US 10677611

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

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

Summary of US Patent 10,677,611 B2

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

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

Abstract (as published)

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

Field / technical background

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

Independent claims — plain-language overview

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

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

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

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

Dependent claims

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

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

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

Uncertainty flags

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

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

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

Let me check specific litigation databases directly.

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

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

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

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

What I searched, and what came back

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

Conclusion

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

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

Important caveats

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proceedings overview

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

Verification performed

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

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

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

No proceedings — evidentiary posture

(No proceeding number exists; none is invented here)

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

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

Strategic summary

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

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

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

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

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

Recommended next steps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inventors

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

Original assignee

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

Assignment timeline

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

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

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

Timeline diagram

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

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

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

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