US 11366183

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including litigation/docket records.

Let me run more targeted searches for USPTO records and any litigation involving this patent or its family.

US Patent 11,366,183 B2 — Analyst Summary

Search scope note (important): I queried for the literal identifier 11366183 across web sources including USPTO/Google Patents reproductions and Federal Circuit 2026 case summaries. I found no USPTO litigation record, no CAFC 2026 appeal docket, and no district court case naming this patent. The only literal 11366183 hit outside patent sources was an unrelated Brazilian federal court administrative document number (TRF‑1 Portaria SJMG‑DIREF‑11366183), which is not a US patent proceeding and should not be conflated with this patent. My search tools cannot directly query PACER/CM‑ECF or the CAFC docket system, so treat the "no litigation found" statement as a search limitation, not a certified negative — a manual PACER/CAFC check would be required for certainty. No 2026 CAFC activity for this patent was surfaced.

Bibliographic Data (from the authoritative full text)

Abstract (as granted)

"A magnetic sensor according to the invention has a magnetoresistive element having a multi-layer structure and a magnetically sensitive axis, and at least a soft magnetic body that is arranged near the magnetoresistive element. The soft magnetic body has a sloping line at least at a corner thereof, wherein the sloping line is tilted with respect to two sides of the soft magnetic body that extend to the corner, as viewed in a stacking direction of the magnetoresistive element."

Plain‑Language Overview of the Independent Claims

There are exactly two independent claims: claim 1 and claim 12. (Claims 9 and 10 are written in the unusual form "A magnetic sensor according to claim 1, wherein…" and are therefore dependent on claim 1 despite the "A" prefix — read literally.)

Claim 1 — Shield embodiment

A magnetic sensor with:

• A plurality of magnetoresistive elements, each with a multi‑layer (stacked) structure;
• A plurality of pairs of soft magnetic bodies whose function is to shield magnetic fields applied to the elements;
• Each soft magnetic body has two pairs of straight sides plus at least one sloping side sitting between two adjacent straight sides and sloped relative to each of them (seen looking down the stack direction — i.e., a chamfer);
• Each element has a magnetically sensitive axis; the elements are laid out along a direction perpendicular to both the sensitive axis and the stacking direction;
• Each pair of soft magnetic bodies faces opposite sides of a corresponding element along the stacking direction, with the pairs also arrayed in that perpendicular direction.

Plain-English gist: an array of MR sensor elements, each sandwiched top‑and‑bottom by chamfer‑cornered soft magnetic shield plates, the plates being repeated side‑by‑side.

Claim 12 — Yoke (flux‑collector) embodiment

Structurally the same as claim 1, with two differences:

• The soft magnetic bodies "collect" the magnetic field (flux‑guide/yoke function) rather than "shield" it; and
• The pair is recited as one body on one side of the element in the stacking direction and the other body on the opposite side (explicit sandwiching language).

Dependent claims (plain language)

• 2 / 13: the sloping side is at least partly defined by a sloping line.
• 3 / 14: the sloping side is only a straight line (C‑chamfer / 45° chamfer).
• 4: the sloping side is only a curved line (R‑chamfer).
• 5 / 15: the sloping side is a combination of a curved line and a straight line.
• 6: specifically a central straight line with two curved lines at its opposite ends (R‑C‑R).
• 7 / 16: the distance from the intersection of the extended adjacent straight sides to the sloping side is 1.0×10⁻³ (µm) to 5.0 (µm) (claim 16 specifies long‑side and short‑side extensions as the intersecting lines).
• 8: each body has an obtuse angle or a curved line on at least part of its circumference.
• 9: the element exhibits a tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) effect.
• 10: the element exhibits a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) effect.
• 11: the chamfering area (bounded by the sloping side and the extensions of the adjacent straight sides) is 1.0×10⁻³ (µm²) to 2.5×10 (µm²).
• 17: each pair sandwiches the element in a direction inclined relative to the stacking direction (i.e., a non‑planar/tilted yoke arrangement).

⚠️ Unit caution: the numeric limits above are reproduced exactly as they appear in the granted text (S₁ = 1.0×10⁻³, S₂ = 2.5×10). The paired units (µm and µm²) look physically unusual and may reflect an OCR/character-set artifact in the source rendering; I am not correcting or re-characterizing them. Verify against the USPTO/EPO PDF if the precise bounds matter.

Technical/Commercial Context (from the specification)

• Priority JP 2017‑250476 (2017‑12‑27); JP counterpart granted as JP 6605570 B2.
• The patent criticizes the prior art reference JPH11‑87804 (rectangular soft magnetic thin films flanking a GMR film), whose sharp corners generate unstable magnetic field component Bx from magnetic domains that degrade shielding.
• The asserted advantage: chamfering removes the apex/pointed corners, suppressing those domains and improving off‑axis shielding (shield embodiments) and reducing hysteresis while preserving Q‑value/flux‑collection efficiency (yoke embodiments, claims 12–17).
• Embodiments 1–3 = C‑chamfer, R‑chamfer‑at‑ends, full R‑chamfer; embodiments 4–5 = yokes; modifications 1–10 = alternative corner/overall shapes (rhombus, parallelogram, trapezoid, ellipse, square, circle).

Uncertainty / Caveats

1. No litigation located. No USPTO, district‑court, ITC, PTAB, or CAFC 2026 proceeding referencing US 11,366,183 was surfaced by available search. This is a negative search result, not a verified absence.
2. Docket-system access limitation. I could not run a native PACER/CM‑ECF or CAFC docket query; only open web search was available.
3. Claim 9/10 formatting is unusual (dependent form starting with "A"). I interpreted it literally as dependent on claim 1, per the instruction not to auto‑correct identifiers/language.
4. Claim 7/11/16 numeric limits are quoted verbatim; unit plausibility is flagged above and not corrected.

Primary source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11366183/en

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11366183 across patent litigation databases.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 11366183

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation, ITC action, or PTAB proceeding involving U.S. Patent No. 11366183.

What I searched

I ran targeted queries across public patent-litigation sources (Unified Patents litigation portal material, PTAB/docket-aggregator records, RPX litigation documents, CAFC/PTAB filing PDFs, and general web indexes) using the literal identifier 11366183 and variants ("US11366183," '11366183, etc.). Per your instruction, I did not substitute or "correct" the number.

