US 10823569

I'll search for this specific patent number to verify current information and check for any litigation.

Let me run a couple more targeted searches for litigation and assignment details.

Summary: US Patent No. 10,823,569 B1

Important framing note first: I searched for this specific number (10823569) and did not find any CAFC 2026 docket, district-court complaint, or PTAB/IPR proceeding in which this patent is the asserted or challenged patent. One search hit (an NHTSA PDF listing "10823569" among long sequences of numbers) is an unrelated numeric list, not a patent citation. Absence of a hit is not proof of absence, but on the record I retrieved, no litigation involving this patent is identifiable. Separately, one aggregator page (patentleaderboard.com) lists "10823569" under a profile for an inventor named Peng Shao associated with "NEC Communication Systems" — this appears to be an aggregation artifact or a different individual with the same name. The authoritative front-page record (and the CN family member naming 恩智浦美国有限公司 / NXP USA) confirms the assignee as NXP USA, Inc.

Bibliographic data (from the patent front page / Google Patents)

Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"A MEMS device includes a first inertial mass system having first drive and sense masses elastically coupled to one another and a second inertial mass system having second drive and sense masses elastically coupled to one another. The first and second drive masses undergo antiphase drive motion along a first axis parallel to the surface of the substrate. First and second sense springs anchor and suspend first and second sense masses spaced apart from the surface of the substrate. The first and second sense springs enable antiphase sense motion of the first and second sense masses along a second axis parallel to the surface in response to an angular rotation about a third axis perpendicular to the surface. The first and second sense springs further enable in-phase sense motion of the first and second sense masses along the second axis in response to a linear acceleration along the second axis."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the apparatus claim (the only independent claim I can confirm verbatim).

Claim 1 covers a MEMS multi-axis sensor made of these pieces:

1. A substrate with a planar surface (the base the moving parts hang above).
2. Two inertial mass systems. A first system with a first drive mass and a first sense mass elastically coupled to it; a second system with a second drive mass and second sense mass similarly coupled.
3. Antiphase drive. The two drive masses are configured to oscillate in opposite directions (phase opposition) along a first axis (in the described embodiment, the X-axis) that runs parallel to the substrate surface.
4. Anchoring sense springs. First sense springs anchor and suspend the first sense mass above the substrate; second sense springs do the same for the second sense mass.
5. Dual-mode sense motion from the same springs. Those sense springs serve two functions:
   • they enable antiphase sense motion of the two sense masses along a second axis (Y-axis) perpendicular to the drive axis, when the device rotates about a third axis (Z-axis) perpendicular to the substrate — the Coriolis-driven gyroscope response; and
   • they also enable in-phase sense motion of the two sense masses along that same second axis when the device experiences linear acceleration along that axis — the accelerometer response.
6. Four resonator beams (claim 1 also recites these). A first and second resonator beam are each elastically coupled to the first sense mass through respective ones of the first sense springs; a third and fourth resonator beam are each coupled to the second sense mass through respective ones of the second sense springs. Each beam undergoes an axial stress (tension or compression) when its sense mass moves along the second axis.

In operation, that axial stress shifts each beam's resonance frequency; the shift is read out and processed. In the disclosed signal chain, difference-of-frequency pairs feed a summing circuit (common-mode → linear acceleration) and a differencing circuit (differential-mode → angular rate), which is the "frequency modulation" (FM) architecture the title refers to.

Uncertainty / limits on this answer:

• The source text available to me truncates partway through claim 5 (at "third drive springs interposed between and interconnecting the first sense mass and the first frame…"). I therefore cannot give you a verbatim accounting of claims 6–17, nor confirm exactly which of those are independent claims. Based on the specification's "Aspects of the disclosure" section, there appear to be three independent aspects: (i) the device recited in claim 1, (ii) a method aspect (actuating the drive masses into antiphase motion; sensing antiphase sense motion → determining an angular rotation rate value; sensing in-phase sense motion → determining a linear acceleration value), and (iii) a device aspect that adds the limitation that the substrate, both inertial mass systems, the sense springs, and the four resonator beams are collocated in a vacuum cavity of a packaged device. These are stated as aspects of the disclosure, which normally map to independent claims, but the granted claim set may not track them exactly (for example, the four-resonator-beam limitations that appear in the summary's third aspect are in fact in granted claim 1). Treat the claims 6–17 mapping as probable, not verified.
• Claims 2–5 (which I can see) are dependent: claim 2 adds drive frames surrounding each sense mass plus first/second drive springs that anchor the frames and flexibly interconnect the two drive masses; claim 3 adds third/fourth sense springs on the frames with longitudinal extension parallel to the drive axis; claim 4 specifies the first/second drive springs have longitudinal extension parallel to the sense axis; claim 5 begins reciting third drive springs between the first sense mass and the first frame.
• I have no independent confirmation of a 2026 CAFC docket for this patent. If you need a definitive litigation check, that should be re-run against Docket Navigator / PACER / the CAFC docket and the USPTO Patent Center and PTAB APIs directly, because my search results showed nothing on point.

Technical context worth noting (adds to earlier sections)

The specification frames the invention as solving a packaging conflict: conventional AM gyroscopes need vacuum (high Q) while conventional AM accelerometers need damping/atmospheric pressure for bandwidth, which "makes co-fabrication and co-packaging unfeasible." Because both the resonant accelerometer and the resonant gyroscope here are FM-based (frequency output rather than amplitude output), a single detection structure can share one cavity pressure (Fig. 2, cavity 118, "may be at vacuum"), reducing die size and die count. Example sensitivities given in the patent: 400 Hz/G for linear acceleration and 0.54 Hz/dps for angular rate in the illustrated tuning-fork design, with drive frequency around 20 kHz.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10823569 across patent litigation sources.

Let me run additional targeted searches to confirm.

Let me try a couple more targeted searches to be thorough.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 10,823,569

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,823,569. No district court case, ITC action, CAFC appeal, or PTAB proceeding asserting or challenging this specific patent surfaced in any of my searches.

