US 10914620

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number and check for any litigation activity.

Let me check for litigation or CAFC docket activity involving this patent.

Let me investigate the Rockwell–Beckhoff settlement to see whether this patent is implicated.

US 10,914,620 B2 — Analyst Summary

Important caveat on scope of search: The authoritative full text you supplied (fetched from Google Patents) is the primary basis for this summary. I ran targeted web searches for litigation/docket activity; I cannot directly query PACER or the Federal Circuit's docket system, so any statement about absence of litigation is a search-based inference, not a verified docket check.

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Bibliographic Data

Classification: G01D 18/002 (automatic recalibration), G01D 18/008 (calibration coefficients stored in memory), G01D 5/145 (Hall-effect devices influenced by relative movement), B65G 54/02 (non-mechanical magnetic conveyors).

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Abstract (as issued)

"A system to automatically calibrate gains and/or offsets for each position feedback signal in order to reduce variations between position feedback signals for each sensor in a linear drive system is disclosed. As a mover travels along a track segment, the segment controller records the position feedback signal output from each position sensor corresponding to a magnet on the mover passing the position sensor. The segment controller determines peak values for each position feedback signal and compares the peak values against a target peak value. The segment controller then adjusts a gain value for each sensor by a ratio of the target peak value to a measured peak value. The segment controller periodically monitors the position feedback values generated by one mover as it travels along the track segment and automatically updates the sensor gains as previously described."

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Technology Context

The patent addresses an independent-cart / linear-drive transport system (Rockwell's iTrak lineage, from the Jacobs Automation acquisition). Key components:

• Track segments (12) with individually controllable coils (150) generating a moving electromagnetic field.
• Movers (100) carrying drive magnets (120) and position magnets (140).
• Position sensors (145) (Hall-effect, AMR, GMR, TMR, fluxgate, or MEMS) spaced along the track — preferably at intervals of one-quarter wavelength of the nominal feedback signal, enabling quadrature position determination.
• A segment controller (50) with processor (52) and memory (54); optionally a central controller (170) / industrial controller (180) performing the same function.

Problem solved: Manufacturing/assembly tolerances (magnet field strength, sensor electronics, magnet-sensor orientation/spacing) cause gain and offset errors between sensors. Because the controller uses signal amplitude to interpolate position, mismatched gains introduce step changes/ripple in computed position — which ripple propagates into coil current commands. The invention normalizes sensor signals at runtime rather than only at commissioning.

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Independent Claims (Plain Language)

Claim 1 — System for automatic sensor gain calibration

A system comprising four elements:

1. A track defining a path along which multiple movers travel.
2. Multiple position sensors spaced along the track, each producing a feedback signal when a mover passes it.
3. A memory device storing (a) each sensor's feedback signal and (b) a table of sensor gain values, one per sensor.
4. A processor that:
   • (a) stores each sensor's feedback signal in memory;
   • (b) determines a measured peak value of each sensor's feedback signal;
   • (c) generates a new sensor gain value for each sensor as a function of three inputs: a target peak value, the measured peak value, and the existing sensor gain value; and
   • (d) overwrites the stored gain value with the new one.

Core inventive concept: a closed-form multiplicative correction — per the specification's Eq. 1, K_new = (Peak_target × K_existing) / Peak_measured — applied automatically and iteratively per sensor.

Claim 10 — Method for automatic sensor gain calibration

A method with steps:

• (a) receiving feedback signals at a processor in a controller, the sensors being spaced along a track along which multiple movers travel, the signal generated when a mover travels past each sensor;
• (b) determining, with the processor, a measured peak value for each sensor's signal;
• (c) generating a new sensor gain value for each sensor as a function of a target peak value, the measured peak value, and an existing sensor gain value (with the target and existing gain stored in a memory device in the controller); and
• (d) overwriting the stored existing gain value with the new value for each sensor.

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Dependent Claims (Brief)

• Cl. 2: Distributed architecture — each track segment has its own segment controller that computes new gains for its own sensors.
• Cl. 3: Movers carry magnets; sensors are Hall-effect sensors.
• Cl. 4: New gain = existing gain × (target peak ÷ measured peak) — explicitly claims Eq. 1.
• Cl. 5: Averaging — prior peak values are stored and averaged with the current one; the average replaces the measured peak in the ratio.
• Cl. 6–7: Extend the memory to store sensor offset values and automatically update offsets by reading each sensor's signal when no mover is present (should be zero), then overwriting the offset. (Note: this offset subject matter is the primary focus of the continuation US 11,307,067 B2.)
• Cl. 8: A selected "first" mover is monitored, and the gain recalibration runs when that mover passes each sensor.
• Cl. 9: Reference-mover selection logic — the mover whose feedback signal yields the largest measured peak value is chosen as the reference mover.

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Runtime / Triggering Behavior (Specification)

• Recalibration may be triggered at power-up, periodically (e.g., every few minutes to tens of minutes for temperature/EMI drift; daily/weekly for mechanical wear), or via a calibration run initiated by the industrial controller.
• At power-up, the initial/commissioned gains are preserved in a compensation table and copied to a working set; only the working set is overwritten.
• Movers may carry identifiers, allowing the processor to associate a set of feedback signals with a specific mover (e.g., with 4 magnets × 8 sensors = 32 stored feedback signals per mover per segment).
• Figures 9–13 show nominal vs. non-ideal signals, pre-/post-calibration sensor families, and the resultant reduction in position error.

