US 7457697

I'll run searches against the patent databases and docket sources.

Let me pull the claim set and check for any litigation or docket activity.

Let me retrieve the independent claim text.

US 7,457,697 B2 — Verified Summary

Important scope note on the search: The full patent document supplied for this patent (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7457697/en) is treated as authoritative. I searched for CAFC 2026 appellate activity on this specific number and found none. Every 2026 Federal Circuit hit I retrieved for "7457697" was unrelated (e.g., the number appearing only as a case-caption/citation artifact in Spero v. Volkswagen Group of America, 2025-1028, decided May 14, 2026, and in unrelated Brazilian corporate-registry and bankruptcy filings). I also found no district-court litigation asserting or challenging this patent. Do not read that as proof of absence — my CAFC/Docket coverage is web-search based and not exhaustive. What I did find is that Denso's active 2025–26 litigation (Qorvo, 5:25-cv-00176 E.D. Tex.; 5:25-cv-09240 N.D. Cal.) involves U.S. 7,758,979 and 9,735,342 — different patents, and the "769 patent" discussed in an S.D. Cal. Alice ruling is also a different patent (anti-rollover suspension). None of these are 7,457,697.

Bibliographic data

(Sources: Google Patents https://patents.google.com/patent/US7457697/en; Justia https://patents.justia.com/patent/20050143896; EPO PISE EP1547846A1.pdf; RPX Insight https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7457697B2.)

Abstract (as published)

A vehicle integration control system includes a manager controller and a driving system controller. The manager controller sets a target generation driving force guide value for a driving force outputted from a driving system of a vehicle. The driving system controller controls the driving force on the basis of the target generation driving force guide value. The manager controller includes a driver request value setter and a driving force corrector. The driver request value setter sets a driver request generation driving force value corresponding to the driving force outputted from the driving system, on the basis of a driver's input. The driving force corrector corrects the driver request generation driving force value on the basis of a predetermined program to restrain vibration generated in the vehicle when the driving force outputted from the driving system changes.

The invention in plain language

Background: JP-A-2002-36919 is cited as teaching a vehicle integration control system that stabilizes vehicle behavior by rapidly passing information between element controllers (engine output, braking force) under a supervisory "manager" controller. The problem this patent addresses is that the driving system can output an inappropriate amount of driving force, which increases vehicle vibration — driveline (drive-shaft torsion) vibration, sprung-mass/body vibration, and head movement of the occupant.

The solution: rather than letting a driver's pedal request drive the engine directly, a supervisory manager controller filters/reshapes the driver's requested driving force through vibration-damping correction logic, and only the corrected value becomes the guide value handed to the engine controller. Vibration is attacked at three layers, each combining a feed-forward term (from a model driven by front/rear wheel body forward-backward forces) with a feedback term (from a measured vehicle state):

1. Occupant (crewmember) damping — limits driver head-portion displacement (feedback from head displacement dh, itself derived from front/rear suspension stroke).
2. Body (sprung-mass) damping — limits body pitch (feedback from body pitch angle θ).
3. Driveshaft torsional damping — limits drive-shaft wind-up (feedback from driveshaft speed N3 vs. drive-wheel speeds Vwdl/Vwdr, giving a "torsional amount corresponding value").

All three correcting values are summed into the corrected driver request, which is then converted to an engine driving force command via the transmission speed-changing ratio. Claim-level correspondence to the reference numerals is set out at the end of the specification (e.g., ENGINE ECU 51 = driving system controller; section 117 = driver request value setter; sections 101/103/107/109/111/113 = driving force corrector; section 105 = vehicle state determiner; sensor 26 = steering angle detector; sensors 23RL/23RR = drive-wheel rotating speed detector; sensor 36 = drive-shaft rotating speed detector).

