US 10627255

I'll search for this specific patent number to check for any litigation or docket activity, then combine with the authoritative patent text provided.

The second query returned only false positives (a UK company registration number and a bead SKU), so I want to try to pin down the granted claim set before summarizing.

US 10,627,255 B2 — Analyst Summary

Important scope note up front: My search tool is a general web-search interface, not a live PACER / USPTO PatentCenter / CAFC docket query. I searched for the exact number 10627255 and for "10,627,255" with claim-language terms. I found no record of any CAFC appeal, IPR/PGR, or district-court litigation involving this patent. However, absence of a hit is not affirmative proof of no litigation — I do not have authoritative docket-database access, so treat the "no litigation found" conclusion as unverified. Two searches did surface false positives that I explicitly rejected rather than treating as this patent:

• thegazette.co.uk hit for "10627255" — this is a UK Companies House registration number for "GRIFO DEVELOPMENTS LIMITED," not a US patent docket.
• A bead-supply PDF hit for "10627255" — an SKU number, not a patent docket.

Per your instruction, I am not auto-correcting any identifier, and I am not treating those hits as related to US 10,627,255.

1. Bibliographic Data (authoritative, from the patent text supplied)

Lineage note (from search, moderately confident): A concurrent TDK patent, US 11,204,263 B2 ("Position detection device … and a magnetic sensor," Umehara et al.), shares this specification and is flagged as subject to a terminal disclaimer, and a related US 10,712,178 appears in its chain. This suggests a family of related TDK filings, but I have not verified US 10,627,255's own terminal-disclaimer or continuation status, so I flag it as unconfirmed.

Possible foreign family members (low-moderate confidence): Searches returned JP 6365908 B1 and JP 2018163023 A with text that matches this specification closely (the >90° and <180° relative-angle teaching, MF1/MF2/MFa/MFb/θa/θb terminology). These are likely the Japanese counterparts to the 2017-03-24 priority filing, but the search results did not expressly link them to US 10,627,255, so I present this as an inference, not a verified family listing.

2. Abstract (verbatim basis)

A position detection device includes a first magnetic field generation unit for generating a first magnetic field, a second magnetic field generation unit for generating a second magnetic field, and a magnetic sensor. The relative position of the second magnetic field generation unit with respect to the first magnetic field generation unit is variable. The magnetic sensor detects a composite magnetic field of the first and second magnetic fields, and generates a detection signal corresponding to the direction of the detected magnetic field. Varying the relative position of the second magnetic field generation unit with respect to the first magnetic field generation unit varies the strength of the second magnetic field at the detection position. At the detection position, a relative angle formed by the direction of the second magnetic field with the direction of the first magnetic field is greater than 90° and smaller than 180°.

3. Technical Problem and Core Insight

• Prior art cited by the patent: US 2016/0231528 A1, which detects a composite vector angle where the second magnetic field is orthogonal (90°) to the first. The patent characterizes this as having a low ratio of composite-vector-angle change to lens-position change → low position-detection sensitivity (specifically low because cosine sensitivity near 90° is at its minimum).
• The patent's move: Deliberately set the relative angle θ between the second and first magnetic field directions to a value greater than 90° and less than 180° (example: 135°). Working the vector geometry, this increases the angular swing of the composite field per unit of relative displacement, raising sensitivity.
• Quantified effect stated in the specification: with θ = 135°, sensitivity is approximately 600 mV/mm versus approximately 250 mV/mm for the 90° comparative example (FIG. 12).
• Tightening the range (FIG. 15): the specification states that (a) detection-signal range should exceed the 90° case by at least 25% → θ ≥ ~105°; (b) a linearity parameter D should be ≤ 50 µm and more preferably ≤ 20 µm → θ ≤ ~165° and ≤ ~145° respectively. Hence the preferred ranges 105°–165° and 105°–145°. Note the specification explicitly acknowledges an accuracy/linearity tradeoff: detection-signal range rises monotonically toward 180°, but so does the linearity error D.

4. Plain-Language Overview of the Claim Coverage

Caveat on claim text. The full patent text I was given cuts off mid-sentence in the description ("…i.e., th") and, despite listing "claims" as a keyword, does not contain the numbered granted claim set. I therefore cannot quote claim 1 verbatim, and I will not fabricate claim language. What follows is reconstructed from the patent's own Summary of the Invention, which is drafted in claim-like terms and is the reliable basis for the independent claim's substance. Independent-claim numbering and the existence of additional independent claims should be treated as unverified.

Independent claim (believed to be claim 1) — plain language

A position detection device comprising three cooperating elements:

1. First magnetic field generation unit — produces a fixed first magnetic field (MF1). (In the embodiments this is a composite of two magnets, e.g., magnets 31A and 34A, so that MF1 at the detection site is steady in both strength and direction.)
2. Second magnetic field generation unit — produces a second magnetic field (MF2) and is mounted so its relative position with respect to the first unit can change. Movement changes the distance between the second unit and the detection position, which changes only the strength of MF2 there — not its direction, and not MF1's strength or direction. (Embodiment: a single magnet 13 carried by a lens-holding member that translates along the optical axis / Z.)
3. Magnetic sensor at a predetermined detection position — senses the composite magnetic field MF (the vector sum of MF1 and MF2 at that position) and outputs a detection signal corresponding to the direction of the sensed field (a field-angle output, not merely a magnitude output). The embodiments use a Wheatstone bridge of spin-valve MR elements whose pinned-layer magnetization defines a reference direction (−Y), yielding an output varying as the cosine of the composite field angle.

The point of novelty in the claim is a geometric relationship, not a component: at the detection position, the relative angle formed by the direction of MF2 with the direction of MF1 is greater than 90° and smaller than 180°. This is what the patent asserts delivers the higher sensitivity, because the output responds to composite-field direction swing rather than field strength.

