US 11402423

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 11402423, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

The generic searches returned only unrelated matches for the number string. Let me run more targeted queries.

Let me run a couple more targeted searches on the patent's litigation status and the European counterpart.

Summary of US 11,402,423 B2 — "Operating component"

Source of record: Google Patents full text, https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402423/en (authoritative copy supplied in the request; my independent web searches were consistent with it).

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"An operating component has a sensor device for recording measurement values and a communication device for transmitting a status report. A data storage device stores the recorded measurement values and a status estimation device determines an operating status with the aid of the recorded measurement values."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — an operating component (local, self-monitoring field device)
An apparatus for a power network comprising:

• a sensor device that records measurement values about the component's own operation;
• a communication device that transmits a status report;
• a data storage device connected to the sensor that stores the recorded measurement values;
• an electrical switchgear having a motor control, where the motor control itself is configured to serve as the status estimation device (i.e., existing motor-control computing hardware is reused rather than adding a separate monitoring computer);
• the status estimation device is connected to the data storage device and determines an operating status from the recorded values locally, in situ — the patent frames this as "autonomous status monitoring" that eliminates the need for a central monitoring system;
• the status estimation device also identifies required maintenance from that operating status and sends a status report that does not include the recorded measurement values (i.e., only the derived status/verdict) to the operator and/or a maintenance provider;
• the component carries a unique identifier (e.g., MAC/IP-style address, serial number, manufacturer, type) and the status report includes it.

Claim 13 — same architecture, different reporting content
Substantially the same elements (sensor, communication device, data storage device, electrical switchgear with a motor control acting as the status estimation device, in-situ/autonomous determination, maintenance identification, unique identifier in the report), but the status report instead contains an evaluation of the operating status made by the status estimation device. The practical distinction from claim 1 is the reporting-content limitation: claim 1 expressly excludes the raw measurement values from the report, whereas claim 13 requires the report to carry the device's own evaluation of status.

Dependent claims (2–12) in brief: prediction of a future operating-status profile (2); specific sensed quantities such as trip-circuit current, switching counts, opening times, GIS gas pressure, load, internal/external/ambient temperature (3); "flight recorder" archiving of the full measurement-value history (4); communication via WLAN, LAN, mobile telephony, powerline, Bluetooth, or 6LoWPAN (5); receiving and forwarding another operating component's status report (acting as a mesh/repeater) (6); GPS-style position detection (7); the component being/containing a power switch (8), a transformer (9), a FACTS device (10), or a protective unit (11); and at least one further sensor device with its own further data memory for modular monitoring (12).

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket check — uncertainty flagged

The task asked specifically for USPTO database and CAFC 2026 docket activity on 11402423. I must be explicit about the limits of what I found:

• No CAFC appeal, PTAB proceeding, or district-court litigation involving US 11,402,423 was located. My searches for "11402423" in connection with the Federal Circuit / 2026 dockets returned only unrelated documents in which the digit string "11402423" appears incidentally (a Chilean immigration resolution N° Int. 11402423, and an Open Forum Infectious Diseases author-list ID "11402423"), plus a tangential Law360 item about an unrelated Siemens rail-safety patent. None of these concern this patent.
• A generic query for "US11402423B2" + litigation/IPR/Federal Circuit returned the patent's own Google Patents page and miscellaneous unrelated PTAB papers; nothing tying 11402423 to a 2026 appeal.
• I cannot certify a negative. I did not have direct, structured access to PACER, the CAFC docket system, or USPTO PatentCenter in this session, so the absence of results reflects only the searches I could run, not a definitive clearance that no proceeding exists. The Google Patents record itself (supplied in the prompt) shows no "Litigation" or PTAB sections, and the legal-events log contains only routine prosecution and fee/assignment events through 2026‑01‑13, which is consistent with (but not proof of) there being no such challenge.

Other observations / caveats

• Claim vs. description terminology mismatch: the claims consistently recite an "operating component, " while the specification (a translation, evidently from German "Betriebsmittel") consistently refers to an "operating means." This is a drafting/translation artifact worth noting if claim construction is ever at issue; I interpret them as the same element.
• Small specification typo: the description refers to "the operating status of the electrical switchgear 5" (reference numeral 5 is elsewhere the status estimation device; the switchgear is 6). This appears to be an error in the printed text, quoted literally here.
• Cited prior art of note includes US 5,859,596 (CSI Technology, switchyard monitoring/communications), US 2003/0205938 A1 (GE, integrated protection/monitoring/control), US 2005/0168891 A1 (ABB, condition monitor for electrical distribution device), DE 10 2007 035 129 A1 / WO 2009/012952 A2 (ABB, predictive monitoring), and US 2015/0308938 A1 (Scheucher, GIS monitoring).
• Family note: the German priority application DE 102016224121 A1 is recorded as withdrawn/not-active, while the US and EP members are active.

If you need a certified litigation/docket check, that should be run directly against PACER, the CAFC docket, and USPTO PTAB/PatentCenter rather than inferred from open web searching.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11402423 specifically.

Let me try more targeted searches on litigation databases.

Let me try litigation-specific databases and docket searches.

Summary of Findings

Based on my searches, I could not identify any known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,402,423. I searched for the patent number in connection with litigation, infringement suits, and patent-litigation databases (including Unified Patents, PTAB filings, CAFC, and general web results). No district court case, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), or Federal Circuit appeal naming US 11,402,423 as an asserted or challenged patent appeared in the results.

What the patent record itself shows

The Google Patents page for US11402423 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402423/en) does not carry the "Family has litigation" flag that Google Patents normally displays when litigation is linked to a patent family. Notably, the "Similar Documents" section includes US20180156858A1 — but that is this patent's own pre-grant publication (same family, same application), not a litigation entry.

No case details available

Because no case was identified, I cannot provide plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome/status — none are known to me.

Important caveats

• Searches were limited. My web queries returned mostly irrelevant hits (an unrelated academic identifier "11402423," unrelated PTAB documents, and German/EP prosecution material concerning Siemens Energy's patent portfolio generally). I was not able to directly query PACER, Docket Navigator, or CourtListener in a way that returned a clean confirmation.
• Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. Litigation could exist that is not indexed in the sources returned to me, particularly very recent filings, sealed matters, state-court actions, or foreign proceedings.
• This patent has foreign family members. Per the record, the family includes EP3331127B1 (granted; active) and DE102016224121A1 (withdrawn/not active). Foreign litigation or EPO opposition activity, if any, would not appear as U.S. litigation and I found none in my searches.

