US 12214833

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number.

Let me search for litigation and CAFC docket information specific to this patent.

Let me confirm whether there is any litigation, PTAB, or CAFC activity for this patent number.

Summary of US Patent 12,214,833 (US 12214833 B2)

Sourcing note: The figures below are drawn from the patent's own full text (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-24) plus corroborating secondary sources (USPTO-derived news release, IDIYAS/Patent Leaderboard). I searched for CAFC 2026 dockets and litigation assigning/appealing this specific number and found no CAFC docket or district-court case keyed to US 12,214,833. I cannot affirmatively confirm the absence of any litigation — only that no such record surfaced in my searches. Treat that as a limitation, not a certification.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A steer-by-wire steering system for a vehicle, comprising: an operation member operable by a vehicle driver; an urging device configured to generate an urging force to urge the operation member; a steering device configured to steer a wheel; and a controller configured to control the urging device and the steering device. In a normal operation, the controller enables the wheel to be steered in accordance with an operation of the operation member and causes the urging force to function as an operation reaction force against the operation of the operation member. In an automatic steering operation in which the wheel is steered without depending on the operation of the operation member, the controller enables the operation member to be moved in accordance with steering of the wheel by the urging force and causes at least part of the urging force generated in the normal operation not to be generated."

Independent claim — plain-language overview

Claim 1 (the sole independent claim) covers a steer-by-wire system having four elements:

1. An operation member the driver can operate (embodied as steering wheel 10);
2. An urging device that generates an urging force on the operation member (embodied as reaction-force actuator 12 with motor 32 and worm/worm-wheel reducer 38, producing urging torque Tq_C);
3. A steering device that steers a wheel "that is not mechanically coupled to the operation member" (embodied as steering actuator 18 with motor 58, ball-screw nut 56, steering rod/rack 50); and
4. A controller controlling both devices (embodied as steering ECU 22).

Two operating modes are required:

• Normal operation: the wheel is steered in accordance with the driver's operation of the operation member, and the urging force acts as an operation reaction force against that operation.
• Automatic steering operation (wheel steered without depending on driver operation of the operation member): the operation member is moved in accordance with steering of the wheel by the urging force, and at least part of the urging force generated in normal operation is not generated.

The final wherein-clause is the claim's distinguishing requirement: the withheld part must be a steering-load-dependent component defined as a component (a) based on an axial force acting on a steering rod or a rack bar, (b) including a force that acts on the wheel from the road surface, and (c) acting in a direction opposite to the operation direction of the operation member (i.e., a "counter-directional" component).

Scope note: Claim 1 is narrow in two respects worth emphasizing. First, the withholder limitation is tied to a specific type of urging-force component — a steering-load-dependent component with the recited axial-force/road-surface/opposite-direction attributes — not to any arbitrary component. Second, the "not mechanically coupled" negative limitation is expressly recited in claim 1 (it appears in the claim body, though it did not appear in the abstract).

Dependent claims (brief)

• 2 — automatic steering operation is performed during automatic parking of the vehicle.
• 3 — the urging force has multiple components, one being a positive-movement component that positively moves the operation member with wheel steering; controller generates that component only in automatic steering and suppresses a "non-generating component" (the other component(s)) in that mode.
• 4 — the components include an assist component, a compensation component (operation feel), and the steering-load-dependent component (steering device load).
• 5 — the positive-movement component is gradually increased at automatic-steering start and gradually decreased at its end.
• 6 — the non-generating component is gradually decreased at automatic-steering start.
• 7 — in automatic steering, the system keeps generating at least part of the non-generating component and adds a canceling component (same magnitude) to the positive-movement component.
• 8 — when automatic steering ends, the controller immediately stops generating both the canceling component and that part of the non-generating component.
• 9 — the positive-movement component is determined by feedback control law based on deviation of actual operation amount from a target operation amount, the target being the operation amount corresponding to the wheel's steering amount.

Technical gist (from the specification)

The invention's stated problem: in a conventional steer-by-wire system the reaction-force device is designed to produce a driver-feedback force, so during automatic steering (e.g., automatic parking) its components can make the steering wheel move unnaturally, impairing utility. The disclosed fix: generate a positive-movement component only during automatic steering, and suppress (or cancel) the normal-operation components — notably the counter-directional steering-load-dependent component Tq_C-L — via switching portions 118/120/124, a preliminary adder 122, an adder 116, and a final adder 126. Rate limiters (132, 138) smooth starts; a resetter 140 abruptly zeroes Tq_C-L at the automatic-steering end to avoid residual wheel motion (e.g., from tire deformation).