Dependent-claim subject matter (per the Summary; order/numbers unverified)

• Angular range narrowing: relative angle within 105°–165°, and more narrowly 105°–145°.
• Movement mode: varying the relative position varies the distance between the detection position and the second magnetic field generation unit.
• Two-magnet first unit: the first magnetic field generation unit comprises two magnets at mutually different positions, and MF1 is the composite of their two fields (this is what lets MF1 be held constant in strength and direction at the sensor).
• Holding structure: a first holding member holding the first unit and a second holding member holding the second unit, the second being displaceable in one direction relative to the first.
• Camera/lens application: the second holding member holds a lens and is displaceable along the lens optical axis relative to the first holding member (autofocus use case).

Embodiment details supporting the claims (for context, not claim language)

• First embodiment: camera module 100 with autofocus + optical image stabilization; magnets 31A/34A serve double duty as drive magnets and as the first-unit field source; magnet 13 rides the AF (Z-axis) carriage; magnetic sensor 20 fixed to substrate 7. FIG. 6 shows θ set to 135° with magnet 13 magnetized 45° off −X toward −Y.
• Modification examples (FIGS. 16–18) show alternative second-unit configurations: a two-portion magnet 131 (portions magnetized −Z and +Z), two spaced magnets 132A/132B, and two spaced magnets 133A/133B (magnetized −Z and +Z) — all stated to yield θ = 135°.
• Second embodiment (FIG. 19): a simplified device 101 with a plate-shaped first holding member 114, two magnets 111A/111B magnetized in −Y forming MF1, and a moving magnet 113 on member 115, again with θ = 135°.
• Sensor construction (FIG. 8): stacked free layer / nonmagnetic layer / pinned layer / antiferromagnetic layer MR elements (TMR or GMR), interconnected by lower and upper electrodes.

5. Explicit Uncertainties

1. Granted claim set not retrieved. I could not obtain the literal numbered claims. The independent-claim summary above is a substantive reconstruction from the Summary of the Invention; I have not verified the exact wording, the number of independent claims, or their precise scope.
2. No litigation found, but not affirmatively ruled out. No CAFC 2026 or other litigation hits appeared for this patent number. My tool cannot query PACER/CourtListener/Court of Appeals dockets directly, and the only numeric "10627255" matches were non-patent false positives (a UK company number and a retail SKU).
3. Family relationships inferred, not confirmed. The JP 6365908 B1 / JP 2018163023 A and US 11,204,263 B2 / US 10,712,178 relationships are based on textual and bibliographic similarity in search snippets, not on a verified INPADOC-style family record.
4. Terminal disclaimer status unverified for US 10,627,255 itself; the terminal disclaimer notice I saw was on US 11,204,263 B2.
5. Dates and identifiers above are quoted exactly as the supplied authoritative text states them and have not been auto-corrected.

Grounding sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10627255/en (authoritative full text supplied); search hits at https://www.patentleaderboard.com/tdk/keisuke-uchida/14697 (confirming inventor/title/date pairing), https://patents.google.com/patent/JP6365908B1/en and https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2018163023A/en (matching specification text), and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/14/ee/a1/296c0e825aaae6/US11204263.pdf (related TDK patent with terminal disclaimer).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10627255.

Initial searches didn't surface litigation. Let me search more specifically.

Let me try more targeted sources.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,627,255

Bottom line: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,627,255 was found.

Searches performed

I ran multiple searches across general web indexes and patent-focused sources, including queries aimed at the specific patent number ("10,627,255", "US10627255", "10627255"), litigation-oriented phrasing ("patent infringement complaint," "lawsuit defendant"), the patent's subject matter ("position detection device," magnetoresistive/magnetic sensor, camera module autofocus), and the assignee (TDK Corporation). I attempted to reach the Unified Patents litigation portal and other docket aggregators.

Result

• No district court litigation, ITC action, or PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR) referencing U.S. Patent No. 10,627,255 was located in the accessible public sources.
• No results on the patent number were returned by PACER/CAFC-style sources. Search results surfaced only unrelated "10627255" strings, which I must expressly flag as not this patent:
  • A UK Companies House number "10627255" (Grifo Developments Limited) appearing in a London Gazette PDF.
  • An unrelated byte-count string "102766 bytes" in a TTAB filing.
• I could not directly query the Unified Patents case list or PACER (no returned case records for this number), so I cannot rule out a sealed, very recent, or non-indexed filing — but nothing found indicates any suit.

Patent status context (for reference)

• Patent: US 10,627,255 B2, "Position Detection Device"
• Assignee/current owner: TDK Corporation
• Inventors: Keisuke Uchida; Hiraku Hirabayashi
• Application: 15/892,875; filed 2018-02-09; granted 2020-04-21; priority 2017-03-24
• Legal status (per Google Patents): Active, adjusted expiration 2038-04-20
• Pre-grant publication: US 2018/0274945 A1

Confidence and caveats

• Confidence that no litigation is known: moderate-high based on the sources reachable. However, docket databases such as Unified Patents' litigation caselist, Docket Navigator, and PACER were not fully accessible in this session, so a comprehensive negative cannot be guaranteed.
• Recommendation: For a definitive answer, run the patent number directly through PACER (all district courts), the ITC EDIS docket, and the PTAB P-TACTS/Unified Patents portal. If you can confirm access to any of those, I can re-verify.

If you have a specific plaintiff, defendant, or jurisdiction in mind, tell me and I'll target the search accordingly.

I'll verify the structured data with a few targeted searches before finalizing.

PTAB Proceedings Analysis — US 10,627,255 B2

Patent: US 10,627,255 B2 — "Position detection device"
Patent Owner / Assignee: TDK Corporation (original assignee; assignment recorded 2018-02-09)
Inventors: Keisuke Uchida; Hiraku Hirabayashi
Application: 15/892,875 · Filed: 2018-02-09 · Granted: 2020-04-21 · Priority: 2017-03-24 (JP)
Adjusted expiration: 2038-04-20 (status: Active)

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file. A total of 0 IPRs, 0 PGRs, and 0 CBMs have ever been instituted or even petitioned against US 10,627,255 — breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. The defensive bottom line: this patent is untested, not hardened. No claim has been canceled, so nothing here will get a demand letter dismissed on its face — but equally, the Patent Owner has never had to defend these claims before the Board, no petitioner is estopped, and you retain a completely clean § 315(e)(2) slate for both PTAB and district court.

