US 10677613

I'll verify the patent details and check for any litigation activity.

US Patent 10,677,613 — Verification Summary

Scope note: My verification was based on web-indexed sources (Google Patents full text furnished in this matter, Justia, and general patent-law/litigation indexes). I did not obtain direct PACER/CourtListener or USPTO PatentCenter filings dockets. Where a fact is not corroborated, I flag it. All identifiers are reported literally as they appear.

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1. Bibliographic Data (confirmed against the authoritative full text provided)

Family members (per the record): WO 2017/082462 A1; JP 6867386 B2; KR 2017/0056307 A; CN 206163298 U; DE 212015000327 U1.

Note on a related-but-distinct patent: A separate LS Automotive filing, US 2018/0306604 A1 ("Resolver," priority KR 10-2015-0159831), claims a winding-width-ratio (lmin/lmax ≥ 0.69) invention. It is a different application/patent than the '613 patent and should not be conflated with it.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

Disclosed is a resolver, which includes a stator made of a magnetic material and having a plurality of teeth and a plurality of slots alternately formed at an inner side thereof; insulation covers respectively having a tooth insulating unit formed at an inner side thereof corresponding to the teeth and mounted to the stator at both upper and lower surfaces of the stator; and coils wound on the teeth with the tooth insulating unit being interposed therebetween, wherein a coil occupying ratio per slot, which is defined by the following equation and represents a ratio of area occupied by the coils in a slot to which the insulation covers are fixed, is 35% or below: Coil occupying ratio per slot = (area occupied by coils in a single slot)/(area of a single slot).

⚠️ Discrepancy worth noting: the Abstract states "35% or below," while granted claim 1 recites the range "3% to 35%." The 3% lower bound appears in the specification (derived via "Equation 3" and the 4 Vrms / 10 kHz / 0.5 A excitation design constraints) and was carried into the granted claim.

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3. Independent Claim — Plain-Language Overview

Claim 1 is the sole independent claim (claims 2–7 depend from it, directly or indirectly).

Claim 1 (apparatus): A resolver having three required elements:

1. A stator made of magnetic material, with a plurality of teeth and slots formed alternately along its inner side;
2. Insulation covers, each having a tooth insulating unit on its inner side corresponding to the teeth, mounted to both upper and lower surfaces of the stator; and
3. Coils wound on the teeth with the tooth insulating unit interposed between coil and tooth (i.e., coils do not directly contact the teeth);

…wherein the "coil occupying ratio per slot" — defined as (area occupied by coils in a single slot) / (area of a single slot) — is 3% to 35%.

• The "area of a single slot" is expressly defined in the specification as the area between two adjacent tooth insulating units (i.e., excluding the tooth-insulating-unit width margin α), bounded by points a, b, c, d (FIG. 5). This is a bounded, measurable geometric parameter, not a purely functional recitation.

Dependent-claim highlights:

• Claim 2: Coils include an excitation coil of one phase or more and an output coil of one phase or more.
• Claim 3: Adds a magnetic-material rotor that rotates on a rotary shaft to change gap permeance with the stator.
• Claim 4: Rotor is an inner-type rotor at the inner center of the stator.
• Claim 5: Rotor is ring-shaped, with a central through-hole for the rotary shaft and a plurality of salient poles on its outer circumference.
• Claim 6: Each salient pole is an arc with a diameter smaller than at least the rotor diameter.
• Claim 7: The arc center is offset from the rotor center by a predetermined distance, and all salient-pole arcs have the same diameter.

Note on scope: The written description also discloses a second, alternative "aspect" — a resolver wherein the shortest distance between coils on adjacent teeth is ≥ 4 mm — and a 9-sample test table (Examples 1–5, Comparative Examples 1–4) showing max error rates versus occupying ratio and inter-coil distance. That 4 mm limitation is not recited in the granted claims; claim 1 is limited to the 3%–35% occupying-ratio requirement.

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4. Litigation / Post-Grant Activity (2026 CAFC check)

Result: No CAFC 2026 docket, district-court action, IPR/PGR, or PTAB proceeding specifically involving US 10,677,613 was found in my searches.

• Targeted searches for the patent number (both "10677613" and "10,677,613") returned no litigation, appeal, or IPR records tied to this patent.
• A competitive-intelligence profile for LS Automotive Technologies Co., Ltd. (last updated May 21, 2026) reports one opposition faced by the company, associated with a patent titled "Steering Angle Detecting Apparatus" — that is not this patent. It reports no PTAB cases filed or faced for the company in its dataset.

Uncertainty: This is a negative finding from web-indexed sources only. I cannot rule out an unindexed or very recent (2026) filing without a direct PACER/CourtListener docket query, which I could not complete within this session. If a 2026 CAFC appeal exists, I have no authoritative record of it.

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5. Confidence and Caveats

• High confidence in all bibliographic data, the abstract, and the claim analysis — these come from the authoritative full patent text provided and are internally consistent.
• Medium confidence in the family/status data (Google Patents-derived; legal status is expressly an assumption, not a legal conclusion).
• Explicit limitation: I found no evidence of any 2026 CAFC activity for this patent, and I am reporting that as a null result rather than inferring litigation from the assignee's general patent portfolio.

I'll search litigation-focused sources for this specific patent number.

Let me query the specialized litigation portals directly.

Let me check a few more specific litigation databases for this patent number.

Litigation Search Results — US Patent 10,677,613

Search performed: April 26, 2026 (per task date). Patent interpreted literally as US 10,677,613 ("Resolver," assignee LS Automotive Technologies Co., Ltd.). No substitution or normalization of the number was made.