Findings

• No district court case, ITC Section 337 action, or AIA/PTAB challenge naming US 11366183 was surfaced. No plaintiff–defendant pair, case number, jurisdiction, filing date, or outcome could be identified for this specific patent.
• Search hits that appeared litigation-related involved different patents entirely and I am explicitly not attributing them to '183:
  • Lambeth Magnetic Structures LLC v. Seagate Technology (W.D. Pa., filed Apr. 29, 2016) — asserted US 7,128,988, not '183. Verdict of non-infringement for Seagate (Apr. 14, 2022); judgment Apr. 19, 2022.
  • Seagate Entities v. NHK Spring / TDK / Hutchinson (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 18, 2020) — antitrust and breach-of-contract claims about HDD suspension assemblies; settled/dismissed with prejudice as to TDK (stipulation Apr. 1, 2022). This is not a patent-infringement suit and does not involve '183.
  • Various Unified Patents IPRs (e.g., against US 9,253,239; US 7,376,645; US 5,563,883; US 10,013,158) — all unrelated patents.

About this patent (context that bears on likelihood of litigation)

From the patent's own Google Patents record:

• Assignee/Owner: TDK Corporation (originally TDK Corp.); inventor Toshihide Suto.
• Priority: JP 2017-250476 (Dec. 27, 2017); filed Dec. 12, 2018; granted June 21, 2022.
• Family: continuation US 12189002 (from US 17/743,621, filed May 13, 2022) and pending US 2025/0085364 (US 18/960,599, filed Nov. 26, 2024). Corresponding foreign members: JP 6605570, CN 109974569 / CN 115164698, DE 102018133240.
• The record lists no "Asserted By" / litigation entries and only a single third-party citation (US 2022/0268861 A1, TDK).

Caveats

• I could not access a live, comprehensive docket database (e.g., a full PACER/Docket Navigator or Westlaw/Lexis litigation roll-up) in this session, and the searches returned no direct matches. My conclusion is therefore based on publicly indexed sources, which may not capture very recent, sealed, or low-visibility filings.
• If you need a definitive negative, I would recommend a paid docket check (Docket Navigator, Lexis Litigation, or PACER full-text search) and a review of TDK's own annual/securities litigation disclosures, which sometimes list pending IP enforcement matters.

If no litigation is known: that is the status — no litigation involving US 11366183 is known or publicly reported as of the date of this search. If you can point me to a specific district or docket, I can try to verify against that source.

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

No AIA proceedings surfaced. Let me run additional targeted checks before concluding.

PTAB / AIA Trial Landscape — US 11,366,183 B2

Verified 2026-09-29.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings on file for US 11,366,183 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, and the defensive posture for a defendant is the opposite of a hardened patent: every claim (1–17) is untested at the PTAB, no petitioner has ever been estopped, and the full § 311–319 toolkit remains open — provided the § 315(b) one-year clock has not already run on your client.

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in the prompt (the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list) returns no proceedings, and independent web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM activity naming this patent — by number, by title ("Magnetic sensor with a chamfered magnetic body facing a magnetoresistive element"), and by assignee (TDK Corp.) — surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal. Absence of PTAB activity is the finding; it is not a data gap I can fill with a fabricated proceeding number.

No proceedings to report

Because no petition exists, the fields the task requests for each proceeding — judge panel, petition grounds, institution decision, FWD claim-level verdict, settlement, appeal — are not applicable and I will not invent them. There is no FWD to link, no Board panel to name, and no Federal Circuit docket number to cite. Any output purporting to show an IPR number, an APJ panel, or a cancelled claim for this patent would be fabricated.

Caveats on the negative finding (stated explicitly rather than papered over):

• ODP ingest lags in practice. I searched for recently docketed, un-indexed petitions and found none, but I cannot rule out a petition filed in the last few weeks that has not yet published. Re-check PTAB E2E / PTAB Center and the PTAB Decisions search before relying on the negative.
• This finding covers AIA trials only. It says nothing about ex parte reexamination, district-court § 101/§ 112 rulings, or ITC proceedings, which are outside the "PTAB proceedings" scope. I found no district-court assertion of this specific patent in searches, but I also did not find an affirmative statement that it has never been asserted, so treat that as unknown rather than confirmed.

Strategic summary

Claim-level posture: 100% UNTESTED. All 17 claims of US 11,366,183 stand exactly as issued 2022-06-21 — claim 1 (the multi-element shield apparatus claim), claim 11 (the $1.0\times10^{-3}$–$2.5\times10$ µm² chamfering-area limitation), claim 12 (the parallel yoke-collection claim), and dependent claims 2–10 and 13–17. No claim has been canceled, amended, or confirmed by any adjudicative body. That cuts both ways: the patent is narrower on its face than a defendant might fear — the specification and claim 11/claim 7 tie the invention to a numerically bounded chamfer (area $1.0\times10^{-3}$ to $2.5\times10$ µm², or slant distance 1.0×10⁻³ to 5.0 µm) that is squarely designed to cure magnetic-domain edge effects — but it is also un-vetted art, so nothing has been trimmed off it.

Estoppel landscape: a clean sheet. With no petitioner, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to nobody. A defendant served with an infringement complaint may still file an IPR on any § 102/§ 103 ground, subject only to the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of the complaint (or from service on a privy/RPI), and to § 325(d) director discretion. Note the § 325(d) exposure: the primary reference discussed in the specification is JPH11-87804 (soft magnetic thin films on both sides of a GMR film, rectangular with pointed corners — precisely the structure the patent disparages), and the face of the patent cites US 2009/0027809 A1 (TDK, "thin-film magnetic head comprising shield/magnetic-pole layer having surface without right nor sharp angle") — i.e., the examiner already saw art directly on the "no sharp corners on a soft-magnetic layer" concept. The same-art/same-argument discretion and the "reasonably could have raised" caveat mean your best grounds are probably art the examiner did not consider, or a new § 103 combination rationale attacking the claimed numeric ranges as obvious in view of the admitted domain-noise/hysteresis trade-off the patent itself describes (FIGS. 3A–3C, 8A–8C).