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Litigation Posture (as of the current date)

• I found no CAFC 2026 docket entries, IPRs, or district court actions specifically identifying US 10,914,620. PTAB activity on record for Rockwell Automation Technologies centers on Automation Middleware Solutions IPRs from 2016 (unrelated subject matter).
• The well-known Rockwell v. Beckhoff linear-motor patent dispute (Nevada District Court, complaint filed Sept. 2013) was settled in August 2014 — several years before this patent's 2018 filing date — and covered earlier patents ("some of which dated back to 1999"). Some search results surface that 2014 story under 2026 crawl timestamps; the underlying event date is 2014, so it does not involve US 10,914,620.
• This patent has been cited as prior art by later third-party filings (e.g., a DE/EP divisional concerning independent-cart position-sensor integrity diagnostics cites US 2020/0166389 A1), which is a citation relationship, not litigation.

Uncertainty statement: I do not have authoritative confirmation of zero litigation. A definitive check would require a PACER/CAFC docket query and a USPTO Patent Center "litigation" tab review, which I could not perform here.

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Key Lineage Note

US 10,914,620 (gain calibration) and US 11,307,067 (offset calibration) are sibling/continuation patents off the same 2018-11-27 priority filing, both sharing the same specification. US 10,914,620's claims are directed to the peak-ratio gain adjustment, while the offset-calibration claims were carved out into the continuation.

I'll search litigation databases for US patent 10914620.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me check the Unified Patents portal and CourtListener directly.

Litigation Search Report — US Patent 10,914,620

Bottom line

I found no litigation (district court, ITC, CAFC appeal, or PTAB proceeding) specifically involving U.S. Patent No. 10,914,620. Based on the searches performed, no case has been identified that names this patent as a patent-in-suit or as the subject of a validity challenge. Per the instructions, I will not report results for similar-looking but distinct numbers.

What the patent is

Searches performed

1. Google Patents / general web: "US patent 10914620 litigation"
2. "10914620" patent lawsuit
3. "10914620" Rockwell Automation lawsuit defendant
4. Rockwell Automation linear-drive/mover patent litigation (2021–2026)
5. portal.unifiedpatents.com litigation "10914620"
6. Patent-owner and inventor-level searches (Perreault, Wildi) tied to the family

What those searches did return (none of it litigation against the '620 patent)

• Google Patents record for US 10,914,620 B2 — the authoritative family/prosecution page; it lists no litigation, no PTAB proceedings, and no adverse legal events in the "Litigation" or "PTAB" data sections. Legal status: Active. (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10914620B2](/patent/US10914620B2)/en)
• Third-party aggregator pages (a Golden wiki mirror and a "Patent Leaderboard" inventor page listing Eric J. Wildi) — these are bibliographic/valuation listings, not litigation records.
• MagneMotion, Inc. v. Rockwell Automation, Inc. — a real linear-motor dispute, but it involves different patents (e.g., U.S. 5,936,319; 5,965,963; 5,994,798; 6,274,952) asserted in D. Mass. around 2014. Decidedly not the '620 patent, and the '620 patent did not exist at that time (filed 2018).
• Rockwell Automation v. Beckhoff Automation — a linear-motor patent dispute that was settled (Rockwell granted Beckhoff licenses). Again, different patents; the '620 patent has a 2018 priority date and was not part of that earlier dispute.
• Rockwell Automation v. Radwell International (D.N.J. No. 1:15-cv-05246) and various Rockwell v. 3S-Smart / WAGO / Auvesy matters — unrelated subject matter (PLC software, gray-market goods), not this patent.
• Unrelated keyword hits — several results merely contain the digits "10914620" (a Chilean court/registry PDF, a UK Gazette list, a Unified Patents IPR petition PDF discussing a different patent, Korean/Japanese case-law reports). These are false positives from string matching, not references to the US patent. I am flagging them only so they are not mistaken for evidence of litigation.

Important caveats

• Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. My searches covered Google Patents, general web, and indirectly the Unified Patents portal and CourtListener-hosted materials, but I could not directly query PACER, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or CourtListener's RECAP docket API within this session. A comprehensive clearance search should verify against those paid/primary sources.
• Given the '620 patent belongs to a continuation family (US 11,307,067), any future or existing suit might plead the family together; I found no such suit either.
• The patent issued in February 2021, so any enforcement activity would necessarily post-date that. No such activity appeared in the results.

Recommendation for verification

If you need a litigation-grade confirmation, run the patent number against: PACER (all district courts and the Federal Circuit), PTAB E2E / USPTO Patent Trial & Appeal Board (IPR/PGR/CBM), ITC EDIS (Section 337 investigations), and Docket Navigator / Lex Machina. My search indicates these would likely return zero results for this patent, but they should be checked directly before relying on that conclusion.

I'll verify the structured data against live sources before writing anything.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 10,914,620. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and independent web searching surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal naming the '620 patent. The breakdown is therefore: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. Inventors Yuhong Huang, Brian M. Perreault, and Eric J. Wildi; assignee Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.; App. No. 16/201,464, filed 2018-11-27, granted 2021-02-09, adjusted expiration 2039-08-08 (per Google Patents legal-status data).

Bottom-line defensive posture: All claims 1–9 (system) and 10–18 (method) are untested — not "hardened," just un-challenged. You get none of the free wins a prior IPR would hand you (no estoppel-charged petitioner, no canceled claims to moot a demand letter), but you also face no adverse PTAB precedent construing the claims against you. The claims remain fully available to Rockwell and fully exposed to a first-filed IPR. Treat the patent as live and un-narrowed.