Cited references (per the patent's front page)

Notably includes JP 5994868 B2 (Nissan) as background and US 2007/0288145 A1, US 2017/0029013 A1 (both JTEKT), US 2018/0154936 A1 (Hitachi Automotive), WO 2020/031294 A1 and WO 2020/230307 A1 (Nissan), US 2020/0269920 A1 (Steering Solutions IP Holding), US 9,908,557 B2 (Mitsubishi Electric), and US 2020/0391789 A1 (Hyundai Mobis), among others.

Uncertainty / caveats

• No CAFC 2026 docket located for this patent number in my searches. I cannot verify a Federal Circuit appeal exists, and I found no district-court assertion of this specific number. Do not infer from this that none exists.
• Inventor names/assignee spellings vary slightly across secondary sources (e.g., Japanese-character renderings); the patent text and USPTO-derived release agree with the table above.
• The Google Patents legal-status line ("Active, expires 2043-03-30") is expressly an assumption, not a legal conclusion, per the source itself.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 12214833.

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

Summary of Findings

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 12214833 was found. I searched for the specific number and related litigation sources and could not identify any district court action, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal, ITC proceeding, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), or Unified Patents litigation record in which U.S. Patent No. 12214833 is asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

What the patent is (context for the search)

• Patent: US 12214833 B2 — "Steer-by wire steering system"
• Application: US 17/893,249; filed 2022-08-23; priority 2021-08-26 (JP 2021-137991); granted 2025-02-04
• Assignee(s): JTEKT Corporation and Toyota Motor Corp (per the Google Patents record)
• Inventors: Kosuke Akatsuka, Yoshio Kudo, Takahito Ishino, Kenji Yoshida, Koji Anraku
• Family members: EP 4140856 B1, JP 7619910 B2, CN 115723837 B

The record notes only two third‑party/"citing" documents and a list of 13 cited prior-art references (e.g., JP 5994868 B2 to Nissan, US 2007/0288145 A1 to JTEKT, US 2017/0029013 A1 to JTEKT, US 2020/0391789 A1 to Hyundai Mobis). Citations and third‑party citations are not litigation, and none of those references indicates a lawsuit over this patent.

Litigation search results (by requested field)

Because no case exists to report, there is no plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or status to list:

Closest items found (none are litigation of this patent)

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — Searches returned UPC/EPO procedural orders (e.g., Meril v. Edwards, Grundfos v. Hefei Xinhü, Sanofi v. Amgen) but nothing referencing 12214833 or its family.
2. Federal Circuit / PTAB — The only JTEKT‑related PTAB matter surfaced was IPR2016‑00046, JTEKT Corp. v. GKN Automotive (Final Written Decision), which concerns different patents and is unrelated to 12214833.
3. JTEKT PTAB/opposition activity — Third‑party databases (e.g., GreyB/IP Verse) show JTEKT oppositions and PTAB cases, but none involving 12214833.
4. UK Gazette listing — A published list of UK IP registration numbers happens to include the digit string "12214833." This is not a U.S. patent litigation and appears coincidental (it is a registration/publication list, not a court filing). I flag it only so it is not mistaken for a hit.
5. Ford DE 10 2020 211 657 A1 — Appears as a third‑party citation to the family, not as a litigant.

Caveats on completeness

• I relied on general web search plus the sources cited above. I was not able to directly query PACER, the full Docket Alarm/Unified Patents case lists, or the ITC EDIS docket; only publicly indexed results were reachable.
• The patent issued 2025-02-04, so it has been enforceable for a relatively short time; litigation may exist that is not yet publicly indexed, or may have been filed under a related family member.
• I found no evidence of any assertion against automakers, Tier‑1 steering suppliers (e.g., Bosch, ZF, NSK, Nexteer, Mando, Hyundai Mobis), or others.

Bottom line: As of this search, no known litigation involves U.S. Patent No. 12214833. If you need a definitive confirmation, the authoritative next steps would be a direct PACER docket search for the patent number, a CourtListener/RECAP query, an ITC EDIS search, and a USPTO Patent Center "litigation" / assignment‑history check.