Patent identification (confirmed literally, per your instruction)

Searches performed

1. US patent 10823569 litigation
2. "10823569" patent lawsuit defendant
3. "10,823,569" patent infringement complaint
4. unifiedpatents.com litigation "10823569"
5. NXP "10823569" MEMS gyroscope patent asserted district court
6. "Multiple axis sensing device based on frequency modulation" patent lawsuit

Findings

• No district court, ITC, CAFC, or PTAB matters naming this patent were returned. The litigation-related hits that did appear (e.g., Ipsen v. Conjuprom, Bell Semiconductor v. Microchip/Microsemi, Nielsen/Gracenote, Honeywell v. Zebra, various Unified Patents IPRs) involve entirely different patents and parties.
• Two "hits" for the number 10823569 are false positives and should not be treated as litigation:
  • A NHTSA investigation/recall PDF (static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2015/INCLA-DP15001-9888.PDF) that lists a long run of numeric identifiers — a document-index/recall item list, not a patent case.
  • A patentleaderboard.com page cataloguing inventor "Peng Shao" (attributed there to "NEC Communication Systems") that lists the patent alongside a dollar figure (~$9,173,000). This appears to be a portfolio/"estimated value" style metric with a likely entity-mapping error, not a litigation, judgment, or settlement. I would not cite it as evidence of a lawsuit.
• The Belgian/EU patent recueil PDF mentioning NXP USA and a "multi-axis gyroscope" is a publication listing for a different NXP application (US priority 2013), not litigation involving the '569 patent.

Confidence and caveats

• High confidence that no publicly indexed litigation exists as of the search date. This is consistent with the patent's profile: it issued in Nov. 2020 to a large operating company (NXP) in the inertial-sensor space, has a relatively short post-issuance life, and shows no reissue, IPR, or assignment-to-NPE activity.
• Important limitations: The searches were general web searches. I did not have direct, credentialed access to PACER, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or the Unified Patents litigation portal (the portal URL you cited). Those databases occasionally reflect docketed cases before they are widely indexed. A docket-entry-level check of PACER (searching for the patent number in the "patent" field) and Docket Navigator/Lex Machina would be the definitive verification.
• If a plaintiff has sued but the complaint is sealed or very recently filed, my search may not have captured it.

Recommendation: To be certain, run a direct query in PACER's Case Locator / Patent Search on "10,823,569" and in Docket Navigator, and check the USPTO Patent Center "Litigation" tab and the Assignment record (the '569 patent shows a 2019-08-22 assignment to NXP USA, Inc. from inventor Peng Shao). As of my searches, the answer is no known litigation.

I'll verify the structured block's "no proceedings" finding with targeted searches before writing.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks on PTAB/CAFC specifically naming this patent.

PTAB / AIA Trial Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,823,569 B1

(Cross-reference: this builds on the previously generated bibliographic, claims, and litigation sections above rather than repeating them. Where a search hit created ambiguity, I flag it.)

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10,823,569: ZERO. The canonical structured source — the USPTO Open Data Portal ("PTAB proceedings on file") block — returns no AIA trial proceedings (no IPR, PGR, or CBM) for this patent, and my independent web searches surfaced none either. There is therefore no breakdown by status to report: 0 active, 0 canceled, 0 sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied.

Bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant: this is an untested patent. The correct read is not "the patent survived two IPRs and is hardened" — it never faced an IPR. Conversely, it is not "claims 1–5 are canceled." All 17 claims stand unadjudicated by the Board, with no prior-art estoppel on the books and a clean slate for a first petitioner. The patent's validity has been presumptively accepted by the examiner but has never been stress-tested in an adversarial AIA forum. See USPTO PTAB E2E and CourtListener for verification.

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Proceedings detail

No proceedings exist to enumerate. Rather than fabricate dockets, here is the verification trail and the false positives I excluded.

Verification performed:

1. Structured block ("PTAB proceedings on file") — empty / no AIA trials indexed.
2. Web search: PTAB IPR "10,823,569" NXP inter partes review — no on-point result; returned unrelated NXP/Belgian patent-office recueil listings and generic PTAB practice materials.
3. Web search: "10823569" PTAB petition institution decision — no on-point result.
4. Web search: "16/547,687" OR "US 10,823,569" petition for inter partes review — no on-point result.
5. Web search: NXP MEMS "multiple axis sensing device" frequency modulation PTAB challenge — no on-point result; the only NXP-adjacent hit was the CN family member CN 112485468 B (granted 2025-07-15, assignee 恩智浦美国有限公司 / NXP USA), which is a foreign prosecution document, not a PTAB matter.

False positives excluded (do not conflate with this patent):

• IPR2024-01305, U.S. Patent 10,805,687 B2 (Genius Sports Ltd. v. SportsCastr Inc.) — a different patent number (10,805,687 ≠ 10,823,569). Different technology (sports data), different parties.
• IPR2024-01308, U.S. Patent 10,425,697 B2 (Genius Sports Ltd. v. SportsCastr Inc.) — likewise unrelated.
• The ptacts.uspto.gov documents I retrieved discussing claims 1–9 of "the '687 patent" refer to 10,805,687, not the '569 patent. This is precisely the kind of near-miss identifier the operating rules warn against auto-correcting into.

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Strategic summary

Claim status across all AIA forums — nothing is canceled, nothing is confirmed. Because no petition was ever filed, claims 1–17 of US 10,823,569 are all UNTESTED. There are no surviving-after-narrowing claims to list, because there was no narrowing: claim 1 (the sole independent claim confirmed verbatim), dependents 2–5, and claims 6–17 remain exactly as granted on 2020-11-03. Recall from the earlier summary that the claim set is 17 claims with at least one independent apparatus claim, plus probable independent method and vacuum-cavity device aspects that I could not fully verify verbatim. None of that uncertainty has been resolved by any Board decision, because none exists.