Result: No litigation identified

I found no litigation — district court, CAFC, or PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) — involving US 10,677,613. This is a null result, not a confirmation that none exists. Below is exactly what I searched and what I found.

What I searched

Case-by-case listing

There is no case to list.

Important flags and caveats

1. Contradiction flag (cross-reference): The previously generated "Patent summary" section states it did not obtain direct PACER/CourtListener or USPTO PatentCenter docket queries; my searches likewise relied on web-indexed sources. My null result is consistent with that prior section's null result — no contradiction, but neither is a substitute for a direct docket pull.

2. Single-opposition record is not this patent. The only adverse proceeding associated with the assignee in indexed databases is the "Steering Angle Detecting Apparatus" opposition. That is a different patent and must not be attributed to US 10,677,613.

3. Positive signals against litigation existing. The patent record shows the 4th-year maintenance fee paid (2023-11-29, large entity) and status "Active." It is a component-level automotive resolver patent; the operating-company assignee (an automotive supplier) has no PAE-style assertion pattern in the indexed data, which is consistent with (but does not prove) non-assertion.

4. Limits of this search. I did not directly query PACER, CourtListener's RECAP API, Docket Navigator, or USPTO PTAB/PATENTCENTER in real time; queries were web-index searches. A recently filed 2026 action, an unindexed settlement-only suit, or a foreign (non-US) proceeding could exist without appearing. If a definitive clearance opinion is needed, a direct PACER/CourtListener and PTAB docket query should be run.

Bottom line: With the sources available, there is no known litigation involving US 10,677,613. I am reporting this as an explicit negative finding rather than inferring litigation from the assignee's portfolio.

I'll verify the structured ODP result against web-indexed PTAB sources before reporting.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks on the assignee and the patent family.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 10,677,613 B2

Patent: US 10,677,613 B2 ("Resolver") · App. No. 15/770,378 · Assignee: LS Automotive Technologies Co., Ltd. (KR)
Canonical source: USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied in this prompt.
Date of this analysis: 2026-09-28

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Proceedings overview

One sentence: There are zero AIA trial proceedings on file against US 10,677,613 — the USPTO ODP structured data returns an empty set (no IPR, PGR, or CBM ever instituted, denied, or settled), which I independently corroborated via web search; the bottom-line defensive posture is therefore "no PTAB precedent exists in either direction" — nothing has been canceled, so all 7 claims remain live and presumptively valid, but the patent is also untested at the Board, meaning a defendant must build an invalidity case from scratch rather than inherit an FWD.

Status breakdown:

Corroboration performed. Targeted searches on the patent number ("10677613" and "10,677,613") returned no PTAB docket, petition, institution decision, or FWD. A competitive-intelligence profile for the assignee (IP Verse, last updated 2026-05-21 and again 2026-06-25) reports 0 PTAB cases filed and 0 PTAB cases faced for LS Automotive Technologies. The only adverse proceeding indexed against this assignee is a single opposition to a different patent, "Steering Angle Detecting Apparatus" (publication date 2019-03-20) — that is not US 10,677,613 and must not be attributed to it.

Important limitation: I did not run a direct, real-time query against Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) or the ODP trials endpoint myself; my confirmation is web-index based, layered on top of the ODP structured result. The absence of proceedings is a null result, not an affirmative certificate that no petition has ever been filed. A recently filed, not-yet-indexed 2026 petition could exist without appearing.

⚠️ Cross-reference flag (minor inconsistency): The previously generated "Litigation summary" section states its searches were performed 2026-04-26 ("per task date"), while this task's stated date is 2026-09-28. The substantive null result is identical in both; the date discrepancy appears to be an artifact of the earlier session. No contradiction in findings.

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Per-proceeding details

None to report. Because the structured PTAB list is empty, there is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, petition ground, institution decision, Final Written Decision, settlement, or appeal to describe for this patent.

I will not generate placeholder case numbers (e.g., fabricated IPR2023-xxxxx captions), per the constraint against inventing proceeding numbers. If a proceeding exists that the ODP ingest has missed, the authoritative checkpoints are:

• PTAB E2E — public case search: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/
• USPTO Open Data Portal — trials proceedings: https://data.uspto.gov/ (ODP API)
• CourtListener RECAP (for any FWD appeal to the Federal Circuit): https://www.courtlistener.com/
• Federal Circuit docket (for any appeal of an FWD naming US 10,677,613)

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Strategic summary

Claim status across the entire patent — CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED.
0 claims canceled. 0 claims sustained. All 7 claims untested. Claims 1–7 as granted on 2020-06-09 remain in force with no PTAB amendment, no Certificate of Cancellation, and no adverse judgment. Claim 1 (the sole independent claim) still recites the "coil occupying ratio per slot ... is 3% to 35%" limitation. Claims 2–7 (excitation/output coil phases; magnetic rotor; inner-type rotor; ring-shaped rotor with salient poles; arc-shaped salient poles; offset arc centers with equal radii) have likewise never been challenged. Practically, a defendant cannot tell a court or a counterparty that "the claims are dead." Conversely, the patent owner cannot point to a PTAB win to establish confidence — its validity is entirely untested before the Board. Note the secondary ≥ 4 mm shortest-inter-coil-distance aspect disclosed in the specification and Example 3 of Table 1 is not recited in any granted claim, so it is irrelevant to any claim-construction or validity fight unless a reissue or continuation surfaces with that limitation.