I'll verify the structured data against public sources before reporting.

PTAB Activity Report — US 12,214,833 B2

"Steer-by-wire steering system" · JTEKT Corp. + Toyota Motor Corp. · Grant 2025-02-04 · App. 17/893,249 · Priority 2021-08-26 (JP 2021-137991)

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file. The structured ODP-derived "PTAB proceedings on file" block for US 12,214,833 returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM — status breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to lean on in either direction — the patent has neither been hardened by surviving an IPR nor narrowed by a claim cancellation. Its claims are entirely untested at the Board, and the validity case must be built from scratch (or from the patent's own prosecution file and the art cited during examination).

I independently ran targeted web searches (patent number, publication number US2023/0063519A1, patent owner, title) and surfaced no AIA petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal touching this patent. I am reporting absence plainly rather than manufacturing a proceeding number.

Why the absence is meaningful here

• The IPR window has been open for ~11 months and nobody has used it. An IPR petition cannot be filed until the later of (a) 9 months after grant or (b) termination of any PGR. Grant was 2025-02-04, so the § 311(c) window opened approximately 2025-11-04. As of today (2026-09-29), no petition has been filed or indexed. For a patent owned by two large, litigation-active automakers, that is a real (if soft) signal — well-asserted patents that are being monetized tend to attract IPRs within the first year of eligibility.
• There is no defensive-aggregator footprint. I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar third-party-filer activity aimed at this family, which is consistent with the zero-row PTAB list.
• The family's foreign counterparts have no reported challenges either, as far as I can verify. The same disclosure issued as JP 7,619,910 B2, EP 4,140,856 B1, and CN 1,157,238 B7. None of those are PTAB matters, and I did not find confirmed EPO opposition or CNIPA invalidation data — so do not read this as a clean foreign bill of health; it is simply out of scope and unverified.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All nine claims — independent claim 1 plus dependent claims 2–9 — are untested, not sustained and not canceled. Nothing at the PTAB has narrowed this patent. Claim 1 as issued is a steer-by-wire system claim whose distinguishing hook is the last wherein clause: the "at least part of the urging force" that is suppressed in automatic steering must comprise a steering-load-dependent component "based on an axial force that acts on a steering rod or a rack bar and that includes a force that acts on the wheel from a road surface," acting opposite the operation direction. Claims 3–9 layer on the positive-movement component architecture: generating the positive-movement component only in automatic steering (claim 3), the component taxonomy (claim 4), ramp-in/ramp-out of the positive-movement component (claim 5), ramp-down of the non-generating component (claim 6), the "canceling component" kept alongside the still-generated non-generating component (claim 7), the immediate reset of both at the end of automatic steering (claim 8), and the feedback-law determination of the positive-movement component from an operation-angle deviation (claim 9). For validity work, claims 7 and 8 are the narrowest and the most fact-specific; claim 1 is the broadest and the natural target.

Estoppel landscape. With no IPR/PGR on file, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached against anyone. Any defendant is free to raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, on any art, in district court or in a first IPR of its own — there is no petitioner-privity chain to worry about and no prior Board record to work around. Conversely, because no proceeding exists, there is also no IPR-FWD "safe harbor" and no Board claim construction to borrow; you would be writing on a blank slate and paying the cost of an institution petition from zero.