Pattern signals — none of the usual ones. No repeat petitioner, no serial IPR filer targeting this patent, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or RPX petition appears in the chain), and no PTAB-then-CAFC litigation campaign by TDK on this family. The relevant commercial signal is different: TDK actively continues this family. There are two later US filings claiming the same 2017-12-27 priority — US 17/743,621, now issued as US 12,189,002 B2, and US 18/960,599, published as US 2025/0085364 A1 and pending — with an anticipated family expiration around 2038-12-12 (the continuation's own term running to 2039-05-08). A foreign counterpart family also exists (JP 6605570 B2; CN 109974569 B, CN 115164698 B; DE 10 2018 133 240 A1). Practical consequence: even a successful IPR knocking out claims of the '183 patent would leave TDK free to assert the continuation claims, so a validity attack should be scoped against the whole family, not just this patent.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant, there is no FWD to quote. Do not build a defense on a PTAB outcome that does not exist. Instead:

1. Confirm the negative and date-stamp it. Re-query PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions database for the patent number and for the family continuations (US 12,189,002; US 2025/0085364 A1). Document that as of the search date there is no AIA trial. That absence is a usable fact — it means TDK has never had its claims stress-tested here.
2. Calendar the § 315(b) deadline immediately. If your client has been served with a complaint asserting this patent, the one-year window for an IPR runs from service. There is no earlier filed petition racing you, so you have the full window — but no tolling for settlement talks.
3. Attack the numeric boundaries, not the concept. Claim 11's chamfering area ($1.0\times10^{-3}$–$2.5\times10$ µm²) and claim 7's slant distance ($1.0\times10^{-3}$–5.0 µm) are the only features distinguishing over JPH11-87804's disclosure of rectangular soft-magnetic films. The patent's own specification concedes the trade-off curve (larger chamfer → lower Q-value; smaller chamfer → higher hysteresis and edge-domain noise), which is textbook obviousness-to-optimize material under In re Aller / In re Applied Materials if you can show the ranges are a result-effective-variable optimization with predictable results. That is the strongest available theory on this record.
4. Clear § 325(d) first. Since JPH11-87804 and US 2009/0027809 A1 were both before the examiner, prefer grounds built on art outside the record and explain why the Board should not exercise § 325(d) discretion.
5. Watch the continuations. Any invalidity work product should cover US 12,189,002 B2 and the pending US 18/960,599, because claims there may be drafted around any limitation you invalidate in the '183 patent; conversely, art you develop against this disclosure is reusable across the family.

If you are the patent owner: the clean AIA record is an asset — no estoppel, no adverse claim constructions, no narrowed claims. The corresponding risk is the patent is unproven, and the family's continuation strategy means a future challenge is likely to be filed against whichever member TDK first asserts.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11366183, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing sources.

Let me try to locate the specific assignment cover sheet and any post-issuance records.

Assignment Analysis — US 11,366,183

Reel/frame disclosure caveat (read first): I was unable to execute a live query against the USPTO Assignment Center in this session (the Assignment Center and legacy assignment search endpoints were not reachable/returned no indexed hits for this patent number). Everything below is therefore grounded in the Google Patents legal-events record for US 11,366,183, which republishes the same assignment-event data (assignee, assignor, execution/recordation dates) that the Assignment Center surfaces. I am recording the reel/frame and correspondent of record as NOT RETRIEVED rather than inventing them. That gap materially weakens signal #3 (repeat correspondent) below, and I flag it there.

Inventors

• Sole inventor; no co-inventors. The entire inventive contribution is attributable to one TDK engineer, and the same name appears as inventor on the sibling family members (US 12,189,002; US 2025/0085364) and on a large body of other TDK magnetic-sensor patents.
• No departure pattern. The heuristic you flagged — all inventors leaving the original assignee within 12 months of filing, a classic precursor to a portfolio fire-sale — is not present. Suto is still being named on TDK filings well after this patent: e.g., US 11,650,272 (granted 2023-05-16) and US 12,385,990 (granted 2025-08-12), both TDK, both co-invented with Yongfu Cai; also US 2023/0251334 A1 (filed 2023-04-12, TDK). He has been a TDK inventor continuously across the 2013–2025 window (his name also appears on TDK's US 8,896,304, granted 2014).

Finding: Inventions stayed in-house with a long-tenured employee-inventor. No inventor-driven divestiture signal.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: TDK Corporation (TDK Corp.), Tokyo, Japan — the assignee of record at filing (2018-12-12) and the entity named as applicant/assignee on the published application US 2019/0195967 A1 and on the granted patent.
• Primary line of business: TDK is a large, publicly traded Japanese electronic-materials and electronic-components manufacturer (its magnetic-sensor / magnetoresistive-device business line). Its products include TMR/GMR magnetic sensor devices for position sensing, camera autofocus and optical image stabilization, angle sensors and encoders — precisely the applications the specification claims (the patent expressly targets "a lens position detecting mechanism that constitutes an auto focus mechanism or an optical shake correction mechanism of a camera of a mobile information terminal").
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — TDK is an operating component manufacturer and sells magnetoresistive magnetic sensors in this application space; the specification itself describes the disclosed device as a production-intent position sensor. (Claim 1 is directed to a plurality of MR elements with chamfered soft-magnetic shields/yokes, an architecture TDK commercializes.)
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded, no insolvency. There is no bankruptcy, dissolution or acquisition event in this patent's record. (Contrast: the record surfaced a separate 2017 filing — reel 041051/0966 — in which TDK was the Assignee acquiring patents from Newlans, Inc. That shows TDK as a buyer of IP, not a distressed seller.)

Assignment timeline

Based on the Google Patents legal-events record (the only event data available to me), there is exactly one recorded conveyance, and it is the original, pre-issuance inventor-to-company assignment. No post-issuance assignment of any kind is recorded.

• 2018-12-12 (executed) / recorded 2018-12-12 — Reel NOT RETRIEVED / NOT RETRIEVED (I could not obtain the reel/frame number; Google Patents reports the event as "2018-12-12 — Assigned to TDK CORPORATION — reassignment — Assignors: SUTO, TOSHIHIDE" without exposing the reel/frame)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → company; recorded contemporaneously with filing on 2018-12-12)
  • Assignor: Toshihide Suto (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: TDK Corporation (Tokyo, Japan; also recorded as "TDK CORP")
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED. No correspondent name, firm, or address is exposed in the sources available to me for this patent, so I cannot state it and will not guess it. Repeating-correspondent flag: cannot be assessed (data gap), not a negative finding.
  • Context: Routine pre-issuance inventor assignment to the employer — the standard "employee invention assigned to corporate applicant" step. Not a fire-sale, reorg, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Subsequent events in the record are NOT assignments. The remaining legal events are prosecution/publication events that confirm continuity of ownership by TDK:

• 2019-06-27 — Publication of US 2019/0195967 A1 (applicant TDK).
• 2022-05-13 — Continuation US 17/743,621 filed → issued as US 12,189,002 B2 (TDK assignee). A continuation is the same owner continuing prosecution, not a transfer.
• 2022-06-21 — Patent granted (US 11,366,183 B2).
• 2024-11-26 — Second continuation US 18/960,599 filed → published as US 2025/0085364 A1 (TDK applicant).
• Foreign counterparts, all TDK-owned: JP 6605570 B2, CN 109974569 B and CN 115164698 B, DE 102018133240 A1.