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Proceedings

None. No AIA trial proceeding — no IPR, PGR, or CBM — has been instituted, filed, or terminated against US 10,914,620 as of the most recent data available to me. There is no proceeding number to report, no panel, no institution decision, no FWD, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal. I am not inventing proceeding numbers to fill this section.

Two caveats on that negative result, stated plainly:

1. The ODP ingest may lag. A petition filed in the last few weeks could exist without appearing in the structured data or in indexed search results. The canonical list you provided is the authoritative source, and it is empty.
2. What I did find is off-point and should not be conflated with this patent. Searching Rockwell + PTAB surfaces only matters where Rockwell was the petitioner, e.g. IPR2017-00023, IPR2017-00048, IPR2017-00049, IPR2017-00469, IPR2017-00470 against Automation Middleware Solutions / Clark Brown — all institution-denied or terminated. Those involve unrelated patents (6,513,058; 6,516,236; 8,073,557; 6,941,543; 6,597,812) and teach you only that Rockwell litigates its portfolio actively. See GreyB IP Verse PTAB case list. Likewise, the "Linear Drive Transport System and Method" entry on third-party opposition trackers refers to a different Rockwell patent (the Wernersbach/US10829317 junction-track family) and is not a US AIA trial.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of the '620 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. Independent claim 1 recites the system (track + movers + spaced position sensors + memory storing per-sensor gain values + processor that stores the feedback, determines a measured peak value, generates a new gain from target peak / measured peak / existing gain, and overwrites the stored gain) — see the full claim text at Justia. Independent claim 10 is the corresponding method. Dependent claims worth noting for a defense: cl. 2 (per-segment controller architecture — the structural hook most likely to differentiate a competitor's centralized-controller design), cl. 3 (Hall-effect sensor + mover magnet), cl. 4 (the gain = existing gain × target/measured ratio formula — a narrow, mathematically explicit limitation), cl. 5 (averaging prior peak values), cls. 6–7 (runtime offset calibration when no mover is proximate), and cls. 8–9 (reference-mover selection based on largest feedback value). Because cl. 4 and cl. 8–9 are numerically specific, the strongest invalidity and non-infringement arguments will likely live there rather than at claim 1.

Estoppel landscape — a clean slate, which cuts both ways. With no prior petitioner, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. Any defendant today can run the full menu: § 102 anticipation, § 103 obviousness, and § 112 written-description/enablement theories against the "measured peak value" and "new sensor gain" limitations, plus § 101 eligibility theories targeting the abstract "measure a value, compare to a target, compute a ratio, store it" character of the claims. Conversely, you will be the first mover — meaning (a) you bear the full cost of building the prior-art record, and (b) you cannot free-ride on a prior petitioner's expert declarations. Note the IPR eligibility pointer in the patent's own face: the position-signal normalization concept has deep prior-art roots in linear-encoder interpolation and Hall-effect quadrature sensing, which is where I would look first for § 103 art.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents has no proceeding indexed against the '620), and no aggressive PTAB-appeal history by the patent owner — because there has been nothing to appeal. Rockwell's posture in this space is that of a portfolio enforcer, not a PTAB target. The continuity chain matters strategically: continuation App. No. 17/151,387 issued as US 11,307,067 B2 (filed 2021-01-18) on the same disclosure, so a validity attack aimed only at the '620 leaves a live sibling with overlapping claims — see the family listing on Google Patents.

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Recommended next steps

• No PTAB activity exists — say so plainly to your client. The absence of any IPR against a 2021-issued Rockwell patent is itself informative: either the patent has not been asserted in a way that provoked a validity challenge, or accused parties have chosen district-court invalidity or design-around instead. Do not present the empty PTAB docket as evidence the patent is strong; it is evidence it is untested.
• Before filing, confirm the live docket. Re-run the search against USPTO PTAB E2E and the ODP for 10914620 and for App. No. 16/201,464 at filing time, since a petition filed after the ingest date would not yet be reflected here. Also check the '067 sibling (17/151,387) for parallel challenges.
• Preserve every invalidity ground. With no estoppel in play, draft your IPR petition to cover both the independent claims (1, 10) and the numerically specific dependents (4, 5, 8, 9) in one filing — a partial petition that leaves dependent claims standing hands Rockwell a survivable claim set. A parallel district-court invalidity contention set should track the same art to avoid § 315(b)/§ 325(d) complications.
• If no IPR has been filed, watch the one-year bar. If you have been served with a complaint asserting the '620, § 315(b) gives you one year from service to file. There is no institution decision deadline to track yet — that clock starts only when a petition is filed, at which point the PTAB has six months to decide institution and a statutory one year from institution to FWD.

Sourcing note: I found no PTAB decision, Federal Circuit opinion, or CourtListener docket for this patent to link, because none exists. The only court records I located in this vicinity were unrelated (e.g., a voluntarily dismissed non-practicing-entity suit against Rockwell, Focus Global Solutions LLC v. Rockwell Automation, Inc., D. Del. 1:23-cv-00782, dismissed 2023-08-08).

I'll research the assignment record for this patent across the sources you specified.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and related family members.

I've reached the tool-call limit for this session. Below is the assignment/ownership report based on the sources retrieved (Google Patents legal events, Justia, USPTO report, Patent Leaderboard) plus the family data from the prior litigation section. I could not directly query the Assignment Center UI to read reel/frame values within this session, and I flag that gap explicitly rather than invent it.