Pattern signals. No repeated petitioner, no serial challenge, no patent-owner PTAB appeal history on this patent (there is nothing to appeal). The owners (JTEKT and Toyota) are sophisticated, active patent filers with large steer-by-wire portfolios — JTEKT is itself a repeat IPR petitioner/appellant in unrelated matters (e.g., its standing fight over the '440 patent), so the absence of a challenge to this patent is a deliberate non-event, not a capacity gap.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not rely on any PTAB finding — there is none. Because no claim has been canceled, any invalidity story must be built independently. There is no FWD to link, no canceled claims to point to, and no institution record to distinguish. If an assertion letter from a rights-holder (or a JTEKT/Toyota licensee) cites claims 1–9, all of them remain live and presumptively valid under § 282.
2. If you intend to file an IPR, the runway is open and the clock is your own. The § 311(c) 9-month bar is already satisfied (grant 2025-02-04), so a petition can be filed now. Once instituted, the statutory 1-year trial clock runs from the institution decision. A § 315(b) one-year bar applies only if you have already been served with a complaint alleging infringement of this patent — calendar that immediately if you have been sued.
3. Attack the prosecution record and the cited art first. Before commissioning new prior art, mine the references already of record: the patent's own citation list includes US 2005/0273236 A1 (Mori), US 2007/0288145 A1 (JTEKT), US 2017/0029013 A1 (JTEKT), US 2018/0154936 A1 (Hitachi), US 2020/0269920 A1 (Steering Solutions), US 9,908,557 B2 (Mitsubishi Electric), and JP 5,994,868 B2 (Nissan) — the last being the reference the specification itself credits for the reaction-force architecture. These are the examiner's own frame; if any of them anticipates or renders obvious claim 1's axial-force/road-surface limitation, that is your shortest path.
4. Re-check the ODP feed before you file. This report reflects the most recent ODP ingest plus my web checks as of 2026-09-29. A petition could be filed after that date; re-query before relying on the "no proceedings" posture for estoppel or Fintiv planning.

Sources

• USPTO Open Data Portal — PTAB proceedings for US 12,214,833: no AIA proceedings returned (canonical list, as ingested).
• Google Patents, US 12,214,833 B2: https://patents.google.com/patent/US12214833/en (bibliographic data, grant 2025-02-04, adjusted expiration 2043-03-30, claims 1–9, cited references).
• USPTO PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ (queried, no proceedings matching this patent located).
• CAFC / CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/) — no appeal docket located for this patent, consistent with there being no FWD to appeal.

No proceeding numbers, panels, or decisions are reported because none exist. I did not substitute or infer any identifier.

I'll research the assignment record for US 12214833. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the assignment records and any litigation or ownership changes.

Ownership Analysis — US 12214833 B2 ("Steer-by wire steering system")

Scope caveat up front: I was able to reconstruct this chain only from the patent's own front-matter/legal-events record (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-24) plus secondary indexes. I could not retrieve the underlying Assignment Center entry's reel/frame number or the recorded correspondent for the application at issue — those fields are not present in the fetched patent text, and my searches did not surface a dedicated Assignment Center or PlainSite entry for US 17/893,249. I flag this explicitly rather than inventing a reel/frame. Where I state a reel/frame below, it is for a different, related JTEKT/Toyota case and is labeled as such.

Inventors

Inventor residences (Mishima, Machida, Numazu, Nagoya, Okazaki) were independently corroborated by the HT Syndication issuance notice and the idiyas patent badge for 12214833.

Pattern notes:

• This is a mixed Toyota/JTEKT joint-development team, not a single-employer team. That is consistent with the two-company joint ownership on the face of the patent and with sibling filings (e.g., EP4074580 / US 11,272,721, "Vehicle control system and vehicle control method," listing Akatsuka, Kudo, Anraku and others for Toyota + JTEKT).
• I found no evidence of inventors departing the original assignees within 12 months of filing, and no portfolio fire-sale signal. The inventors continue to appear on later Toyota/JTEKT filings (e.g., Yoshida, Akatsuka and Kudo on the March 2022 assignment at Reel 59464/409 for US 17/710,469, a different patent — noted only as corroboration that the team stayed in place).

Original assignee

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (1, Toyota-cho, Toyota-shi, Aichi-ken, JP) and JTEKT Corporation (Kariya / 5-8 Minamisemba 3-chome, Chuo-ku, Osaka, JP) — joint assignees.

• Business: Toyota is the world's largest automaker (operating; NYSE:TM / TSE:7203). JTEKT is a tier-1 steering and driveline supplier (operating; TSE:6473) and is a major global supplier of steer-by-wire and electric power steering hardware.
• Product embodiment: Yes, plausibly direct. The claims recite a steer-by-wire system with an operation member selectively decoupled from the road wheels and a controller that suppresses reaction-force components during automatic steering. Toyota shipped a steer-by-wire production application (Lexus RZ "One Motion Grip" / steer-by-wire option) in the 2023 model year, and JTEKT is the tier-1 supplier of that class of hardware. I did not locate a specific field-of-use statement tying claim 1 to that program, so treat the embodiment link as strong but not documentary.
• Current status: Both entities are active, solvent, publicly traded operating companies. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition events in the chain. The patent's adjusted expiration date is 2043-03-30; status Active.

