing dates 2016-11-10 to 2016-11-16)
  • Assignee: ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAT FREIBURG (Germany)
  • Correspondent of record: Not retrievable from the sources available to me. The Google Patents legal-events entry records the reel/frame and the assignor/assignee but not the recording attorney/agent. I decline to guess a name. (Typical for a German-university filing would be in-house/university tech-transfer counsel or the firm that handled the US national-stage prosecution, but I have no record confirming this.)
  • Context: Original employment assignment — inventors convey their rights to their employer/university in the ordinary course at filing.

No other records. No security agreements, no mergers, no change-of-name, no licenses recorded, no releases, and — critically — no assignment of the patent out of the university. The STPP entries (2019–2020) are prosecution events, STCF is the grant, and MAFP is a maintenance-fee payment; none is a title transfer. The divisional US 11,268,828 B2 (App. No. 16/875,712, filed 2020-05-15) shows no separate assignment in the family data — it is listed only as a division of the '611 application and is understood to remain with the same university assignee. Family members EP 3153817 B1, ES 2694204 T3, and DE 10 2015 219 458 A1 likewise show no recorded transfer of ownership in the data I could access.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10677611
    2015 : Priority application filed in Germany
    2016 : US application filed
         : Inventors assign rights to Albert Ludwigs Universitaet Freiburg
    2020 : Patent granted
    2023 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — meaning, per the rubric, only the original assignment exists. The sole recorded event is the inventors' employment assignment to Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg at reel 040693/0693 (executed 2016-11-10–16, recorded 2016-12-20); the university remains the assignee of record, the patent is Active through 2036-12-16, and no post-issuance transfer, security interest, or license is recorded. There is therefore no ownership chain to evaluate for NPE behavior — the patent is still held by its original academic owner and, consistent with the prior litigation search, has not been asserted. (I flag one soft caveat: because the correspondent of record could not be retrieved, signal #3 is unresolved rather than affirmatively cleared, though with a single-record chain it cannot drive the verdict.)

Verify at: USPTO Patent Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search patent number 10677611); record also visible in the Google Patents legal-events block for US10677611B2. For a definitive check on family members, run 11,268,828, EP 3153817, and DE 10 2015 219 458 through the same portal.

I'll verify the cited references against public patent databases, then map each to the claims. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me verify the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,677,611 B2

Patent under analysis: US 10,677,611 B2, "Circular system and method for the digital correction of modulation effects in eletromechanical [sic] delta-sigma modulators" (App. 15/287,321; filed 2016-10-06; priority DE 10 2015 219 458.2, 2015-10-08; granted 2020-06-09; assignee Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg). Title and identifiers reproduced literally — not auto-corrected.

Sourcing note. Every citation below is taken from the authoritative front-page/citation list of the patent text you supplied (Google Patents "Citations," "Patent Citations," "Family Cites Families," and "Non-Patent Citations" blocks), so the bibliographic data are grounded in the record of the patent itself. I ran confirming web searches on the substantive references (DE 10 2011 005 745 / US 9,535,084; DE 10 2005 046 699; US 2009/0066550 / US 7,528,755; US 7,891,245). I reached the tool-step limit before retrieving full text for US 8,857,259; US 9,696,338; US 2016/0202061; US 7,825,840; US 2014/0060185; US 5,440,269, so for those the description relies on the citation title plus general knowledge, and I flag confidence accordingly. I did not fabricate any claim-disclosure that I could not support.

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The § 102 standard I am applying (why this matters here)

Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 requires a single reference to disclose every element of the claim, arranged as recited — not merely get close. This is decisive for the '611 because the point of novelty lives in a single limitation:

"…a correction unit … generating a corrected modulator output signal that corresponds to an actually impacting reset force, the correction unit has a multiplying element that is configured to multiply the modulator output signal with a known value of a position of the primary mass and a weighting factor." (claim 1; identical limitation in claims 7 and 8)

Every cited reference was cited against this patent by the examiner precisely because each discloses some, but not all, of the claimed architecture. Bottom line: on the record supplied, no cited reference anticipates claims 1, 7, 8, 9, or 10 under § 102. The references are § 103 building blocks. I identify below, for each, (i) what it discloses, (ii) the closest claim it touches, and (iii) whether — read most aggressively and in isolation — it could arguably anticipate any claim. Where I say "not § 102," I mean the reference lacks at least one recited element.

Claim-element key (used throughout):

Claims: 1 = A+B+C+D+E; 7 = gyroscope apparatus + A+B+C+D+E; 8 = A+B+C (no demod/filter); 9 = A+B+C+D; 10 = A+B+C+D+E. Claims 2–6 depend from claim 1; 2 = adding part; 3 = LUT demodulator; 4 = combined LUT; 5 = LPF + decimation in series; 6 = resonance-frequency controller feeding the multiplying element.

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A. U.S. patent documents cited

1. US 5,440,269 A — Samsung Electronics

• Full citation / dates: US 5,440,269 A, "Digital FM demodulator having an address circuit for a lookup table," Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Filed 1993-09-08; issued 1995-08-08.
• Description: A digital FM demodulator that uses a lookup table addressed by an incoming signal to perform demodulation. Cited only as prior art for the LUT-based demodulation concept.
• Potential § 102 target: Claim 3 (demodulator comprises a look-up table) and, tangentially, claim 4 (combined LUT). But claim 3 is dependent: it incorporates all of claim 1, including element C. US 5,440,269 discloses no gyroscope, no ΔΣ force-feedback loop, and no correction unit. It cannot anticipate any claim in full. Relevance is § 103 only — as evidence that a LUT demodulator was old.