Suggested verification steps

To confirm definitively, I would recommend checking directly:

• Unified Patents litigation portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
• PACER / CourtListener RECAP for the patent number as a search term in complaints
• USPTO PTAB (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) for any IPR/PGR naming the patent
• CAFC opinions/orders search

If you'd like, I can attempt additional targeted searches (e.g., against the assignee "Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG" or the inventor "Roberto Bianchi") to try to surface any enforcement activity — though my initial searches along those lines also returned nothing relevant.

Bottom line: No litigation involving US 11,402,423 is known to me as of April 26, 2026, based on the searches performed.

I'll verify the structured block's "no proceedings" default against live sources before writing.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be sure nothing is being missed.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,402,423: 0 (zero) — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs were ever filed, instituted, decided, or settled. The structured USPTO Open Data Portal ("ODP") block supplied with this task is unambiguous: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." My independent web searches (patent number + IPR/PGR/CBM, petitioner names, PTAB E2E, CourtListener, litigation queries) surfaced no proceeding under any number, and no result tying this patent to a PTAB docket. I searched specifically for the classic false-positive collisions (e.g., an unrelated 8,423,402 CBM, 11,597,402 IPR2025-00943, and an Open Forum Infectious Diseases author-ID string "11402423") and confirmed each is unrelated.

Defensive posture this gives a defendant: not "hardened by surviving PTAB scrutiny" — instead, an untested, fully intact patent with all 13 claims live and no estoppel standing in anyone's way. Practically, that means the entire § 102/§ 103 landscape, including art the examiner never saw, is still available to you in an IPR — but it also means you get no free ride from a prior petitioner's work product. Every ground must be built from scratch.

Per-proceeding detail

None to report. The template entries below would be populated only if a proceeding existed; I am stating explicitly, per the constraints of this task, that the FWD/panel/settlement/appeal fields have no subject matter here rather than filling them speculatively.

No AIA trial proceeding on file — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner}: N/A

• Type: N/A (no IPR, PGR, or CBM docketed)
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No proceeding. No institution decision, no FWD, no termination, no appeal.
• Judge panel: N/A — no panel was ever assigned.
• Petition grounds: N/A — no petition has ever been filed, so no claim, no reference, and no statutory basis has been put at issue.
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — accordingly, no claim of US 11,402,423 has been canceled, confirmed, or otherwise adjudicated by the Board. Claims 1–13 stand exactly as granted on 2022-08-02.
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A — no FWD, hence no CAFC appeal. My searches of CourtListener and the Federal Circuit docket surfaced no appeal involving this patent. (Recall the caveat already flagged in the summary section: I do not have structured PACER/CAFC docket access in this session, so this is a search-based negative, not a certified one.)
• Defensive value: Claim 1 is not dead, and claim 13 is not dead. There is no FWD to quote and no cancellation certificate to point to. Any theory you build must assume both independents are enforceable until you invalidate them yourself.

Nothing to falsify with a link, so here are the records a defendant should pull directly: the patent's Google Patents record (patents.google.com/patent/US11402423/en), its USPTO PatentCenter file (patentcenter.uspto.gov, application 15/831,676), the PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End system (ptacts.uspto.gov), and CourtListener (courtlistener.com) for any later-filed appeal.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 11,402,423 has been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed through any AIA trial. All 13 claims are live: independent claim 1 (in-situ determination of operating status by a motor-control-implemented status estimation device, with a status report that excludes the recorded measurement values but includes a unique identifier) and independent claim 13 (same architecture, but the report contains the status estimation device's own evaluation of the operating status), plus dependents 2–12 (prediction, specific sensed quantities, flight-recorder archiving, WLAN/LAN/cellular/powerline/Bluetooth/6LoWPAN, mesh forwarding, position detection, power switch, transformer, FACTS, protective unit, and modular further sensor + further data memory). Contrast this with the ordinary PTAB narrative where a defendant inherits a narrowed claim set; here there is nothing to inherit and nothing to cut around.

Estoppel landscape: zero estoppel on anyone. § 315(e)(1) and § 315(e)(2) estoppel attach only to a petitioner, its real parties in interest, and its privies, and only after a final written decision. With no petitioner and no FWD, no party is estopped from anything. You may raise any patent or printed publication ground under §§ 102/103 that you wish, including references that were before the examiner and ones that were not. The only meaningful constraints on a defendant today are ordinary and non-PTAB: the § 315(b) one-year bar (which runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement — and, per the record, there is no such complaint on file for this patent), and § 325(d) discretion to deny on grounds the Office already considered, which is discretionary rather than estoppel-based and, under current practice, generally overcome by identification of material examiner error.

Pattern signals: none of the recurring PTAB signatures are present. There is no repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners at all), no patent-owner appeal history to the Federal Circuit, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain. The owner is not an NPE — it is Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG, a large operating entity, and the assignment chain of record is an intra-group transfer from Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (recorded 2018-01-16, effective 2018-01-12) to Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG (recorded 2021-03-16, effective 2021-02-28), with the 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2026-01-13. That matters for how you read the silence. The prompt's heuristic — "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" — is valid, but it depends on the patent actually being asserted. Here there is no evidence of assertion in any district court or at the ITC, and the field (high-voltage switchgear condition monitoring) is one in which OEM patents are typically held as portfolio/differentiation assets and cross-licensed rather than litigated. So the absence of IPRs is explained by an absence of assertion, not by the patent having defeated challengers — and you should not infer durability from it. Roughly four years and seven months have elapsed since issuance on 2022-08-02, with the PGR window (nine months, closing 2023-02-02) long expired, and no challenge of any kind. If this patent is asserted against you tomorrow, you would be the first to test it.

Two claim-drafting observations worth carrying into any invalidity or construction analysis. First, printed claims 4 and 12 are positioned as dependent claims but are drafted without a "according to claim 1" preamble (claim 4: "configured to archive all recorded measurement values…"; claim 12: "which comprises at least one further sensor device…"), which raises antecedent-basis and dependency-form questions. Second, the § 112(a) support for the claim-1 negative limitation — the status report provided "without the recorded measurement values" — is worth examining against the specification, which describes detailed measurement values being transmitted in some embodiments ("Measurement values such as partial discharge strength or gas density for switchgear, dissolved gas analyses for transformers, etc. may also be transmitted directly in the status report"). That tension between the claim-1 exclusion and the specification's disclosure is a written-description/enablement angle no one has yet litigated.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not assume a prior petitioner has done your work. There is no FWD, no IPR record, no estoppel. Pull the full prosecution history from USPTO PatentCenter for application 15/831,676 — the legal-events log shows a materially contested prosecution with non-final actions on 2020-02-25, 2020-05-11, and 2021-05-24, a final rejection on 2021-10-26, an after-final response forwarded 2022-01-05, and allowance 2022-03-28 — and identify the examiner's stated reasons for allowance. Under current § 325(d) practice, a demonstrable material error in that allowance reasoning is the cleanest path through discretionary denial.