Estoppel landscape — a first petitioner has a fully open field. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner who obtains a final written decision; with no FWD, no party is estopped from anything. A defendant today can raise any § 102/§ 103/§ 112 ground, using any art, before any forum, with no "reasonably could have raised" bar. If you file the first IPR, your own exposure is limited to the single ground-set you present (plus what you reasonably could have raised) — a disadvantage of being first if you under-plead, so plead comprehensively. Note also there is no § 315(b) one-year-bar concern until you are served with a complaint asserting this patent; the earlier litigation section found no such complaint on record, so the clock has not started for anyone.

Pattern signals — none indicative of a serial-challenge target. There is no repeat petitioner (there are zero petitioners). The patent owner (NXP USA, Inc., a large operating company, not an NPE) has not had occasion to appeal an adverse Board ruling, so there is no CAFC docket for this patent and no evidence of "PTAB appeals aggressiveness." There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain — consistent with the patent's profile and with the earlier finding of no indexed litigation. The patent has ~13 years of remaining term (anticipated expiration 2039-08-22 per Google Patents), so the absence of challenges to date is notable but not dispositive: patents in the high-volume MEMS inertial-sensor space are typically challenged only when they are actually asserted, and this one has not been.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are drafting or defending against an IPR petition on this patent — you would be the first. There is no FWD to cite, no prior institution decision to distinguish, and no § 325(d) "same art already before the Office" history from a prior trial. Cite the empty PTAB record itself as evidence that validity is untested, and build your § 103 combinations fresh.

2. If you are a defendant receiving a demand or complaint citing this patent: the earlier litigation section found no district court, ITC, or CAFC action naming the '569 patent. Confirm that independently against PACER's Patent Search and Docket Navigator before relying on it, since the absence of a hit is not proof of absence and recently sealed filings may not yet be indexed.

3. Milestones to watch if a petition is later filed (none exist now, so these are prospective): (a) Patent Owner Preliminary Response due 3 months after notice of a filing date; (b) institution decision by 6 months from the filing date (35 U.S.C. § 314(b)); (c) Final Written Decision within 12 months of institution (§ 316(a)(11)), extendable up to 6 months for good cause. Any FWD would be posted at USPTO PTAB E2E and any appeal at the Federal Circuit / CourtListener.

4. Plain statement of the finding: There is no PTAB activity on US 10,823,569. The absence is itself a signal — nationally prominent, heavily asserted patents attract IPRs, and this one (issued 2020, still early in its term, unasserted on the public record) has not yet drawn one. That gives a defendant no free invalidity ammunition but equally hands them no adverse claim-cancellation history to work around; it is a genuinely open first-challenge opportunity.

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Caveats on sourcing (explicit, per operating rules): I did not have credentialed, docket-level access to Patent Center's "Litigation"/trial tabs or to PACER. My conclusion rests on the empty structured ODP block plus general web searches; if a petition was filed very recently and not yet ingested by ODP, these searches could miss it. I did not invent any proceeding number, panel, or outcome — and I expressly declined to attribute the IPR2024-01305 / IPR2024-01308 dockets (which belong to U.S. Patents 10,805,687 and 10,425,697) to this patent.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,823,569. Let me run targeted searches against the assignment databases and related sources.

Let me try to retrieve the actual assignment record details from the USPTO Assignment Center and related sources.

Let me try a few more targeted searches to pin down the exact reel/frame and correspondent.

I hit the tool-call limit before I could pull the reel/frame-level record from the Assignment Center for this specific patent. Here is the reconstruction based on everything I could verify, with the gaps flagged explicitly rather than filled in.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check (inventor-departure / fire-sale tell): Not present / no data. I found no evidence that Peng Shao departed NXP within 12 months of the 2019-08-22 filing, and no portfolio-sale activity associated with his name. I did not have a live employment-history source to confirm his tenure, so treat this as "no signal found," not "verified continuity."

One artifact to disregard: patentleaderboard.com attributes "10823569" to inventor "Peng Shao" under the employer label "NEC Communication Systems" with an estimated value of $9,173,000. This is an aggregation error (the same artifact flagged in the earlier litigation section) — NEC is not the assignee on any authoritative record. Per the operating rules, I read the identifier literally and rely on the front-page record: inventor Peng Shao, assignee NXP USA, Inc.

Original assignee

NXP USA, Inc. (Edge/Galois successor lineage; formerly Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.), Austin, TX.

• Primary line of business: NXP is a large operating semiconductor supplier. Its Sensors business line designs and ships MEMS inertial sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes, multi-axis combo sensors) — i.e., products that plausibly embody the claims of this patent, not a licensing-only entity. NXP's MEMS/inertial sensors are sold into automotive, industrial, and consumer applications.
• Current status: Operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition of the MEMS sensor line is in the record I retrieved. (Note NXP's 2015 Freescale merger, which is how the Freescale MEMS portfolio — including the predecessor reel 040652/0180 and 041354/0148 change-of-name/merger records seen in the West Texas court filing — came under NXP USA.)
• This is the entity printed on the face of the issued patent.

Assignment timeline

Material finding up front: On the record I could retrieve, this patent has exactly one recorded assignment — the original inventor-to-employer assignment executed and recorded on the 2019-08-22 filing date. Google Patents' legal-events feed for US 10,823,569 shows a single reassignment entry:

2019-08-22 — Assigned to NXP USA, INC. (reassignment); "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)." Assignors: SHAO, Peng.

That is consistent with a routine, in-house employment assignment recorded contemporaneously with filing. There is no post-issuance assignment, no security interest, no merger/change-of-name recording against this patent number, and no transfer to an asserter.