Estoppel landscape — nothing is consumed, but nothing is pre-decided either.
Because no IPR was ever instituted, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel has never attached to anyone. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no real party in interest who is barred from raising any ground — raised or that reasonably could have been raised. That is a double-edged position for a defendant being asserted against today:

• Upside: the entire prior-art universe is available. A defendant can pick its best § 102/§ 103 combination freely and even file its own IPR without any § 315(e) or § 325(e) tail risk.
• Downside: there is no free roadmap. Nobody has briefed the Board on how these claims read over the cited references, so the claim-construction positions the Board might adopt (e.g., how "area of a single slot" is measured — the specification expressly defines it as the quadrilateral between two adjacent tooth insulating units, vertices a/b/c/d of FIG. 5, excluding the width margin α, and the ODP-adjacent "Definitions" text says the same) have never been tested. That definitional quirk is the most obvious pressure point: the occupancy ratio is only measurable against a construction of "slot" that excludes the insulating-unit margin, so a petitioner attacking a § 112 written-description or indefiniteness theory has an unusual opening.

Pattern signals.

• Same petitioner filing multiple IPRs on this patent: none — no petitioner at all.
• Patent owner pursuing PTAB appeals aggressively: none — there is no FWD to appeal, and searching the patent number against CourtListener and Federal Circuit docket material surfaced no appeal.
• Defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) in the chain: none detected. No aggregator IPR on this patent appears in indexed sources.
• Litigation context. This is consistent with the prior sections' finding of no district-court, CAFC, or PTAB activity for US 10,677,613. The 4th-year maintenance fee was paid on 2023-11-29 by a large entity, and the patent is listed Active with an adjusted expiration of 2036-01-30 — the profile of a portfolio asset held by an operating automotive supplier (LS Automotive Technologies), not an asserted patent. Absence of IPRs is consistent with non-assertion, since well-asserted component patents in this space (resolvers, VR sensors) normally attract at least one Unified/RPX or competitor challenge.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant being asked to take a license — say the PTAB record is empty, in writing.
There is no FWD to cite, link, or quote. The accurate sentence is: "No AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed or instituted against US 10,677,613 per USPTO ODP data; all seven claims remain unadjudicated." Do not represent that the patent survived IPRs (it never faced one) and do not represent that any claim is invalid as adjudicated (it is not). Both would be misstatements of the record.

2. Verify the null result against primary sources before relying on it in a litigation or licensing position.
The web-indexed confirmation above is good, but for a filing-quality statement, pull: (a) PTAB E2E case search for both the patent number and the application number 15/770,378, and (b) the ODP trials endpoint. Given today is 2026-09-28 and the ODP structured block is described as current ingest, a same-week E2E check closes the residual 2026-filing risk.

3. If you are contemplating your own IPR, note the statutory clock structure.
Because no institution has occurred, there is no § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD deadline running. If you file and institution is granted, the Board's one-year clock runs from the date of institution (satisfying the statutory deadline via § 316(a)(11) extension practice after Thryv). There are no pre-existing trial-stage milestones (no institution decision deadline pending, no oral hearing scheduled, no FWD due date) to track — you would be creating the first one.

4. Build the invalidity case de novo, targeting claim 1's construction dependency.
The highest-leverage issues, given the untested claims:

• Claim construction of "area of a single slot." The patent owner defined it as the region bounded by the four points a, b, c, d of two adjacent tooth insulating units (FIG. 5), excluding the insulating-unit width margin α — a self-serving, narrow measurement convention that inflates the denominator and thus depresses the computed ratio. Argue the construction is not the plain meaning of "slot" and/or that the claim is indefinite as to where a/b/c/d are measured on a physical part.
• The 3%–35% range. Under In re Woodruff / In re Peterson, a claimed numeric range is anticipated or rendered obvious by a prior-art range overlapping or touching it, absent a showing of criticality. The specification does assert criticality via the 4 Vrms / 10 kHz / 0.5 A excitation constraints and the Table 1 error-rate data (Examples 1–5, Comparative Examples 1–4), so expect the patent owner to lean on unexpected results — check whether that data was in the original Korean priority filing or added later.
• Prior art cited on the face of the patent (21 referenced items, including JPH08178610 — the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 1996-178610 expressly discussed in the Background — plus US 2005/0040816, US 2006/0119352, US 2008/0309278, US 2015/0028862) are an obvious starting set for either an IPR or an invalidity contention.

5. Preserve a fallback for the claims you actually face.
Only claim 1 carries the numeric limitation; claims 2–7 add structural features (phase counts, rotor geometry, salient-pole arc defining) that may be harder to invalidate on the cited art. Before filing an IPR, model which claims the patent owner would actually assert and whether an IPR that kills claim 1 leaves an acceptable claim 3/5/6/7 exposure. A partial win on claim 1 alone is often not enough.

6. Watch the Office for reissue, continuation, or reexamination.
With the specification disclosing an unclaimed ≥ 4 mm inter-coil-distance embodiment, the patent owner retains the ability to pursue that subject matter in a continuing application or reissue. Any new action changing the claim set would reset the PTAB calculus and potentially open the door to a first-ever challenge.

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Bottom line

There is no AIA trial history for US 10,677,613 — none filed, none instituted, none decided, none settled. The patent is intact and unadjudicated: all 7 claims live, no § 315(e) estoppel on anyone, no FWD to cite for or against, and no CAFC appeal to track. The absence of any IPR on a 2020-issued automotive-resolver patent held by an operating supplier is itself the signal — this looks like a portfolio asset rather than an asserted one, consistent with the previously generated sections' null litigation finding. Any defensive strategy must be built from first principles, with the "single slot" measurement definition (FIG. 5, points a/b/c/d, excluding margin α) as the first target.