2. Build the § 103 case against the cited art that the examiner already had. The record's references of note are US 5,859,596 (CSI Technology, switchyard equipment monitoring and communications network — cited by the examiner), US 2003/0205938 A1 (GE, integrated protection/monitoring/control — examiner-cited), US 2005/0168891 A1 (ABB, condition monitor for an electrical distribution device — examiner-cited), US 2008/0177425 A1 (ABB Research — examiner-cited), DE 10 2007 035 129 A1 / WO 2009/012952 A2 (ABB, predictive monitoring — examiner-cited), US 2010/0145641 A1 (Con Edison — examiner-cited), and US 2015/0308938 A1 (Scheucher, gas-insulated switchgear monitoring — examiner-cited). Attacking the combinations the examiner accepted, rather than re-presenting single references, is the higher-yield strategy, especially against claim 1's "motor control configured as the status estimation device" limitation (which the specification justifies on pure economics — "the motor control, which per se is already planned for, generally has sufficient computing means" — a rationale that reads as a strong obviousness argument against the patent).

3. Exploit the two untested independents' distinct limitations. Because claim 1 affirmatively excludes the recorded measurement values from the report while claim 13 affirmatively requires the report to contain the device's own evaluation of the operating status, the two independent claims have different prior-art profiles and different § 112 exposure. A single petition challenging only one of them leaves the other fully available to the patent owner; plan for both, and consider whether two petitions (cost and General Plastic / second-petition discretion permitting) or a single consolidated petition is the better vehicle.

4. Verify the negatives before relying on them. Run the checks I could not run to a certified standard: (a) PACER and CourtListener for any district-court or ITC assertion, which would start the § 315(b) one-year clock; (b) the CAFC docket for any appeal; (c) USPTO PatentCenter's reexamination and reissue tabs for an ex parte reexamination or reissue that would not appear in PTAB statistics; and (d) the EPO register for EP 3 331 127 B1, granted 2022-01-05, since the nine-month EPO opposition window on that counterpart closed on 2022-10-05 and the outcome of any opposition bears on the family's strength even though it is not a U.S. proceeding. Until those are run, treat "no proceedings" as a well-supported working assumption rather than a certified clearance.

5. Watch the clock. If an infringement complaint is ever served on you, the § 315(b) one-year bar is triggered on service, and the current discretionary-denial environment for parallel litigation is unfavorable to petitioners. The value of being first to the Board on an untested patent is real; the cost of being late is losing the forum entirely.

I'll verify the assignment record and correspondent details against available online sources before writing this up.

The first hit is a different assignment (same reel 044625 but frame 0315, TransPacific IP Group — an unrelated recording day). Let me try to pin down the correspondents of record for the two Siemens recordings.

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Single sole inventor, no co-inventor team. That is atypical for a switchgear/automation filing of this breadth (sensor device + data storage + motor-control-hosted status estimation + comms + mesh forwarding) and means the entire inventive-entity record rests on one person — there is no co-inventor trail to mine for post-filing movements.
• No evidence of inventor departure. I found no assignment from Bianchi to any entity other than Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, and no inventor-side encumbrance. This is not a case of the "inventor leaves within 12 months → portfolio fire-sale" pattern — the inventor's rights passed to his employer of record and never resurfaced in the chain.
• What I cannot verify: whether Bianchi was still employed by Siemens (or by Siemens Energy) after the 2020 spin-off. No public record I could reach addresses this. Treat "all inventors departed" as unclear / no data, not as absent.

Original assignee

Named on the face of the issued patent: the Google Patents header lists the original assignee as Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co KG (Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, 81739 Munich, DE). However, this is inconsistent with the assignment log, which shows the first recorded assignee of the application was Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, not Siemens Energy Global. The header field appears to have been populated with the current owner rather than the assignee as of the 2022 grant. Flagging this as a genuine contradiction in the source, not a transcription error on my part.

Effective original assignee at filing: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Werner-von-Siemens-Straße 1, 80333 Munich.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded assignments, both retrieved from the authoritatively supplied Google Patents legal-events log (which reproduces the USPTO assignment reel/frame identifiers). Verdict on the correspondent fields: I could not retrieve them. My searches for reels 044625/0135 and 055615/0389 returned no correspondent-of-record data, and I could not directly query Assignment Center's structured records in this session. I am stating this plainly rather than filling the field with a plausible Siemens law firm.

• 2018-01-12 (executed) / recorded 2018-01-16 — Reel 044625/0135

  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS); ASSIGNOR: BIANCHI, ROBERTO"
  • Assignor: Bianchi, Roberto (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Munich, DE
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources — not a recurrence finding.
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-employer assignment — the standard capture of employee invention rights; not an acquisition or fire-sale.

• 2021-02-28 (executed) / recorded 2021-03-16 — Reel 055615/0389

  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS); ASSIGNOR: SIEMENS AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT"
  • Assignor: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Munich, DE
  • Assignee: Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG, Munich, DE
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources — not a recurrence finding.
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization — the carve-out/spin-off of Siemens Energy. The execution date (2021-02-28) sits ~5 months after Siemens Energy AG's 2020-09-28 listing and mirrors the same Siemens AG → Siemens Energy Global transfer being recorded across the group's global portfolio in this period. Corroborating third-party evidence of the same pattern in other jurisdictions: the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office gazette records Siemens AG → Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG, Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, 81739 München, for multiple patents (https://it-app.dziv.hr/Glasnici/pdfPrikaz.aspx?hgiv=05_2023), and Polish and Brazilian registers show the identical swap. This is a bulk intra-group reassignment, not a sale.

No assignment recorded after 2021-03-16. The remaining legal events are prosecution (non-final actions 2020-02-25, 2020-05-11, 2021-05-24; final rejection 2021-10-26; notice of allowance 2022-03-28), grant (2022-08-02) and maintenance fees (2026-01-13). No post-issuance transfer exists. The original corporate family still owns the patent.