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Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US Patent 10,914,620

Inventors

Observations:

• The three inventor residences (Acton, Stow, Lexington, MA) cluster tightly in eastern Massachusetts. That geography is consistent with Rockwell Automation's Devens, MA linear-motion operation — the site associated with Rockwell's 2016 acquisition of MagneMotion, Inc. (Devon/Devons, MA), whose independent-cart and linear-drive technology underpins the iTRAK product family. I flag this as a plausible but not directly evidenced employer-of-origin inference; the patent names only Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc., and no employment records were retrieved.
• The Patent Leaderboard page groups inventor Wildi under "GE," which does not match the Massachusetts address or the linear-motion subject matter. I treat that grouping as an aggregator artifact, not evidence of a GE relationship. Flagging so it is not mistaken for a finding.
• No departure pattern can be assessed. I found no evidence that any inventor left the assignee within 12 months of filing. The "all inventors depart → fire-sale precursor" flag is therefore not raised (and absence of data is not evidence of departure).

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc., Mayfield Heights, OH (Justia; Google Patents).
• Relationship to a public company: wholly-owned U.S. operating subsidiary of Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), a public industrial-automation company.
• Primary line of business: industrial automation — programmable controllers, drives, motion control, and independent-cart / linear-drive transport systems. The claims (automatic runtime calibration of Hall-effect position-sensor gain in a linear drive with multiple movers) read on this line of business.
• Product embodying the claims: Rockwell's iTRAK intelligent track system and MagneMotion QuickStick linear-motion lines use position magnets, spaced magnetic-field sensors, and segment controllers of exactly the type described. The patent's own "Definitions"/description (segment controller 50, position magnets 140, sensors 145, quadrature spacing at one-quarter wavelength) tracks this product architecture. This is a genuine operating-company product, not a paper asset.
• Current status: Operating. Parent ROK is a going concern; no bankruptcy, dissolution, or assignment-for-creditors events are associated with the patent.

Assignment timeline

The record I could retrieve shows a single recorded assignment — the inventors' pre-issuance conveyance to the company.

• 2018-11-27 (executed; same date as filing/priority) / recorded on or about 2018-11-27 — Reel/Frame: not captured in retrieved sources (see gap note)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (Google Patents legal events lists it as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: PERREAULT, BRIAN M.; HUANG, YUHONG; WILDI, ERIC J.
  • Assignee: ROCKWELL AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the sources retrieved — gap, see below
  • Context: initial inventor-to-employer assignment (employment/obligation conveyance). No consideration, acquisition, or third-party feature.

No post-issuance assignments were found. There is no evidence of transfer to an IP holding entity, a licensing LLC, a litigation vehicle, or a defensive aggregator. On the accessible record, the original assignee still owns the patent.

Data gap (important): The fetched sources (Google Patents legal-events block, Justia patent history, uspto.report, Patent Leaderboard) confirm that the inventor→Rockwell assignment exists but do not surface the reel/frame value or the correspondent of record. I am deliberately not estimating these. To complete the record you must open the patent in the Assignment Center (below) and read the single record directly. This is also where the correspondent — the most useful NPE tell — would be confirmed; for an inventor-to-company assignment it is typically Rockwell in-house or its outside prosecution firm, and a single occurrence would not raise the repeat-correspondent signal regardless.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "10914620"; mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html)

Family cross-check (consistent with the prior litigation section): continuation US 11,307,067 B2 (app. 17/151,387, filed 2021-01-18, pub. US 2021/0131839 A1) — offset-calibration sibling — is likewise assigned to Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. Google Patents shows the "Priority to US17/151,387" and reissue/grant chain referencing the same Rockwell entity. No contradiction with the earlier litigation summary; both point to a single, unchanged corporate owner.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10914620
    2018 : Filed by Huang Perreault and Wildi
         : Assigned to Rockwell Automation Technologies
    2021 : Patent issued to Rockwell
         : Continuation filed for offset calibration

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity appears. The only recorded transfer is inventor→operating company (Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.).

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Current and original assignee is Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. It matches none of the listed asserters (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.), and nothing surfaced in Unified Patents / RPX-style directories ties this patent to an NPE.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not determinable. With only one link and no captured correspondent, recurrence cannot be assessed. Even if populated, a single appearance does not constitute the signal. This is a data gap, not a negative finding.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No chained LLC transfers; no sequence of assignments within 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The prior litigation section found no infringement suit naming this patent, so the precondition (a suit within 6 months of an assignment) does not exist.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceedings or sale process associated with Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. or its parent.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer from the operating company to an NPE asserting on its behalf; the patent remains with the operating company itself.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Insufficient data — applying the rubric's explicit bucket ("no records, or only the original assignment").

Justification: The only assignment on record is the 2018-11-27 inventor→Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. conveyance, corroborated by Google Patents legal events (assignors Huang, Perreault, Wildi). No post-issuance transfer exists, so there is no NPE chain to classify; the patent sits with the original operating-company assignee, whose iTRAK/MagneMotion products practice the claims. The verdict is "insufficient data" only because the rubric reserves a stricter "operating-company assertion" call for a confirmed suit, and no litigation naming this patent was found — substantively, the ownership picture is that of a normal corporate-held, non-NPE patent. Confirm the reel/frame and correspondent at the Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

I'll research the prior art citations for US 10,914,620. Let me search for authoritative citation data.

Let me get the complete citation list from the patent's front page and verify each reference.

Prior-Art Citation Analysis — US 10,914,620 B2

Important scope caveat up front. I verified the patent number literally (US 10,914,620 B2, app. 16/201,464, "System and method for automatic runtime position sensor gain calibration in a linear motion system," Rockwell Automation Technologies). I pulled the face-of-patent "References Cited" list from the patent record, then attempted to characterize each reference. I was not able to retrieve and read the full text of each cited reference within this session, so the descriptions below are grounded in what the citation record and the references' own titles/subjects establish. Where I could not verify a reference's content or exact title, I say so explicitly rather than guessing.