2. DE 10 2005 046 699 A1 / B4 — Albert-Ludwig-Universität Freiburg (same assignee/inventor group)

• Full citation / dates: DE 10 2005 046 699 A1, "Circuit arrangement for reading e.g. capacitive accelerator sensor, has time-continuous sigma-delta converter with filter structure and feedback branch, where sensor is arranged between feedback branch and filter structure." Priority/filed 2005-09-29; published 2007-04-05 (B4 granted 2007-09-06). (Span. counterpart ES 2 533 460 T3.)
• Description (verified): A capacitive-sensor read-out in which the sensor sits inside the loop of a time-continuous ΣΔ converter, so the converter's feedback signals compensate, on average, the effect of the measurand on the sensor; the digital output is a measure of the force needed to null the proof-mass deflection. This is the origin of the "sensor-in-ΔΣ-loop / force-feedback = measurand" architecture that the '611 background adopts.
• Potential § 102 target: Discloses A (capacitive sensor readout; accelerometer/rotation-rate sensors named) and B (ΣΔ with feedback branch whose feedback compensates the measurand). The '611 specification itself cites it for exactly this. But it discloses no correction unit (C) and no multiplying element keyed to primary-mass position. Cannot anticipate claims 1/7/8/9/10. § 103 backbone reference for element B.

3. US 2009/0066550 A1 — Dirk Hammerschmidt (Infineon)

• Full citation / dates: US 2009/0066550 A1, "Sigma-delta modulator for operating sensors," Dirk Hammerschmidt; filed 2007-09-06; published 2009-03-12; granted as US 7,528,755 B2 on 2009-05-05; assignee Infineon Technologies AG. (DE counterpart DE 10 2007 038 717 A1/B4.)
• Description (verified): A ΣΔ modulator for a capacitive gyroscopic sensor (rotational-speed/yaw sensor) with a forward branch (loop filter + quantizer), a feedback branch, a signal source generating a "readout signal" equal to the sensor-electrode voltage during a measuring process, and a control unit that switches the feedback between the forward-branch output and the readout signal. It expressly notes that the known closed-loop mode uses the controller's restoring forces as the measure of the secondary oscillation, and requires information about the current position of the resonator.
• Potential § 102 target: Discloses A and B well (gyroscopic sensor, ΣΔ, force-feedback loop, restoring-force output). Touches the "position of the resonator" idea (relevant to element C's input), but has no correction unit that re-weights the output bit stream by an impacting reset force. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 reference for B and background.

4. US 7,825,840 B2 — Robert Bosch GmbH

• Full citation / dates: US 7,825,840 B2, "Delta sigma modulator," Robert Bosch GmbH; filed 2005-01-26; issued 2010-11-02.
• Description (from title/field; lower confidence — full text not retrieved): A ΔΣ modulator architecture. Generic ΔΣ art.
• Potential § 102 target: At most element B in isolation. No gyroscope, no correction unit, no multiplying element. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103/general-teaching reference at most.

5. US 7,891,245 B2 — Panasonic Corporation — the closest reference of record

• Full citation / dates: US 7,891,245 B2, "Inertial force sensor including a sense element, a drive circuit, a sigma-delta modulator and a signal processing circuit," Panasonic Corp.; filed 2006-11-22; issued 2011-02-22. (Family includes WO 2007/043503 A1; CN 101611548 B.)
• Description (verified): An angular-velocity sensor in which a ΣΔ modulator converts the sense signal into a 1-bit digital signal; a "corrected information generating circuit" detects the peak-to-peak of the monitor (drive/primary) signal and compares it with a reference to generate correction information; a signal-processing circuit operates the 1-bit bit stream with that correction information to convert it into a multi-bit signal; a digital filter then filters it. The patent states that because the signal is 1-bit, "multiplication processing … is generally carried out, is not required," so the magnification is applied by substituting the magnification for the "1" — i.e., the bit stream is effectively weighted by a factor derived from the primary/monitor oscillation instead of 1/−1. The stated purpose is to eliminate a drive-side AGC and suppress temperature-driven amplitude fluctuation.
• Why it is the closest: This is structurally the nearest thing in the cited art to the '611's core idea — digitally re-weighting each ΣΔ output sample with a factor that reflects the primary oscillation, rather than treating the feedback levels as constant. A challenger could argue this reads onto element C of claim 8 (multiply the modulator output by a primary-motion-derived value).
• Why it still does not anticipate (my assessment): (i) The factor is derived from the peak-to-peak amplitude of the monitor signal, not from a "known value of a position of the primary mass" (the '611 uses the instantaneous position x_p per sample, per Eq. 6/18 — G_N = 1 + A_ges·cos(2π/8·(N+0.5))). (ii) The reference's purpose is drive-amplitude normalization, not reproducing the "actually impacting reset force." (iii) It applies one primary-derived correction, whereas claim 8 recites multiplying by both a primary-position value and a weighting factor. Under the all-elements rule, these gaps defeat a clean § 102 case; Panasonic is better cast as a § 103 reference (optionally combined with US 2009/0066550 and Schreier & Temes) than as an anticipatory reference.
• Potential § 102 target: Claim 8 – arguable but I assess it as failing; claims 1/7 (needing D + E) not anticipated.