Assignment timeline

Exactly one assignment is recorded in the legal events for US 17/893,249:

• 2022-08-23 (executed) / recorded 2022-08-23 — Reel/Frame not retrievable from the sources I could access (see scope caveat)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (inventor-to-assignee; "SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS")
  • Assignor: AKATSUKA, Kosuke; KUDO, Yoshio; ISHINO, Takahito; YOSHIDA, Kenji; ANRAKU, Koji (all five joint inventors)
  • Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA and JTEKT CORPORATION (joint)
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the sources retrieved. I cannot state an attorney or firm of record for this filing without the Assignment Center entry.
  • Context: Initial ownership allocation on filing — the inventors conveyed their rights to the two joint-development sponsors. Not an acquisition, not a fire-sale, not a reorg.

No post-issuance assignments, security agreements, change-of-name records, mergers, releases, or transfers are recorded. No filings citing this patent, and no litigation naming it, surfaced in my searches. The legal-events list contains only routine prosecution/publication events: filing 2022-08-23, publication US20230063519A1 on 2023-03-02, grant 2025-02-04.

For context only (NOT this patent): a sibling JTEKT/Toyota case, US patent 12,168,485, carries assignment Reel 59464/409, recorded 2022-03-31, with a correspondent at an Alexandria, VA address (registered-practitioner correspondence, name partial in the source). I flag this as a possible indication of the same outside counsel handling the JTEKT/Toyota joint portfolio, but it is not evidence about 12214833 and I do not treat it as a finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12214833
    2021 : Japanese priority application filed
    2022 : US application filed
         : Inventors assign to Toyota and JTEKT
    2023 : US publication as 20230063519
    2025 : Patent granted as US 12214833

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No transfer to any IP/Patents/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures entity. Current and only assignees are Toyota and JTEKT, both large operating manufacturers with public product lines.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither assignee appears on any RPX/Unified Patents high-frequency-plaintiff list, and no Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg-type entity appears anywhere in the chain.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not determinable. Because the chain has only one recorded assignment, there is no "recurrence" to measure, and I could not retrieve the correspondent name for the single entry. A single appearance would not be a finding in any event.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One assignment total; no chained LLCs, no shared correspondent addresses, no transfers within 24 months.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was found, so there is no trigger date to measure against. The sole assignment predates the patent by ~2.5 years and is an inventor-to-employer conveyance, not a litigation-setup transfer.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Toyota or JTEKT; both are active and solvent.
7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer of this patent from an operating company to a third-party NPE, and no SEC disclosure or Patent Progress/EFF coverage suggesting assertion on Toyota's behalf.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remains with the two operating co-owners.

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the specific sense prescribed here: the only recorded assignment is the original inventor-to-assignee conveyance, and I could not retrieve the reel/frame or correspondent for it.

Justification: The entire recorded chain is a single Assignment of Assignors' Interest executed 2022-08-23 conveying rights from all five named inventors to Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha and JTEKT Corporation jointly. Both remain the current assignees; there are no post-issuance transfers, no security interests, no change-of-name records, and no litigation. All eight NPE-pattern signals resolve to not present (with signal 3 unresolvable for lack of a second entry). This is the opposite of an NPE profile — it is a joint-development patent held by two large operating companies — but because the detectable chain consists of only the original assignment, it falls in the "insufficient data" bucket rather than "operating-company assertion" (no assertion is on record).

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 12214833): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Assignments on the Web: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US12214833/en

Recommended next step: Pull the Assignment Center entry for US 17/893,249 directly to capture the reel/frame and the recorded correspondent for the 2022-08-23 conveyance. If a reel/frame exists that I could not surface, please supply it and I will fold it into the timeline above; no code change is needed to the rest of the analysis, since the ownership conclusion (two operating co-owners, no NPE activity) is stable regardless of that detail.

I'll research US patent 12214833 and its cited prior art references.

I have the patent details. Let me retrieve the complete citation list and details for each cited reference.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 12214833 B2 ("Steer-by wire steering system")

1. Patent under analysis

Sources: Google Patents page for US12214833B2 (as supplied); Justia patent page (patents.justia.com/patent/12214833); idiyas.com listing.