Verification performed

The canonical source for this analysis is the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this assignment, which reports that the USPTO Open Data Portal API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. I independently attempted to surface older or recently-filed proceedings the ODP may not have indexed:

• Searches on the patent number in PTAB/E2E, Docket Alarm, and Google Patents-style queries returned no IPR/PGR/CBM naming US 10,627,255.
• Patent Owner TDK Corporation is a large Japanese electronic-components manufacturer with an extensive, actively-prosecuted portfolio (140+ US patents for inventor Hirabayashi alone) — a profile that produces many continuation filings but, for this patent, no PTAB challenge on record.
• No Federal Circuit appeal of anything involving this patent was located (nothing on the CAFC docket or CourtListener tied to the '255 patent).

⚠️ Do not confuse this patent with a docket lookalike

One search hit is a trap for the careless analyst: IPR2024-01137, Trove Brands, LLC v. CamelBak Products, LLC, which is captioned against a "Patent 10,676,255" and refers throughout to "the '255 Patent." That is US 10,676,255 — CamelBak's drinking-vessel patent (petition filed 2024-07-01, grounds under pre-AIA § 103 over Nakajima and Ribarits). It has no relationship to TDK's US 10,627,255. Any docket or citation pairing the two is an error.

On the claim set

The authoritative full text supplied for this assignment includes the Abstract, Summary, and full Description but not the numbered claims section. I therefore will not state claim numbers as if I had read them. From the Summary and Abstract, the independent claim(s) recite: a first magnetic field generation unit generating a first magnetic field; a second magnetic field generation unit whose relative position with respect to the first is variable; a magnetic sensor detecting a composite magnetic field at a detection position and generating a detection signal corresponding to the detected field's direction; and — the point of novelty — a relative angle, at the detection position, formed by the direction of the second magnetic field with the direction of the first magnetic field that is greater than 90° and smaller than 180°. The Summary further recites ranges of 105°–165° and 105°–145°, which are almost certainly reflected in dependent claims, but I have not verified that and do not assert it.

No proceedings on file — structured entry

(none) — no petitioner v. TDK Corporation

• Type: N/A — no IPR, PGR, or CBM identified
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No AIA trial proceeding on file (per USPTO ODP structured data; corroborated by web search)
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: None located
• Defensive value: Nothing to leverage and nothing to fear. There is no FWD to quote and no cancellation to invoke.

Statutory note on remaining windows: granted 2020-04-21, the patent is AIA-era and was PGR-eligible, but the § 321(c) nine-month PGR window closed on 2021-01-21. IPR remains available at any time, subject only to the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of an infringement complaint on a given petitioner, and to the Board's § 325(d) / Fintiv-style discretionary denial practice.

Strategic summary

Claim status — all claims UNTESTED. There are no CANCELED claims and no SUSTAINED claims, because there has been no AIA trial. Every claim of US 10,627,255 that issued on 2020-04-21 stands with its full original scope, never reviewed on the merits by the PTAB. If you are mapping this patent to a product, you are dealing with the issued claim set as-is, and the >90°/<180° relative-angle limitation is the anchor of the independent claim and the natural focus of both an infringement and a validity analysis.

Estoppel landscape — a clean slate for everyone. Because no IPR or PGR was instituted and no FWD issued, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to no one. There is no petitioner, no real party in interest, and no privy barred from raising any prior-art ground in district court or at the ITC. Practically, that means: (1) you can file an IPR raising any § 102/§ 103 ground without fear of having already burned it; (2) a co-defendant who never petitioned is equally unconstrained; and (3) conversely, you get no benefit from anyone else's work product — no IPR record, no Board claim constructions, no expert testimony to borrow. The obvious prior-art references are those already discussed in the specification itself, notably U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0231528 A1 (identified by the Patent Owner as the closest art and expressly distinguished on the ground that its composite-vector-angle sensitivity is "low"). Any § 103 theory will have to reckon with the Applicant's own characterization of that reference, which cuts both ways: it confirms the reference is analogous and on-point, but the Patent Owner will argue it teaches away from the claimed >90° geometry.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern to report: no repeat petitioner, no serial IPR filer, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar entity anywhere in the chain). Combined with the clean prosecution-to-grant timeline (filed 2018-02-09, granted 2020-04-21, no reissue or certificate of correction), the absence of any PTAB activity suggests this patent has either not been assertively enforced in a way that provoked an AIA challenge, or has been asserted in contexts (e.g., component-supplier negotiations, ITC actions, or litigations that resolved before an IPR was filed) that did not generate a Board docket. I could not verify the litigation history — I did not find a confirmed infringement suit asserting this patent, and I am not asserting one exists.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and want PTAB relief: the door is wide open. There is no proceeding to piggyback on, so you would be the first petitioner. File within one year of service of the complaint to preserve § 315(b), and be prepared to address § 325(d) if the art you plan to use resembles the art cited during prosecution.
2. Prioritize the specification's own cited art. The Board and the Patent Owner both start from US 2016/0231528 A1; the specification at ¶ "Description of the Related Art" admits the composite-vector-angle technique and argues only that its sensitivity is low. That admission is useful, but the "low sensitivity" framing is a double-edged sword — expect the Patent Owner to use it to argue that varying the relative angle to >90° was non-obvious.
3. Check the litigation docket before you spend on a petition. I could not confirm whether this patent is currently in suit. If a complaint has been served on you or your supply chain, the § 315(b) clock is running and, under current discretionary-denial practice, an early petition materially improves your odds.
4. Look at the family, not just this patent. TDK files dense continuation families around its position-detection work (the record shows related TDK patents such as US 11,204,263, US 10,712,178, and US 11,099,033, though I have not confirmed any are in the same priority family as the '255 patent — treat that as a research lead, not a finding). If you are facing a TDK assertion campaign rather than this single patent, the portfolio, not the proceeding list, is the real risk surface.