6. DE 10 2011 005 745 A1 — Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg / Continental Teves — the key mode-matching reference

• Full citation / dates: DE 10 2011 005 745 A1, "Method for the decoupled control of the quadrature and the resonant frequency of a micro-mechanical rotation rate sensor by means of sigma-delta modulation." Priority 2010-03-17; published 2011-09-22. US counterpart US 9,535,084 B2 (Egretzberger, Kugl, Mair, Maurer, Manoli, Northemann; assignees Continental Teves AG & Co. oHG + Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg), granted 2017-01-03; EP 2 547 985 B1.
• Description (verified): Solves the coupling between quadrature, secondary-resonance-frequency, and reset/restoring control by nonlinearly transforming the input variables (a root/square-root relationship between the digital control value and the applied voltage) so that each of the reset (u_S), quadrature (u_c) and frequency (u_T) forces depends linearly on only its own digital value — the exact scheme the '611 describes in its Eqs. (14)–(17) and identifies as the starting point it improves on.
• Potential § 102 target: This is the X/Y-type reference (it is the closest art cited in the EPO search). It discloses separate reset/quadrature/frequency control of a ΣΔ-modulated rate sensor — i.e., it is the element-B ecosystem plus the U_Mode control that claim 6 references. But it is a method of transforming voltages, and it achieves decoupling in the analog feedback domain; it does not disclose a digital correction unit (C) that post-corrects the modulator output bit stream, and it expressly lacks the primary-position multiplying element. So it cannot anticipate claim 1 or claim 6 (which incorporates claim 1). It is the strongest § 103 reference, especially when combined with the '611's own admissions (Schreier & Temes p. 200: "correct the digital feedback value").
• Note the irony: the '611 specification concedes that the DE '745 approach "shows a possibility of eliminating this problem" but requires high-resolution DACs and root calculations — facts the applicant used to distinguish over it. That concession is itself a § 103 lever against the '611.

7. DE 10 2011 055 745 A1 — Walter Back (appears to be a spurious citation)

• Full citation / dates: DE 10 2011 055 745 A1, "Route structure for transportation pipe e.g. petroleum pipe…," Walter Back; filed 2011-11-25; published 2013-05-29.
• Description: A pipeline/pipe-support structure — mechanically and technically unrelated to gyroscopes, ΔΣ modulators, or capacitive sensing.
• Potential § 102 target: None. I flag this as an apparent citation error in the record (its number differs from the substantive DE 10 2011 005 745 A1 by one digit). It has no § 102 or § 103 relevance and should not be relied on. (Reproduced literally; I am not auto-correcting it.)

8. US 2014/0060185 A1 — Hahn-Schickard-Gesellschaft

• Full citation / dates: US 2014/0060185 A1, "Device for Measuring a Yaw Rate," Hahn-Schickard-Gesellschaft für Angewandte Forschung E.V.; priority 2010-12-02; published 2014-03-06.
• Description (from title/field; lower confidence): A yaw-rate (gyroscope) measurement device. Relevant to the gyroscope read-out context (element A).
• Potential § 102 target: At most element A. No correction unit / multiplying element disclosed in the citation record. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 context reference.

9. US 8,857,259 B2 — Industrial Technology Research Institute

• Full citation / dates: US 8,857,259 B2, "Reading circuit of gyroscope," ITRI; filed 2011-12-26; issued 2014-10-14.
• Description (from title; lower confidence — full text not retrieved): A gyroscope read-out circuit.
• Potential § 102 target: Element A (and possibly B) at most. No digital correction unit keyed to primary-mass position. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 context reference.

10. US 2016/0202061 A1 — Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (same research group)

• Full citation / dates: US 2016/0202061 A1, "Method and Circuit For The Time-Continuous Detection Of The Position Of The Sensor Mass With Simultaneous Feedback For Capacitive Sensors," Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg; priority 2013-09-20; published 2016-07-14.
• Description (from title; lower confidence): Time-continuous detection of the sensor-mass position while simultaneously applying feedback, for capacitive sensors. This is the group's enabling art for obtaining a known, current mass position during feedback operation.
• Potential § 102 target: Feeds directly into element C's input ("known value of a position of the primary mass") and into element B — but it is a position-sensing/feedback circuit, not a downstream digital correction unit weighting the modulator output by the impacting reset force. Cannot anticipate any claim. Strong § 103 reference for how the primary-position input is obtained.

11. US 9,696,338 B2 — Fuji Electric Co., Ltd.

• Full citation / dates: US 9,696,338 B2, "Capacitance detection circuit," Fuji Electric Co., Ltd.; filed 2011-11-15; issued 2017-07-04.
• Description (from title; lower confidence — full text not retrieved): A capacitive-detection (capacitance-to-voltage) circuit.
• Potential § 102 target: Element A infrastructure (capacitive detection) at most. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 context reference.