However — explicit gap in the data I must not paper over: I was unable to retrieve the reel/frame number or the named correspondent for this specific recording from a live Assignment Center query in the time available. I will not fabricate a reel/frame. The authoritative single entry, formatted with the fields I have and the fields I could not confirm:

• 2019-08-22 (executed) / recorded 2019-08-22 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN — NOT RETRIEVED
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest (see document for details)
  • Assignor: SHAO, Peng
  • Assignee: NXP USA, Inc., Austin, TX
  • Correspondent: not confirmed for this patent. Contextual, not verified as this record: NXP USA routinely records its in-house assignments with itself as correspondent — "NXP USA, INC., 6501 William Cannon Drive West, Austin, TX 78735" (this exact correspondent string appears on NXP/Freescale change-of-name and merger records, e.g. reels 040652/0180 and 041354/0148, in the NXP chain-of-title excerpt docketed as gov.uscourts.txwd.1020109 doc. 24-13). If the '569 recording follows NXP's house practice, the correspondent would be NXP USA's own IP department in Austin rather than an outside firm — but I have not verified that for this reel/frame, so I am flagging it as a hypothesis, not a finding.
  • Context: Original employment assignment (inventor → operating-company employer). No other characterization is supported.

To complete the reel/frame and correspondent fields, run a number query on "10823569" at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) and open the PDF next to the conveyance — the recorded correspondent appears in the header of the recordation notice and on the assignment instrument itself.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10823569
    2019 : Application filed 2019-08-22
         : Assigned to NXP USA Inc same day
    2020 : Patent issued 2020-11-03
         : CN family member filed 2020-08-20
    2025 : CN 112485468 B granted

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

The entire recorded chain is a single, same-day employment assignment from inventor Peng Shao to NXP USA, Inc. executed/recorded 2019-08-22 (Google Patents legal-events entry: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST… Assignors: SHAO, Peng"). That is the classic signature of clean, uninterrupted operating-company ownership, not an NPE chain — there are zero shell-entity transfers, zero known asserters, zero cascading transfers, and no defensive-aggregator termination. The verdict is "insufficient data" under the rubric's definition only because nothing beyond the original assignment exists to analyze; on the merits it reads as operating-company-owned and non-asserted, with the caveat that I could not retrieve the reel/frame or correspondent for that one recording and therefore cannot fully certify the record.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 10823569; mirror at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Two things to re-run for a definitive file: (1) the reel/frame and recorded correspondent for the 2019-08-22 recording, pulled from the Assignment Center PDF; and (2) a PACER/Docket Navigator patent-field search to confirm the "no litigation" finding, since that is what would convert this from "non-asserted operating-company ownership" to a pre-litigation-transfer analysis.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 10,823,569 directly.

Let me pull the citation lists directly from the patent's Justia and Google Patents pages.

Let me target the citation tables more precisely.

Analysis: Prior Art Cited in U.S. Patent No. 10,823,569 B1

Scope and method note (read first). I was asked to search the USPTO database for the specific number 10823569. The authoritative front-page record is the one already reproduced in the earlier sections of this analysis (Google Patents mirror of the USPTO front page, https://patents.google.com/patent/US10823569/en) and the Justia mirror of the same USPTO data (https://patents.justia.com/patent/10823569). I do not have credentialed access to USPTO Patent Public Search / Patent Center, so what follows is drawn from those USPTO-derived mirrors rather than a live USPTO API query. I state that limitation because it matters: the "(56) References Cited" block is the only thing that is genuinely "the patent citation list," and I can reproduce most — but not provably all — of it.

I found no similar-but-different number in this exercise. Note the recurring false positive in the search results: an NHTSA PDF (static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2015/INCLA-DP15001-9888.PDF) that prints 10823569 inside a long unrelated numeric run — not a patent citation, ignored here.

Critical date for the § 102 analysis: the § 102 prior-art cutoff is the filing date, 2019-08-22, because the '569 patent claims no earlier priority (the listed priority date equals the filing date). Every U.S. reference below predates that date and is therefore § 102/§ 103-eligible art. Also note the CN family member CN 112485468 B (priority CN 202010842619.2A, 2020-08-20) was filed after the U.S. filing date and is therefore not prior art to the '569 patent — it is a same-family member, not a reference.

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1. The cited-reference list (USPTO "(56) References Cited" block)

The following is what the USPTO-derived "Referenced Cited / U.S. Patent Documents" table for '569 contains. Caveat: the retrieved Justia extract begins mid-table (the first entries above "8,459,110" were elided by the search engine), so I cannot certify that this is the complete list. Treat the six horizontal-line items and the two-line NPL item at the end as confirmed; treat the ordering above them as possibly abbreviated.

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2. Per-reference analysis

Important framing for the § 102 column below. These are the references the examiner/applicant placed of record. US 10,823,569 issued over all of them, which means the examiner did not find any of them to anticipate. Consequently, the "§ 102 relevance" I give for each item is a hypothetical analyst assessment of which claim(s) a given reference would most plausibly be deployed against (alone for § 102, or as primary reference for § 103) — not a record finding. Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation of a claim, and the only independent apparatus claim is claim 1 (with its four-resonator-beam limitations), per the claim text reproduced earlier in this analysis.

I have marked each description with a confidence flag: [high] = I am reasonably confident of subject matter; [low] = I am inferring from inventor/era and could not verify the title textually; [N/A] = no accurate description available to me, stated rather than guessed.

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1. US 8,459,110 B2 — Cazzaniga — issued 2013-06-11.

• Description: MEMS inertial-sensor patent of the drive-mass/sense-mass type, from the STMicroelectronics Cazzaniga/Comi/Coronato family cluster. [low] on exact title; the inventor name is grounded in the citation list.
• § 102 relevance: Single-frame drive/sense mass architecture. Could be argued against claim 2 (frame surrounding the sense mass) and the drive-spring architecture of claims 2/4, but it does not disclose the four axially-stressed resonator beams or the dual anti-phase/in-phase sense capability of claim 1. No anticipation of claim 1. Filing date not captured in the retrieved data.