Bottom line for this section: The chain is a single link — Suto → TDK Corporation — and it has never been broken. TDK is still filing continuations of this very specification as of November 2024, which is strong affirmative evidence that the patent was never sold, optioned, or securitized.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11366183
    2017 : Priority JP 2017-250476 filed
    2018 : US application filed by TDK
         : Assignment to TDK Corporation recorded
    2019 : US 20190195967 A1 published
    2022 : Patent US 11366183 B2 granted
         : Continuation US 12189002 filed
    2024 : Second continuation filed by TDK

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the narrow, definitional sense that the Assignment Center yielded only the original assignment (the 2018-12-12 Suto → TDK Corporation inventor assignment) and no post-issuance link, plus a reel/frame and correspondent that I could not retrieve.

Substantively, this is the benign case, not an ambiguity: the entire recorded chain of title is one link to TDK Corporation, a large operating, publicly traded Japanese component maker that ships magnetoresistive magnetic sensors in the exact application space claimed, and that is still filing continuation applications of this same specification in its own name as recently as 2024-11-26 (US 18/960,599 → US 2025/0085364 A1, with US 12,189,002 B2 and JP 6605570 B2 / CN 109974569 B / CN 115164698 B / DE 102018133240 A1 forming the family). Zero of the eight NPE signals are present, and the only reason I do not return "Operating-company assertion" is that the patent is not being asserted at all (no litigation of record), so the assertion prong of that category is unmet. There is no evidence of any shell LLC, known asserter, cascading transfer, bankruptcy sale, privateering arrangement, or defensive-aggregator termination.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent no. 11366183): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — legacy equivalent: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events (source used here): https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11366183B2](/patent/US11366183B2)/en#legal-events

Two items to close out the record (I could not, and did not, fabricate either):

1. Reel/frame for the 2018-12-12 TDK assignment — obtainable only from the live Assignment Center abstract for this patent.
2. Correspondent of record (the attorney/firm that filed that recording) — needed to properly test signal #3; on a one-link chain it is unlikely to be probative, but it should still be captured for completeness.

I'll research each cited reference to build the prior-art analysis. Let me run targeted searches on the key citations.

Let me research a few more of the cited references, especially the TDK one and the Japanese references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11366183

"Magnetic sensor with a chamfered magnetic body facing a magnetoresistive element"
Inventor: Toshihide Suto · Assignee: TDK Corporation · Priority: JP 2017-250476 (Dec. 27, 2017) · Filed: Dec. 12, 2018 · Granted: June 21, 2022

0. Methodology and ground rules

• Per your STRICT RULE, I treated every identifier literally and did not "correct" any number. I searched for the exact number 11366183 and did not migrate to look-alike numbers.
• Important transparency note: I was not able to open a live USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Full-Text (PatFT/AppFT) query session for this patent — my available tooling is web search, which returned the Google Patents record and the individual reference documents (including USPTO/EPO PDFs and published applications). The authoritative prior-art list I rely on is the "Citations (15)" table in the patent's own US record, which reflects the references cited on the face of US 11366183 (examiner and third-party citations). I cross-checked several of those references against their Google Patents / USPTO / EPO documents. Where I could not independently confirm a detail, I say so.
• I did not treat the patent's separate "Family Cites Families (29)" list as citations of '183 — those are family-level (sibling) citations and are not prior art citations against this patent.
• No litigation is known (consistent with the earlier Litigation summary section); that is not in tension with what follows.

1. Legal framing — why a clean §102 hit is unlikely

Under 35 U.S.C. § 102, a single reference must disclose every element of a claim, arranged as the claim requires. Claim 1 (and claim 12) of '183 recite a combination:

• a plurality of magnetoresistive elements each with a multi-layer structure and a magnetically sensitive axis;
• a plurality of pairs of soft magnetic bodies (that shield — cl. 1 — or collect — cl. 12);
• each soft magnetic body having two pairs of straight sides and at least one sloping side between two adjacent straight sides, sloped relative to each adjacent side, as viewed in the stacking direction;
• the MR elements arranged in a direction perpendicular to both the sensitive axis and the stacking direction; and
• each pair of soft magnetic bodies facing opposite sides of a corresponding MR element in the stacking direction, the pairs themselves arranged in that perpendicular direction.

Because the independent claims require this specific geometry (a chamfered/sloping-side soft magnetic body) combined with a plural MR-element/pair architecture, no single one of the 15 cited references is a clean §102 anticipation of claim 1 or claim 12 as a whole. The citations function principally as (a) §102(a)(1) art against specific dependent claims and (b) §103 obviousness art for the combination. I flag below where a reference has genuine §102 relevance to a particular claim versus where it is only §103/background material.

Date point (all 15 references): Every cited publication is dated 2016 or earlier, i.e., published more than one year before the Dec. 27, 2017 effective filing date. Each therefore qualifies as prior art under AIA § 102(a)(1) and falls outside the § 102(b)(1) grace period, so none can be antedated by the inventor.

2. Summary table of the 15 cited references

* "Potential §102 relevance" = the claim(s) for which the reference, on its face, comes closest to disclosing the claim individually; a full single-reference §102 case against claim 1/12 is not made out by any of them (see §3).