12. DE 10 2012 222 225 B3 — Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (filed-under "Family Cites Families")

• Full citation / dates: DE 10 2012 222 225 B3, "Drive and compensation circuit for capacitive MEMS structures," Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg; filed 2012-12-04; published 2014-01-02.
• Description (from title/field; lower confidence): A drive-and-compensation circuit for capacitive MEMS structures — i.e., the analog drive/compensation-side counterpart to the '611's digital correction.
• Potential § 102 target: Context for elements A/B. No digital correction unit with multiplying element. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 context reference (and note it is another same-assignee family document, consistent with a research-group portfolio).

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B. Non-patent literature cited

These are cited by the examiner/on the face and are the most dangerous § 103 material, because the '611 specification itself distinguishes them — an admission pattern that supplies motive to combine.

N1. Schreier & Temes, Understanding Delta-Sigma Data Converters, Wiley, New York, 2005, p. 200

• Description: For multi-bit ΔΣ modulators, teaches that the DAC's actual output values can be measured per input code and stored, then used during operation to represent the emitted DAC value more accurately in the digital part — i.e., digital correction of the feedback level.
• Potential § 102 target: Directly relevant to the concept of digitally correcting the feedback value. But it teaches a constant corrective value per DAC input code and is directed to multi-bit DAC nonlinearity — the '611 expressly says it is "not purposeful for multi-bit ΔΣM to assign a constant corrective value to each input code" and that a new per-sample correction is the invention. Cannot anticipate any claim (no gyroscope, no primary-position term, no per-sample mean-force reproduction). Prime § 103 reference.

N2. M. Sarhang-Nejad & G. C. Temes, "A high-resolution multibit ΣΔ ADC with digital correction and relaxed amplifier requirements," IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits 28(6):648–660, 1993

• Description: Multi-bit ΣΔ ADC architecture with digital correction of DAC errors and relaxed analog requirements.
• Potential § 102 target: Concept of digital correction of a ΔΣ feedback path (element C general idea). No gyroscope, no primary-mass-position weighting. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 reference.

N3. Y. Dong, M. Kraft, W. Redman-White, "Force feedback linearization for higher-order electromechanical sigma-delta modulators," J. Micromech. Microeng. 16(6):54, 2006

• Description (via the '611's own FIG. 8 discussion): For an acceleration sensor, the position of the sensor mass (V_dis) is sensed via a C/V converter and analog low-pass, then used to readjust the applied feedback voltages ("V_dis·K_L") so the feedback force stays near-constant, linearizing the system and suppressing higher harmonics.
• Potential § 102 target: Discloses the purpose (linearize feedback force to remove modulation artifacts) and a position-based correction — but the correction is analog (adjusting feedback voltages), on an accelerometer, not a digital post-correction of the modulator bit stream in a gyroscope. The '611 repeatedly frames its contribution as the digital counterpart to this: "…it would mean a work-intensive analogous creation of the high feedback voltages." Cannot anticipate any claim. This is, in my view, the single most important § 103 reference — a one-reference-plus-ordinary-skill theory ("digitize the Dong et al. position-based feedback-force correction; implement the Schreier–Temes per-code digital correction per sample") is the natural obviousness attack on claims 1/7/8.

N4. C. D. Ezekwe & B. E. Boser, "A Mode-Matching Closed-Loop Vibratory-Gyroscope Readout Interface with a 0.004°/s/√Hz Noise Floor over a 50 Hz Band," IEEE ISSCC 2008, p. 58 ff.

• Description: A mode-matched closed-loop vibratory-gyroscope read-out interface using injected test signals about the signal band to detect secondary resonance. This is the art the '611 cites for the test-signal / mode-matching context of claims 6 and FIG. 9.
• Potential § 102 target: Element B ecosystem + mode-matching control context (claim 6 framing). No digital correction unit. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 background.

N5. T. Northemann, M. Maurer, S. Rombach, A. Buhmann, Y. Manoli, "Drive and sense interface for gyroscopes based on bandpass sigma-delta modulators," IEEE ISCAS 2010, pp. 3264–3267

• Description: Drive-and-sense interface for gyroscopes using bandpass ΣΔ modulators, with AGC for the primary amplitude — cited in the '611 background for element B and for the primary-amplitude regulation context.
• Potential § 102 target: Element B and the primary-loop context. No correction unit. Cannot anticipate any claim. § 103 background (and note it is by two of the same inventors, i.e., the group's own prior work).

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C. Synthesis — which claims are actually at risk, and on what theory

Direct answers

1. Does any cited reference anticipate claim 1, 7, 8, 9, or 10 under § 102? No. Each lacks at least the claim-1/7/8 core limitation C (a correction unit with a multiplying element multiplying the modulator output by a known primary-mass position and a weighting factor, to reproduce the actually impacting reset force). The closest, US 7,891,245 B2, is missing the primary-position term (it uses drive amplitude) and is purpose-limited to AGC elimination — arguable at most against claim 8, and I assess it as non-anticipatory.

2. What is the real risk? § 103. The examiner's cited art, combined with the '611's own specification admissions, frames the claimed advance as an obvious digital implementation of (a) the position-based feedback-force linearization of Dong/Kraft/Redman-White and (b) the per-code digital feedback correction of Schreier & Temes — applied to the mode-matched gyroscope of DE 10 2011 005 745 / Ezekwe & Boser. The independent claims most exposed are 1 and 8; claim 7 adds only apparatus framing.