Sources: US 10,627,255 on Google Patents · USPTO PTAB E2E (no proceedings on file) · Docket Alarm PTAB docket search · CourtListener (no CAFC appeal located)

Caveat: I found no proceeding to cite, so I have cited none. Every claim-level, panel, and disposition statement in the template above is marked N/A because the underlying facts do not exist — not because they are withheld. If the ODP ingest updates and a proceeding appears, the FWD and E2E links should be substituted at that time.

I'll verify the assignment record against USPTO sources and cross-check the assignee/inventor chain.

Assignment Record — U.S. Patent No. 10,627,255 ("Position Detection Device")

Data-access note (important): I could not establish a live, reel/frame-level query against the USPTO Assignment Center in this session. The Assignment Center is a form-driven database (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) that does not expose its records to general web indexing, and searches on the patent number, application number 15/892,875, and the assignee returned no assignment-center records. The Google Patents "Legal Events" tab for this patent does expose one reassignment entry, and I rely on that plus the front-page data in the patent text. I have not fabricated reel/frame numbers. Where the record does not show a reel/frame, I say so.

Inventors

• Keisuke Uchida — named first inventor. Employer at filing: TDK Corporation (the application was filed with TDK as applicant/assignee; the assignment executed at filing is inventor→TDK).
• Hiraku Hirabayashi — named second inventor. Employer at filing: TDK Corporation.

Both are TDK sensor-development personnel. There is no departure pattern here. Corroborating evidence that both remained at TDK well past the 12-month post-filing window:

• TDK's own later filings in the same magnetic-sensor family continue to name Hiraku Hirabayashi as an inventor — e.g., US 2022/0299582 A1 ("Magnetic sensor and magnetic sensor system," filed Jun. 9, 2022) and US 2022/0333953 A1 ("Magnetic sensor, magnetic encoder, and lens position detection device," filed Apr. 5, 2022), both naming TDK Corporation as applicant.
• Aggregator counts index Keisuke Uchida with ~96 patents assigned to TDK (Patent Leaderboard, TDK inventor page), consistent with a long-tenured TDK engineer rather than a departing founder.

Pattern assessment: No unusual inventor pattern. This is a normal, single-company, engineer-authored corporate filing. No trigger for the "all inventors departed within 12 months" pre-fire-sale heuristic.

Original assignee

TDK Corporation (Tokyo, JP) — named on the face of the issued patent as both original assignee and, per Google Patents, current assignee.

• Business: TDK is a publicly listed (TSE: 6762) global electronic-components manufacturer. Its relevant operating line is magnetic sensor / MR (TMR and GMR) sensor devices and the camera-module actuator and control components that use them. The patent's own specification places the invention in a smartphone camera-module autofocus/OIS context (lens-position detection), which is squarely within TDK's shipping sensor business.
• Product embodiment: TDK commercializes MR-based magnetic position sensors used for lens-position detection in camera modules; the patent is directed to that product class. (This is the operating-company characterization; I did not find a TDK press release tying this specific patent number to a named part number, so treat "ships a product embodying the claims" as a business-line-level statement, not a part-number citation.)
• Current status: Operating and active. No dissolution, bankruptcy, or acquisition of TDK is relevant here. TDK has been an acquirer in this space (e.g., Micronas, InvenSense), not a distressed seller.

Assignment timeline

The patent's Google Patents legal-events record shows a single reassignment entry, dated 2018-02-09, matching the filing date:

• 2018-02-09 (executed) / recorded 2018-02-09 — Reel not exposed in the accessible record (Assignment Center reel/frame not retrievable in this session)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest — see document for details)
  • Assignor: Keisuke Uchida; Hiraku Hirabayashi (joint inventors)
  • Assignee: TDK Corporation
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the accessible record. (TDK's US prosecution filings in this family are handled by Posz Law Group, PLC (Reston, VA) as attorney/agent of record on related TDK magnetic-sensor applications; I flag this as the likely recording correspondent but do not represent it as the recorded correspondent for this specific reel/frame, which I could not retrieve.)
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-corporate-employer assignment executed at filing — not a sale, fire-sale, or reorg. This is the routine "hereby assign to TDK" instrument every corporate-filed US application carries.

No post-issuance assignments exist in the accessible record. There is no evidence of any transfer to an IP-holding LLC, no security agreement, no merger, no change of name, no license, and no release recorded against US 10,627,255. Google Patents lists the current assignee as TDK Corp, i.e., the chain terminates where it began.

Note on scope of confidence: Because I could not query the Assignment Center directly, I cannot positively exclude a recently recorded (e.g., 2023-2026) assignment that has not yet propagated to Google Patents. However, nothing in any reachable source — patent record, litigation search, or NPE directories — indicates any transfer. The absence of any recorded change, combined with a live operating-company assignee, is itself the finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10627255
    2017 : Priority date established
    2018 : Application filed by inventors
         : Assigned to TDK Corporation at filing
    2020 : Patent issued to TDK

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No assignment to any entity bearing "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures." The only recorded conveyance is inventor→TDK Corporation (2018-02-09). Current assignee of record is the operating company itself.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee in the chain matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg-linked entity. The sole assignee is TDK Corporation. (Cross-check: the preceding litigation search for this patent found no suits, and nothing in RPX/Unified-style asserter coverage ties TDK to assertion activity here.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not assessable / not present. The chain has only one link, so the "same attorney on multiple links" tell cannot arise. The likely prosecution/recording correspondent on TDK's US magnetic-sensor filings is Posz Law Group, PLC, a conventional corporate-prosecution firm — a single appearance, which per the rubric is not a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There is one recorded assignment and zero transfers in the post-issuance period; no chained LLCs and no <24-month cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was located (see litigation summary), so there is no suit to anchor a 6-month lookback to. The only assignment (2018-02-09) predates issuance entirely and was made to the operating employer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. TDK Corporation has not filed for bankruptcy; it is an ongoing, listed manufacturer. No Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid-style proceeding touches this patent.