Independent claims (there are two: claim 1 and claim 21; total 21 claims)

Claim 1 — Vehicle integration control system (the core independent claim). A system comprising:

• a manager controller that sets a target generation driving force guide value (a guide value for the driving force outputted from a vehicle driving system); and
• a driving system controller that controls the driving force output from the driving system based on that guide value;
• wherein the manager controller includes:
  • a driver request value setter that sets a driver request generation driving force value corresponding to the driving force output, based on driving-force-request information input by the driver;
  • a driving force corrector that corrects the driver request value on the basis of a predetermined program to restrain vibration generated in the vehicle when the driving force changes based on that driver request value, and that sets the corrected value as the target generation driving force guide value;
  • a vehicle state determiner that determines: (i) a front-wheel vehicle-body forward-backward force (total reaction force in the vehicle-body fore-aft direction at the front tire contact patches), (ii) a rear-wheel vehicle-body forward-backward force (same for the rear), and (iii) at least one of a crewmember head-portion displacement amount (vertical movement of the driver's head position) and a vehicle-body pitch angle; and
  • the driving force corrector corrects the driver request value on the basis of those determined values and sets the corrected value as the target guide value.

Plain-language read: Two-tier control architecture — a supervisor computes a corrected driver-demanded driving force using a model-based vibration-suppression program informed by measured fore-aft forces at the front and rear tires plus at least one of head displacement or pitch angle; a lower-level controller then executes that corrected guide value. The claim is the broad "manager + corrector" genus; claims 2–20 add features (crewmember vibration damping, body vibration damping with foreknowledge/feedback sub-elements, driveshaft torsion damping with foreknowledge/feedback sub-elements, the various sensors/detectors, and the transmission-ratio-based conversion to a driving-source command).

Claim 21 — Program claim. "A program for making a computer function as the manager controller in the vehicle integration control system according to claim 1." This is the software/computer-program-product-adjacent independent claim; it derives its scope entirely from claim 1's manager controller.

(Note: claim 20, though written with "wherein," recites "said driving force corrector… according to claim 1" and is therefore dependent on claim 1, not independent.)

Uncertainties / caveats

• Assignee: Both "original assignee" and "current assignee" are listed as Denso Corp on Google Patents. I did not independently confirm the current recorded owner in USPTO Patent Center's assignment database.
• Family discrepancy: The EPO DOCDB simple-family listing for this priority shows a U.S. member rendered as "US 2005143886 A1," whereas the authoritative Google Patents/Justia record for this application is US 2005/0143896 A1. I am flagging this rather than silently normalizing it; I could not verify whether it is an EPO data-entry artifact or a genuinely distinct family member.
• "Program" claim subject-matter eligibility: Claim 21 is a bare program/computer-function claim of the type that post-Alice practice often treats skeptically. I found no court or PTAB decision addressing claims of this patent, so I have no authority to cite on that point.
• Valuation figures appearing on third-party sites (e.g., a ~$1,023,000 estimate on patentleaderboard.com) are third-party estimates, not authoritative data, and should not be relied on.
• The 2027-02-26 "adjusted expiration" date is Google Patents' calculation (fees/adjustments) and is an assumption, not a legal conclusion.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7457697.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

No litigation appears yet. Let me check a few more targeted sources.

Findings: No litigation identified for US Patent 7,457,697

I searched litigation-focused sources (Unified Patents litigation portal patterns, RPX/Insight litigation documents, Docket Alarm, PTAB/PTACTS records, CourtListener/RECAP, CAFC opinions, and general web searches) for the specific number 7,457,697 and for its title, "Vehicle integration control system and program" (Denso Corporation, inventors Sawada et al.).

Result: I found no patent infringement litigation, declaratory judgment action, ITC Section 337 investigation, or PTAB/Court of Appeals proceeding in which US 7,457,697 has been asserted or challenged. I am stating this as a "not found" rather than a definitive negative — litigation databases are not exhaustive in open web indexes, and I cannot rule out a complaint that is not surfaced by search (particularly sealed or very recent filings).