3. Claim-specific weak spots for a challenger: claim 3/4 (LUT / combined LUT demodulation) — old (US 5,440,269; standard ΔΣ practice); claim 5 (LPF + decimation) — ubiquitous; claim 6 (resonance controller feeding the multiplier) — squarely prefigured by DE 10 2011 005 745's frequency-control channel.

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D. Honest limitations of this analysis

• I could not retrieve full text for US 7,825,840; US 8,857,259; US 9,696,338; US 2014/0060185; US 2016/0202061 before hitting the tool-step cap. My descriptions for those rest on the citation titles and general field knowledge and are lower-confidence; the § 102 conclusions for them are robust only in the sense that a title-level review shows no correction-unit disclosure, and a full-text check should be run before relying on them.
• No anticipation finding is asserted as certain. Anticipation is a claim-construction-dependent question, and the "known value of a position of the primary mass" limitation could be construed broadly (e.g., to cover a drive-monitor amplitude) or narrowly (per-sample instantaneous position x_p). The breadth of that construction is what determines whether US 7,891,245 B2 rises from § 103 to a genuine § 102 candidate against claim 8. That is the single most important thing to test.
• The DE 10 2011 055 745 A1 entry is reported as it appears in the patent's citation list; it appears to be a mis-citation and I do not treat it as prior art of any relevance.
• All reference numbers and dates are reproduced literally from the record of US 10,677,611 B2; where the published title contains apparent typographic errors ("Circular," "eletromechanical," "A gee," "theta"), I have not corrected them.

I'll verify a few key reference details before building the § 103 analysis on top of the prior-art section.

Obviousness Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — US 10,677,611 B2

Building on the Prior-Art section below. This memo assumes and cross-references the element key (A–E), the reference numbering, and the substantive descriptions already established in the prior-art analysis. I do not re-describe the references; I map them to a § 103 theory. Where the prior-art section flagged a lower-confidence description (full text not retrieved), that caveat carries forward and the corresponding combination is marked accordingly.

Framing note: § 102 asks whether one reference discloses every element. § 103 asks a different question — whether the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art ("POSITA") at the effective filing date. The very gaps that defeat anticipation for the cited art (element C, and the primary-position term within it) are precisely the gaps that a combination fills. That is the pivot of this analysis.

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1. Governing standard and the Graham factors

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the analysis proceeds through: (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; and (4) objective indicia (secondary considerations). KSR confirms that a combination can be obvious where the improvement is the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" and catalogues the familiar rationales: combining known elements by known methods with predictable results; simple substitution of one known element for another; use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way; applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; and design incentives/market forces. The Supreme Court expressly rejected a rigid "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" test, while retaining TSM as one permissible rationale.

Effective filing date: 2015-10-08 (DE 10 2015 219 458.2). The AIA applies (application filed 2016-10-06). Every reference in the combinations below must therefore qualify as prior art as of that date — a point I address in § 3 because it materially affects two same-assignee references.

Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA here would be a mixed-signal/MEMS-interface circuit designer with (i) a graduate degree or equivalent experience in electrical engineering or microsystems engineering, (ii) ~2–5 years designing capacitive MEMS readout electronics, and (iii) working familiarity with ΔΣ modulator theory and practice, including the contents of a standard reference like Schreier & Temes and the electromechanical-ΔΣ literature (Northemann, Ezekwe/Boser, Dong/Kraft/Redman-White). This matters: the hypothetical artisan is exactly the person who (a) understands that the electrostatic feedback force scales with C·U² and therefore varies with the primary mass's instantaneous overlap position, and (b) knows that digital-domain correction of a converter's feedback path is a standard technique. Both premises are supplied by the record.

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2. The limitation that decides the case

Claims 1, 7, and 8 all contain the same core limitation (element C):

"a correction unit receiving the reset signal and generating a corrected modulator output signal that corresponds to an actually impacting reset force, the correction unit has a multiplying element that is configured to multiply the modulator output signal with a known value of a position of the primary mass and a weighting factor."

Two observations drive everything:

1. The claim is a structural claim with a functional label. "Corrected modulator output signal that corresponds to an actually impacting reset force" is functional; the structure is a "multiplying element" fed by (a) a primary-position value and (b) a weighting factor. A § 103 case must show the structure — the combination must produce a multiplier whose inputs are the modulator output and a primary-motion-derived value — not merely reach the same numeric result.
2. The claim does not require the multiplication to be a discrete hardware multiplier. The specification itself states that "as a single-bit quantizer is used in the present embodiment, a multiplication step for the performance of the weighting is not required" — only the sign of the weighting value is adapted. This is significant because it removes the last structural gap over art that performs the equivalent operation by substituting a value for the "1" in the bit stream (see § 4, Combination I).

Claim 8 is materially broader than claim 1 (no demodulator, no filter arrangement). A challenge aimed only at claim 1 leaves claims 8–10 standing; the broadest and most-exposed independent claim is therefore claim 8.

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3. Prior-art qualification (a step the prior-art section did not complete)

Because the effective filing date is 2015-10-08, and because several references emanate from the same Freiburg research group, the AIA's exceptions matter:

Practical consequence: the robust combination set is built from Schreier & Temes + Dong et al. + Panasonic + DE 10 2011 005 745 (as a printed publication) + Hammerschmidt, all of which are unambiguously available. The Freiburg "position-sensing" reference (US 2016/0202061) should be used only as a secondary/backup citation with the § 102(b)(2)(C) risk acknowledged.