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating-company→NPE transfer is recorded, so there is no vehicle through which TDK could assert against competitors off-balance-sheet. TDK's stated portfolio posture (cross-licensing and defensive management of its core sensor/materials patents, per its published IP strategy) is inconsistent with privateering this asset.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present (but note the inverse disposition). The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It simply never left TDK — the patent remains with its operating originator and is therefore also not "neutralized" by a defensive aggregator.

Signal tally: 0 present, 6 not present, 1 not assessable (single-link chain), 1 not present with a caveat. No NPE indicators of any kind.

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the strict rubric sense that only the original assignment is recorded and no post-issuance chain exists to evaluate.

Justified as follows: the entire accessible record for US 10,627,255 consists of the single inventor→TDK Corporation assignment executed and recorded 2018-02-09, with Google Patents listing TDK Corp as current assignee and a status of Active (adjusted expiration 2038-04-20). TDK is a live, product-shipping operating company whose sensor line practices this subject matter, the preceding litigation search for this patent returned no suits, and none of the eight NPE signals is present. The practical ownership read is therefore operating-company-owned and non-asserting, but because the record contains nothing after the original filing assignment, the rubric-conformant label is Insufficient data rather than Defensive (no aggregator) or Operating-company assertion (no suit).

Verify directly at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 10627255, or application 15/892,875) · mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html · cross-reference Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10627255/en

To close the residual gap: an Assignment Center query by application number, plus a PEDS/ODP "Assignments" tab lookup, would capture the exact reel/frame and correspondent for the 2018-02-09 record and confirm (or refute) the absence of any later recording. If you can supply those records or confirm database access, I will update this section with the precise reel/frame and correspondent name.

I'll research US 10,627,255 and its prior-art citations.

Let me pull the actual patent document to get its cited references.

Let me get the front page / cited references of the patent directly.

Prior-Art Citation Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,627,255 B2

Scope and verification note (read first)

I searched for the patent number 10627255 specifically, not adjacent numbers. What I was able to confirm and what I could not confirm is important to state up front, per my operating rules:

• Confirmed: The full granted specification (which you supplied as the authoritative text) expressly identifies one prior-art reference by name in its "Description of the Related Art" section — U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0231528 A1. This is the only patent document the patent's own text engages with substantively.
• Not confirmed in this session: I was unable to retrieve the complete front-page "(56) References Cited" list for US 10,627,255 from the accessible sources (Google Patents front matter, FreePatentsOnline, Justia). The full-text you provided begins at the Classifications/Description and omits the bibliographic front page where the examiner's cited references appear. I will not fabricate that list. Below I analyze the reference that is genuinely confirmed, and I separately flag a related-family reference list that should not be attributed to '255 without verification.

1. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0231528 A1 (Wong et al.)

Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0231528 A1, "Wong et al.," published 2016 (August 2016 per the reference appearing in the TDK family reference list).
Status: Pre-grant publication of a U.S. application (US 2016/0231528 A1).
Prior-art date: Published 2016 — before '255's priority date of 2017-03-24 (assumed priority; filing 2018-02-09). Qualifies as prior art under AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) (printed publication) and, if its effective filing predates '255, potentially § 102(a)(2).

Brief description (as characterized by the '255 specification itself):
Per the '255 Background: "'528 discloses a technique of detecting a composite vector with a position sensor in an autofocus mechanism in which a lens is movably coupled to a substrate. The composite vector is generated by interaction between a first magnetic field having a constant strength in a first direction and a second magnetic field in a second direction generated by a magnet that moves with the lens. The second direction is orthogonal to the first direction. The magnitude of the second magnetic field varies according to the lens position, and … the composite vector angle also varies."

Critically, the '255 patent uses '528 as its comparative example. In FIGS. 10–11 of '255, the comparator sets the relative angle θ = 90° (the magnet 13 magnetized in the −X direction), mirroring the orthogonal relationship of '528.

§ 102 Anticipation analysis

The patent frames its point of novelty precisely at the relative angle between the two fields. The independent claim (per the Summary of Invention) requires, at the detection position:

"a relative angle formed by the direction of the second magnetic field with the direction of the first magnetic field is greater than 90° and smaller than 180°."

Additional requirements of the independent claim:

1. First magnetic field generation unit generating a first magnetic field;
2. Second magnetic field generation unit generating a second magnetic field, whose relative position w.r.t. the first is variable;
3. A magnetic sensor detecting a composite field at a detection position and producing a detection signal corresponding to the direction of the detected field;
4. Varying the relative position does not change the strength/direction of the first field at the detection position, nor the direction of the second field at the detection position, but does change the strength of the second field at the detection position.

Assessment:

Conclusion on '528:

• The specific condition "greater than 90° and smaller than 180°" is NOT disclosed. Because this is a mandatory element of the independent claim, '528 does not anticipate the independent claim under § 102. It would anticipate only a hypothetical broader claim lacking the angle limitation — no such claim appears in '255.
• However, '528 is squarely the closest prior art and the most probable § 103 (obviousness) reference, since '255 itself treats '528's 90° arrangement as the starting configuration and claims the improvement as a specific angular selection. Any validity challenge to '255 would almost certainly start from '528 as the primary reference, combined with the '255 patent's own admission (in its Background and comparative example) that the 90° configuration yields only ~250 mV/mm sensitivity versus ~600 mV/mm at 135°.

Dependent-claim relevance: Dependent features of '255 (relative angle in the range 105°–165°, more preferably 105°–145°; two magnets forming a composite first field; first/second holding members; lens-holding second member movable along the optical axis) are likewise not anticipated by '528, which discloses a single first-field arrangement and the orthogonal angular relationship.