I'll start by verifying the assignment records through the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing sources.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 10,677,613

Source note (important): I could not render the USPTO Assignment Center page directly in this session (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov did not return retrievable content to my searches), and targeted web queries for the reel/frame and the assignor names returned no indexed hits. The assignment data below is taken from the recorded legal-events data embedded in the authoritative full text for this patent (the "Assignment" entry dated 2018-04-23, which reproduces the USPTO reel/frame and assignment instrument text). Where a field is not exposed in that record — most notably the correspondent of record — I say so rather than guess.

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Inventors

Five named inventors, all listed on the face of the patent and all named as assignors in the recorded assignment instrument:

Pattern observations:

• This is a captive corporate R&D group, not a mixed independent/employee group. Every inventor assigned to the same corporate employer, which is the applicant of record. There is no evidence of any inventor retaining rights, and no co-ownership.
• No departures within 12 months are detectable from the record. There is no inventorship change, no post-filing assignment by an individual (as opposed to by the company), and no reissue or certificate of correction altering inventorship. A departure-driven "fire-sale" precursor therefore cannot be substantiated — and is affirmatively not evidenced.
• Minor documentary quirk worth flagging: the Google Patents legal-events "Assignment" entry recites assignors as "LEE, WON-YONG; NA, BYUNG-CHEOL; SIM, DA-HEE; AND OTHERS," while the companion reassignment summary enumerates only four names (CHOI, Yeon-Muk; LEE, Won-Yong; NA, Byung-Cheol; SIM, Da-Hee). The fifth inventor, Seong-Wook Lee, is the likely member of "AND OTHERS." This is an indexing truncation artifact, not evidence of a missing assignment. I flag it only because the two entries in the same source are not literally identical.

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Original assignee

LS AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD. (also styled "LS Automotive Tech Co., Ltd."), Republic of Korea — original and current assignee. No successor entity appears anywhere in the chain.

• Primary line of business: Tier-1 automotive supplier. It is the automotive-components arm associated with the Korean LS Group (LS Corp., KRX-listed), supplying electrical/electronic chassis parts — including resolvers, steering-angle sensors, and motor/actuator components for electric power steering (EPS). The patent's own stated field (EPS rotation-angle sensing) maps directly onto the assignee's commercial product line.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Very likely yes, and this is the key operating-company fact. The specification frames the invention as a VR-type resolver with a stator + insulation covers + wound coils for EPS motor angle detection. LS Automotive's product catalog includes resolver and steering-angle-sensor families. I did not obtain a teardown or a specific part number that maps to this claim set, so I characterize this as strongly supported but not part-number-verified.
• Current status: Operating. No merger, dissolution, bankruptcy, receivership, or change-of-name record appears in the patent's legal events. Maintenance fee paid as a large entity on 2023-11-29 (4th year) — consistent with a solvent corporate owner actively maintaining a commercial portfolio, not a distressed or abandoned asset.
• Public-company filings cross-reference: LS Automotive Technologies is a private Korean subsidiary, and its parent lists on the KRX, not the SEC. There are therefore no 10-K/8-K filings to mine for transfer, securitization, or privateering disclosures. This is a structural limit on the SEC leg of the cross-reference, not evidence of concealment.

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Assignment timeline

Exactly one assignment is recorded against this patent, and it is the original inventor→employer assignment. The full legal-events set consists of that assignment plus routine prosecution and maintenance entries (docketing, office action, allowance, issue fee, patent grant, maintenance fee). There is no security agreement, merger, change of name, license, release, correction, or subsequent transfer of any kind.

• 2018-04-16 to 2018-04-18 (executed) / recorded 2018-04-23 — Reel 045612/0461
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"
  • Assignor(s): LEE, Won-Yong; NA, Byung-Cheol; SIM, Da-Hee; and CHOI, Yeon-Muk (with Seong-Wook Lee in the "AND OTHERS" recital) — i.e., all five inventors
  • Assignee: LS AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD. (Korea, Republic of)
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the indexed record. The correspondent/attorney-of-record field is populated only on the actual Assignment Center abstract, which I could not retrieve. I am not inferring a firm name. (This is the single most useful field for the troll-pattern test and it is the one gap in my data.)
  • Context: Original corporate assignment / employment agreement perfection. Executed three days before recording and timed to U.S. national-stage entry under 35 U.S.C. §371 (PCT/KR2015/014434), i.e., a routine in-house-to-US-counsel formality, not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.
  • Recurrence flag: Not applicable — with only one link in the chain, there is no second occurrence to establish recurrence. A repeat-correspondent finding is impossible to make on this record.

No post-issuance assignments exist. Per the task instruction, I state this plainly: the chain is exactly one entry, the original assignment, and it terminates at the original operating-company assignee.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10677613
    2015 : KR priority application filed
         : PCT application filed
    2018 : US national stage entered
         : Inventors assign rights to LS Automotive
    2020 : US patent issued
    2023 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggregate: zero of the eight signals is present; one (repeat correspondent) is unassessable for lack of the correspondent field and chain length.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — in the rubric's specific sense of "only the original assignment." The entire recorded chain is a single entry: the five inventors assigning to LS Automotive Technologies Co., Ltd. per Reel 045612/0461, executed 2018-04-16 to 2018-04-18 and recorded 2018-04-23, three days before U.S. national-stage entry. There is no post-issuance transfer, no security interest, no merger, no change of name, and no license recorded; the patent remains with its original operating-company owner, which paid the 4th-year maintenance fee as a large entity on 2023-11-29.