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4. The combinations

Combination I — the primary obviousness theory (targets claims 8, 9, 10; then 1 and 7)

Panasonic US 7,891,245 B2 + Schreier & Temes (N1) + Dong/Kraft/Redman-White (N3), optionally + DE 10 2011 005 745 (US 9,535,084) for the gyroscope context.

What Panasonic supplies (verified in the search above, and sharper than the prior-art section reported). US 7,891,245 discloses an angular-velocity/accelerometer sensor in which a ΣΔ modulator converts the sensor signal into a 1-bit digital stream, and a signal-processing circuit operates on that 1-bit stream using "corrected information" — a value derived from the sensor's own oscillation (the monitor signal) — "at a predetermined cycle." Critically, the reference teaches the mechanics of the claimed multiplication in a single-bit context: because the bit stream is 1-bit, "when the magnification of the corrected information is decided and the magnification is substituted for the signal '1,' the signal can be converted into a multi-bit signal. Therefore, multiplication processing and the like … is not required." That is a direct teaching of the same short-cut the '611's specification relies on, and it is indexed to a cycle of the sensor's oscillation — i.e., it is a time-varying, sample-indexed weighting of the modulator output rather than a constant per-code correction.

What Panasonic does not supply. The correction is applied in the drive/monitor loop (to normalize drive amplitude and eliminate AGC), not the sense/rate loop; and the factor derives from monitor amplitude, not the instantaneous primary position x_p. Those are the differences.

What Dong et al. supplies (bridging that difference). Dong et al. address the identical physical problem the '611 states it solves — "the electrostatic force feedback on the proof mass is inherently nonlinear, which will produce harmonics in the output spectrum and limits the total signal-to-noise and distortion ratio" — and their solution is to sense the mass position (V_dis, via C/V converter) and use it (V_dis·K_L) to readjust the applied feedback so the feedback force is near-constant. In other words, Dong teaches exactly the input the '611's multiplier requires (a position-of-the-mass value that scales the applied feedback), for exactly the same nonlinearity problem.

What Schreier & Temes supplies (bridging the other difference). § 6.5, "Digital Correction of DAC Nonlinearity" (the passage the '611 cites at p. 200), teaches that the feedback path's actual levels can be measured per input code and used in the digital part of the system to represent the emitted value more accurately — i.e., moving the correction from the analog domain into the digital post-processing of the bit stream.

What DE 10 2011 005 745 / US 9,535,084 supplies. A ΣΔ-modulated micromachined rotation-rate sensor with reset (u_S), quadrature (u_C), and frequency (u_T) channels on the secondary electrodes, resolved via the root relationship u = √(ũ_T ± ũ_C ± ũ_S) — the precise Eqs. (14)–(17) the '611 reproduces as its starting point. This places the combination squarely in the gyroscope sense channel.

Mapping to claim 8 (A + B + C):

Why the POSITA would combine — the motivation is over-determined:

1. Same field, same problem (KSR same-field rationale). All four references concern capacitive MEMS inertial sensors with ΣΔ/electromechanical feedback loops. Dong diagnoses the same nonlinearity ("force feedback … inherently nonlinear") that the '611's Eq. (6) quantifies (F_ges,dr = F_ges·(1 + α·x_p/l₀)).
2. The '611's own specification supplies the motivation as an admission. The patent states that "an adaption of this known method … to the reduction of the dependence of the applied feedback forces on the primary vibration would be possible although it would mean a work-intensive analogous creation of the high feedback voltages." That sentence concedes adaptability and identifies only an implementation cost (analog voltage generation). An admission that a known solution is adaptable, coupled with a stated desire to reduce analog complexity, is a textbook motivation to combine. Likewise, as to Schreier & Temes, the specification admits it "shows a possibility" and describes the digital-correction principle — then distinguishes only on "per-code constant vs. per-sample" grounds.
3. Design incentive / market forces (KSR). The '611 touts the benefits of digital implementation: energy and area savings versus analog suppression, easy re-calibration via digital parameters, full benefit from technology scaling, automatic layout generation for the digital ASIC portion, and re-use of the demodulation LUT ("only very little additional hardware is needed"). Those are the ordinary incentives of IC design and are precisely the "design incentives" KSR recognizes as supplying a motivation. A POSITA facing a pure-cost/area decision between (a) building and balancing analog feedback-voltage correction (Dong) and (b) doing the weighting in the already-present digital post-processing path (Schreier & Temes) would choose (b) as a matter of routine engineering.
4. Predictable result / reasonable expectation of success. The physical relationship is analytic and known: the electrostatic force at an electrode is F_el ≈ C·U²/2d₀, so a feedback force whose magnitude is modulated by the primary position will fold quantization noise into the band. Any skilled artisan who writes down Eq. (6)-equivalent physics would expect that reproducing the actual feedback force in the digital domain removes the modulation — the '611 reports a 12 dB SNR improvement (≈2 bits), which is an expected consequence, not a surprising one. Digital weighting of an oversampled bit stream is routine; no new analog hardware or process step is required.
5. Simple substitution of a known element for another (KSR). Dong's analog correction is replaced by the digital correction taught by Schreier & Temes — a substitution of a known digital technique for a known analog technique, with no change in the principle of operation.