2. Related-family reference list — flagged, NOT attributable to '255

While searching, I encountered the "(56) References Cited" list of US 11,204,263 B2 (a later TDK/Uchida et al. patent in the same family lineage; continuation of App. 16/123,513). That list includes US 2016/0231528 A1 and also cites, among others:

• US 4,837,537 A — Nakada et al., "Magnetic position sensor," 6/1989
• US 10,006,789 B2 — Mochizuki et al., 6/2018
• US 8,446,147 B2 — Chiba et al., 5/2013
• JP 2007-218700 A, JP 2006-208252 A, CN 203745708 U

⚠️ These appear on the face of US 11,204,263 B2, not US 10,627,255. Under my operating rules I must not auto-transfer them. I list them only as candidate references to verify against '255's own front page; do not cite them as '255 citations without confirmation.

3. What I could NOT establish (explicit caveats)

1. The complete "(56) References Cited" list on the face of US 10,627,255 was not retrievable in this session. The authoritative full text supplied omits the bibliographic front page. A definitive prior-art enumeration requires pulling the USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Full-Text (PatFT) "References Cited" for application 15/892,875, or the PDF front page.
2. I could not confirm the examiner's foreign-patent citations, non-patent-literature citations, or any Examiner's citation of '528 vs. Applicant's citation of '528 (the '255 text cites '528 as background, which suggests it was at minimum applicant-acknowledged art).
3. Exact publication date of US 2016/0231528 A1 — I have it as August 2016 from a family reference list but could not independently verify the precise day; treat the day-level date as unconfirmed.
4. I did not retrieve a prosecution-history record (Office actions / IDS) for 15/892,875; the "references cited" that appear on the printed patent can differ from those considered during prosecution.

4. Bottom line

• On the evidence available: the only patent document I can confirm is cited/engaged by US 10,627,255 is U.S. 2016/0231528 A1 (Wong et al.), which discloses an orthogonal (90°) composite-vector autofocus position sensor.
• § 102 result: '528 does not anticipate any claim requiring the relative angle to be > 90° and < 180° — it teaches precisely 90°. Its strongest role is as the primary § 103 reference against the claimed angular range.
• To complete the task as specified (enumerate each citation with dates and § 102 mapping), I need the front-page "(56) References Cited" data for US 10,627,255 / App. 15/892,875. If you can grant access to PatentCenter or a PatFT page, or paste that front page, I will produce the full table for every cited reference with per-reference anticipation mapping.

I'll analyze obviousness for this patent. Let me first gather the claim text and the cited prior art.

Let me retrieve the exact claim language and examine additional prior art.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,627,255 ("Position Detection Device")

Analysis date: April 26, 2026 · Effective filing date: Feb. 9, 2018 · Earliest priority: Mar. 24, 2017 · Assignee: TDK Corporation · Inventors: Uchida & Hirabayashi

0. Important scope caveat before starting

The full-text fetch I was given reproduces the abstract and (most of) the specification of US 10,627,255 but does not include a verbatim claim set (the fetch truncates at the end of the Detailed Description, in the middle of the sentence beginning "When the relative angle is 180°, the angle that the direction of the composite magnetic field MF forms with the −Y direction, i.e., th…"). My searches for the literal claim text returned only the specification body, not the claims.

Accordingly, I reconstruct the claim scope from the patent's own Summary of the Invention (at https://patents.google.com/patent/US10627255/en), which is drafted in claim-style and mirrors the independent claim:

A position detection device comprising: (a) a first magnetic field generation unit for generating a first magnetic field; (b) a second magnetic field generation unit for generating a second magnetic field, provided such that its relative position with respect to the first magnetic field generation unit is variable; and (c) a magnetic sensor for detecting a magnetic field to be detected at a predetermined detection position and generating a detection signal corresponding to the direction of the detected magnetic field; wherein varying the relative position does not vary the strength or direction of the first magnetic field at the detection position or the direction of the second magnetic field at the detection position, but varies the strength of the second magnetic field; the field to be detected is a composite of the first and second magnetic fields; and at the detection position, a relative angle formed by the direction of the second magnetic field with the direction of the first magnetic field is greater than 90° and smaller than 180°.

Apparent dependent-claim subject matter (also from the Summary): relative angle 105°–165°; relative angle 105°–145°; relative position change varies the detection-position/second-unit distance; first unit comprises two magnets at mutually different positions (first field = composite of their two fields); first + second holding members, second movable in one direction; second holding member holds a lens and is movable along the optical axis.

If the actual granted claims differ materially from this reconstruction, the analysis below must be re-run against the verbatim claim text. Nothing below should be treated as a validity opinion.

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

A person of ordinary skill would have a B.S. in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or applied physics (or equivalent), plus roughly 2–5 years' experience designing magnetic position/angle sensors and/or miniature VCM camera actuators (autofocus/optical image stabilization). That person would be familiar with: (i) magnetoresistive (AMR/GMR/TMR) and Hall angle-sensing fundamentals; (ii) vector addition of a constant bias/directing field with a variable field; and (iii) camera-module position-sensing architectures (as disclosed in Apple's and TDK's own filings).

2. The closest prior art and what it discloses

2.1 Primary reference — U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0231528 A1 (Apple; Wong et al.)

• URL: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0231528.html (family member granted as U.S. Pat. No. 10,365,121 B2, https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/20/52/26/0589de681e5198/[US10365121](/patent/US10365121).pdf)
• Published: Aug. 11, 2016 → printed publication under § 102(a)(1) and, as the pre-grant publication of a U.S. application, § 102(a)(2) art. Well before the Mar. 24, 2017 priority date.
• Status: This is the reference the '255 patent itself cites in its Background and characterizes in detail — i.e., Applicant's own admission of the closest art (see the fetched description: "U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0231528A1 discloses a technique of detecting a composite vector with a position sensor in an autofocus mechanism in which a lens is movably coupled to a substrate…").

The '528 reference discloses essentially every element of reconstructed claim 1 except the >90°/<180° relative-angle limitation:

Net: the sole substantive point of novelty over '528 in reconstructed claim 1 is the angular offset of the second magnetic field away from orthogonal (into the obtuse quadrant).

This is also the patent's own framing: the Background states that under '528 "the ratio of the amount of variation in the composite vector angle to the amount of variation in the lens position is low, which results in low sensitivity for position detection," and the Summary states the object is "high sensitivity for position detection" achieved by the >90°/<180° relation.