2. Methodological caveats (read before the analysis)

1. Complete citation list not fully retrieved. The US12214833B2 record states "Citations (13)." The authoritative text I was given renders only 10 of those 13 entries before truncation. I analyze the 10 I can confirm and flag the 3 missing rather than invent them.
2. "Cited" ≠ "anticipatory." The references below are the citations listed on the US12214833B2 record (examiner/third-party citations). US12214833B2 was granted with all 9 claims intact, which is direct evidence the examiner did not find any single one of these references to anticipate the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Accordingly, I treat the § 102 question as "potential/closest" relevance, not as established anticipation.
3. I was not able to pull the full specification text of every cited reference within this session. Where I cannot verify a reference's disclosure with high confidence, I say so explicitly rather than fabricate a limitation-by-limitation mapping.

3. Citation-by-citation analysis

The citations below are reproduced with the numbers/dates exactly as they appear on the US12214833B2 record.

Missing entries: the record indicates 3 further citations beyond the ten above that were not included in the text I received. They are not analyzed here. (The full 13-item list is visible on the Google Patents "Citations" panel for US12214833B2.)

4. Overall § 102 assessment

• No confirmed § 102 anticipation. Because US12214833B2 issued as a patent with all nine claims, the examiner necessarily concluded that none of the listed references discloses every limitation of claim 1 (or of the dependents) in a single reference. My review is consistent with that.
• The strongest § 102 candidate is limited to a dependent claim and a narrower concept, not claim 1. The references most likely to be argued as anticipatory for a sub-portion of the claims are:
  • US 2018/0154936 A1 (automatic steering function) and US 2005/0273236 A1 (automatic steering control apparatus) → at most, claim 2 ("the automatic steering operation … performed in automatic parking"). Note: even here, US 2005/0273236 and US 2018/0154936 must actually show parking-specific automatic steering to anticipate claim 2, which I could not verify.
  • JP 5994868 B2 → the multi-component urging force that varies by situation (the premise of claims 1 and 4), but it is the art that the patent expressly characterizes as not providing the claimed improvement, so it cannot anticipate claim 1.
• Independent claim 1 is not anticipated by any listed reference. Claim 1's distinguishing limitations are: (i) a wheel not mechanically coupled to the operation member; (ii) in an automatic-steering operation, moving the operation member via the urging force while causing at least part of the urging force not to be generated; and (iii) that omitted part being a steering-load-dependent component based on a rack/steering-rod axial force (including road-surface force) acting opposite to the operation direction. The listed references are consistent with being § 103-combination / background art rather than § 102 art.
• Dependent claims 3–9 (positive-movement component, gradual ramp-in/ramp-out, canceling-component scheme, immediate stop at end, feedback-law determination) appear to have no § 102 exposure among the references I could verify; these specialized switching/cancellation features are the apparent points of novelty.

5. Ranked relevance (most → least, for claim-mapping purposes)

1. JP 5994868 B2 — closest art to the premise of claim 1 (multi-component reaction force with variable ratio); expressly the reference the patent distinguishes.
2. US 2018/0154936 A1 — closest art to the automatic-steering aspect (claims 1–2, and the operational-mode switch of claims 3–9).
3. US 2020/0391789 A1 — closest SBW-architecture reference (claim 1 structure).
4. US 2005/0273236 A1 and US 2020/0269920 A1 — automatic-steering/assist context (claim 2).
5. US 2017/0029013 A1, US 2007/0288145 A1 (both Jtekt — co-owner's own prior work) and US 9,908,557 B2 — SBW/reaction-force background.
6. WO 2020/031294 A1, WO 2020/230307 A1 (both Nissan) — steering-control background.

6. Explicit uncertainty statement

I could not fully verify, within this session, (a) the identity of the 3 unlisted citations on the US12214833B2 record, (b) the complete disclosure of each reference's specification, or (c) claim-level element-by-element correspondence. Therefore the § 102 column above should be read as potential/closest-art guidance, not a legal conclusion of anticipation. A rigorous § 102/§ 103 chart should be built from the full text of each reference (available on the Google Patents "Citations" panel for US12214833B2 and via each reference's own US/JP/WO record), which I recommend before any invalidity or freedom-to-operate position is taken.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me verify their disclosures.