2. US 8,671,756 B2 — Comi et al. — issued 2014-03-18. [This is the most § 102-relevant U.S. reference.]

• Description: MEMS gyroscope in which two masses are driven in anti-phase movement along a drive axis; capacitive (amplitude-modulated) readout of Coriolis motion. [moderate-confidence] — the Comi/STM anti-phase-drive family is well known and the inventor name in the citation list is consistent.
• § 102 relevance: This reference maps most directly onto the "first and second drive masses configured to undergo antiphase drive motion along a first axis" limitation of claim 1, and onto the anti-phase concept in claims 2 and 4 (drive springs flexibly interconnecting the two drive masses). Where it fails for § 102 purposes: it does not disclose (a) first/second sense springs that enable both antiphase Coriolis sense motion and in-phase linear-acceleration sense motion, (b) the four resonator beams each elastically coupled to a sense mass through a sense spring, or (c) the frequency-modulated (axial-stress → resonance-shift) readout. It cannot anticipate claim 1; it is the natural primary reference for a § 103 attack on the drive/anti-phase sub-combination, combined with an FM-resonator reference (e.g., item 18 or item 14).

3. US 8,844,357 B2 — Scheben — issued 2014-09-30.

• Description: MEMS yaw-rate/rotation-rate sensor. [low] — I cannot verify title or assignee textually; the name pattern is consistent with a Robert Bosch micromechanical rate sensor.
• § 102 relevance: Generic MEMS gyroscope structure; potentially relevant to the drive-mass/frame limitations of claims 2–4. No anticipation of claim 1. Filing date not captured.

4. US 9,003,882 B2 — Ayazi — issued 2015-04-14.

• Description: Micromachined inertial/resonant sensor from the Ayazi (Georgia Tech) line of work. [low] on exact title.
• § 102 relevance: Ayazi's portfolio is heavily resonant-MEMS, so this is plausibly relevant to the resonant/frequency-output concept underlying claim 1's resonator beams, and potentially to claims 5–6 (third/fourth drive springs, resonator coupling) as well as the resonator-beam limitations of claim 1. But a single Ayazi reference would not show the two-inertial-mass-system, dual-mode spring structure. No anticipation of claim 1.

5. US 9,651,375 B2 — Kuhlmann — issued 2017-05-16.

• Description: Micromechanical sensor (rate sensor / inertial sensor). [low].
• § 102 relevance: General structural art for claims 2–4 (frames, drive springs). No anticipation of claim 1. Filing date not captured.

6. US 9,989,364 B2 — Comi et al. — issued 2018-06-05.

• Description: Later MEMS inertial sensor (STMicroelectronics cluster, same inventor line as item 2). [low] on exact title.
• § 102 relevance: Most directly relevant to the mechanical architecture of claims 2–5 (drive frames surrounding sense masses, third/fourth drive springs). No anticipation of claim 1, and being a 2018 grant it is the most recent U.S. patent of record.

7. US 2004/0211258 A1 — Geen — published 2004-10-28. [High § 102 relevance to the "multiple axis" concept.]

• Description: Analog Devices application titled along the lines of "Multiple output inertial sensing device" — a single MEMS structure providing both acceleration and angular-rate outputs. [moderate-confidence].
• § 102 relevance: This is the strongest prior-art reference on the "multiple axis sensing device" framing of claim 1 (the recitation that one device senses linear acceleration and angular rotation). What it does not disclose is the claimed spring-mediated dual-mode mechanism (same first/second sense springs enabling antiphase sense for rotation and in-phase sense for linear acceleration) or the resonator-beam FM readout. No anticipation of claim 1; excellent § 103 primary reference for the "multi-axis in one structure" motivation.

8. US 2010/0116050 A1 — Wolfram — published 2010-05-13.

• Description: Micromechanical sensor. [low].
• § 102 relevance: General art relevant to the frame/spring architecture of claims 2–4. No anticipation of claim 1.

9. US 2010/0281977 A1 — Coronato — published 2010-11-11.

• Description: MEMS structure with drive and detection masses (STMicroelectronics line). [low].
• § 102 relevance: Relevant to the drive/sense-mass coupling and drive-spring orientation recited in claims 2 and 4. No anticipation of claim 1.

10. US 2010/0307241 A1 — Raman et al. — published 2010-12-09. [High relevance to the FM/resonant-output concept.]

• Description: Resonant-output / frequency-based MEMS gyroscope application from the Raman–Ayazi group. [moderate-confidence].
• § 102 relevance: Directly relevant to the frequency-modulation core of the '569 claims — i.e., detecting inertial input as a shift in a resonator's frequency rather than as an amplitude change. It is a natural § 103 companion to item 2 or 7. It does not, however, show the claim-1 combination (two inertial mass systems + shared spring-mediated anti-phase/in-phase sense modes + four resonator beams). No anticipation of claim 1.

11. US 2011/0030473 A1 — Acar — published 2011-02-10.

• Description: Vibratory MEMS gyroscope/accelerometer application. [low].
• § 102 relevance: Art for the anti-phase drive and sense-mass suspension of claims 2–4. No anticipation of claim 1.

12. US 2012/0060604 A1 — Neul — published 2012-03-15.

• Description: Micromechanical sensor. [low].
• § 102 relevance: General structural art (claims 2–4). No anticipation of claim 1.

13. US 2012/0210788 A1 — Günther — published 2012-08-23.

• Description: Micromechanical component/sensor. [low] (this Günther publication also appears in the cited-reference lists of other MEMS patents retrieved during the search, e.g., US 11,698,257).
• § 102 relevance: General structural art for claims 2–4. No anticipation of claim 1.

14. US 2014/0208823 A1 — Trusov et al. — published 2014-07-31. [Second-highest relevance to frequency-modulated inertial sensing.]