What the searches did and did not return

• The number 7,457,697 appears only in patent-data contexts, never in a docket/caption. Repeatedly, "7457697" matched:
  • A patent listing in a vehicle-technology patent index (bioportfolio PDF) — "7457697- Vehicle integration control system and program."
  • A Patent Leaderboard Denso inventor page listing the patent as one of Mamoru Mabuchi's patents (issued 2008-11-25).
  • Unrelated Brazilian commercial-registry filings where "7457697" is a company registration number (PERETTI E PERETTI COMERCIO DE CEREAIS LTDA) — a false positive, not the patent.
• Denso-related patent litigation that exists is on other patents, and I deliberately did not attribute it to '697. Examples surfaced (none assert '697):
  • MEMTech LLC v. Denso Corp. — U.S. Patent 5,677,560 (micromechanical components/accelerometers); E.D. Tex., related to Case No. 6:11-cv-00025.
  • Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. Nissan / Denso — U.S. Patent 7,324,833 (Denso as alleged contributory infringer to Nissan), E.D. Tex. Beaumont.
  • Viewpoint IP LLC v. DENSO International America, Inc. — U.S. Patent 6,869,853, D. Del.
  • Broadcom Corp. v. Toyota, Panasonic, DENSO TEN, DENSO Corp., Renesas, et al. — ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1119 (patents 6,937,187; 8,902,104; 7,512,752; 7,530,027; 8,284,844; 7,437,583). Final ID of no violation; none of these is '697.
  • Foras Technologies Ltd. v. Toyota / Denso and HyperCore Systems LLC v. Denso Ten — again different patents ('958, '329, '280, '781, '302).
  • The Denso antitrust/price-fixing class actions (electronic control units, fuel injection systems) are antitrust, not patent, matters and do not involve '697.

Contextual notes (verifiable from the patent record)

• US 7,457,697 B2 issued 2008-11-25 to Denso Corporation, from Application No. 11/020,003 (filed 2004-12-21; priority 2003-12-24).
• Current legal status per Google Patents: Expired – Fee Related, with an adjusted expiration date of 2027-02-26. Its lapsed/fee-status posture makes it an unlikely assertion candidate, consistent with the absence of litigation found.

Recommended verification steps if you need a definitive negative

1. RPX Insight / Docket Alarm / Lex Machina / UniCourt party-and-patent search on patent number 7,457,697 (I could not access the full portal caselist pages directly).
2. PACER search across districts for "7,457,697" as a patent-in-suit; and USPTO PTAB (PTACTS) for IPR/PGR/reexam filings against the number.
3. ITC EDIS search for Section 337 complaints citing the patent.
4. CourtListener/RECAP full-text docket search for "7,457,697."

If any of those sources return a case, share the docket and I can summarize plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, and outcome. Based on the sources I could reach, there is no known litigation involving US 7,457,697.

I'll start by verifying the proceedings record through web search, since the ODP block reports no AIA trials.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to confirm the absence of proceedings and check for related litigation or appeals.

Let me do a final confirmation pass on litigation and any IPR-specific databases.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,457,697: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal) reports no AIA trials for this patent, and my web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, FWD, or PTAB appeal naming the '697 patent — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. For a defendant, that cuts both ways: this patent has never been stress-tested at the PTAB. There is no canceled claim to hand you a free non-infringement/validity argument, but equally no adverse FWD or Federal Circuit affirmance that would make validity a foregone conclusion — the printed claims, as issued in 2008, are exactly what you'd face.

One important threshold point: because the '697 patent's application was filed 2004-12-21 (pre-AIA), it is not eligible for Post-Grant Review (PGR only reaches patents with effective filing dates on or after 2013-03-16, i.e., first-inventor-to-file patents). Covered Business Method review is also practically unavailable — the subject matter is a vehicle driving-force/vibration-damping control system, which reads as a "technological invention" outside CBM eligibility, and the CBM program sunset for new petitions on 2020-09-16. IPR is the only realistic AIA vehicle.

No proceeding to report

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} to populate. Per the task constraints, I will not invent one. I checked:

• The USPTO ODP structured block in the prompt → no AIA trial proceedings.
• Web searches for "7457697" combined with IPR / inter partes review / post-grant review → no hits tying this number to any PTAB filing.
• Web searches for Denso PTAB and litigation activity → results concerned unrelated Denso patents and matters (e.g., ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1119 involving U.S. Patent Nos. 6,937,187, 8,902,104, 7,512,752, 7,530,027, 8,284,844, 7,437,583; the Automotive Parts antitrust MDL; Denso fuel-pump product-liability litigation). None of these involve U.S. 7,457,697, and none is a PTAB proceeding.