3. Grounds of rejection under § 103

Ground 1 — '528 alone (design choice / predictable result), with the reasoning supplied rather than a second reference

Theory. '528 discloses the complete architecture; the only difference is the numerical value of one geometric parameter (the relative angle θ), which '528 fixes at 90°. Selecting a different value of θ requires no structural change whatsoever — the same two magnets and the same sensor are merely oriented differently (in '255 FIG. 6, θ = 135° is achieved simply by rotating the second magnet so its magnetization is "in the direction rotated by 45° from the −X direction toward the −Y direction"). That is the paradigm of an obvious design/parameter choice: KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421, 425 (2007) ("a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions"; "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious"); MPEP § 2144.05 (obvious ranges/parameters; "changing a parameter… is obvious if the result is predictable"); In re Aller; In re Woodruff.

Why the result is predictable (the technical bridge). Let H₁ be the constant first field (magnitude fixed, direction fixed, taken as the reference axis) and H₂ the variable second field at fixed direction and varying magnitude, separated by angle θ. The composite makes an angle φ with H₁ given by

tan φ = H₂ sin θ / (H₁ + H₂ cos θ).

Differentiating with respect to H₂ shows that dφ/dH₂ is monotonically increasing as θ moves from 90° toward 180° (for θ = 90°, cos θ = 0 and the denominator is maximal at H₁; for θ > 90°, cos θ < 0, shrinking the denominator and steepening the response). A POSITA using nothing more than high-school/undergraduate trigonometry would predict that tilting the second field into the obtuse quadrant increases the angular swing per unit change in H₂ — i.e., increases sensitivity — and that the swing is maximal at θ → 180°. This is exactly what the '255 patent itself demonstrates experimentally (its FIG. 15: "The detection signal range increases as the absolute value of the signed relative angle θs increases from 90°, and is maximized when the absolute value of the signed relative angle θs is 180°"). Because the specification presents this as the reason for the invention rather than a surprise, Ground 1 is the strongest and most defensible prima facie case: the claimed improvement is "the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions."

Supporting motivation intrinsic to '528. '528 itself plots resultant-vector angle against magnet position (its FIG. 8B) and thereby demonstrates the very low-sensitivity/non-linear behavior the '255 patent identifies as the problem. A POSITA seeking a larger signal for the same lens travel, reading '528's own plot, would be motivated to increase the angular gain of the arrangement — the design lever for which (the angle between the two fields) is the only free parameter in '528's disclosed geometry. Note also that later filings in the same technical family describe '528's FIG. 8B as showing the composite-vector angle varying "nonlinearly" with magnet position, requiring correction processing (see the discussion in TDK-family documents, e.g. DE 10 2018 123 772 A1, https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/05/81/30/95f070c1c21a36/DE102018123772A1.pdf, and the Chinese-language family descriptions at https://www.xjishu.com/zhuanli/20/201810166482.html), which supplies an independent "improve the known device" motivation.

Ground 2 — '528 in view of U.S. Pat. No. 10,365,121 B2 (Wong et al.)

Same family; the granted '121 patent (claiming benefit of provisional 62/113,200, filed Feb. 6, 2015) shares the '528 disclosure. This is largely cumulative of Ground 1 and adds little; I list it only because a petitioner sometimes prefers the granted patent for its figure and paragraph numbering. Not recommended as a standalone ground.

Ground 3 — '528 in view of DE 102006035661 A1 (bias field applied to a spin-valve MR element)

• Reference: DE 102006035661 A1 — "Magnetic field detection device using a magnetoresistive element with a spin-valve structure," which discloses "a bias unit for applying a bias magnetic field to the magnetoresistive element in order to change the characteristic of a resistance value of the magnetoresistive element with respect to an external magnetic field." (As summarized in the background of the TDK-family document DE 10 2018 123 772 A1, above.)

Motivation to combine. '255's magnetic sensor is expressly a spin-valve MR bridge (see the fetched description: "Each of the plurality of MR elements is a spin-valve MR element… The spin-valve MR element may be a TMR element or a GMR element"). DE '661 teaches the general proposition that the angular relationship between an applied field and the MR element's pinned/free-layer axis is a design variable you deliberately set to place the element in a desirable (linear/high-gain) operating region. A POSITA combining '528's vector-angle sensor with DE '661's bias-field teaching would be led to choose the angle between the fields to optimize the sensor's operating point — which lands squarely on a non-orthogonal θ. This ground supplies a secondary, non-trigonometric motivation for the angular offset (operating-point optimization of an MR element), and is useful as a fallback if the Examiner/petitioner wants an express prior-art teaching rather than "common sense."

Ground 4 — '528 in view of JP 2016-223894 A (MR element layout)

• Reference: JP 2016-223894 A (published Dec. 2016) — a magnetic sensor with a rectangular substrate and first/second MR elements whose current paths are at a prescribed angle to the substrate side and orthogonal to each other, again as summarized in the background of DE 10 2018 123 772 A1.

This reference is mainly relevant to implementation detail of the sensor (element orientation/layout) rather than to the angular relationship between the two fields. It is useful only to rebut a "no reasonable expectation of success" argument by showing that the sensor geometry needed to detect an obliquely oriented composite field was conventional. Weak as a primary combination.

Ground 5 — '528 in view of the general knowledge in MR/Hall angle-sensing

If a petitioner wishes to avoid relying on "common sense" (per KSR's caution about conclusory common-sense reasoning and Arendi S.A.R.L. v. Apple Inc., 832 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2016)), the better practice is to cite primary evidence of record that non-orthogonal bias/tilting is a recognized design lever. The two references just discussed (DE '661 for MR bias fields; JP '894 for sensor layout) serve that purpose. Anything beyond those two I have not verified against full text, and I flag that as an evidentiary gap (see § 6).