Trap I checked and rejected: a search on reel 044625 surfaced an assignment at reel 044625/0315 (executed 2017-09-21, recorded 2017-12-08) from inventors to TransPacific IP Group Limited (Cayman Islands), correspondent Daniel W. Juffernbruch, Patents and Licensing LLC, 28 Barrington Bourne, Barrington, IL 60010-9605. That is a different frame on a shared reel — reels are filled chronologically across unrelated filings. TransPacific IP Group and Juffernbruch have no connection to US 11,402,423 and must not be attributed to this chain. Noting it because the reel-number collision is exactly the kind of false positive that produces phantom NPE findings.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11402423
    2016 : Priority application filed in Germany
    2017 : US application filed by Siemens
    2018 : Inventor assigns rights to Siemens AG
    2021 : Internal transfer to Siemens Energy Global
    2022 : US patent issued
    2026 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. Assignees of record are Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (reel 044625/0135) and Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG (reel 055615/0389). Both are large-entity, Munich-domiciled operating companies at their own headquarters addresses — Otto-Hahn-Ring 6 is Siemens Energy's corporate seat, not a registered-agent service address. The USPTO has carried the owner as a LARGE ENTITY since 2017-12-05 (fee event M1551, 2026-01-13). No "IP/Holdings/Ventures" licensing vehicle appears. The "GmbH & Co. KG" form is a German holding partnership, which superficially resembles a holding shell, but here it is the parent of a listed industrial group, not a single-purpose assertion vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither assignee matches any entity on the Acacia / Marathon / Intellectual Ventures / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Mosaid-Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Innovatio / MPHJ / Lumen View / Round Rock / Spangenberg lists given, and neither surfaced as a high-frequency plaintiff in the Unified Patents or RPX material I reached. Siemens AG and Siemens Energy AG are producers, not licensing plaintiffs.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / cannot assess. This is the single most important field for this task and it is the one I could not populate. The correspondent of record for reels 044625/0135 and 055615/0389 was not returned by any source I could reach, and I will not infer a firm. Note that my searches did return one high-signal NPE-style correspondent profile — Daniel W. Juffernbruch / Patents and Licensing LLC, on reel 044625 framewise adjacent to this chain — but he appears on frame 0315, a different assignment entirely, so he is not a recurrence finding for this patent. Recurrence across this chain is not established, not absent.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Two transfers over 38 months (2018-01-12 and 2021-02-28), one upstream inventor assignment and one intra-group reorganization. Both executed by the same corporate family; no chained LLCs, no rapid succession of assignees.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. There is no infringement suit naming this patent, and no 2026 CAFC or PTAB activity was located in the prior analysis. With no litigation anchor date, no transfer can be within 6 months of one. The last assignment (2021-02-28) predates issue (2022-08-02), so it cannot have been arranged to establish standing for a post-issue suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Neither assignee has filed Chapter 7 or 11. Siemens Energy AG had well-publicized balance-sheet stress in 2023–2024 driven by its wind subsidiary, and received German government-backed guarantee support — but that is an operating-company recapitalization, not a bankruptcy estate sale, and critically the patent has not moved since 2021-02-28, before any of that. There is no sale in a bankruptcy proceeding to point to.

7. Privateering — Not present on the record. The 2021-02-28 transfer went to the operating group's own Munich entity, not to a third-party assertion vehicle asserting on Siemens' behalf. I found no SEC disclosure, EFF/Patent Progress item, or court filing indicating Siemens placed this patent with an outside enforcer.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain terminates at Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG, an operating manufacturer, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. The patent is therefore not verified as neutralized by a defensive pool. (Whether Siemens Energy is a LOT Network member in respect of this asset is something I could not confirm and will not assert.)

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — with the caveat that the terminal holder is an operating manufacturer, not a defensive aggregator.

Justification: the entire chain is two links — inventor Roberto Bianchi to Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (executed 2018-01-12, recorded 2018-01-16, reel 044625/0135) and Siemens Aktiengesellschaft to Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG (executed 2021-02-28, recorded 2021-03-16, reel 055615/0389). Both assignees are large-entity operating companies at their own Munich headquarters, the second transfer is a documented intra-group spin-off reorganization mirrored across the Siemens portfolio in other jurisdictions, and the patent has not moved since 2021-03-16. Zero of the eight NPE signals is present; one (recurrence of correspondent) is genuinely unresolved because the correspondent fields were not retrievable, and that gap — not any evidence of shell ownership — is the only reason this is not a clean negative.

Taxonomy gap flagged: the five permitted verdicts have no bucket for "held and potentially asserted by a large operating manufacturer, but no litigation of record." I selected Defensive / non-asserting because the operative fact is that nothing is being asserted and the patent sits with a producer. Operating-company assertion would be inaccurate — its definition requires the current assignee to be "suing actual competitors," and no suit, IPR, or 2026 CAFC appeal involving US 11,402,423 was located in the prior analysis or in this one. Insufficient data would also be wrong: the chain is fully recorded, just short.

Verification: USPTO Patent Assignment Search — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search by patent number 11402423 or application 15/831,676. Reel/frame identifiers above are taken from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events record supplied in this request (https://patents.google.com/patent/US11402423/en), which reproduces USPTO assignment data; a direct Assignment Center pull is required to confirm the correspondent names, which are the one field I could not verify.

I'll search for the patent itself and the key cited references to ground this analysis.

Let me look at the other key cited references in parallel.

Let me verify the ABB predictive-monitoring reference and check the USPTO listing.

Scope note before the analysis

I was asked to search the USPTO database directly. I could not open USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Full‑Text (PatFT) or PACER in this session — my tool access is web search only, and targeted queries for "11402423" returned unrelated digit‑string hits (a Chilean immigration resolution, an OFID author ID). What I do have is the authoritative full‑text record for US 11,402,423 B2 you supplied (Google Patents, which republishes USPTO bibliographic, citation, and legal‑events data), plus independent web verification of the individual cited references. I therefore treat the supplied citation tables as the ground truth for "the references cited against 11402423" and do not invent anything beyond them. I also did not "correct" any identifier — all numbers below are reproduced literally, including the ones that look like typographical variants (e.g., the 1973 Siemens reference is listed as DE2315322A1 with a 1973‑03‑23 priority date, which is unusual for a DE publication and is worth flagging).

One contradiction to flag with the earlier generated section: the earlier summary called out US 5,859,596 as a "cited prior art of note" without noting that Google Patents marks six references as examiner‑cited (the * entries), not just that one. The examiner‑cited set — the references that actually drove prosecution — is US5859596A, US20030205938A1, US20050168891A1, US20080177425A1, US20100145641A1, and US20150308938A1. That distinction matters for the §102 analysis below.