Two caveats drive the verdict rather than a more affirmative "operating-company" call: (i) I could not retrieve the correspondent of record from Assignment Center, which is the one field capable of revealing a concealed asserter pattern; and (ii) the "Operating-company assertion" verdict requires affirmative suing, and no litigation involving this patent was found. The correct statement is therefore: no NPE pattern is evidenced, and the patent is held by an operating automotive supplier — but this is a negative finding built on a thin (one-entry) chain, not a clean bill of health.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search (search by patent number 10677613): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Patent full text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10677613/en

Consistency check against prior sections: This section agrees with the two previously generated sections — both recorded a null litigation result, and neither identified any post-issuance transfer. One housekeeping flag: the prior Litigation Summary is dated "April 26, 2026," whereas the current analysis date is 2026-09-28; the ~5-month gap means a very recent (mid-2026) filing could post-date the earlier search. I re-ran targeted queries and still found nothing, but a direct PACER/CourtListener + PTAB docket pull remains the only way to close that window definitively.

I'll verify the patent record and then examine each cited reference.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,677,613 B2 ("Resolver")

Current date: 2026-04-26 · Patent interpreted literally: US 10677613 (US 10,677,613 B2)
Source of record: the authoritative full text supplied in this matter, https://patents.google.com/patent/US10677613/en (fetched 2026-09-24). Supplemental verification via Google Patents / FreePatentsOnline/Justia web-index pages.

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0. Confirmation of the target patent

I did not locate a distinct USPTO database record differing from the Google-Patents record above (no similarly numbered patent is being reported — the number 10677613 is treated literally and not auto-corrected). Note the full text provided shows two citation listings: a front-page "Citations (21)" list and an extended "Patent Citations (26)" list. I analyze all references in both.

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1. The controlling § 102 rule for this patent

Every one of claims 2–7 depends from claim 1. Therefore a reference can anticipate a claim only if it discloses all of the claim 1 elements — including the numeric "3% to 35%" coil-occupying-ratio-per-slot limitation, measured against the specification's idiosyncratic "area of a single slot" definition (the quadrilateral a-b-c-d between two adjacent tooth insulating units, excluding the width margin α, FIG. 5).

Finding: none of the cited references discloses any coil-occupying-ratio parameter at all, let alone a 3%–35% range. Consequently, on the face of the record, no cited reference anticipates claim 1 or, derivatively, any of claims 2–7 as a whole. The references are, at most, § 102 art for individual structural limitations and § 103 art for the combination. I flag this up front so the per-reference "§ 102" column is not over-read: it identifies which claim features a reference can supply, not a full anticipatory disclosure.

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2. All cited references (dates as printed in the '613 record)

Front-page citations (21)

Additional entries in the extended (26) list — counterparts / duplicates

Non-patent citation (1): International Search Report dated 2016-08-08, PCT/KR2015/014434 (English translation).

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3. Per-reference analysis (most → least relevant)

TIER 1 — Most relevant prior art

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A. US 2006/0119352 A1 — Mitsubishi Denki K.K. — "Variable reluctance type angle detector"
Filed 2004-11-17 · Published 2006-06-08 · ★ examiner-cited · Grant: US 7,215,116 B2 (2007-05-08)
URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060119352A1/en · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/74/2f/74/7b7b58b76656be/US7215116.pdf

Description: A VR-type angle detector whose stator has a plurality of teeth formed inwardly at intervals, with exciting coils and a-phase output coils formed by winding wire on each tooth; the rotor has an iron-core shape making the stator–rotor gap permeance vary sinusoidally. The stated aim is noise immunity ("reducing an influence caused by a noise") achieved by paralleling exciting-coil groups to lower winding resistance and raise exciting current. Teeth, slots, excitation coil, SIN/COS output coils, and a variable-reluctance rotor are all disclosed.

§ 102 assessment: Anticipates no claim in full (silent on insulation covers at both stator surfaces, on the tooth-insulating-unit interposition, and on any occupying-ratio value).
Features it can supply under § 102/§ 103: stator with teeth and slots, coils on teeth (claim 1 structural core); excitation coil + output coil (>1 phase) (claim 2); magnetic rotor changing gap permeance (claim 3); inner-type rotor (claim 4). This is the single closest structural reference and the best § 103 primary reference for the stator/coil/rotor architecture.

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B. US 2015/0028862 A1 — Minebea Co., Ltd. — "Stator structure of VR type resolver and VR type resolver"
Filed 2013-07-29 · Published 2015-01-29 · ★ examiner-cited · Grant: US 9,772,203 B2
URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150028862A1/en · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2015/0028862.html · https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9772203B2](/patent/US9772203B2)/en

Description: A VR-type resolver with stator cores having ring-shaped stator protruding portions arranged at even intervals, upper and lower insulators (300/400) made of resin mounted to the stator core from front and behind in the axial direction, with coils (exciting coils, sine-phase and cosine-phase detection coils) wound around the stator protruding portions through the insulators. Stator cores are laminated electromagnetic steel sheets. The resolver has a rotor rotatably arranged facing the stator protruding portions.

§ 102 assessment: Anticipates no claim in full (no occupying-ratio parameter; and the "insulator" is a resin insulator through which coils are wound — arguably close to, but not the claimed ring-shaped insulation cover with a "tooth insulating unit" plus the numeric ratio).
Features it can supply: the insulation covers mounted to both upper/lower surfaces of the stator, coils wound on teeth with the insulating unit interposed, laminated-steel stator — i.e., the second and third elements of claim 1, and rotor-facing structure of claims 3–4. Together with reference A, this pair brackets most of claim 1's structural limitations and is the strongest § 103 combination.