3. Reference-by-reference analysis (most relevant first)

Tier 1 — References that bear directly on the "sloping/chamfered soft magnetic body" feature

(4) US 2009/0027809 A1 — TDK — filed 2007-07-23, published 2009-01-29 (granted as US 7,808,742, Oct. 5, 2010).
Description: A thin-film magnetic head in which the shield layer(s) and/or magnetic-pole layer are given a front-surface shape "without right nor sharp angles" — the end surface has obtuse angle or rounded corners. The applicants state the purpose is to reduce magnetic-flux concentration at the layer corners (which otherwise causes unintended writing/erasing). Its shield layers sandwich the MR multilayer (read element), i.e., they face opposite sides of the MR element along the stack/down-track direction.
§102 relevance: This is the single most on-point prior-art reference for the shape feature. It fairly discloses the claimed concept of giving a soft magnetic body that faces an MR element a corner that is not a sharp right angle (obtuse/rounded). It therefore has real §102 relevance to dependent claim 8 ("obtuse angle or a curved line on at least a part of a circumference") and claim 4 ("sloping side defined only by a curved line"), and it is strong §103 art for the "sloping side" limitation of claim 1/12. It does not anticipate claim 1 or 12 as a whole, because it discloses a recording head, not a sensor with a plurality of MR elements arranged in a direction perpendicular to the sensitive axis and stacking direction, and its corner treatment is a rounded/obtuse end surface rather than a discrete "sloping side located between two adjacent straight sides." No contradiction with the patent's specification; note the '183 specification never expressly names this reference, though it is cited on the face.

(2) JPH 11-87804 A — Research Institute of Electric and Magnetic Alloys — filed 1997-09-04, published 1999-03-30.
Description: The acknowledged background art that '183 expressly discusses. A giant-magnetoresistive (GMR) thin film with a pair of soft magnetic thin films arranged at its two ends; each soft magnetic thin film is rectangular with pointed (sharp) corners as viewed in the film-thickness direction. The soft magnetic films act to enhance magnetic-field sensitivity.
§102 relevance: '183 distinguishes this reference precisely because its soft magnetic films are placed in-plane at the two ends of the GMR film (along its long axis) and have sharp corners, producing an unstable in-plane field component. Because the reference's soft magnetic films are not arranged facing opposite sides of the MR element in the stacking direction and have no sloping side, it does not anticipate claim 1 or 12. It is relevant §102(a)(1)/§103 art for the broad "magnetoresistive element + soft magnetic body" concept and, to the extent it discloses a GMR element, for the GMR subject matter of claim 10. Its role in the prosecution is essentially to define the problem the '183 invention solves — supporting the non-obviousness of the chamfered-corner geometry.

Tier 2 — In-field references to the combination architecture

(14) US 2016/0266218 A1 — TDK Corporation — filed 2015-03-12, published 2016-09-15.
Description: A TDK magnetic sensor (same technical field, same assignee, and temporally close to '183's JP priority). It is the cited reference most closely matched to '183's subject matter as an "in-field magnetic sensor."
§102 relevance: This is the reference most capable of anticipating the general architecture of claim 1 (a magnetic sensor with magnetoresistive element(s) and soft magnetic body(ies) for position/magnetic-field sensing). Whether it discloses the specific "two pairs of straight sides + at least one sloping side between adjacent straight sides" limitation and the "pairs facing opposite sides in the stacking direction / pairs arranged in the perpendicular direction" limitation cannot be confirmed from the abstract-level material I retrieved — I do not have a claim-by-claim read of its disclosure, so I will not overstate it. Treat it as strong §103 art and as a possible §102(a)(1) reference for the preamble/architecture of claims 1 and 12.

(9) US 2015/0028863 A1 — Innovative Micro Technology — filed 2013-07-29, published 2015-01-29 (granted US 9,274,180 B2, Mar. 1, 2016).
Description: A microfabricated magnetic-field transducer using soft-magnetic "flux guides" that collect and route the external field along the sensitive axis of an AMR/GMR structure, and that have shaped protruding/extensive portions to concentrate on-axis flux and shunt off-axis flux. Multiple flux guides and multiple magnetically sensitive structures are expressly disclosed, including flux guides disposed above/below the sensitive structure across the substrate thickness.
§102 relevance: This reference maps well onto claim 12, which recites soft magnetic bodies that "collect a magnetic field that is applied to the magnetoresistive elements." It also supports the GMR/AMR subject matter of claims 9–10. It does not appear to disclose the claimed "two pairs of straight sides and at least one sloping side" perimeter geometry, so I rate it as §103 art for claims 1 and 12 rather than a complete single-reference anticipation; it is the best art for the "collect" wording of claim 12.

(11) JP 2015-219227 A — Alps Electric — filed 2014-05-21, published 2015-12-07.
Description: A magnetic sensor (Alps Electric). Full text not retrieved in this session; based on title and field it is a soft-magnetic-body/MR magnetic sensor.
§102 relevance: Background/§103 only on the record I could retrieve. I cannot confirm its disclosure element-by-element; flagged as unverified.

Tier 3 — MR-element + shield soft-magnetic-body references (mostly recording-head art)

(1) JPS 61-196419 A — Hitachi — filed 1985-02-27, published 1986-08-30.
Description: A magnetoresistive head with magnetic shields. Very old art.
§102 relevance: None against claims 1/12 in full; classic §103/base art showing MR element + soft magnetic shield as known.

(3) US 2004/0004787 A1 — TDK — filed 2002-07-04, published 2004-01-08.
Description: Thin-film magnetic head and its manufacture; includes shield layers about an MR element.
§102 relevance: None fully; §103 for the "soft magnetic body facing opposite sides of an MR element in the stacking direction" concept.

(5) US 2011/0215800 A1 — Headway Technologies — filed 2010-03-05, published 2011-09-08.
Description: MR sensor with a flux guide (soft magnetic) and hard-bias structure to stabilize the free layer.
§102 relevance: None fully; §103 for MR element + soft magnetic flux-guide combination.

(6) US 2011/0273802 A1 — Headway Technologies — filed 2010-05-05, published 2011-11-10.
Description: Side-shielded MR read element with a perpendicular free layer; side shields flank the MR stack.
§102 relevance: None fully; §103 for soft magnetic shields adjacent an MR element.

(8) US 2014/0218020 A1 — Headway Technologies — priority 2008-02-05, published 2014-08-07.
Description: A patterned MR device with controlled shape anisotropy — the shape of the magnetic element is engineered to set anisotropy.
§102 relevance: None fully; §103, and peripheral support that "shaping a magnetic body adjacent an MR element" was known.

(10) US 2015/0062756 A1 — Seagate Technology — filed 2013-08-29, published 2015-03-05.
Description: A reader structure (MR read head with shields).
§102 relevance: None fully; §103.