• Description: MEMS inertial sensor from the Trusov/Zotov/Shkel (UC Irvine) resonant-MEMS lineage, i.e., resonant/frequency-output gyroscope-accelerometer art. [low-moderate] — I could not verify the exact title, but the inventor identification is grounded in the citation list and the group's known field.
• § 102 relevance: Together with item 4 and item 10, this is the family of art most likely to be used in a § 103 combination against the frequency-modulated detection concept behind the four resonator beams of claim 1 and the signal-chain claims. Alone, it does not disclose the claim-1 dual-mode spring architecture or the two-inertial-mass-system antiphase drive arrangement. No anticipation of claim 1.

15. US 2014/0352431 A1 — Leclerc — published 2014-12-04.

• Description: Vibrating/resonant MEMS gyroscope application (European inventor lineage). [low].
• § 102 relevance: Resonant-sense art potentially relevant to the axial-stress/frequency-shift mechanism of claims 1 and 5–6. No anticipation of claim 1.

16. US 2015/0211854 A1 — Ruohio — published 2015-07-30.

• Description: MEMS gyroscope/sensor application (Murata/VTI lineage). [low].
• § 102 relevance: General structural art (claims 2–4). No anticipation of claim 1.

17. US 2015/0330783 A1 — Rocchi — published 2015-11-19.

• Description: MEMS micromachined sensor application (STMicroelectronics lineage). [low].
• § 102 relevance: General structural art for claims 2–4; also potentially relevant to the third/fourth sense springs of claim 3. No anticipation of claim 1.

18. Seshia, A. A. et al., "An Integrated Microelectromechanical Resonant Output Gyroscope," IEEE MEMS 2002, 5 pp. (2002-08-07). [The single most § 102/§ 103-relevant item of the entire list.]

• Description: Peer-reviewed conference paper on an integrated micromachined gyroscope whose output is a resonant frequency (i.e., frequency-modulated/resonant readout of the Coriolis-induced axial load). [high-confidence] — the title is quoted verbatim from the citation list.
• § 102 relevance: This is the closest thing in the record to a direct § 102 reference against the FM concept recited in the claim set — the resonator-beam axial-stress → frequency-shift detection that underlies claims 1, 5, 6 and the signal-processing limitations. It is nonetheless not anticipatory of claim 1, because it does not disclose (a) two inertial mass systems with anti-phase drive masses along a first axis, (b) sense springs that enable both anti-phase rotation sensing and in-phase linear-acceleration sensing, or (c) four resonator beams each coupled to a sense mass through a sense spring. Its proper role is as the primary § 103 reference for the FM/resonant-output concept, combined with an anti-phase-drive reference such as item 2. Note it is also very old (2002) relative to the 2019 filing date, which makes it the anchor for any "FM readout was known" argument.

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3. Bottom line on § 102

• No single cited reference anticipates any claim of US 10,823,569. That is consistent with the patent's issuance and with the absence of any § 102 rejection in the record. Claim 1 requires the concurrence of (i) two inertial mass systems, (ii) anti-phase drive along a first axis, (iii) sense springs enabling both anti-phase rotation sense and in-phase acceleration sense along a second axis, and (iv) four resonator beams each coupled to a sense mass through a sense spring. No one reference in the list supplies all four.
• The two references that come closest to partial § 102-style mapping are:
  • US 8,671,756 B2 (Comi et al.) → the anti-phase drive limitation (claim 1) and claims 2/4; and
  • Seshia et al. (2002 NPL) → the frequency-modulated/resonant-output limitation (claims 1, 5, 6).
    These are complementary, not overlapping, which is why the realistic invalidity theory is § 103, not § 102: Comi + Seshia (optionally + Geen US 2004/0211258 A1 for the "multiple output in one device" motivation, or + Raman US 2010/0307241 A1 for resonant detection).
• The multi-axis-single-structure motivation is best supported by US 2004/0211258 A1 (Geen, Analog Devices); the resonant/frequency-output concept by Seshia (2002), US 2010/0307241 A1 (Raman), US 9,003,882 B2 (Ayazi), and US 2014/0208823 A1 (Trusov).

Explicit uncertainty, per my operating rules:

1. The cited-reference list above may be incomplete — the first entries of the USPTO table were elided in the source extract I could retrieve, and I cannot verify there are no additional references (or examiner-cited NPL) above US 8,459,110.
2. Several titles/assignees are marked [low] because I could not textually verify them; I have given inventor names exactly as they appear in the citation list rather than guessing titles. Where I could not give a description ([N/A] was not needed here, but is close for items 3, 5, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17), I deliberately kept the description generic rather than fabricate a title.
3. Filing dates for the U.S. patents/application publications were not captured in the retrieved front-page extract. Only publication/grant dates are grounded.

4. Not prior art — do not confuse these with the above

The searches also surfaced forward citations (patents that cite the '569 patent). These are not prior art and should not appear in a § 102 analysis:

• US 11,187,529 ("Gyro sensor, electronic device, and vehicle"), US 11,193,770 ("Microelectromechanical systems gyroscope"), US 11,698,257, US 10,697,774 B2 (Analog Devices), US 10,760,909 B2 (NXP USA), EP 3696502 B1 and EP 3696503 B1 (Murata), and DE 10 2010 061 755 A1-related listings — each of which lists US10823569B1 * | 2019-08-22 | 2020-11-03 | Nxp Usa, Inc. in its citation table.

Cross-check against the earlier sections: (a) the earlier "summary" section flagged the patentleaderboard.com page attributing inventor Peng Shao to "NEC Communication Systems" with a ~$9.17M figure — that page again surfaced in this search listing 10823569; I again treat it as an aggregation/entity-mapping artifact, not litigation and not a citation source. (b) The earlier section's uncertainty about claims 6–17 is unaffected — but the claim text reproduced in the authoritative full patent text confirms claim 1's four-resonator-beam limitations, which is what drives the "no single reference anticipates" conclusion above. No contradiction between the earlier sections and this analysis.

To make this definitive, the list should be re-pulled directly from USPTO Patent Public Search or Patent Center (the "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" tab of application 16/547,687) and cross-checked against the Google Patents "Citations" tab for US10823569B1, which separates applicant-cited, examiner-cited, and forward citations.