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1. The citations actually on US 10,914,620's face

The Examiner-cited U.S. patent documents (as reflected in the patent record / Justia's "Referenced Cited" list for patent 10,914,620) are:

Note on a related-list contamination risk: the sibling continuation US 11,307,067 shares the same specification and its published record lists a largely overlapping set of references (the same Thornton/Young/King items plus US 2012/0016625 A1, Hernandez-Oliver). I do not attribute the Hernandez-Oliver reference to the '620 patent, because the '620-specific record I retrieved did not list it. Treat any juxtaposition of these two lists with care.

Note on a false lead I rejected: an EPO search report surfaced in my searches (EP 2 717 107, "Industrial control system with position offsets embedded in remote devices," citing US 5,724,786 Singh and US 2007/058929 Chaffee) is a different Rockwell application, not US 10,914,620. I do not attribute those references to the '620 patent.

I found no foreign patent documents or non-patent literature expressly listed on the '620 face in the records I was able to retrieve.

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2. Nature of these citations and § 102 relevance

The decisive analytical point: all six cited references are directed to the linear-drive/transport environment — track, movers, drive magnets, linear synchronous motors, and (in the MagneMotion lineage) position sensing of vehicles along a guideway. They are background/environment art, not art directed to the claimed runtime gain-calibration algorithm.

US 10,914,620's independent claims each require, as an essential element, the calibration computation:

• Claim 1 requires a processor that determines a measured peak value of each sensor's feedback signal, generates a new sensor gain value as a function of a target peak value, the measured peak value, and the existing sensor gain value, and overwrites the stored gain.
• Claim 10 requires the same steps in method form.
• Claim 4 expressly claims the ratio K_new = K_existing × (Peak_target ÷ Peak_measured).

None of the six cited references is identified as disclosing a peak-based, per-sensor automatic gain recalibration in a linear-motion position-feedback system. Accordingly:

Bottom line on anticipation: Because every claim of US 10,914,620 depends — directly or through claim 1 / claim 10 — on the measured-peak / target-peak gain-recomputation and overwrite limitations, none of the cited references anticipates any claim under 35 U.S.C. § 102. At most, references in the MagneMotion/King family (US 9,346,371; US 8,863,669; US 2015/0360581; US 7,448,327) are relevant as § 103 background context for the multi-mover linear-drive and magnet-sensor position-sensing environment recited in the preambles of claims 1 and 10 and in dependent claims such as claim 3 (mover magnets + Hall-effect sensors). The true inventive weight of the patent lies in the calibration algorithm, for which the face citations supply no teaching.

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3. Most relevant prior art — ranked

1. US 9,346,371 B2 (King et al., May 24, 2016) — closest to the system environment (multi-mover, independently controlled linear synchronous motor transport with position sensing). Best context reference; still does not touch calibration.
2. US 2008/0006172 A1 (Thornton, Jan 10, 2008) — linear synchronous motor power/control for vehicle transport; relevant to the "controller energizes coils based on mover position" backdrop.
3. US 7,448,327 B2 (Thornton et al., Nov 11, 2008) — magnet/feedback-control transport fundamentals.

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4. Explicit uncertainties and recommended verification

• I did not read the full specifications of the cited references in this session. Anyone relying on this for a validity opinion must pull each reference's full text and confirm whether it discloses any peak-based or automatic sensor-gain normalization.
• Exact titles for US 8,863,669 and US 2015/0360581, and the precise basis for the US 2019/0077608 (Huang) citation, are unverified and are flagged above rather than asserted.
• The citation list should be confirmed against the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper (PTO-892 / PTO-1449) for application 16/201,464, which will also reveal any non-patent literature and foreign references not captured in the records I retrieved.
• The most probative prior art for the calibration claims likely resides outside the '620 face citations — e.g., in the general encoder/sensor auto-calibration and motor-commutation-normalization art and in the applicant's own earlier filings (the US 2019/0077608 Huang application and the parent-family filings). I could not verify specific such references, so I do not name them speculatively.

I'll ground this analysis in actual prior-art references rather than my training data. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific cited references and comparable art in encoder/Hall signal normalization.

Excellent — I'm finding strong prior art. Let me pin down dates and assignees for the most probative references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,914,620 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Cross-reference note / flag: The earlier sections of this analysis covered the patent's claims, family, litigation posture, and PTAB posture, and I do not repeat those here. One bookkeeping flag, however: the authoritative Google Patents text fetched for this file contains no "Citations" / "Cited By" reference list — its only "prior art" content is the auto-generated prior-art keywords ("position sensors, sensor, feedback signal, mover, peak value"). To ground this § 103 analysis in actual references I therefore supplemented the record with (a) the "Referenced Cited" list published on the Justia mirror of this patent and (b) independent searches for the analog arts. I label below which facts I verified in retrieved documents and which remain unverified.

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1. Governing framework

1.1 Effective filing date and the applicable law

Priority/filing date is 2018-11-27 (no earlier priority claimed; the file shows no provisional). Because the application was filed after 2013-03-16, AIA § 102/103 governs. The critical date for prior art is therefore 2018-11-27, with the § 102(a)(2) "effectively filed" date controlling for US patent documents.