Tier 4 — Peripheral / background references

(7) US 2013/0152702 A1 — Nippon Soken — filed 2011-12-16, published 2013-06-20. Torque sensor apparatus using a magnetic sensing element — §103/background; no claim-mapped anticipation.
(12) US 2016/0109534 A1 — CEA — filed 2014-10-16, published 2016-04-21. Magnetic-field sensor detecting at least two field components — background/§103.
(13) WO 2016/078793 A1 — Sensitec GmbH — 2014-11-19 / 2016-05-26. Method/apparatus for manufacturing a magnetic sensor device — background/§103 (manufacturing context).
(15) US 2016/0313122 A1 — Apple Inc. — filed 2015-04-23, published 2016-10-27. Electronic compass with demagnetizing coil and annular flux-concentrating yokes — the "yoke" (collecting soft magnetic body) aspect is §102/§103-relevant to the "collect" wording of claim 12, but the annular-yoke/compass context does not anticipate claim 12's chamfered perimeter geometry.

4. Bottom line — most relevant prior art

1. US 2009/0027809 A1 (TDK, granted US 7,808,742) — the closest art on the core inventive feature (a soft magnetic body that faces an MR element and is deliberately shaped without sharp/right-angle corners, i.e., with obtuse/rounded edges to reduce flux concentration). Best §103 art against the "sloping side" limitation of claims 1/12 and §102-relevant to claims 4 and 8.
2. JPH 11-87804 A — the expressly distinguished background art; frames the problem (sharp-cornered, in-plane soft magnetic films) and is therefore central to the non-obviousness of the chamfered-corner geometry.
3. US 2016/0266218 A1 (TDK) — the closest same-field, same-assignee magnetic-sensor reference; strongest §103 art for the overall claim-1/12 architecture.
4. US 2015/0028863 A1 (granted US 9,274,180 B2, Innovative Micro Technology) — best art for the "collect" variant of claim 12 and for the AMR/GMR claims (9–10).

No cited reference, standing alone, discloses every element of claim 1 or claim 12 as arranged. The probable §102 exposure is limited to dependent claims — most plausibly claim 4 (curved-line sloping side), claim 8 (obtuse angle/curved line on the circumference), and claims 9–10 (TMR/GMR) — with the remainder being § 103 territory.

5. Caveats and flags

• Source limitation (repeated): I could not execute a live USPTO PatFT/AppFT query in this session; the reference list above is taken from the patent's own "Citations (15)" record (Google Patents mirror of the USPTO face-of-patent citations) and cross-checked against the individual documents where retrievable. This is the correct set of citations for '11366183, but I did not re-verify each one directly against USPTO PatentCenter.
• No contradictions found with the earlier Litigation summary section.
• Unverified items: the specific disclosures of US 2016/0266218 A1 and JP 2015-219227 A could not be read claim-by-claim in this session; my §102/§103 characterizations of those two are offered as provisional and should be confirmed against their full specifications before being relied on.
• Literal-identifier note: I read every cited number exactly as published (including the malformed "US20040004787A1," which the record shows as US 2004/0004787 A1) and did not normalize any of them.
• Claim-numerals note: The specification's numeric limits are as written in the record — chamfering area S₁ = 1.0×10⁻³ and S₂ = 2.5×10 (claim 11 recites 1.0×10⁻³ μm² to 2.5×10 μm²), and distance d₁ = 1.0×10⁻³ to d₂ = 5.0 μm (claims 7 and 16). I reproduced these literally rather than silently reinterpreting the exponents.

I'll pull details on the key cited references so the §103 analysis is grounded in what each reference actually teaches.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,366,183 B2

35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. This analysis builds on the claim chart, bibliographic data, and litigation findings already generated above. I do not repeat them. All prior-art references used below are the documents listed in the Citations (15) table on the '183 Google Patents page, plus the prior art admitted in the '183 specification itself (JPH11-87804). Reference dates are taken from that table; all beat the 2017-12-27 priority date.

Epistemic caveat up front. I have verified full text for four references (US 2009/0027809 A1, JPH11-87804 as described in its own family/spec, US 2015/0028863 A1, US 2016/0313122 A1, plus US 2016/0306015 A1). For the remainder I have only the title/assignee/date from the '183 citation table, and I say so explicitly rather than assuming content. I also do not have the '183 file wrapper or the office actions; the citation table appears to mark most references as examiner-cited, which means the examiner had them before him and yet the claims issued — but without the office actions I cannot say whether they were applied in a §103 rejection, distinguished, or simply listed. That gap is decisive for any real invalidity opinion.

1. Legal framework and the analytical hinges

Under Graham v. John Deere and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the inquiry is:

1. Scope and content of the prior art;
2. Differences between the prior art and the claims;
3. Level of ordinary skill;
4. Whether the differences would have been obvious — including via combining familiar elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, simple substitution of one known element for another, use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way, and obvious design choices / optimization of a result-effective variable.

The §103 case against '183 rises or falls on three discrete hinges:

A challenger must stitch H1 to H2/H3 with an articulated motivation. That stitching is where the case is strongest for claims 1–5, 8–10, 12–15, and weakest for claims 7, 11, and 16 (the numeric ranges) and claim 6 (the specific R‑C‑R profile).

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

A POSITA here would be a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, applied physics, or materials science and approximately 2–5 years of experience designing thin-film magnetoresistive field sensors or thin-film magnetic heads, i.e., familiarity with:

• spin-valve / TMR / GMR multilayer stacks and their "magnetically sensitive axis";
• lithographic patterning of soft-magnetic (NiFe, CoFe, CoFeSiB, CoZrNb) layers into shields and flux guides;
• demagnetizing fields, shape anisotropy, and magnetic-domain behavior at geometric discontinuities (a point both the '183 specification and the cited art treat as background knowledge); and
• the classic "upper shield / lower shield sandwiching an MR multilayer" stack.

This skill level is set deliberately high on the domain-knowledge axis (magnetic domains, flux concentration) and low on the mechanics axis (chamfering a rectangle), because the inventiveness question is whether the recognition to chamfer was available, not whether chamfering is hard.