The complete citation record for US 11,402,423 B2

Google Patents lists 18 references in the "Citations" table (expanded to 23 rows in the "Patent Citations" table, which adds the WO family members of several DE documents). Reproduced literally:

Examiner‑cited references (marked *) — the operative prior art

Other cited references (not marked as examiner‑cited)

Two more listings on the page are not prior art in the §102 sense and are excluded from analysis: US9406094B2 (Stem Inc., under "Family Cites Families") and US10666038B2 (Smart Wires, under "Families Citing this family" — i.e., it cites this patent).

Reference‑by‑reference §102 analysis

Framing. For a reference to anticipate under 35 U.S.C. § 102 it must disclose every element of the claim, arranged as claimed. Claim 1 has a demanding combination: (a) sensor recording operating measurement values; (b) communication device sending a status report; (c) data storage storing the values; (d) an electrical switchgear whose motor control is configured as the status estimation device; (e) status determination local/in‑situ (autonomous); (f) a maintenance‑identifying status report that is sent without the recorded measurement values; and (g) a unique identifier in the report. Claim 13 is the same architecture but the report instead contains the device's own evaluation of status.

My honest conclusion up front: no single reference in this list anticipates claim 1 or claim 13 under §102. The reference set was clearly assembled for § 103 (obviousness) purposes — consistent with the supplied legal‑events log, which shows repeated non‑final actions, a final rejection (2021‑10‑26), and a response after final action (2022‑01‑05) before allowance. Below I map each reference to the claims it is most relevant to, and say explicitly where a §102 case is weak or impossible.

1. US5859596A — CSI Technology (examiner‑cited). Filed 1996‑08‑30, issued 1999‑01‑12. Monitoring devices attached to switchyard equipment (circuit breakers, transformers, capacitor banks) each contain testing/monitoring circuitry that generates condition data, a storage device for the generated data, and a transmitter sending the data over the existing power line to a remote host. An RS‑232 port lets a local computer run tests, compare results with previous tests, and reprogram alarm parameters. Mapping: strong on claim 1(b),(c),(d) and claim 3 (it collects "current on each phase … ambient temperature in mechanism cabinet … gas pressure"), claim 4 (stored operating history for scheduling preventive maintenance — the "flight recorder" idea), claim 5 (power‑line carrier = "power line communication"), claim 6 (networked devices/bidirectional comms), claims 8/9 (circuit breakers/transformers). Why it does not anticipate claim 1: (i) it lacks any "motor control ... configured as a status estimation device" — the intelligence is a remote host computer, i.e., the central monitoring model the patent is trying to eliminate; (ii) it transmits the raw data, whereas claim 1 requires a report without the recorded measurement values. Best characterized as a § 103 primary reference, not § 102. Possible § 102 exposure to claim 4 standing alone.

2. US20030205938A1 / US7151329 (GE) — (examiner‑cited). Filed 2002‑02‑25, published 2003‑11‑06. Node electronic units mounted remotely from circuit breakers on a Fast‑Ethernet digital network, plus a central control processing unit with a storage device; node units receive current‑sensor, voltage‑sensor and circuit‑breaker status signals (including auxiliary‑switch/motor‑spring status). Mapping: claim 1(a)–(c), claim 3 (current, temperatures), claim 5 (LAN/Ethernet), claim 12 (distributed node units). Again defeats the "in‑situ / no central system" limitation of claim 1(e): the architecture is explicitly central‑control‑unit‑based. Not § 102 anticipation of claim 1; a § 103 reference for the sensing/network features.

3. US20050168891A1 — ABB (examiner‑cited). Filed 2005‑01‑28 (priority 2004‑01‑30), published 2005‑08‑04. The closest structural reference: a condition monitor for a switchgear device having an electrically powered actuator/drive (motor) operating the moving part (e.g., a circuit breaker); a control unit with memory storage means 66 receiving sensor state information (position sensor, motor current, DC voltage); and the specification expressly states the analysis "can be done in the electrical drive or sent to an external unit," with alarms indicating maintenance need. Mapping: it maps remarkably well to claim 1(a)–(d) and to the concept behind 1(d)/(e) — a switchgear drive/control unit doing its own analysis and storing data — and to claims 4, 6, 8, 11 (circuit breaker/disconnector/protection device variants). This is the most credible § 102 candidate in the set for a narrow reading of claim 1's switchgear+motor+memory+analysis sub‑combination. But it still fails the full claim because: (i) its control unit is described as an "electrical drive/control unit," not a "motor control," and the examiner/patentee evidently treated the motor‑control‑as‑status‑estimator limitation as distinguishing; (ii) its reporting is of alarms and data to an external unit/HMI, not a report that excludes the measurement values; and (iii) no "unique identifier in the report" is recited. Realistically this was the § 103 primary reference.

4. US20080177425A1 — ABB Research (examiner‑cited). Filed 2005‑06‑24, published 2008‑07‑24. Directed to damping electromechanical oscillations in power systems — i.e., a control/measurement application, not condition monitoring. Mapping: at best touches claim 1(a) (sensing) and general power‑network placement (claim 10 if one stretches FACTS‑type control). No § 102 anticipation of any of claims 1–13; it appears in the list as secondary/background art.

5. US20100145641A1 — Consolidated Edison (examiner‑cited). Filed 2008‑12‑09, published 2010‑06‑10. System for monitoring and assessing electrical circuits. Mapping: claim 1(a)–(c) (sensing + assessment + reporting) and claim 4 (assessment of circuit condition). No switchgear‑motor‑control element and no "report without measurement values"; no § 102 anticipation of claim 1, weak § 103 support.

6. US20150308938A1 / US9696248B2 — Scheucher (examiner‑cited). Filed 2015‑04‑29, published 2015‑10‑29. This is arguably the most substantive non‑examiner‑marked‑but‑examiner‑cited reference for the functional features. It discloses sensors measuring gas pressure, atmospheric pressure, and temperature of switchgear gas; a controller computing gas‑density estimates and threshold‑attainment times (prediction); a large nonvolatile memory logging raw data for years; and communication over a hierarchical network / SCADA with a web server. Mapping: strongly relevant to claim 1(a),(b),(d) (sensor + storage + communication), claim 2 (predicting a future status — the density‑threshold‑attainment prediction is close to the claimed "future profile of the operating status"), claim 3 (gas pressure, internal/external/ambient temperature — the exact enumerated quantities), claim 4 (complete measurement‑value history archived), claim 5 (networked communication). Why not § 102 for claim 1: it is a retrofit gas sensor/controller, not "an electrical switchgear having a motor control" acting as the status estimator, and it communicatesdata, not a values‑free maintenance report. Strong § 103 reference, and a plausible § 102 reference against claim 2 or claim 3 individually.