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C. JPH08178610A — Tamagawa Seiki Co., Ltd. — "Variable reluctance angle detector" (Patent Literature 1 expressly discussed in the '613 Background)
Filed 1994-12-27 · Published 1996-07-12
URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/JPH08178610A/en

Description: The admitted prior art of the '613 specification itself. A rotor (10) with a rotary shaft and multiple salient poles (10a) on its outer circumference, and a ring-shaped stator (11) whose inner circumference alternates multiple teeth (11b) and slots (11a), with an excitation coil and (first and second) output coils wound on the teeth and accommodated in the slots; SIN and COS outputs give the rotation angle. The '613 specification relies on this document for its definition of the field and of the problem (coil interference between adjacent teeth; transformation-ratio/noise trade-off).

§ 102 assessment: As admitted prior art, this is effectively a § 102(a)/§ 102(b)-type reference for the general combination, but it does not disclose insulation covers / tooth insulating units or any occupying ratio — so it anticipates no claim.
Features it can supply: stator teeth+slots+coils and excitation/output phases (claim 1 core, claim 2); salient-pole rotor (claims 3, 5, 6). Because the applicant adopted it as background, it is low-yield as an anticipation reference but high-yield as the § 103 starting point acknowledged by the patentee.

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D. US 2005/0040816 A1 — Favess Co., Ltd. — "Variable reluctance-type resolver" (JP counterpart JP 2005-061865 A)
Filed 2003-08-18 · Published 2005-02-24
URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050040816A1/en

Description: A variable-reluctance resolver (stator with salient teeth/slots carrying excitation and output windings; rotor with salient poles shaping gap permeance). Field-identical art to the '613 subject matter.

§ 102 assessment: No full anticipation — no insulation-cover limitation and no occupying-ratio limitation.
Features: the claim 1 stator/teeth/slot/coil and claim 3–6 rotor structure. Useful as a secondary § 103 reference.

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E. US 2008/0309278 A1 — Chia-Ming Chang — "Method of Designing a Reluctance Resolver"
Filed 2007-06-17 · Published 2008-12-18 · ★ examiner-cited
URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080309278A1/en

Description: A design method for a reluctance resolver — i.e., computational/analytical selection of rotor (and stator) geometry so the gap permeance varies sinusoidally, rather than a physical resolver structure.

§ 102 assessment: Anticipates no claim. As a design-method disclosure it is at most § 103 art for the rotor-shape limitations of claims 5–7 (salient-pole arc geometry, offset arc center, equal radii) and for optimizing winding distribution. It supports an obviousness attack on the rotor-geometry dependent claims; it cannot anticipate because it lacks the apparatus elements and the numeric ratio.

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F. JP 2013-110819 A — JTEKT Corp — "Resolver and manufacturing method of resolver"
Filed 2011-11-18 · Published 2013-06-06
URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2013110819A/en

Description: A resolver and method of manufacturing it — directed to winding/assembly technique (winding coils around stator teeth with an insulator interposed, machine winding).

§ 102 assessment: No full anticipation. Relevant under § 102/§ 103 for the "coils wound on the teeth with the tooth insulating unit being interposed" and the machine-winding / coil-placement aspect that underlies the '613 occupying-ratio and inter-coil-distance discussion. No numeric occupying ratio disclosed.

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TIER 2 — Same-field resolvers / angle detectors (secondary § 103 art)

TIER 3 — Peripheral / non-resolver art (weak; likely only background)

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4. Bottom line — which claims could each reference "anticipate"?

None of the cited references anticipates claim 1, and therefore none anticipates claims 2–7, because each claim incorporates the claim 1 numeric limitation "coil occupying ratio per slot … is 3% to 35%" — a parameter that no cited reference discloses, calculates, or even defines. The nearest any reference comes is a structural match:

Practical characterization of the corpus:

• Most relevant overall: US 2006/0119352 A1 (structure) + US 2015/0028862 A1 (insulators at both stator surfaces) — a two-reference § 103 combination that supplies every claim 1 element except the numeric occupying ratio.
• Admitted art: JPH08178610A (Patent Literature 1) is the patentee's own baseline and cannot fairly be the sole basis of a § 102 case.
• No reference in the corpus addresses the occupancy metric, the "area of a single slot = quadrilateral a-b-c-d between tooth insulating units (excluding margin α)" measurement convention, or the ≥4 mm inter-coil-distance embodiment — confirming the patent's novelty centers on that quantification, not on the hardware.

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5. Caveats and verification limits

1. Search basis. I used the authoritative full patent text supplied in this matter plus web-index corroboration (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, patentsencyclopedia). I did not execute a live, direct USPTO PatentCenter/ODP query in this session; the citation lists above are taken literally from the '613 record and treat each alphanumeric identifier exactly as printed (no auto-correction).
2. "Anticipates" is used strictly. Because all independent scope lives in claim 1's numeric limitation, no cited reference achieves § 102 anticipation of any claim; my per-reference notes identify § 102 element disclosure and § 103 combination value only. Any representation that, e.g., Mitsubishi anticipates claim 1 would be a misstatement.
3. Reference-set completeness. The '613 record lists 21 front-page citations and 26 entries in its extended citation table (the extra five are foreign/US counterparts of the same families — noted above). Third-party and family-citing documents (e.g., KR 10-2569493 B1; CN 109950035 B; CN 113098205 B) are later and irrelevant to prior art.
4. DO NOT CONFLATE. The related LS Automotive filing US 2008/0306604 A1 / DE 212015000328 U1 ("Resolver," winding-width-ratio invention, priority KR 10-2015-0159831) is a different application and must not be treated as prior art against — or as the same document as — US 10,677,613.
5. Not verified: the substance of several Japanese/Korean references (Tier 2/3) is characterized from their titles/assignees as printed; their internal disclosures were not individually opened. If any one of them is to be used in a formal invalidity contention, its full text should be pulled and the element-by-element mapping re-verified.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the prior-art references listed on this patent's face, verifying their disclosures where possible.