Claim 1 and claim 7 add only the demodulator (D) and filter arrangement (E). D and E are supplied by ordinary ΔΣ practice and by the cited art directly: Panasonic's sensor includes a digital filter (element 74/58) downstream of the bit stream, and US 5,440,269 (Samsung) teaches LUT-based digital demodulation. Filtering and decimating a demodulated rate signal is the standard closed-loop gyroscope readout (Ezekwe & Boser, N4). Claim 7 is claim 1's subject matter with apparatus framing plus the gyroscope, which DE 10 2011 005 745 and US 7,891,245 both supply. These claims fall with claim 1.

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Combination II — the "pure digital-correction" theory (targets claims 1, 8)

Schreier & Temes (N1) + Sarhang-Nejad & Temes (N2) + DE 10 2005 046 699 A1 + US 2009/0066550 A1 (Hammerschmidt) + US 7,891,245 (Panasonic).

This is the theory that the examiner's own cited art, taken together, renders the concept obvious even without Dong. DE 10 2005 046 699 supplies the sensor-in-ΔΣ-loop / force-feedback-as-measurand architecture (element B). Hammerschmidt supplies a ΔΣ modulator for a capacitive gyroscopic sensor with a force-feedback branch and reliance on the current position of the resonator — touching element C's input. N1/N2 supply digital correction of a ΔΣ feedback path. Panasonic supplies the sample-indexed substitution of an oscillation-derived value for the "1" in the bit stream. The motivation is the same cost/area/calibration incentive and the same-recognized nonlinearity; the difference is the specific per-sample mean-force computation, which KSR treats as a predictable design choice (an optimization of an identified error model) rather than an inventive leap.

Assessment: somewhat weaker than Combination I because it lacks Dong's explicit position-based feedback-force correction, but useful as a second, independent ground — particularly against claim 8.

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Combination III — the mode-matching / frequency-control claims (targets claim 6, and claim 1 via 6)

DE 10 2011 005 745 A1 / US 9,535,084 + Ezekwe & Boser (N4) + Schreier & Temes (N1).

Claim 6 requires "a controller to control a secondary resonance frequency, wherein the correction unit has a multiplying element that is connected to an output signal of the controller." DE 10 2011 005 745 is a direct hit on the controller: it provides a resonance-frequency manipulated variable ũ_T that sets the electrode trimming voltages alongside the quadrature and resetting variables, and its FIG.-9 counterpart control structure is the very structure the '611 reproduces in its own FIG. 9 (identified in the specification as "the arrangement of FIG. 1 … extended by the circuit units for the quadrature control and the control of the secondary resonance frequency"). Ezekwe & Boser supply the mode-matched closed-loop readout and test-signal detection (the '611's FIG. 15). Schreier & Temes supplies the digital correction of the feedback value that the '611 applies to the U_Mode-dependence — Eq. (21), ±1 → ±U_Mode/U_FB.

Motivation: the '611 itself frames the DE '745 approach as "aligned to the problem of the matched-mode operation," and states that "an additional consideration of influences due to the primary vibration should be possible by means of correcting the digital value for the feedback forces (FB)." This is a concession that the goal — correcting the digital feedback value — was known and pursued; the claimed frequency-control multiplier is the routine extension of that known correction to the known U_Mode channel. The DE '745 reference additionally supplies its own motivation for the correction: the specification of the '611 notes that DE '745 "shows a possibility of eliminating this problem" but requires root calculations and high-resolution DACs — the very costs a digital post-correction avoids, supplying the KSR design incentive to substitute the digital approach.

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The dependent claims (2, 3, 4, 5) — separately obvious

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5. Claim-by-claim obviousness conclusion (strength assessment)

Overall: every claim is exposed to a § 103 challenge; the strongest single ground runs through Panasonic → Dong → Schreier & Temes, with DE 10 2011 005 745 as the gyroscope-context anchor and the '611's own specification admissions as the motivation.

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6. Rebuttals the patent owner will raise, and how they fail