Let me verify the remaining key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 12,214,833 B2 ("Steer-by-wire steering system")

Analyst note on sources. Per the operating rules, I use the references listed in the Citations section of the US12214833B2 Google Patents page (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US12214833](/patent/US12214833)/en) as the prior-art universe. I verified the disclosures of the key references against their own texts/PDFs; where I could not verify a reference's disclosure directly, I say so rather than characterize it. I also preserve the numbering literally: the specification's acknowledged reference is JP 5994868 B2. I do not treat it as JP 5,994,861 B2, which is a different granted Japanese patent that happens to share a date of 2016-09-21 and appears in the same Nissan family annex (see EPO search report, https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.0/publication-dates/20200930/patents/EP3715219NWA1/document.pdf).

1. Legal framework applied

An obviousness rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 requires the Graham v. John Deere (383 U.S. 1 (1966)) findings — scope/content of the prior art, differences between the prior art and the claims, and the level of ordinary skill — plus a reasoned explanation why the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a combination is obvious where the references are from analogous fields, address the same problem, and the combination is "nothing more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." MPEP 2143 lists the rationales I rely on below: (A) combining known elements per known methods to yield predictable results; (C) using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (D) applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; and (F) design incentives/market forces.

Priority date: 2021-08-26 (JP 2021-137991). All cited references predate it; the latest is WO 2020/230307 A1 (published 2020-11-19). The prior art is therefore squarely § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art.

2. The prior art of record, and what each reference actually teaches

Level of ordinary skill. A POSA here would be a controls engineer with a bachelor's in mechanical/electrical engineering and ~2–5 years of vehicle steering or EPS/SBW control experience, familiar with reaction-force component decomposition (assist, return, damping, hysteresis, SAT/rack-axial-force terms), automatic parking, and gain-scheduling/rate-limiting of actuator commands.

3. Claim 1 — element-by-element mapping of the primary combination

Primary combination: US 2017/0029013 A1 (Jtekt) + JP 5994868 B2 (Nissan). Optionally + US 2005/0273236 A1 (Mori) and/or US 2018/0154936 A1 (Hitachi) for the automatic-parking/automatic-steering context.

Conclusion on claim 1: Every element is disclosed, and the only element not clearly found in Jtekt '013 (the rack-axial-force-based, counter-directional steering-load-dependent component) is the express contribution of the applicant's own admitted starting reference, JP 5994868 B2. Claim 1 as a whole would have been obvious.

4. Motivation to combine (the crux of the § 103 case)

A strong motivation exists on several independent MPEP 2143 grounds:

1. Same field, same problem, same architecture (MPEP 2143(A),(C)). Jtekt '013 and JP 5994868 B2 are both steer-by-wire steering systems whose controllers split the reaction/urging torque into components. The combination merely arranges known reaction-force components into Jtekt '013's known automatic-operation mode.

2. The reference is the applicant's own acknowledged starting point. The '433 specification states: "As disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 5994868, for instance, the urging device generates the urging force composed of some components… and changes a ratio of the components depending on situations." Art recognized in the specification as the baseline is a fortiori combinable — the applicant framed the invention as an improvement to it, which is precisely the "known device ready for improvement" rationale (MPEP 2143(D)) and KSR's "design incentive" rationale (MPEP 2143(F)).

3. The asserted problem and its solution are both known. Jtekt '013 already identifies the problem of "an unforeseen situation resulting from rotation of a steering member during automatic operation" and already solves it by limiting the reaction-force actuator's current/rotation speed during automatic operation. Substituting the Nissan reference's rack-axial-force-based reaction-force component as the component to suppress is a predictable variation of the same control architecture (MPEP 2143(G)) — a designer would suppress the component that (a) opposes the automatic-steering motion and (b) is known to persist (tire/wheel residual deformation).

4. Automatic parking as the concrete automatic-steering event is old and ubiquitous. Mori '3236 (automatic parking without driver wheel operation) and Hitachi '4936 (automatic steering mode with target-vs-actual steering-angle feedback) independently establish that applying SBW reaction-force control to automatic parking was a well-trodden design space, supplying the "design incentive" and confirming the predictability of the result.

5. No teaching away and no unexpected result. The references are all in the reaction-force/automatic-steering space and teach toward, not away from, coordinating the reaction-force actuator with automatic steering. Nothing in Jtekt '013 or JP 5994868 B2 teaches away from suppressing a rack-axial-force component during automatic operation.