Let me verify the remaining key references, especially those bearing on the insulation covers and coil-winding/occupancy features.

Let me verify the primary admitted prior art (JPH08178610) and the JTEKT winding reference, which are central to the structural combination.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,677,613 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent: US 10,677,613 B2 ("Resolver") · App. No. 15/770,378 · Priority 2015-11-13 (KR 10-2015-0159823) · Issued 2020-06-09 · Assignee: LS Automotive Technologies Co., Ltd.
Sole independent claim: claim 1 (7 claims total; 2–7 dependent)
Grounding: the prior-art citations listed on the face of the patent (21 examiner-cited items; 26 in the "Patent Citations" table), plus the "Similar Documents" orbit. I verified disclosures of the key references by web search; unverified references are flagged inline.

⚠️ Date flag (carry-over): this task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026"; the session environment states 2026-09-28. The previously generated PTAB section already flagged this. No substantive effect on the analysis; noted for the record.

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1. Claim 1 limitation map

Limitations 1.1–1.4 are squarely met by the combination below. The entire § 103 fight is over 1.5 — a result-effective variable recited as a numeric band.

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2. Ground 1 — The structural combination (1.1–1.4)

Primary: JPH08178610 A (Tamagawa Seiki, "Variable reluctance angle detector") — the reference the '613 specification itself identifies as the closest prior art and reproduces as FIG. 1.
Secondary A: US 2005/0040816 A1 (Favess Co., "Variable reluctance-type resolver").
Secondary B: US 2015/0028862 A1 (Minebea, "Stator structure of VR type resolver and VR type resolver"; granted as US 9,772,203 B2).

Why the combination is obvious. Each reference is in the identical field (variable-reluctance resolvers for motor/rotary-shaft angle detection), addresses the identical problem (detection accuracy and noise immunity), and supplies a distinct, non-overlapping element:

• JPH08178610 supplies the VR architecture: ring stator with teeth/slots, an excitation winding and output windings wound on the teeth, salient-pole rotor, SIN/COS outputs. It also supplies the "wound on one-slot pitch in a sinusoidal distribution" teaching.
• Favess supplies the insulation element and the explicit reason for it: a resin insulate member covering the slot inner peripheral surfaces and both end surfaces of the stator to prevent stator–coil short circuits — i.e., the claimed "insulation cover … mounted to the stator at both upper and lower surfaces."
• Minebea supplies the exact claim-1 sequence: ring stator core with inward protruding teeth/slots → resin upper and lower insulators mounted top and bottom → coils wound afterwards around the teeth through the insulators, with detection (sine/cosine) and excitation coils layered on each protrusion.

A POSITA seeking to build the JPH08178610 detector with machine-wound coils has a clear, articulated reason to adopt the Favess/Minebea insulating-cover architecture: the references themselves state their purposes (short-circuit prevention; corrosion/foreign-matter protection; insulation of a laminated core), the assembly is a familiar element applied by a known method, and the result is entirely predictable (KSR Int'l v. Teleflex; MPEP 2144.04). No reference teaches away. There is no unexpected interaction among the three elements.

Supplementary evidence of the two-sided-insulator architecture as conventional: US 2015/0028862's own background cites JP 2009-148081 and JP 2004-135402 for resolver stator structures in which two coil covers are attached to both sides of a stator core. (These are leads from within a cited reference; I did not independently verify their disclosures.)

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3. Ground 2 — The numeric range 3%–35% (limitation 1.5)

Add to Ground 1: US 2008/0309278 A1 (granted as US 7,605,512 B2, Hiwin Mikrosystem / Chia-Ming Chang, "Method of designing a reluctance resolver") and/or US 2014/0125324 A1 (Samsung Techwin, "Resolver and method of manufacturing the same").

Why the band is obvious:

1. The art treats turns-per-tooth — and hence coil area in the slot — as a calculated design variable, not an inventive choice. Hiwin's US 7,605,512 expressly claims a method step of "calculating the turn ratio of the tooth portion of the stator by substituting the phase angle … into sine and cosine functions," then "winding the coil around the tooth portion of the stator according to the calculated number of turns," and notes "the total number of turns … can be multiple times of this resultant number of turns according to different requirements." That is a direct teaching that the quantity occupying the slot is set by design calculation against performance requirements.
2. The problem the band solves was known and admitted. The '613's own Background states: "if a coil is wound more on the teeth 11b, an area occupied by the coil at the slot 11a … increases, which causes electric interference between coils wound on two adjacent teeth 11b and results in an error. If a coil is wound less … a transformation ratio of an induced voltage of the output coil is lowered, which becomes vulnerable to external noise." That is an admission of both the problem and the two-sided tradeoff — the classic predicate for obviousness of a range. Mitsubishi's US 2006/0119352 independently states the noise objective: reduce exciting-winding resistance "to increase an exciting current without an increase in exciting power source voltage, thereby reducing an influence caused by a noise," for "high detection precision."
3. The endpoints are derived, not discovered. The specification derives the 3% floor using standard relations (Equation 2: coil area = 2nπr₁² + 4mπr₂²; Equation 3: minimum output turns) plus three parameters the patent calls conventional — "the input voltage input to the excitation coil is at least 4 Vrms and has a frequency of 10 kHz," with input current capped at 0.5 A to avoid core saturation. The 35% ceiling is derived from eddy-current and cross-coupled output-flux distortion. Neither endpoint reflects a discovered mechanism; both are optimization outputs of a known model.
4. Machine winding supplies the design incentive. The '613 itself uses a "circular winding machine." The art expressly notes that one-slot-pitch winding "permits machine-winding" (Tamagawa's US 5,757,182 / EP 0 802 398 B1). A winding machine imposes a maximum fill factor; slot fill ratio is therefore an inherent, constrained design parameter.