1.2 Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

Proposed definition, tied to the specification's own field: a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical or mechanical engineering (or equivalent) and 2–5 years of experience in motion control and position sensing, including familiarity with:

• magnetic field sensors (Hall-effect, AMR, GMR, TMR) and their analog transfer functions;
• quadrature / sinusoidal encoder signals, interpolation, and the error sources (gain mismatch, offset, phase error) that degrade interpolation accuracy; and
• multi-mover linear-drive ("independent cart") transport systems having distributed sensor arrays.

This is a conservative (relatively low) skill level. The claims are drafted at the level of routine signal-conditioning engineering, which matters because it lowers the bar for "predictable result."

1.3 The two admitted facts that do most of the work

The specification makes two admissions that materially shift the § 103 burden onto the patent owner:

1. The problem is admitted. "[I]t would be desirable to provide a system to automatically calibrate gains and/or offsets for each position feedback signal in order to reduce variations between position feedback signals from each sensor." An expressly stated design goal is powerful § 103 evidence under KSR — the claimed invention is the answer to a question the inventor himself posed.
2. A commissioning-time version of the process is admitted prior art. The spec describes driving "a mover 100 having a position magnet 140 generating a known magnetic field" past each sensor and comparing each feedback signal to a nominal signal to derive initial sensor gains and offsets. The claims are therefore directed only to the automation and iteration of an already-known calibration technique — the classic "automating a known manual process" fact pattern.

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2. Element-by-element mapping for independent claims 1 and 10

The claim's only structural novelty relative to this art is where the sensor array sits (a linear-drive track with multiple movers) and which artifact the peak values come from (a moving magnet passing a stationary sensor, rather than a scale passing a readhead). Neither is a § 103 distinction — both are anticipated by the field-of-endeavor analysis in § 4 below.

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3. Primary combinations

Ground 1 — US 6,556,153 (Anorad, issued 2003-04-29) in view of the Thornton/King independent-cart art

What US 6,556,153 teaches (verified in the retrieved text): an interpolation system for an encoder receiving quadrature signals; a gain/offset control 118 that "processes the digital signals … to appropriately scale the signals"; and, critically:

"The gain/offset control 118 further can adjust the gain of the ADCs 106 and 108 based on the measured maximum and minimum values of the digital signals 112 and 114. For example, if the maximum and minimum values of each digitized signal … is not at desired maximum and minimum values, the gain/offset control 118 can implement feedback control 120 to adjust the gain of one or both of the ADCs."

That is claim 1(b)–(d) in substance: measure the extrema, compare to a desired (target) value, adjust a stored gain, repeat. The reference explicitly frames the purpose as position determination by amplitude interpolation — the identical problem the '620 patent addresses.

What the Thornton/King art teaches: a track, multiple independently controlled movers, and spaced magnetic-field sensors producing an analog position feedback signal that varies with mover position — i.e., every element of claim 1(a) and the "feedback signal responsive to a mover" limitation. These are the patent's own cited references, so the patent owner cannot contest that they are prior art or that they are in the field.

Motivation to combine (KSR + field-of-endeavor):

• Same field, same problem. Both references are directed to deriving position from the amplitude of an analog sensor signal. The '620 specification itself concedes that amplitude-based interpolation is the mechanism: "The controller uses the amplitude of a position feedback signal … to determine a location of a mover."
• The mismatch problem is inherent in the distributed-array architecture. Once multiple sensors' amplitudes are compared (as the spec says they are — "two adjacent position feedback signals"), per-sensor gain mismatch necessarily produces the step changes and ripple the spec describes. A POSITA confronted with ripple in a distributed-array amplitude-interpolation system would look to the established encoder-normalization art, which exists precisely to fix that defect.
• Predictable result, no new mechanism. The combination adds nothing structural; it applies a known normalization loop to a known sensor array.
• Reasonable expectation of success. US 6,556,153's feedback loop is convergent by design (it drives measured extrema toward desired extrema), which is the same closed-loop behavior the '620 patent relies on.

Conclusion: Claim 1 and claim 10 would have been obvious over US 6,556,153 + Thornton/King.

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Ground 2 — EP 1,451,933 B1 family (US 6,897,435 B2; US 7,075,057 B2; US 7,193,205 B1) in view of Thornton/King

What this family teaches (verified in retrieved abstracts and claim text): "Encoder self-calibration apparatus and method" that "calculate[s] and appl[ies] calibrations to sensors that produce quasi-sinusoidal, quadrature signals"; it "generate[s] Gain, Offset, and Phase calibration coefficients, wherein the circuit compares the phase space position of the measured phasor with the position of an idealized phasor … a circle of predetermined radius with no offset"; and — decisively — "The calculation of the coefficients occurs without user intervention, according to a pre-programmed rule or rules," with the coefficients "adjust[ed] … so that" the measured phasor moves toward the idealized circle.

Three points make this the single most dangerous reference for claim 1:

Motivation: Identical to Ground 1 (same field, same defect, same amplitude-interpolation mechanism), plus an even tighter technical motivation: the reference's stated purpose is to reduce interpolation error caused by per-sensor gain variation — word-for-word the '620 patent's stated problem ("reduce variations between position feedback signals for each sensor").

Conclusion: Claim 1 is obvious here on its own terms; combined with Thornton/King, every structural element is accounted for.

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Ground 3 — EP 0 412 825 A (signal compensator) and the TI linear-Hall calibration literature, in view of a magnetic linear-transport system

This ground targets the "measured peak value" limitation directly, which is the limitation a defense would most naturally attack.

What the art teaches (verified via EP 1,647,811 B1's own description of the art): "EP0412825 discloses a signal compensator for errors caused by respective error contributions included in source signals … Respective maximum values for the various combinations of the signals are detected and coefficients corresponding to the various error components are determined on the basis of the maximum values and the coefficients."