Status of the patent itself (from the record)

Note the "Expired - Fee Related" designation with a 2027-02-26 adjusted expiration — consistent with a terminal disclaimer / failure to pay maintenance fees truncating the statutory term. This matters enormously for your defensive posture (see below).

Strategic summary

Claim status: no claims canceled, none sustained, none litigated at the PTAB — the entire claim set is UNTESTED. Because no IPR was ever filed, there is no FWD canceling any independent or dependent claim, and no set of "surviving" claims to enumerate. The patent stands as issued. Separately — and this is the single most important fact for a defendant — the ODP record lists the patent as "Expired - Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of 2027-02-26. If that status is accurate, the enforceability window is either closed or severely shortened, and damages exposure (if any) is bounded to the pre-expiration accrual period. Verify the fee/expiration status directly in USPTO Patent Center / E2E before investing in any validity work — an expired patent can still support past damages for the period it was in force, but the calculus changes completely.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue here — there has been no petitioner, so there is no petitioner or privy barred from raising grounds. That means every prior-art ground is still on the table for a defendant considering an IPR, and there is no FWD reasoning you must design around. The corollary risk: no one has mapped the art for you, so you'd be building the invalidity case from scratch. The classification record (B60W10/00, B60W10/04, B60W10/10, B60W10/18, B60W10/20, B60W30/188, B60W30/20, B60W50/00) and the file's own prior-art anchor — JP-A-2002-36919, cited on the face as the vehicle-integration-control prior art — are the natural starting points.

Pattern signals: none to read. No petitioner has filed even once (let alone repeatedly) against this patent; the patent owner (Denso) has had no occasion to defend at the PTAB or appeal an FWD to the Federal Circuit; and there is no Unified Patents or other defensive aggregator in the chain. The absence of PTAB activity is itself informative: it suggests the '697 patent has not been a significant assertion target — well-asserted patents with meaningful royalty exposure almost invariably attract at least one IPR.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not rely on this analysis for a claim-level disposition — there isn't one. If you are a defendant and received a demand letter citing U.S. 7,457,697, there is no PTAB FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote. I did not find an FWD, institution decision, or settlement, and I will not fabricate a citation.
2. Immediately confirm the expiration/fee status in USPTO Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov) and Patent E2E. The record says "Expired - Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2027-02-26. If a maintenance fee was missed, determine (a) the expiration date and (b) whether a petition to accept an unintentionally delayed payment was ever filed and whether intervening rights under 35 U.S.C. § 252 apply. This is the highest-value lead in the whole file and is cheaper than any invalidity search.
3. If the patent is still in force, the IPR path is fully open — no § 315(b) bar unless/until you've been served with a complaint more than one year ago, no § 315(e) estoppel from a prior petitioner, and every ground (§ 102/§ 103) remains available. Pre-AIA § 282 burden framework applies, and the Board would apply the Phillips construction standard.
4. Watch for late-filed petitions. AIPR petitions do get filed against older Denso patents (see the ITC matter above), so re-check PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and ODP periodically; this analysis reflects the state of the record as of 2026-09-30 with no proceedings on file.

Caveat on completeness: My conclusions rest on the ODP structured block plus web searches. Those searches returned no proceeding for this patent number, but web search is not a substitute for a full PTAB E2E / Docket Navigator query, and pre-2012 filings are sometimes sparsely indexed. If a filing exists that neither the ODP nor public indexing surfaced, I could not have found it — flag it and I'll re-run. I found nothing, and I have not invented a proceeding number to fill the gap.

I'll search for the assignment record for this patent.

Let me query the USPTO assignment systems and related sources directly.

Let me try to surface the specific recorded assignment (reel/frame) for the original inventor-to-Denso conveyance.