5. Dependent claims

6. Secondary / alternative combinations

• **Jtekt '013 + Mori '3236: ** adds explicit automatic-parking target-steering-angle generation and current-based load determination, useful against claims 2 and 4.
• Jtekt '013 + Hitachi '4936: supplies the manual/automatic mode-switch and the target-vs-actual steering-angle control loop underlying claims 3 and 9.
• Jtekt '013 + JP 5994868 B2 + US 2020/0391789 A1 (Hyundai Mobis, steer-by-wire control method): useful background where an examiner wants an express steer-by-wire automatic-mode switching teaching; I have not verified the Mobis disclosure, so this should be confirmed before relying on it.

7. Where the obviousness case is weakest (patentee's rebuttal grounds)

An honest assessment must flag the limitations that are not cleanly met by the verified prior art. These are the points on which the patentee would likely prevail at the PTAB or in litigation:

1. Claims 7 and 8 — the cancellation architecture. "Keep generating" the counter-directional steering-load-dependent component and "add… a canceling component for canceling" it, then "immediately stop generating both" at the end, is a non-routine topological choice. A rebuttal would argue that the prior art's natural solution is to stop generating the component (as Jtekt '013's limiter does), and that the claimed solution goes the other way — deliberately maintaining and then nulling it. Absent a reference teaching cancellation, the examiner's case here rests on "finite number of predictable implementations" (MPEP 2143(E), "obvious to try"), which is weaker than a disclosure-based rejection.

2. Claims 5, 6 and 8 — the asymmetric rate-limiting. The '433's implementation is notably asymmetric: gradual on entry, immediate reset on exit (increasing-direction change-amount limiter 138 + resetter 140). I found no verified cited reference disclosing asymmetric ramping. This is the most fact-dependent part of the case and would need either an additional reference on rate-limited reaction-torque hand-back or a strong design-choice argument tied to the problem of residual steering-load-dependent torque at the end of a parking maneuver.

3. The specific recognition of the problem. The '433's stated insight is that the steering-load-dependent component is the counter-directional component that will persist (due to tire deformation) after automatic steering ends, and therefore is the one to suppress/reset. If the patentee can show the cited references use the rack-axial-force component for feel purposes without recognizing this hand-back artifact, an argument for nonobviousness of the problem recognition (not just the solution) becomes available — though under KSR, discovery of a problem is generally not enough to patent its known solution.

4. JP 5994868 B2 is asserted, not verified by me. I could not open the JP 5994868 B2 document. If its disclosure does not actually include a rack-axial-force/tire-lateral-force-based component beyond what the applicant admitted in the Background, the mapping of claim 1's final "wherein" clause would need to be re-grounded (the nearest verified support is the related Nissan material — US 2015/0353124 A1 / WO 2014/108989 A1 / US 9,604,670 B2 — which are not in the page's citation list and would have to be brought in as additional art, with an appropriate § 103 combination rationale and a check that they qualify as prior art).

8. Bottom line

• Claim 1: likely obvious over US 2017/0029013 A1 (Jtekt) in view of JP 5994868 B2 (Nissan), with the Mori '3236 / Hitachi '4936 references confirming the automatic-parking context. Jtekt '013 supplies every structural and functional element of the claim including the automatic-operation mode in which the reaction-force actuator moves the steering wheel to follow the automatic steering target and the reaction-force output is limited; JP 5994868 B2 supplies the rack-axial-force-based, road-surface-inclusive, counter-directional steering-load-dependent component as one of the situationally-varied reaction-force components. Motivation is strong because the reference is the applicant's own acknowledged baseline and both references address the same problem in the same architecture.
• Claim 3, 4 and 9: likely obvious on the same combination, with claim 9 closely paralleled by Jtekt '013's deviation-based (θh* − θh) PI loop.
• Claim 2: obvious/expressly disclosed.
• Claims 5, 6, 8 (asymmetric rate-limiting) and claim 7 (cancellation architecture): contestable. These should not be asserted as clean § 103 hits without either (a) additional art disclosing rate-limited or canceling-component reaction-torque hand-back, or (b) an explicit MPEP 2143(E) "finite number of predictable implementations" rationale coupled to the specific hand-back problem. I have flagged this rather than papering over it, because it is the part of the claim set that would most likely survive an obviousness challenge on the present record.