3. What the prior art teaches (grounded)

3.1 US 2009/0027809 A1 — TDK (granted as US 7,808,742 B2) — the keystone reference

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090027809 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[7808742](/patent/7808742)

This is a TDK application (Kamijima et al.) published 2009-01-29, "Thin-film magnetic head comprising shield/magnetic-pole layer having surface without right nor sharp angle." Verified disclosures:

• It expressly identifies the problem: magnetic flux concentrates "near both ends of the edge[s]" of the shield/magnetic-pole layers, and this concentration generates stray fields.
• It states the solution: the layer surface near the two ends "at which a magnetic flux is generally likely to be concentrated … is a surface without right or sharp angles."
• It defines the geometry in plan view along the stacking direction: "each of edges corresponding to both side surfaces, obtained when viewed down from the position directly above the element formation surface, extends so as to spread obliquely rearward … and the front surface … has a shape in which upper and lower corner portions … form obtuse angles or rounded shapes."
• It claims a "front surface ha[ving] a quadrilateral shape with four rounded corners."
• It recites the conventional architecture as background: "a magnetoresistive (MR) element … usually has upper and lower shield layers which are formed of magnetic material and sandwich an MR multilayer."

This single document teaches H1 (chamfered/rounded shield corners, plan view along the stack axis), the obtuse-angle and curved-line alternatives (→ claims 3, 4, 8), and the sandwiching architecture (part of H2). It is also the strongest motivation reference, because it states the same physical rationale the '183 patent relies on: sharp corners at the "flux concentration" ends of a soft-magnetic layer cause unwanted field effects, and de-sharpening the corners fixes it.

3.2 JPH11-87804 — the admitted prior art

The '183 specification itself describes this reference as a giant-magnetoresistive thin film with a pair of rectangular soft magnetic thin films "arranged on both sides of the giant magnetoresistive thin film with regard to the long axis thereof," characterized by "every corner … has an edge (a pointed part)." Its own family members confirm the purpose — soft magnetic thin films at the GMR ends amplify/collect the external field into the GMR film (see https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7683612](/patent/US7683612)/en and https://patents.google.com/patent/CN101520493B/en, both summarizing JPH11-87804). This is the '183 patent's own "first comparative example," i.e., an admission of what the art already contained, and it supplies H3's "collector/yoke" function.

3.3 US 2015/0028863 A1 — Innovative Micro Technology (granted as US 9,274,180 B2)

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150028863 ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e9/cf/44/355bd31e8f2dc9/US9274180.pdf

Verified: a microfabricated magnetometer using "one or more permeable magnetic flux guides" that "route off-axis components … across the sensitive axis … or may shield the magnetically sensitive structure from off-axis, stray fields." The flux guides are shaped to suppress off-axis noise, and the drawings/spec include flux guides "disposed across the thickness of the substrate," "on both surfaces of the substrate," and a structure with two flux guides routing flux from the bottom surface, through the structure, to the top surface (FIGS. 7–9). This reference thus teaches (a) that the same soft-magnetic body can be a shield or a collector, and (b) sandwiching a magnetically sensitive structure in the thickness direction with shaped flux guides — directly probative of claims 12 and 17.

3.4 US 2016/0313122 A1 — Apple Inc.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160313122A1/en ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0313122.html

Verified: an electronic compass with TMR, GMR, or AMR thin-film magnetoresistive elements and soft-magnetic "flux concentrators / magnetic flux concentrating yokes." Critically, it states the exact domain mechanism the '183 patent invokes: "A remnant state will typically be characterized by a complex pattern of magnetic domains. This pattern of magnetic domains can give rise to a leakage flux that creates an undesired offset." The Apple reference is thus express motivation to shape soft-magnetic bodies to control domain-driven field leakage/offset. It also expressly lists TMR/GMR as interchangeable element types (→ claims 9, 10). Its sibling US 2016/0306015 A1 ("Yoke configuration to reduce high offset in X-, Y-, and Z-magnetic sensors," granted US 9,778,324) goes further, teaching balanced/deliberately chosen flux-concentrator shapes ("Z-shape or other suitable shape") as a design lever.

3.5 References known to me only by their citation-table entries

I have not opened these; the following is limited to what their titles/assignees/dates establish, and any §103 ground relying on their contents must be verified:

4. Ground 1 — Claim 1 obvious over JPH11-87804 in view of US 2009/0027809 A1

(and, alternatively, over US 2016/0266218 A1 or JP 2015-219227 A in view of US 2009/0027809 A1)

Motivation to combine (KSR rationales)

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem. Both references concern thin-film magnetoresistive devices whose soft-magnetic layers concentrate flux at their edges/corners. US 2009/0027809 names the failure mode (flux concentration at the layer ends) and the remedy (no right or sharp angles). The '183 specification names the identical failure mode ("unstable magnetic field component Bx … at the edge of end portion 35").
2. Known technique improving a similar device in the same way. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417. Chamfering the flux-concentration corners of a soft-magnetic layer to reduce domain-driven stray fields is precisely the technique US 2009/0027809 applies to shields; applying it to the shields of a field sensor rather than a read head is a change of use, not of technique.
3. Common ownership. US 2009/0027809 and US 2016/0266218 are both TDK; so is '183. A same-assignee reference is a powerful motivation and a "known technique in the same corporate portfolio" argument.
4. Predictable result. Reducing corner sharpness lowers local flux concentration/demagnetizing effects — a result US 2009/0027809 already reports and that requires no new physics.
5. No new manufacturing burden. WO 2016/078793 confirms sensor soft-magnetic layers are lithographically patterned; the chamfer is a mask-layout change.

The obvious rebuttals a challenger must confront

• JPH11-87804 is a yoke, not a shield. Its soft films are in-plane at the GMR ends. A patentee will point out that JPH11-87804 does not disclose pairs of bodies on opposite sides in the stacking direction, and that the claimed sandwiching is what makes the shielding work. This is why the ground must anchor on US 2009/0027809 (which does disclose upper/lower shields) as the primary reference, and use JPH11-87804/US 2016/0266218 only for the array architecture and the MR-element-with-sensitive-axis portion.
• "Shield" vs. "yoke" characterization. The specification treats both roles as available from one body ("when the magnetic body is used as a shield … and … when the magnetic body is used as a yoke"). A POSITA would not treat the two functions as distinct inventions.

Conclusion on claim 1: strong prima facie obviousness, provided the sensor-array architecture (H2) reference is verified to disclose the perpendicular-arrangement recitation.

5. Ground 2 — Claim 12 obvious over US 2015/0028863 A1 in view of US 2009/0027809 A1 (and US 2016/0313122 A1)

Claim 12 differs from claim 1 only by (i) "collect" instead of "shield," and (ii) explicit "one … on one side … the other … on an opposite side" sandwiching language. Each is met:

• Collection function: US 2015/0028863's flux guides "gather flux lines … and apply them across the sensitive axis," and explicitly perform shielding/collecting alternately. US 2016/0313122's flux concentrators "guide and amplify ambient magnetic fields." JPH11-87804's thin-film yokes likewise collect.
• Sandwiching: US 2015/0028863 teaches flux guides disposed across the substrate thickness and on both surfaces of the substrate (FIGS. 7–8), i.e., one body on each side of the sensitive structure in the thickness/stack direction.
• Sloping side: US 2009/0027809, as in Ground 1.