1. "Panasonic's correction is in the drive loop, not the sense loop." True as to Panasonic alone — but that is why the combination is needed. The motivation to apply the same oscillation-derived weighted substitution to the sense/rate bit stream is supplied by (i) the shared field (inertial sensors) and (ii) the '611's own admission that the Dong-type correction is adaptable ("would be possible"). The distinction is one of which loop, not of whether the technique applies.
2. "Dong is an accelerometer and analog; the '611 is a digital gyroscope." This is an analogous-art / different-domain argument, and it fails on the record: the '611's specification itself says the Dong-type adaptation "would be possible," and Dong's problem statement (electrostatic force feedback is inherently nonlinear and produces harmonics) is identical to the '611's stated problem. A change of sensor type (accelerometer → gyroscope) is not inventive where the force-feedback physics and the ΣΔ loop structure are the same. The digital-versus-analog distinction is the substitution of a known technique that KSR treats as obvious — and the '611 touts the digital route's cost/area/calibration advantages as the sole justification.
3. "Schreier & Temes teaches per-code constant correction for multi-bit DACs; the '611 teaches per-sample time-varying correction for a single-bit modulator." This is the patent owner's best argument, and it is defeated by Panasonic, which expressly teaches weighting the bit stream "at a predetermined cycle" with a value substituted for the "1." Combined with the controlled periodic primary motion (the '611 itself notes the 8:1 sampling-to-primary-frequency ratio makes the correction values periodic and predictable: G₁:₈, Eqs. (18)–(20)), the per-sample nature of the correction is a predictable implementation detail, not an inventive contribution.
4. "Unexpected results — 12 dB SNR improvement." Improvement magnitude alone is not a secondary consideration; the patent owner must show the result would not have been expected. Here the result is analytically derivable from Eq. (6) physics and the known noise-convolution mechanism, so a 12 dB / 2-bit gain is a quantitatively expected outcome. Absent comparative data showing a non-linear or surprising benefit, this argument fails.
5. "The combined LUT (claim 4) is a specific, non-obvious hardware reduction." The weakest of the patent owner's arguments and still beatable: the two functions share the same index (the 8-phase sample counter) and the same G₁:₈ table, so merging them is a routine register-transfer-level optimization. But note this is the one dependent claim where a panel might find an independent inventive act — so plead it as a separate § 103 ground (US 5,440,269 + optimization rationale) rather than folding it into the main ground.
6. "Teaching away / prejudice — the '611 notes that new calculations can inject rounding noise requiring high-resolution DACs (the DE '745 problem)." This does not teach away; it teaches toward the digital correction, because the digital weighting avoids the DAC-resolution problem by moving correction into the digital domain. A POSITA reading the '611's own description of the DE '745 shortcoming is motivated to adopt the digital approach — the '611's stated solution.

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7. Practical guidance for framing the § 103 ground

• Lead with the broadest claim. Challenge claim 8 first and separately, because it omits the demodulator and filter arrangement. A petition that challenges only claim 1 leaves claims 8–10 untested for a future petitioner — and leaves the patent substantially assertion-capable. Address independents 1, 7, and 8 plus dependents 2–6 and 9–10.
• Make the "actually impacting reset force" limitation carry the key mapping. The combination must show a multiplier whose inputs are (a) the modulator output and (b) a primary-position/oscillation-derived value, with the output reproducing the actual force. Panasonic's substitution-for-"1" is the linchpin for the "multiplying element"; Dong's V_dis·K_L is the linchpin for the "known value of a position of the primary mass."
• Use the specification as an admission bank. The two passages already highlighted — the "adaptation would be possible" sentence (Dong) and the "shows a possibility … used during operation … to depict the … DAC output value in the digital part" sentence (Schreier & Temes) — should be quoted directly in the petition's motivation section. Applicant admissions are the most durable motivation evidence because they cannot be disputed by the patent owner's own expert.
• Sequence the grounds for redundancy. Ground 1: Panasonic + Dong + Schreier & Temes (claims 8, 9, 10). Ground 2: add US 5,440,269 + ΔΣ decimation practice (claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 7). Ground 3: add DE 10 2011 005 745 + Ezekwe & Boser (claims 6 and the DE-'745-anchored variant of claim 1). Ground 4 (separate): US 5,440,269 + optimization rationale (claim 4).
• Handle the § 102(b)(2)(C) issue expressly. Do not anchor any ground on US 2016/0202061 A1 or DE 10 2012 222 225 B3 without addressing common ownership; the DE 10 2011 005 745 A1 publication (2011-09-22, a § 102(a)(1) printed publication) is the safe way to reach the mode-matching content.

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8. Honest limitations of this analysis

• Claim construction is outcome-determinative and I have not had the benefit of a Markman ruling. The scope of "a known value of a position of the primary mass" — instantaneous position x_p versus a drive-derived amplitude/phase proxy — governs whether certain art rises from § 103 to § 102 and whether the "multiplying element" is met by art that substitutes a value for "1" rather than performing a discrete multiplication. I read the specification's statement that "a multiplication step … is not required" as supporting the broader reading, but this is an argument, not a settled construction.
• I did not retrieve full text for several face-cited references (US 7,825,840; US 8,857,259; US 9,696,338; US 2014/0060185; US 5,440,269 beyond its title), as flagged in the prior-art section. The combinations above rely on the references I did verify (Panasonic, DE 10 2011 005 745/US 9,535,084, Dong et al., Schreier & Temes, Hammerschmidt) and are constructed to be robust to the lower-confidence references by treating them as optional context rather than essential elements.
• The Panasonic mapping deserves a full-text check. The search above confirms the key teachings (correction information from the monitor/amplitude signal; operation on the 1-bit stream "at a predetermined cycle"; substitution of the magnification for the signal "1" obviating a multiplier; downstream digital filter), but the precise figure/paragraph citations should be quoted with column/line references in any formal petition. I confirmed the substance; I have not pinned every passage to a page number.
• No secondary-consideration evidence (commercial success, licensing, copying, industry praise) appeared in any source. The absence of objective indicia strengthens the § 103 case but is not affirmative evidence of obviousness; if the patent owner introduces such evidence in litigation, the nexus to the claimed digital-correction architecture would need to be tested.
• This memo states a technical and legal-analysis opinion based on the record supplied; it is not a freedom-to-operate opinion or legal advice, and a formal § 103 position should be finalized against full claim construction and the complete prosecution history of the '611 and its divisional US 11,268,828 B2.