I'll research the prior art landscape for the key claim elements before building the § 103 analysis.

Strong prior-art candidates are surfacing. Let me pull the citation record for the '569 patent itself and the ST/EP integrated resonant structures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,823,569 B1

0. Scope note and a gap I need to flag up front

The task instruction says to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." The page text supplied to me does not contain a "References Cited" / patent-citation list — it contains only prior-art keywords ("sense, drive, mass, axis, springs") and one prior-art date (2019-08-22, which equals the filing date, so there is no earlier priority claim to rely on). Because the front-page citation list is absent from the record I was given, I retrieved the surrounding art independently. All references below are real documents I retrieved, with URLs. Where I could not verify a fact (e.g., an assignee), I say so.

Critical date: the '569 patent's effective filing/priority date is 2019-08-22. Every reference below published before that date and therefore qualifies as prior art under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2).

A second gap, carried forward: as noted in the earlier sections, the claim text I hold is complete for claims 1–4 and truncated mid-claim-5 ("…third drive springs interposed between and interconnecting the first sense mass and the first frame"). My analysis of claims 6–17 is therefore probabilistic, based on the specification's three "Aspects of the disclosure," not on verified claim text.

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1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA here would have an M.S. in mechanical, electrical, or applied-physics engineering (or a B.S. plus 3–5 years) with working experience designing MEMS inertial sensors — specifically tuning-fork/quadruple-mass vibratory gyroscopes, resonant (frequency-output) accelerometers, and their PLL-based readout electronics. That person would be familiar with (a) the Coriolis force transfer from a drive mode to a sense mode, (b) the axial-load → resonance-frequency relationship for doubly-clamped beams (the '569 patent's own equations (1)–(2)), and (c) the classical AM-vs-FM architecture debate in MEMS inertial sensing.

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2. The prior art relied upon

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3. Claim 1 — element-by-element obviousness mapping

Primary combination: Trusov-B (US 9,696,340) + Comi-A (US 8,516,889) + Comi-B (US 8,671,756), optionally with WO '428.

Every element of claim 1 is disclosed, and the two claimed sense modes (in-phase/acceleration and antiphase/rate) read out by the same resonator set are the central teaching of WO '428 and Comi-B. The claimed subject matter is therefore a combination of known elements each performing its established function — the classic KSR "predictable use of prior-art elements" situation.

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4. Motivation to combine (the KSR inquiry)

The motivation is not merely inferable — it is written into the specification the applicant himself filed, and into Trusov-B. Four independent strands:

1. The '569 patent's own statement of the problem. The Background states that because high-precision gyroscopes need vacuum (high Q) while AM accelerometers need atmospheric damping for bandwidth, "the fundamental difference between packaging of prior art MEMS gyroscopes and accelerometers makes co-fabrication and co-packaging unfeasible," and that a single FM structure "may thereby simplify the MEMS processing technology, reduce MEMS die size, and reduce the quantity of MEMS dies in a sensor package." That is an explicit design incentive.

2. Trusov-B supplies exactly that incentive and that solution. Its claim 1 is directed to an FM vibratory gyroscope and an FM resonant accelerometer fabricated in the same silicon chip "as part of the vacuum sealed single packaged device," with a processor producing "simultaneous and decoupled measurement of input acceleration [and] input rotation rate." Trusov-B's own Background ([0008]) states the identical "packaging incompatibility" rationale the '569 patent recites. So Trusov-B teaches both the motivation and the FM architecture.

3. The signal-processing operation is a known mathematical identity. Trusov-B claims 2–3 recite that for a splitting-frequency pair, the sum is proportional to sensor temperature and the difference provides a measure of the input rate (or acceleration). The '569 patent's third combining circuit (sum of Δf_M1+Δf_M2 → linear acceleration) and fourth combining circuit (difference Δf_M1−Δf_M2 → angular rate) are the same sum/difference use of a resonator-pair frequency set. Reassigning which physical quantity is taken from the sum versus the difference is a predictable, purely conventional choice.

4. The industry was already integrating multiple axes onto one proof mass. US '585 (single proof mass → 2 acceleration axes + 1 rotation axis), Comi-B (single inertial mass → multiple axes from f₁–f₄), CN '223 (one-chip resonant accelerometer + gyroscope), and EP '169 (a dedicated "acceleration and angular-velocity resonant integrated detection structure," whose stated aim is to avoid "distinct inertial masses for detecting the various external quantities") put integration squarely in the air before 2019.

Reasonable expectation of success. Comi-A demonstrates that a spring-coupled doubly-clamped resonator pair yields a linear, temperature-cancelling, differential frequency output (its stated advantages are literally the same ones the '569 patent claims). Trusov-B demonstrates a working, vacuum-packaged, single-die FM gyro + FM accelerometer with decoupled output. Combining a known differential-frequency resonant accelerometer structure (Comi-A/Comi-B) with a known single-cavity FM gyroscope architecture (Trusov-B/Trusov-A), under an explicit motivation to reduce die count (Trusov-B; EP '169), is a routine engineering combination with predictable results — and no evidence of unexpected results is present in the record (the '569 patent's reported 400 Hz/G and 0.54 Hz/dps are ordinary design numbers for a tuning-fork FM design).

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5. Alternative / secondary combinations

• Combination B (the strongest art-based attack): EP 2 713 169 B1 (integrated acceleration + angular-velocity resonant detection structure sharing an inertial mass, expressly solving the "distinct inertial masses" problem) in view of WO 2017/007428 A1 (antiphase-driven proof-mass frames with a resonator pair between them, where the same f₁/f₂ pair is used in one claim set for acceleration and in another for rotation rate) and Trusov-A/'153 (PLL-tracked differential frequency as the FM rate output). This combination maps onto claim 1 almost clause-for-clause and carries an unusually strong motivation statement drawn from the references themselves.
• Combination C: Trusov-B in view of US 8,584,524 (multiple FM gyroscopes + nanoresonator accelerometers co-fabricated on one wafer and capped in vacuum, where the sense beam is loaded in tension/compression and its resonant frequency shifts). US '524 supplies the "vacuum cavity / co-fabricated FM accelerometer + gyroscope" limitation that recurs in the '569 summary's third aspect.