7. DE2315322A1 — Siemens (1973). Detect dielectric discharge (partial discharge) in metal‑enclosed HV switchgear/transmission systems. Mapping: peripheral to claim 3 (sensing of a switchgear condition) and to the "partial discharge strength" measurement mentioned in the specification (not recited in claim 3). No § 102 of the independent claims; background art only. (Also flag: the 1973 priority date assigned to a DE publication number of this format is anomalous — treat the date literally as printed.)

8. DE10154482A1 / US20040162705A1 — Siemens. Priority 2001‑11‑08. Method for avoiding/minimizing malfunctions in a technical system (predictive fault avoidance). Mapping: claim 2 (prediction) and claim 1(e)/(f) conceptually (local identification of needed action). Not a § 102 anticipation of claim 1 (no switchgear motor control, no values‑free report).

9. EP0960456B1 — ABB Ab. Priority 1997‑02‑12, granted 2005‑12‑21. "Substation." Mapping: claim 1 environment / claims 8–10 (the physical substation equipment). Background only; no § 102.

10. US20080100436A1 — Banting. Filed 2006‑10‑26. Electrical power system control communications network. Mapping: claims 1(b) (communication device), 5 (communications methods), 6 (forwarding status reports between devices — relevant to the mesh/repeater concept). No status‑estimation‑by‑motor‑control; no § 102 of claim 1.

11. DE102007035129A1 / WO2009012952A2‑A3 — ABB Ag. Priority 2007‑07‑25. "System and method for predictive monitoring and protection of electrical equipment." Mapping: claim 2 (predict a future profile) and claim 1(f) (identifying maintenance). The single best § 102 candidate against claim 2; not against claim 1.

12. WO2010124707A1 — Siemens. Access controller for automation devices. Mapping: claim 5 (data communication) peripherally. No § 102 of the independent claims.

13. DE102009041781A1 — Siemens. Priority 2009‑09‑15. Provision of plant‑related operating data via a diagnostic data server as fieldbus master. Mapping: claim 1(d) (data storage) and claim 4 (archiving operating data). Notably this is the central‑server model the patent distinguishes against — helps show what the invention is not. No § 102 of claim 1.

14. WO2011076242A1 — Siemens. Expanded power automation system. Mapping: claims 1, 5 (power‑automation comms). Background; no § 102.

15. DE102012208444A1 / WO2013174589A1 — Robert Bosch. Priority 2012‑05‑21. Sensor device for a cell/battery element with a communication method. Mapping: claim 3 (sensing current/temperature) and claim 5 (sensor communication), and claim 12 (modular sensor + memory architecture) in spirit. No switchgear motor control; no § 102 of claim 1.

16. DE102013105444A1 / WO2014075970A2 — SMA Solar. Priority 2012‑11‑13. Voltage stabilization in a distribution network. Mapping: most plausibly claim 10 (FACTS‑type device) and claim 1 environment. No § 102.

17. DE102013007239A1 — ABB Technology Ag. Priority 2013‑04‑26. System/method for assigning and registering sensors in a bus system. Mapping: claim 5 (bus communications) and claim 12 (multiple sensors with associated data memories — registration/addressing of modular sensors). No § 102 of the independent claims.

18. DE202013011810U1 — Siemens. Priority 2013‑08‑28. High‑voltage system. Mapping: claims 8/9 (power switch/transformer HV equipment), generally claim 1 environment. No § 102.

Bottom line

• No reference in the citation list anticipates claim 1 or claim 13 under § 102. The claims' novel combination — (i) the switchgear's motor control itself serving as the status‑estimation device, (ii) the in‑situ/autonomous determination, and (iii) a report that omits the raw measurement values (claim 1) or contains the device's own evaluation (claim 13) — is not met by any single one of the 18 references. That is consistent with the prosecution history in the record (multiple § 103 rejections and after‑final responses before the 2022‑03‑28 notice of allowance).
• Strongest § 102 candidates on individual, narrower claims: US20050168891A1 (ABB) against a narrow reading of claim 1's switchgear/motor‑drive + memory + analysis sub‑combination; US20150308938A1 (Scheucher, US9696248B2) against claims 2, 3, 4 (prediction, gas‑pressure/temperature sensing, large raw‑data archive); DE102007035129A1 (ABB) against claim 2; US5859596A (CSI) against claim 4.
• Primary § 103 art (combinations the examiner likely used): US5859596A + US20050168891A1, optionally with US20030205938A1 or US20150308938A1 for the sensor/data‑logging/reporting features, and DE102007035129A1 for prediction.
• Caveats I will not paper over: (i) I could not query USPTO PatentCenter/PACER directly this session, so this reflects the supplied authoritative citation tables plus verified reference texts, not a live USPTO citation dump; (ii) the "potential § 102" mappings above are my analytical judgments about element‑by‑element coverage, not examiner findings — the record shows the examiner resolved this case on § 103 grounds; (iii) the 1973 date on DE2315322A1 and the general "operating component vs. operating means" translation mismatch flagged earlier remain as printed.

If you want a certified citation/prior‑art dump and the actual examiner § 102/§ 103 rejections, that must be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter / the application's Image File Wrapper for US 15/831,676 (or the EP counterpart file for EP3331127B1), which I cannot reach with the tools available here.

I'll ground this analysis by pulling details on the key references cited of record before mapping them to the claims.

Good — the ABB reference is highly material. Let me pull two more cited references and check the "motor control as analyzer" element specifically.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 11,402,423 B2 ("Operating component")

Bottom line up front: Claims 1 and 13 are, in my assessment, vulnerable under § 103. The overwhelming majority of the recited elements are disclosed, element-for-element, in US 2005/0168891 A1 (Wallin et al., ABB) — which the examiner already cited of record — read with US 2015/0308938 A1 (Scheucher), US 5,859,596 (McRae, CSI Technology) and WO 2009/012952 A2 / DE 10 2007 035 129 A1 (ABB). The only features not squarely disclosed in US 2005/0168891 are (a) use of the switchgear's motor control as the estimation engine and (b) inclusion of a unique identifier in the report. Both are addressed by record art plus the applicant's own specification admissions. The most defensible non-obviousness position is a narrow claim-construction argument over the term "motor control" (see § 8 below).