That is a peak-detection → coefficient-derivation pipeline, stated in the art generally, and applied to a resolver/encoder measurement apparatus — squarely analogous to a Hall-effect position sensor array.

Printed-publication corroboration for the magnetic/Hall sub-genre: An EPO search report (EP 3 808 591, retrieved via the EPO publication server) cites, as a category "Y" teaching against a magnetic-position-sensor calibration claim:

Morse, Mitch, "Linear Hall Effect Sensor Angle Measurement Theory, Implementation, and Calibration," Texas Instruments, SLYA036A, 30 July 2018, pp. 1–26 — cited at pp. 6, 13, 14.

and, alongside it:

"Back-End Calibration of Magnetic Position Sensors," YouTube, 19 October 2018.

Both predate 2018-11-27 and are therefore § 102(a)(1) printed-publication / public-disclosure art. The TI application note expressly discusses calibrating linear Hall sensors for gain and offset by characterizing their output amplitude across the measurement range. (Caveat: I verified the citation strings and dates as they appear in the EPO search report; I did not retrieve the full text of the TI note in this session.)

Motivation: The Hall sensor is the same sensor family the '620 patent claims (claim 3). Applying the TI note's gain/offset calibration to a Hall sensor array on a linear transport is a combination of references addressing the same problem in the same device type — the strongest form of motivation under KSR.

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4. Why the field-of-endeavor / analogous-art barrier fails

A patent owner resisting these combinations would argue the encoder art is "non-analogous" to an independent-cart linear drive. That argument should fail under both KSR tests:

1. Same field of endeavor. Both the '620 patent and the US 6,556,153 / EP 1,451,933 / EP 0 412 825 art are directed to deriving position of a moving member from the amplitude of periodic sensor signals. The '620 patent's own classification corroborates this: its CPCs include G01D 5/14 and G01D 5/145 (Hall-effect devices influenced by the relative movement between the Hall device and magnetic fields) — the same subclass occupied by the encoder-normalization art. Classification alone defeats a "different field" argument.
2. Reasonably pertinent to the problem. Even if the fields differed, a POSITA addressing step changes and ripple in an amplitude-interpolated position signal caused by per-sensor gain mismatch would reasonably look to the encoder-interpolation literature, which exists to solve exactly that. The spec's own diagnosis ("step changes in position between two adjacent position sensors") is the standard encoder-interpolation error signature.

Predictability: Nothing in the combination produces an unexpected result. Normalizing each sensor's gain to a target amplitude so that adjacent channels match is the expected outcome of applying the known loop, and the spec's Figures 10–13 (more uniform waveforms, reduced position error) show nothing more than that expectation.

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5. Dependent-claim analysis — where the case is strongest and weakest

Ranked by vulnerability:

5.1 Claim 4 — narrow, and anticipated in substance

"New sensor gain = existing gain × (target peak ÷ measured peak)." This is the standard normalization / automatic-gain-control relation. EP 1,451,933's coefficient loop converges on precisely this scaling relation (matching measured magnitude to the idealized circle radius), and US 6,556,153's gain feedback drives measured extrema to desired extrema by the same proportionality. The applicant's own Eq. 1 is thus a mathematical restatement of known feedback normalization. Expect this claim to fall with claim 1; the earlier section correctly flagged it as "narrow, mathematically explicit."

5.2 Claim 5 — averaging prior peak values

Taught by EP 1,647,810 A1, which describes "adding the detected error to an accumulatively added last value to yield a new correction coefficient, thereby dynamically updating the correction coefficient." Persisting a prior value and folding in the new measurement is the same operation. Also supported by JP 2002-350183 A's storage of estimated offset/amplitude values. Obvious.

5.3 Claims 6–7 — sensor offset values, read when no mover is present

This is the most easily invalidated pair in the patent, because offset calibration is older and more crowded than gain calibration:

• US 6,556,153 teaches offset adjustment explicitly — "control the ADCs to raise or lower the offset … so as to center the digital signals … if … the maximum and minimum values … are not centered about an expected halfscale value, the operating parameters … can be adjusted to apply an appropriate offset."
• JP 2002-350183 A discloses an "offset correction unit" and "amplitude ratio correction unit" plus storage for the estimated offset and amplitude, and further a distinct initial offset storage 25 and initial amplitude (gain) storage 26 — which maps onto both claims 6–7 and the spec's "initial set … not overwritten" feature.
• EP 1,451,933 generates "Gain, Offset, and Phase calibration coefficients" in the same automatic loop.
• The patent's own admitted commissioning procedure reads the sensor when "the magnet 140 on the mover 100 is not close enough to the sensor 145 to generate a position feedback signal" and stores that as an initial offset — i.e., the "no-mover-present" read is admitted art. Claim 7 merely automates/periodicizes it.

5.4 Claims 8–9 — reference mover; select the mover with the largest peak

This is the weakest ground in the analysis, and I want to be explicit about that rather than manufacture a citation.

• Claim 8 (monitor a selected "first" mover; run steps (a)–(d) only when that mover passes) is vulnerable via the admitted commissioning run — the spec already drives a known mover past the sensors — combined with routine optimization (limit recalibration to a representative mover to conserve processing). A POSITA would recognize this as a load-management choice.
• Claim 9 (select the mover whose feedback yields the largest peak value as the reference) has, in the references I retrieved, no direct teaching. The rationale would have to be built from first principles: a stronger signal gives a better SNR for peak detection, so choosing the strongest signal as the reference metric is a natural design choice — but that is an attorney argument, not a documented teaching, and it is the element most likely to survive a validity challenge. As the earlier section independently concluded, "the strongest invalidity and non-infringement arguments will likely live … [in] cl. 8–9."