I hit the search-step ceiling before I could surface the reel/frame numbers, so I'll report only what is grounded, and flag the gaps explicitly rather than fill them in.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,457,697 B2

Verification sources used: Google Patents legal-events register (in the authoritative full text supplied: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7457697/en), USPTO Patent Assignment Search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/; mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html), EPO DOCDB/PISE family record, Justia patent record, RPX Insight, Patent Leaderboard.

⚠️ Coverage caveat up front: The Assignment Center and legacy-assignment full record pages are JavaScript-rendered and not fully crawlable by my search tooling. The Google Patents legal-events register does evidence a single recorded assignment (quoted verbatim below), but I could not retrieve the reel/frame number, the execution date, the recording date, or the correspondent of record for it. I am not going to invent those fields. Every place a reel/frame would normally appear, I have marked it [not retrieved].

Inventors

All six named inventors appear on the face of the patent as the inventive entity, and the recorded assignment (see below) conveys from exactly those six to DENSO CORPORATION:

Basis for "Denso employer": the assignment abstract of title recorded 2004-12-21 lists all six as assignors to DENSO CORPORATION with the notation "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)." This is the standard US recording pattern for an employee invention-assignment obligation in a Japanese corporate patent program, and the assignee address of record is Denso's Kariya, Aichi headquarters (1-1, Showa-cho, Kariya-city, Aichi-pref. 448-8661). I have not independently confirmed each inventor's employment contract.

Unusual-pattern check — inventor departures:

• All six filing as assignors to the employer is normal, not a red flag.
• Whether any inventor departed Denso within 12 months of filing: UNKNOWN. I found no evidence either way and will not infer it. There is no portfolio fire-sale signal (see below), so this line of inquiry has no payoff here.
• Mamoru Mabuchi's name recurs across a large Denso portfolio (21 patents), which is a career-employee signal — the opposite of the "inventors scatter right after filing" pattern.

Original assignee

DENSO CORPORATION (Denso Corp) — named on the issued patent, and per Google Patents both the original and the current assignee.

• Primary line of business: Tier-1 global automotive supplier — engine management/powertrain ECUs, body electronics, thermal systems, semiconductors, ADAS. The invention itself (an engine/vehicle integration ECU that reshapes driver-demanded driving force to damp driveline, body, and occupant vibration) sits squarely in Denso's core ECU product line.
• Does the assignee ship products embodying the claims? Yes — this is a control-architecture disclosure implemented in Denso's engine and vehicle control ECUs. This is a commercial product patent, not a paper patent.
• Current status: Operating. Denso is a publicly listed Japanese corporation (TSE: 6902), active and litigious in other patent matters (see the earlier litigation section — Qorvo, Broadcom/ITC 337-TA-1119, etc.). Not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.
• Product-embodiment caveat: I have not located a Denso product datasheet that expressly claims the three-layer damping scheme, so "ships products embodying the claims" is an inference from the patent's subject matter and Denso's product profile, not from a documented mapping.

Assignment timeline

There is exactly one recorded assignment in the chain, and it is the original inventor→employer conveyance. No post-issuance assignment exists in the record I could reach. That itself is the finding: the original assignee still owns the patent.

• Executed [not retrieved, likely on or before filing] / recorded circa 2004-12-21 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]
  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventors' interest → employer). Google Patents registers this as "ASSIGNED TO DENSO CORPORATION — reassignment… ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)."
  • Assignor: SAWADA, MAMORU; MATSUMOTO, TOSHIKI; TASHIRO, TSUTOMU; MABUCHI, MAMORU; FUJII, TAKEHITO; KATAOKA, MOTOAKI (order per the USPTO assignment abstract as reflected in the Google Patents event log)
  • Assignee: DENSO CORPORATION, 1-1, Showa-cho, Kariya-city, Aichi-pref. 448-8661, Japan
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — the recording attorney/firm is not exposed by the sources I could reach. This is the field I most wanted and could not get.
  • Context: Original employee-inventor assignment incident to filing (a pre-AIA corporate portolio filing, priority JP 2003-428160). Nothing unusual.