1. Framework and assumptions

Proposed level of ordinary skill (not defined in the patent — my construction): a bachelor's degree in electrical or power engineering (or equivalent) plus 3–5 years' experience in the design, protection, control, or condition monitoring of medium-/high-voltage switchgear, including familiarity with IED/SCADA architectures, switchgear operating-mechanism drives, and industrial communication protocols. This is consistent with the art cited of record (ABB, GE, Siemens, CSI, Con Edison).

Graham factors applied: scope/content of claims; scope/content of prior art; differences; secondary considerations.

Prior sections cross-checked. The summaries above characterize claim 1 as a "local, self-monitoring field device" and claim 13 as identical but with the report containing the device's evaluation. I agree, and that framing drives the analysis: claim 13 is the broader, easier-to-invalidate claim, because a report "containing an evaluation of the operating status" is the natural output of every condition-monitoring reference of record.

One minor inconsistency to flag: the earlier summaries are dated "as of April 26, 2026," while my session date reads 2026‑09‑29. This does not affect the technical analysis (no new art or status change), but the dates should be reconciled in the final document. Nothing else in the prior sections contradicts the technical record.

2. Claim 1 — limitation-by-limitation mapping

Result: every recited element appears in the record art, with the sole genuinely arguable gap being the "motor control as status estimation device" phrasing and the explicit identification-in-report step.

3. Proposed combination and why a POSA would have made it

Combination 1 (primary, claims 1 and 13):
US 2005/0168891 A1 (Wallin/ABB) + US 5,859,596 (McRae/CSI) + US 2015/0308938 A1 (Scheucher) + WO 2009/012952 A2 / DE 10 2007 035 129 A1 (ABB).

Combination 2 (claims dependent on archiving/prediction): Combination 1 + US 2015/0308938 (multi-year onboard logging, time-to-threshold prediction).

Combination 3 (unique identifier): Combination 1 + DE 10 2013 007 239 A1 (ABB) and/or US 2003/0205938 A1 (GE).

Motivation — articulated per KSR:

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem, same solution direction. All references concern condition monitoring / protection of power-distribution and switchyard equipment (US 2005/0168891's stated aim is to "reduce power failures and reduce the cost of power outage"; US 5,859,596's aim is "reduced maintenance cost, increased availability, and extension of equipment service life"; US 2015/0308938's aim is early leak mitigation "without labor"). US 11,402,423 opens with exactly the same framing: availability, high redundancy costs, scarce trained monitoring personnel (Background). A POSA addressing the stated problem would consult these references as a matter of course.

2. Combination of familiar elements with predictable results. Sensor + local memory + local processor + communication device is a textbook embedded monitoring node. US 5,859,596 already packages exactly that set (monitoring circuitry + storage device + transmitter) into a device mounted at a piece of switchyard equipment. Adding it to the ABB switchgear would simply yield the predictable aggregation of known functions.

3. Simple substitution / use of known technique in a known way. US 2005/0168891 does not merely log or display — it "analyses, stores and gives an alarm," and that analysis is already hosted in the drive/control unit that operates the device. Moving the estimation software into the switchgear's own motor control is therefore the substitution of one known location for computing for another, which KSR treats as obvious where results are predictable. The patent itself concedes the equivalence: "The status estimation may, for example, be fully implemented in software."

4. Design incentive / cost-saving rationale (express in the art). US 2005/0168891 states the invention "may be installed in existing installations as well as new installations," and US 5,859,596 motivates eliminating separately installed communications and test equipment. US 11,402,423's own specification supplies the cost motive: the double function "is very economical, since in contrast to previous operating means the additional provision of a data input and a data output is sufficient." That is a classic design-incentive rationale.

5. Explicit teaching of the report-without-raw-data step. WO 2009/012952 A2 teaches deliberate data reduction before transmission (suppressing in-range values; forwarding only out-of-range, delta-exceeding, or slope-exceeding data) and forwarding only derived warning/status messages to an addressee list. US 2005/0168891 teaches severity-level alarm contacts. A POSA optimizing bandwidth-limited field telemetry (GPRS/mobile, radio, powerline carrier — all of record) would obviously adopt this.

6. Reasonable expectation of success. No reference teaches away from embedding intelligence in the field device; the migration of intelligence into IEDs / local control units was the prevailing architectural trend (evidenced by GE's 2003/0205938 node-based digital network and by IEC 61850-type process-bus architectures reflected in the art). The combination requires no new physics, no unproven algorithms, and no re-design of the monitored equipment.

7. "Obvious to try" / finite predictable solutions. Given a fixed set of monitoring functions, the designer faces a finite number of places to put the analytics (central host, site-level server, per-device controller) and a finite number of reporting granularities (raw data, processed data, binary alarm). Selecting the device-local option with a minimalist report is the predictable, and the cheaper, choice.

4. Claim 13 — elevated vulnerability

Claim 13 differs from claim 1 only in that the report "contain[s] an evaluation of the operating status made by said status estimation device." US 2005/0168891 discloses precisely this: the unit "analyses, stores and gives an alarm concerning faults," and the output includes "data, alarms and recommendation" presented to the operating customer. Nothing further is required. Claim 13 therefore has a weaker § 103 position than claim 1, because it lacks claim 1's negative limitation (which, however weakly, at least has to be evaluated against the art — see § 6).

5. Dependent claims 2–12

Because claims 8–12 recite only the identity or modularity of parts, they are species of the genus already disclosed — obvious as predictable variations once claim 1 falls (In re Kollman-type reasoning on narrow species without unexpected results).

6. Handling the "without the recorded measurement values" negative limitation

Three points matter here:

1. A negative limitation is met by prior art that does not necessarily transmit the raw values. US 2005/0168891's severity-indicating alarm contacts transmit a derived indication, and its remote communication channel is not shown to carry the raw stored logs. WO 2009/012952 A2 goes further and expressly teaches suppressing in-range values and forwarding only reduced/derived information. The negative limitation is therefore fairly suggested, not merely incidentally met.

2. The limitation is a reporting-granularity choice, not an architectural one. KSR and its progeny treat the mere reduction of transmitted information as a predictable design trade-off driven by bandwidth, cost, and operator usability — all of which are the express rationales in the record art (US 5,859,596 sought to eliminate a separate communications network; WO 2009/012952 A2 sought reduced data traffic).

3. Claim-drafting observation, not a § 103 argument: the applicant's own specification concedes the binary report as "the simplest case," which tends to defeat any argument that omitting raw data from the report is an inventive contribution. (Whether the negative limitation is adequately supported/enabled is a § 112 question outside this task.)