Added motivation: US 2016/0313122 supplies the explicit why — a soft-magnetic concentrator's magnetic-domain pattern produces leakage flux and offset; shaping the concentrator mitigates it. The '183 specification's yoke embodiment argues the same thing in terms of hysteresis (FIG. 8A/8C). Combining a known chamfer technique (US 2009/0027809) with an explicit domain/offset-shaping motivation (US 2016/0313122) is textbook KSR.

Conclusion on claim 12: strong prima facie obviousness, subject to verification of US 2015/0028863's array/plurality disclosure.

6. Ground 3 — Dependent claims

⚠ Numeric-unit caveat (carried forward and material here)

The limits appear in the granted text as S₁ = 1.0×10⁻³ and S₂ = 2.5×10, and d₁ = 1.0×10⁻³ and d₂ = 5.0. Two problems:

1. Internal inconsistency. For a 45° C‑chamfer at a right-angle corner with leg L, area S = L²/2 and the perpendicular distance from the original vertex to the chamfer face is d = L/√2 = √S. By that relation, S₁ = 1.0×10⁻³ µm² would give d₁ ≈ 3.2×10⁻² µm, not 1.0×10⁻³ µm as printed. S₂ = 2.5×10 µm² would give d₂ = 5.0 µm — which does match the printed d₂. So the printed d₁/S₁ pair does not cohere.
2. Possible OCR/character-set artifact. Exponents may have been dropped or altered in the source rendering.

This matters enormously. Because claims 7, 11, and 16 are the only claims with a realistic non-obviousness story, any challenge built on them must be run against the USPTO/EPO PDF or the JP 6605570 B2 counterpart, not the web rendering. I am not correcting the numbers. If the true S₁ is a different order of magnitude, the "criticality" argument shifts substantially.

7. The patentee's best rebuttals (secondary considerations / non-obviousness hooks)

A rigorous §103 opinion must state where the case fails:

1. Criticality of the numeric ranges (claims 7, 11, 16). The specification supplies comparative data (FIGS. 3A–3C: first shielding factor rises while second shielding factor falls with chamfer area; FIG. 8A–8C: hysteresis falls but Q‑value falls with chamfer area). The optimum between S₁ and S₂ is presented as a balance of competing effects, which is the classic shape of a "critical range" argument. A patentee will argue (a) the prior art is silent on any numeric chamfer dimension, and (b) the endpoints are not results of routine optimization but of a countervailing trade-off. A challenger's counter is that the trade-off is disclosed by the specification itself as a smooth monotonic balance, i.e., a result-effective variable optimized by routine testing (In re Aller), and that no unexpected result is claimed at the endpoints.

2. R‑C‑R geometry (claim 6). Specific, not disclosed, and arguably tied to the "sharp edges remain at the connecting parts" observation of FIG. 5B. A non-obviousness argument here is at least arguable.

3. Claim 17's inclined sandwich. Not clearly taught by the cited art.

4. Field-of-use distinction (weak). A patentee may argue US 2009/0027809 is a magnetic recording head, not a position sensor. Under KSR's "familiar elements according to known methods" and the analogous-art test, this is a weak position — both are thin-film MR devices with soft-magnetic layers, and the '183 specification itself frames the problem in exactly the recorded-head terms (flux concentration at shield ends).

5. Teaching away? I find no clear teaching away. JPH11-87804's reliance on elongate soft films (to reduce the demagnetizing field along the sensitive direction, per US 7,683,612) is about aspect ratio, not corner sharpness, and does not disparage chamfering. The only arguable "teach away" is that chamfering reduces the soft body's area and therefore its flux-collection efficiency (Q) — which the '183 specification concedes in FIG. 8B — but US 2009/0027809 already accepts this trade-off for shields. Do not expect a teaching-away defense to carry claims 1–5 or 8–15.

6. Objective indicia. None is established on the current record — no evidence of commercial success with nexus, no copying, no long-felt unmet need, no licensing. Absent that, secondary considerations do not rescue claims 1–5/8–15.

8. Bottom line

The single most powerful combination is JPH11‑87804 (or TDK's own US 2016/0266218 A1) as the sensor/array primary reference, combined with US 2009/0027809 A1 as the chamfering teaching — the latter being a TDK reference that states the same flux-concentration-at-sharp-corners problem and the same no-right-or-sharp-angle solution, in the same plan view along the stacking direction, in a document the examiner already of record. A secondary ground should run US 2015/0028863 A1 + US 2016/0313122 A1 for the claim‑12 yoke variant.

What would change this conclusion:

• The '183 file wrapper. If the examiner applied any of US 2009/0027809, US 2015/0028863, or US 2016/0313122 in a §103 rejection and the applicant amended around it, the amendments themselves become the dispositive issue and could defeat the ground above.
• Full text of US 2016/0266218 A1 (TDK), JP 2015‑219227 A (Alps), and US 2016/0109534 A1 (CEA). If any of these discloses a linearly repeated array of MR elements each sandwiched by a pair of soft-magnetic shields, the "plurality / arrangement" limitations of claims 1 and 12 collapse entirely and the case becomes near-anticipatory. I have not verified their contents.
• Correction of the numeric limits (see §6 caveat). If the true S₁/d₁ values are of a different order of magnitude, the analysis of claims 7/11/16 may flip in either direction.

Sources

• '183 record and citation table: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11366183](/patent/US11366183)/en
• US 2009/0027809 A1 / US 7,808,742 B2 (TDK): https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090027809 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/7808742
• JPH11-87804 (as summarized in its family): https://patents.google.com/patent/US7683612/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/CN101520493B/en
• US 2015/0028863 A1 / US 9,274,180 B2 (IMT): https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150028863 ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e9/cf/44/355bd31e8f2dc9/US9274180.pdf
• US 2016/0313122 A1 (Apple): https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160313122A1/en ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0313122.html
• US 2016/0306015 A1 (Apple, flux-concentrator shapes): https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160306015A1/en

(Consult the prior sections above for bibliographic data, the claim chart, and the litigation-search findings, which I have not repeated.)