Every later Google Patents legal event is a non-assignment event: 2005-06-30 publication of US 2005/0143896 A1; 2008-11-25 grant/issue; and the status entry "Expired – Fee Related" with a listed adjusted expiration 2027-02-26. No change-of-name, no merger, no security agreement, no license, no release, no reissue-assignment, and — critically — no transfer to any third party.

Standing statement of the negative finding: Following the instruction to say so plainly — the Assignment Center record for US 7,457,697 appears to contain only the original conveyance; there are no subsequent recorded assignments. This means DENSO CORPORATION remains the owner of record across the entire life of the patent, and no NPE ever appears in the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7457697
    2003 : JP priority application filed by Denso
    2004 : US application 11 020 003 filed by Denso
         : Inventors assign all rights to DENSO CORP
    2005 : Pre-grant publication 20050143896 A1
    2008 : Patent B2 issued to DENSO CORPORATION
    2027 : Adjusted expiration listed

(Note: the 2004 "inventors assign to DENSO CORP" event reflects the Google Patents legal-events register entry dated 2004-12-21; reel/frame not retrievable.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggravating context you should weigh (not itself an NPE signal, but relevant to enforceability): the Google Patents status register shows "Expired – Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of 2027-02-26 — i.e., Denso allowed maintenance fees to lapse and the patent is dead/lapsing in the register's own characterization. A fee-lapsed patent that was never reasserted is the strongest possible negative on any monetization hypothesis. (This is a register characterization/assumption, not a legal conclusion.)

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

The chain consists of a single recorded conveyance — the six inventors to DENSO CORPORATION, evidenced by the Google Patents legal-events entry dated 2004-12-21 ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST") — with no post-issuance assignment of any kind, so Denso remains the owner of record throughout. Because the chain terminates at an operating Tier-1 supplier and never touches a licensing entity, none of the eight NPE signals is present (signal #3 is simply unassessable because the reel/frame and correspondent could not be retrieved). The "Insufficient data" bucket is chosen strictly because the rubric reserves it for the single-original-assignment case — the affirmative finding, however, is non-NPE: an operating-company-owned, fee-lapsed patent that was never transferred and never asserted.

Verify / close the gap here:

• USPTO Assignment Search by patent number 7,457,697 → https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (and legacy mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Pull the reel/frame, execution date, recording date, and CORRESPONDENT for the 2004 conveyance — that is the one field that would let me complete signal #3.
• USPTO Patent Center / ODP for the maintenance-fee history confirming the lapsed status → https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/.
• To rule out any unrecorded transfer, RPX Insight / Docket Alarm ownership tab for US 7,457,697.

I'll pull the citation records for US 7,457,697 from multiple patent-data sources.

The general searches aren't surfacing the citation table. Let me target the "References Cited" section specifically.

Let me try to surface the patent's front-page reference list directly.

Verification note before the analysis (read this first)

I have to be straight with you about a limitation, because the alternative is fabricating a citation list.

What I could not retrieve. The "References Cited" table that appears on the front page of US 7,457,697 B2 (the examiner/applicant-cited U.S. patent documents and foreign patent documents) is not contained in the authoritative full text supplied for this analysis — that text begins at the Classification section and never includes the front-page citation block. My attempts to pull the citation table itself from the open web (Google Patents' "Patent Citations" panel, the patentimages front-page PDF, Justia's reference list) returned the specification text and unrelated documents, not the citation table for this patent number. My web-search tool hit its step limit before I could iterate further.

Therefore: I cannot hand you a complete, verified, itemized list of every patent citation on US 7,457,697's face. I can give you (a) the citations I did verify from the family's own prosecution record, and (b) a rigorous § 102 analysis of those. I will flag clearly where I am reasoning from an adjacent record rather than from the U.S. front page.

1. Prior art verified from the family prosecution record

The U.S. application (11/020,003) shares its specification with EP 1547846 A1 / B1 (a DOCDB simple-family member of the same December 24, 2003 priority). The EPO search report on EP 1547846 A1 cites two patent documents:

(Source for D1/D2: EPO PISE record for EP 1547846 A1 — http://data.epo.org/pise-server/rest/collections/lgpi/EP1547846A1.pdf. Source for D3: the "Definitions"/Background section of the '697 specification itself.)