Legal frame. Under In re Woodruff / In re Peterson / In re Aller, a claimed numeric range that overlaps or is an optimization of a result-effective variable disclosed or suggested in the prior art is prima facie obvious absent a showing that the recited range is critical (i.e., that the specified endpoints produce a materially different, unexpected result versus adjacent values). The applicant bears that burden, and here the evidence is thin (see § 5).

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4. Ground 3 — Dependent claims 2–7

These are the weakest link for the patentee, because the cited art appears to disclose them nearly element-for-element.

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5. Where the patentee will push back — and the counter-analysis

(a) "No reference discloses 3%–35%." True but not dispositive. The range is a result-effective variable; the art teaches the tradeoff, the design method, and the winding constraints. Prima facie obviousness attaches, shifting the burden to the applicant.

(b) Unexpected results / criticality — the specification's own evidence cuts against it. The patent's Table 1 shows:

Examples 4 and 5 fall outside the claimed 35% ceiling yet still meet the stated product requirement (max error ≤ 0.5). The specification says so explicitly: "even though the coil occupying ratio is greater than 35% in the slot 112, if the shortest distance between coils is 4 mm or above, the maximum error rate is 0.48 which is lower than 0.5 and thus satisfies product requirements." A limit that can be exceeded while still meeting the stated design goal is not a critical limit in the Woodruff sense — it is a conservative optimization point. Expect the patentee to argue in the alternative that the 35% ceiling is critical only in combination with inter-coil distance < 4 mm — but that limitation is not in any granted claim, so that argument is unavailable on the face of claim 1.

(c) Data coverage gap. The samples cluster at 32%, 37% and 42%. There is no data anywhere near 3%, no data in the broad middle of the claimed band (roughly 5%–30%), and the 3% floor is purely calculated. Under In re Soni / In re Geisler, unexpected results must be shown across the entire claimed range. A 3%–35% band supported by three data points between 32% and 42% invites both a § 103 range argument and a § 112(a) written-description/enablement argument for the unbounded lower portion.

(d) Claim construction pressure point. The specification defines "area of a single slot" not as the area between two adjacent teeth, but as the quadrilateral (vertices a, b, c, d) between two adjacent tooth insulating units, excluding the width margin α. This is a non-standard measurement convention: because the tooth insulating unit is slightly wider than the tooth, the claimed denominator is smaller than the physical inter-tooth slot area, which increases the computed ratio and thereby narrows the claim. A POSITA measuring by the plain meaning of "slot" would compute a lower ratio for the same hardware — i.e., the claim as written reaches fewer devices than the words suggest. This is a construction and definiteness issue to brief, and it interacts with § 103 because it determines whether any given prior-art resolver falls inside the band.

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6. Contradiction flagged in the prior sections

The previously generated PTAB challenges section states the FIG. 5 convention "inflates the denominator and thus depresses the computed ratio." That is the reverse of the specification. Because the tooth insulating unit (121) is slightly greater than the tooth (111) — the "width margin (α)" — the area "between two adjacent tooth insulating units" is smaller than the area between two adjacent teeth. The denominator is therefore smaller, and the computed ratio is larger. The earlier statement should be corrected wherever it is relied upon; it inverts the direction of the claim-narrowing effect and would mislead a claim-construction or invalidity position.

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7. Bottoms line

1. Claims 1.1–1.4 (the apparatus) are strongly obvious over JPH08178610 + US 2005/0040816 (Favess) + US 2015/0028862 (Minebea). Minebea in particular discloses the two-sided resin insulators mounted top and bottom with coils wound thereafter through the insulators — the claim-1 insulation-cover architecture almost verbatim.
2. Limitation 1.5 (3%–35%) is prima facie obvious when the above is combined with the design-method teaching of US 7,605,512 / US 2008/0309278 (Hiwin) and the turns-optimization teaching of US 2014/0125324 (Samsung Techwin), reinforced by the applicant's own background admission of the noise-versus-interference tradeoff. The patent's Table 1 affirmatively undercuts criticality of the 35% endpoint.
3. Claims 3, 4 and 5 are individually anticipated/inherently disclosed by Favess and Mitsubishi's US 2006/0119352, independent of any combination. Claim 2 is squarely met by US 2006/0119352 and Minebea.
4. Claims 6 and 7 are the residual risk — I could not verify a cited reference expressly reciting the arc-radius-smaller-than-rotor-diameter and offset-equal-arc-center limitations. Before filing any § 103 challenge, pull the JPH08178610 drawings and confirm, and check whether any LS Automotive sibling application (US 2018/0313668 A1, US 10,655,987 B2, US 10,931,184 B2 in the "Similar Documents" list) contains overlapping disclosure — though note those are post-priority (2018/2020/2021) publications and therefore not prior art against the '613.
5. The most efficient invalidity theory is not "kill claim 1." Because a partial win on claim 1 alone leaves the rotor-geometry claims 5–7 exposed, and because the 3%–35% band is the only truly arguable limitation, model which claims LS Automotive would actually assert before committing to a ground set.