7. Where the § 103 position is weakest (candid assessment)

• Claim 7 (position detection). None of the eighteen cited references nor the patent's own cited prior-art list discloses a GPS/position-detection device in the operating component. A rejection would require art outside the record (e.g., GPS-enabled utility field equipment or remote terminal units), or an "art-recognized practice" argument that must be documented. Do not assume this claim is obvious on the record as cited.
• Claim 5, "6LoWPAN" specifically. The cited art discloses WLAN/Bluetooth/GPRS/Ethernet/powerline/fieldbus families, but not 6LoWPAN by name. 6LoWPAN is an IETF standard published as RFC 4944 (September 2007). If that standard is treated as a printed publication, it would supply the element; I have not verified the RFC text or its publication details in this session, so treat this as a lead to verify, not an established teaching. (The larger point stands: a POSA selecting among 802.15.4-based mesh options would find a finite set of known protocols.)
• Claim 10 (FACTS). No available prior art of record discloses a FACTS device as the monitored equipment. The one FACTS-related family citation, US 10,666,038 B2, post-dates the critical date and is unavailable.
• Claim 12's "associated further data memory" is the only dependent limitation that could be argued to require a specific redundant-storage topology; in my view the art (WO 2009/012952 A2 modular measuring modules; US 2015/0308938 distributed processors) still meets it, but less cleanly.

8. Anticipated patentee rebuttals and my response

Secondary considerations. Per the prior sections of this analysis, no litigation, no PTAB challenge, no known licensing/enforcement program, and no identified evidence of commercial success, long-felt but unmet need, industry praise, or copying tied to the claims. Absent such evidence, there is nothing on the record to rebut the prima facie case. This is a rebuttal-side observation only — the burden of production would fall on the patentee, and I have not seen its evidence.

9. Material gaps and cautions

1. Why did it issue? The legal-events log shows repeated substantive rejections (non-final actions 2020‑02‑25, 2020‑05‑11, 2021‑05‑24; a final rejection 2021‑10‑26) followed by allowance on 2022‑03‑28. The reasons for allowance and the amendments are not in the record supplied to me. Since the examiner had US 2005/0168891 and US 2015/0308938 expressly before him (both are marked "cited by examiner"), my primary combination is close to art the examiner already considered. Resolving this tension requires the full file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter, application 15/831,676) — without it, my analysis explains why the claims should have been rejected but cannot explain why they were not.
2. Reference-text verification level. I verified substantial disclosure text for US 2005/0168891 A1, US 5,859,596, US 2015/0308938 A1, and WO 2009/012952 A2 (via Espacenet, the patent's own text, patents-review.com, patentsencyclopedia, and Google Patents). For DE 2315322 A1, EP 0960456 B1, US 2008/0100436 A1, US 2010/0145641 A1, WO 2010/124707 A1, DE 10 2009 041 781 A1, WO 2011/076242 A1, DE 10 2012 208 444 A1 / WO 2013/174589 A1, DE 10 2013 105 444 A1 / WO 2014/075970 A2, DE 20 2013 011 810 U1, and DE 10 2013 007 239 A1, I am relying on titles, dates, and assignees as recorded. Any formal claim chart must be built from the full granted texts, with column/line or paragraph pinpoints — which I have not done here.
3. Apparently related ABB document. Search results surfaced a US 8,355,234 B2 bearing claim language matching the US 2005/0168891 subject matter, alongside citations to US 2005/0168891. I did not confirm whether US 8,355,234 B2 is a continuation/granted counterpart of US 2005/0168891 A1 or a separate filing. If it is a family member, it is a useful secondary citation; verify before relying on it.
4. "Similar Documents" are mostly unusable as prior art. The bulk of that list (US 2020/0020178 A1, US 2017/0115335 A1, KR 10‑2447125 B1, KR 10‑2447126 B1, KR 10‑2599967 B1, KR 10‑2803281 B1, KR 10‑2927269 B1, KR 10‑2207181 B1, KR 2020/0136689 A, KR 10‑2035351 B1, JP 7331336 B2, JP 2019‑528429 A, US 2022/0187814 A1, US 2022/0037014 A1, CN 110696880 A, CN 116707144 A, and the Nicolaou 2021 / Joebin 2024 non-patent items) published after the 2016‑12‑05 critical date and cannot support a § 102/§ 103 rejection. Only the older items (US 7,631,204 B2, JP 4601488 B2, JP 2012‑217161 A, CN 102142719 B, KR 10‑1589736 B1) are date-eligible, and those are directed to different contexts (railway signal equipment, transformer-substation insulation monitoring, power system supervisory control) — potentially useful as background/secondary art for the position-detection and reporting aspects, but I have not analyzed them and would not assert them as anticipatory.
5. US 2008/0177425 A1 (ABB, damping electromechanical oscillations) appears peripheral to every element of the claims; I would not include it in a rejection.
6. Terminology note carried forward: the claims say "operating component" while the specification says "operating means." I treat them as the same element and note the risk that a fact-finder could read them differently, which would affect the weight of specification-based admissions (e.g., the "binary information" and "motor control already has computing means" passages).

10. Recommended next steps to harden or defeat the analysis

1. Pull the file wrapper for US 15/831,676 and the EP counterpart EP 3331127 B1 (opposition file if any) to obtain the examiner's reasons for allowance and the applicant's arguments distinguishing US 2005/0168891 and US 2015/0308938.
2. Obtain full texts of US 2005/0168891 A1, US 5,859,596, US 2015/0308938 A1, WO 2009/012952 A2, and DE 10 2013 007 239 A1 and build pinpoint element charts.
3. Source dedicated art for the three weak elements: GPS/position detection in utility field devices (claim 7), 6LoWPAN / 802.15.4 mesh sensing networks (claim 5), and FACTS device monitoring (claim 10) — the last must pre-date 2016‑12‑05, which US 10,666,038 B2 does not.
4. Confirm whether any § 102 anticipation position exists: US 2005/0168891/ABB appears to disclose all of claim 13 except the "unique identifier in the report," which may be inherent in a networked device that is addressed and polled by a host — worth testing against the full text.

Confidence assessment: High confidence that claims 1 and 13 are obvious over US 2005/0168891 in view of US 5,859,596, US 2015/0308938, WO 2009/012952 A2 and DE 10 2013 007 239 A1 — provided the "motor control configured as a status estimation device" limitation is construed to cover a switchgear drive/operating-mechanism controller that also executes monitoring software. Medium confidence on claims 2–6, 8, 9, 11, 12. Low confidence on claims 5 (6LoWPAN), 7 and 10 on the cited record alone.