4. Consolidated motivation-to-combine statement (KSR factors)

A POSITA would have been motivated to modify '528 as follows, and would have had a reasonable expectation of success:

1. Identified problem, known solution lever. '528's own data (FIG. 8B) shows a small angular response per unit magnet travel. The only free geometric parameter in '528's two-field architecture is the angle between the fields. Increasing that angle is therefore the first thing a POSITA would try.
2. Predictable physics. The tan φ = H₂sinθ/(H₁ + H₂cosθ) relation makes the sensitivity gain from θ > 90° a matter of straightforward calculation, not experimentation.
3. No structural change required. The modification is a rotation of one magnet (as '255 itself does: "the relative angle θ is adjustable by adjusting the orientation of the magnet 13"). Nothing in '528 must be redesigned; there is no teaching away from non-orthogonality (see § 5 for why the "orthogonal" statement is not a teaching away).
4. No new failure mode introduced. The other claimed elements — the composite first field, the two-magnet first unit, the two holding members with the lens on the second — are structural details of the camera module that '528's OIS/AF architecture already contemplates in substance (magnets fixed to the moving body and to the fixed body; Hall/MR sensors on the substrate).

5. Counterarguments — why the claims may nonetheless survive

To be balanced, this is where TDK's best arguments lie, and a reexamination petitioner must anticipate them:

1. Criticality of the claimed range. The asserted improvement is not merely "somewhat better sensitivity." Figures 12–15 of the patent quantify it: sensitivity of the θ = 135° embodiment is ~600 mV/mm versus ~250 mV/mm for the θ = 90° comparative example (a >2× gain), and FIG. 15 quantifies the trade-off: the detection signal range is at least ~25 % larger than at 90° once |θs| ≥ 105°, while the linearity parameter D stays ≤ 50 µm below 165° and ≤ 20 µm below 145°. That is a range-with-recited-criticality argument of the In re Aller type: the specification teaches that outside 105°–145° (and especially above 165°) the linearity penalty becomes unacceptable. A well-supported criticality showing is one of the few arguments that can defeat an "obvious range" rejection — although it is equally usable by a petitioner as an admission that the claimed alternative ranges (105–165°, 105–145°) were obvious once the direction (θ > 90°) was chosen, since the specification frames the sub-ranges as mere optimizations with quantified trade-offs.
2. Teaching away. '528 repeatedly states the second direction is orthogonal to the first. If the patent owner can characterize that as a deliberate, repeated design constraint, it can argue In re Gurley/teaching-away. This is the weakest of the owner's arguments, because a statement of orthogonality in a preferred embodiment is not a teaching away unless the reference also criticizes, discredits, or otherwise disuades the alternative; and the '255 patent itself shows the 90° arrangement as a "comparative example," i.e., '528's arrangement works — it is simply less sensitive. A reference that merely omits an alternative does not teach away.
3. The two-magnet composite first field. If a dependent claim recites that the first unit comprises two magnets at different positions (with the first field being their composite), the '528 reference should be checked carefully. '528's first field is described as a constant "directing field," and its OIS actuator does use plural magnets, but whether '528 discloses the composite-of-two-magnets first-field configuration with the symmetric placement ('255: "The magnets 31A and 34A are preferably placed to be symmetric with respect to the YZ plane including the detection position") is a factual question I could not fully verify in this session. If a granted dependent claim is limited to that two-magnet arrangement, the § 103 case becomes meaningfully harder and would need an additional reference or an inherency showing.
4. Secondary considerations. If the patent owner can show industry adoption (TDK's camera-actuator position sensors), copying, or unexpected results, these weigh in favor of non-obviousness. No such evidence was located in this session; the litigation search (separate section, above) found no litigation that would supply an obviousness-type or nexus record.

6. Conclusion and confidence

• Strongest ground: Ground 1 — US 2016/0231528 A1 alone, rejected as an obvious design choice/predictable result under KSR and MPEP § 2144.05, because '528 discloses every element of the reconstructed independent claim except the numerical angular relation, and the sensitivity benefit of θ > 90° follows directly from the known trigonometry of two-vector composition. Confidence: moderate-high on the mapping; moderate on whether an examiner/petitioner would accept "common sense" without an express teaching reference.
• Recommended supporting ground: '528 + DE 102006035661 A1 (and/or JP 2016-223894 A) to supply an express prior-art teaching that the angle between an applied field and the MR sensing axis is a deliberately chosen design variable for optimizing the sensor's response.
• Chief obstacle to invalidity: the specification's quantified criticality of the 105°–145°/105°–165° sub-ranges (FIGS. 13–15) and the possible two-magnet limitation in a dependent claim.

What I could not verify and what should be checked before relying on this analysis:

1. The verbatim granted claims — I could not retrieve them; all mappings above are to a reconstruction from the Summary of the Invention. This is the single largest gap.
2. The full text of US 2016/0231528 A1 — I verified its disclosure of the composite-vector/orthogonality architecture, the constant first field, the magnet moving with the lens, the varying second-field magnitude, and the FIG. 8B vector-angle-vs-position plot, but I did not verify whether '528 discloses a two-magnet first-field source or a two-holding-member arrangement identical to the challenged claims.
3. The prosecution history (file wrapper) of '255 — to see what art was cited and overcome; if '528 was of record and the >90° feature was the stated reason for allowance, that both confirms this is the right battleground and explains the examiner's reasoning.
4. Full texts of DE 102006035661 A1 and JP 2016-223894 A — I have their substance only as summarized in the background of TDK-family document DE 10 2018 123 772 A1, not from their own specifications.
5. The truncated tail of the '255 specification (the passage beginning "When the relative angle is 180°, …") — it appears to contain further technical reasoning about why θ < 180° is required, which could either support or undermine a Ground 1 rejection.

No contradictions were found between this analysis and the previously generated litigation section; the two are complementary (that section found no litigation record, so no validity challenge of record exists to anchor against).

Sources cited: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10627255/en · https://patents.justia.com/patent/10627255 · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0231528.html · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/20/52/26/0589de681e5198/US10365121.pdf · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/05/81/30/95f070c1c21a36/DE102018123772A1.pdf