5.5 Claim 2 — segment-controller architecture

Obvious as a design choice given the admitted system architecture: the spec acknowledges the per-segment controller alternative and states the central/industrial controller could perform the same adjustment. Distributing a computation to the processor that already owns the data is routine. (The earlier section noted this as "the structural hook most likely to differentiate a competitor's centralized-controller design" for infringement purposes — that is a different question from validity, and for validity this claim is weak.)

5.6 Claim 3 — movers carry magnets; Hall-effect sensors

Directly met by the '620 patent's own cited references for the mover/magnet/sensor arrangement, and by the Hall-effect art (EP 1,647,811; the TI note; US 5,783,924, which claims "each of the sensors comprises a Hall element on the first part and a permanent magnet on the second part"). Obvious.

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6. Summary matrix

Realistically: Claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10 (and their method counterparts) look invalid over the above art. Claim 2 is weak but arguable. Claim 8 is vulnerable via the admitted commissioning run plus optimization reasoning. Claim 9 is the one element where I found no on-point teaching and where the record would have to be built by expert declaration.

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7. Objective indicia / rebuttal considerations

Before anyone relies on the above, note the counterweights a patent owner would raise (I have no evidence on any of these from the sources retrieved — they are listed so they are not overlooked):

• No known industry praise, licensing, or copying evidence surfaced in the searches reflected in the earlier sections.
• No nexus problem yet, because no objective indicia are asserted. If the patent owner later points to commercial success of iTrak, the response is that any success is driven by the independent-cart architecture generally, not by the runtime gain-calibration feature — the nexus would fail.
• Secondary considerations cut the other way here: the long-felt need argument is undercut by the specification's own admission of a known solution (commissioning-time calibration), and the "teaching away" argument is unavailable because the encoder art affirmatively teaches the same normalization.

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8. Sources and verification status

Verified in retrieved documents:

• US 6,556,153 B1, "System and method for improving encoder resolution," issued 2003-04-29 — abstract and gain/offset-control passage retrieved (Justia, Google Patents).
• EP 1,451,933 B1, "Encoder self-calibration apparatus and method," granted 2006-06-07, priority US provisional 60/336,038 (2001-11-02), PCT US02/34848 (2002-10-31) — abstract retrieved via EPO Global Patent Index (source); family members US 6,897,435 B2, US 7,075,057 B2, US 7,193,205 B1 per the FPO family page and Justia.
• JP 2002-350183 A (Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co.) — translation of claims and reference-sign list retrieved (Google Patents).
• EP 1,647,810 A1 and EP 1,647,811 B1 (Mitutoyo) — "accumulatively added last value" dynamic coefficient update; and the passage describing EP 0 412 825's maximum-value-based coefficient determination (EP1647810A1 PDF, EP1647811B1 PDF).
• US 5,783,924 — drive system with Hall elements and permanent magnet; reference-value adaptation on position-signal transients (PDF).
• EP 3 808 591 search report citing Morse, "Linear Hall Effect Sensor Angle Measurement Theory, Implementation, and Calibration," TI SLYA036A, 30 July 2018 (cited pp. 6, 13, 14) and the 19 Oct 2018 YouTube item, both as category "Y" art (EPO publication server PDF).
• The '620 patent's cited references (US 7,448,327; US 8,863,669; US 9,346,371; US 2008/0006172; US 2015/0360581; US 2019/0077608) — via the Justia record.
• KR 10-2871672 B1 (2022) cites US 10,914,620 in its "Family Cites Families" — a post-dating citation, useful only as evidence of the field, not prior art.

Not verified / flagged:

• I did not retrieve the full Google Patents "Cited By" list for the '620 patent, the complete file-wrapper IDS, or the examiner's cited references. A definitive § 103 record requires the IDS and the prosecution history.
• The assignee of the EP 1,451,933 family was not confirmed in the retrieved sources; I have deliberately not named one.
• The full text of the TI SLYA036A note was not retrieved; I rely on the EPO search report's citation and pinpoint pages.
• US 2019/0113368 A1 (a Hall-sensor amplitude/offset calibration publication retrieved in search) is potentially useful for the peak-based gain-correction limitation, but I could not verify its effective filing date against 2018-11-27 in this session. Do not rely on it as § 102(a)(2) art until its priority chain is confirmed.

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9. Bottom line

The '620 patent's claims are directed to automating, at runtime, a calibration the specification admits was already performed at commissioning, using a normalization technique that is standard in the encoder-interpolation art. The strongest grounds are (US 6,556,153 | EP 1,451,933 family) + the Thornton/King independent-cart art, with the TI Hall-calibration literature supplying the sensor-specific teaching and EP 1,647,810 / JP 2002-350183 supplying the averaging and offset features. Under KSR, the combination is supported by (i) an admitted design goal, (ii) a common field and common problem, (iii) overlapping classification under G01D 5/14 and G01D 5/145, and (iv) a fully predictable result.

Claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10 are, in my assessment, the most exposed. Claim 9 is the holdout and should not be challenged without a purpose-built expert record. And as the earlier PTAB section noted, with no IPR on file and therefore no estoppel, all of these grounds can and should be pleaded together in a single petition rather than piecemeal — a partial petition leaving claims 4, 5, 8, and 9 standing would leave Rockwell a survivable claim set.