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6. Dependent claims 2–5

• Claim 2 (drive mass comprises a frame surrounding the sense mass; drive springs anchor the frames and flexibly interconnect the two drive masses). A drive frame surrounding the sense mass, with the two drive masses linked through springs, is the conventional dual-mass tuning-fork layout (Trusov-A: "dual mass tuning fork"; US '585: proof mass with distinct primary/secondary actuation and sensing; Comi-B second embodiment: a frame 20 defining an internal opening 22 with mass portions inside). It would have been obvious to give each drive mass a surrounding frame to decouple drive motion from sense motion — the '569 patent itself concedes this is merely "any convenient shape, size, and material."
• Claim 3 (third/fourth sense springs on the frame perimeter, longitudinal extension ∥ the drive axis, deforming under in-phase/antiphase sense motion). A spring whose long axis is perpendicular to the direction of a desired displacement is the definition of a compliant suspension in that direction; it is a purely mechanical expedient. Comi-B's elastic elements 8 explicitly comprise portions of differing orientation ("the springs with extension transverse to the direction of displacement… with extension along the first axis… do not undergo an appreciable deformation," US 2012/0132003 ¶[0048]).
• Claim 4 (first/second drive springs with longitudinal extension ∥ the sense axis). Same reasoning, transposed — uncritical orientation of a known flexure.
• Claim 5 (third drive springs between the first sense mass and the first frame). This is exactly Comi-A'spring-to-resonator-beam coupling, structurally and functionally disclosed as the mechanism that transfers proof-mass motion into axial load on the resonator.

None of claims 2–5 adds an element with an unexpected function; each is a conventional mechanical refinement of the claim-1 combination and would have been obvious.

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7. Probable independent claims 6–17 (flagged as unverified)

From the specification's three "Aspects," two further independent claims very likely exist, and both are vulnerable:

1. The method aspect: actuate antiphase drive; sense antiphase sense motion → determine an angular rotation rate value; sense in-phase sense motion → determine a linear acceleration value. Trusov-A ['153 claims 8–17] claims precisely the FM method steps (exciting the modes, monitoring/tracking the resonant frequencies, producing an FM output proportional to input angular velocity, differentiating the two frequencies), and Trusov-B claims 11 and 20 claim the FM method steps for the accelerometer with PLL/frequency-counter demodulation. A method of "using" the claim-1 apparatus according to its intended function adds nothing patentable over the apparatus and its known operation.
2. The vacuum-cavity aspect: substrate + both inertial mass systems + sense springs + four resonator beams "collocated in a cavity of a packaged device, the cavity being at vacuum." Trusov-B's independent claim 1 recites "a multi-axis MEMS IMU in a vacuum sealed single packaged device comprising a single silicon chip, an FM vibratory gyroscope…, an FM resonant accelerometer…," and US '524 discloses multiple FM gyroscopes/accelerometers on one wafer "capped with a silicon wafer in a vacuum." This limitation is squarely met.

(Caveat: because I cannot read claims 6–17 verbatim, a specific claim could contain an unanticipated narrowing limitation — e.g., a particular spring topology or a specific comb-drive geometry. That should be checked against the granted claim set before relying on this conclusion.)

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8. Anticipated rebuttals and secondary considerations

• Best non-obviousness argument: Trusov-B uses separate transducer types (tuning-fork electrostatic-negative-stiffness accelerometer + quadruple-mass gyroscope), so it does not suggest one shared sense mass doing double duty. Why it fails: WO 2017/007428 A1 and Comi-B both teach multiple physical quantities derived from a single proof-mass/frame set through the same resonator frequencies, and EP '169 expressly identifies that integration as the unmet need. A POSITA would have had both the motivation and the mechanism.
• Secondary considerations: none appears in the record. The '569 patent's asserted advantages (single cavity pressure, smaller die, fewer dies per package) are the very advantages Trusov-B and US '524 already achieved — i.e., they are expected consequences of the combination, not unexpected results, and there is no nexus to any commercial success or licensing evidence. Lithography alignment of the FM gyro and FM accelerometer is expressly claimed in Trusov-B (claim 16), so even that benefit predates the '569 patent.

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9. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is very likely invalid under § 103. It is the predictable aggregation of (i) an FM, vacuum-packaged, single-die gyroscope + accelerometer architecture with decoupled common-mode/differential-mode output (Trusov-B US 9,696,340, Trusov-A US 2013/0098153), (ii) spring-coupled, oppositely-stressed resonator-beam sensing with differential frequency output (Comi-A US 8,516,889), (iii) multi-axis decoupling from one inertial mass via frequency sums/differences (Comi-B US 8,671,756), and (iv) the express industry motivation to integrate (EP 2 713 169 B1, WO 2017/007428 A1, US 8,464,585, CN 107063223).
• The strongest single combination is EP 2 713 169 B1 + WO 2017/007428 A1 + Trusov-A '153, because WO '428 supplies the antiphase drive and the idea of deriving acceleration and rate from the same resonator pair, while EP '169 supplies the integration motivation.
• Claims 2–4 (verified) are obvious as conventional flexure/frame refinements; claim 5 (partially verified) is disclosed by Comi-A's spring-to-resonator-beam coupling.
• Confidence: high for claim 1; moderate for claims 6–17 (dependent on unverified claim text).
• Gaps to close: (a) retrieve the '569 patent's own References Cited list (the "Prior Art section" of the Google Patents page was not present in my copy, despite the instruction to use it); (b) obtain verbatim claims 5–17; (c) verify the publication dates and assignees I hedged on above (EP '169, US '524, US '585, WO '428) against Espacenet/Google Patents before filing any § 103 paper.