Critical caveat on using D1/D2 for § 102

These are EPO search-report citations attached to the EP sibling, not the U.S. examiner's citations on the U.S. front page. The EP and US offices frequently cite different sets of art, and the "[XY]" tags are EPO categories for Art. 54/56 EPC, which are not identical to § 102/§ 103. I am presenting them because they are the only verified citation record I could reach for this invention — not because they are necessarily what the U.S. examiner cited.

2. Reference-by-reference analysis

D1 — FR 2598765 A1 (Fichtel & Sachs AG), published 1987‑11‑20

• Full citation: FR 2598765 A1, Fichtel & Sachs AG, published 20 November 1987.
• Brief description: Fichtel & Sachs was a clutch/damper supplier; the disclosure concerns damping of drive-train vibrations in a motor vehicle. I do not have the document text in front of me and will not reconstruct its disclosure from memory — flagging that explicitly rather than inventing a technical summary.
• § 102 analysis: Because the EPO tagged it [X] (not merely "A" or "Y"), it was treated as alone defeating novelty or inventive step of some claims in the EP counterpart. That makes it the single strongest § 102 candidate for this family. Its 1987 publication date comfortably precedes the December 24, 2003 priority, so it is available as pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b) art.
• Claims it potentially anticipates: On the EPO's own categorization, D1 would be aimed at the broadest claims — i.e., the manager-controller-plus-correction architecture of claim 1 and, derivatively, claim 21 (program claim, which takes its scope entirely from claim 1). It would not plausibly reach the highly specific dependent claims (crewmember head-displacement damping with foreknowledge + feedback, body-pitch damping, drive-shaft torsion damping via N3 vs. Vwdl/Vwdr), which are the true points of novelty and which I have no basis for mapping to D1.

D2 — DE 4133060 A1 (Mannesmann AG), published 1993‑04‑08

• Full citation: DE 4133060 A1, Mannesmann AG, published 8 April 1993.
• Brief description: Mannesmann automotive/control-related disclosure. As with D1, I do not have the text and will not fabricate a content summary.
• § 102 analysis: Cited only as [Y], meaning the EPO considered it relevant in combination with D1 for inventive step. A reference cited as "Y" is by definition not anticipatory under § 102 — it supports an obviousness rejection under § 103 when combined. Its 1993 date makes it available art under pre-AIA § 102(b).
• Claims it potentially anticipates: None, standing alone. If you were building a § 102 case on the family record, D2 has no role; it belongs in a § 103 combination with D1.

D3 — JP‑A‑2002‑36919 (applicant-admitted background art)

• Full citation: Japanese unexamined patent application publication JP‑A‑2002‑36919, published 2002, cited in the "Background" of US 7,457,697.
• Brief description (from the '697 specification's own words): discloses "a vehicle integration control system for stabilizing vehicle behavior … achieved by rapidly sending and receiving important information between a plurality of constructional element controllers," with a manager controller generally controlling operations of a plurality of constructional-element controllers (engine output, braking force).
• § 102 analysis: Under pre-AIA § 102(b) this qualifies (published more than one year before the 2003‑12‑24 priority; and the applicant's own citation is an admission that it is prior art). However, it discloses only the two-tier manager/element-controller architecture — it does not disclose the correcting step that defines the invention (correcting the driver-request value to restrain vehicle vibration and using the corrected value as the guide value).
• Claims it potentially anticipates: Potentially the preamble-level architecture of claim 1 only (manager controller + driving-system controller). It cannot anticipate claim 1 as a whole because claim 1 requires the driving-force corrector and the vehicle-state determiner (front-wheel/rear-wheel body fore-aft forces plus head displacement or pitch angle). It anticipates no claim in full. It is best used as the § 103 starting point for a "modify the known manager architecture" obviousness theory.

3. What this means for "most relevant prior art"

1. Most relevant verified reference: FR 2598765 A1 — the only reference in the family's verified record that the EPO regarded as independently dispositive ("X"). If you need one reference to attack claim 1, that is the one the family record points to.
2. Best § 103 combination: FR 2598765 A1 + DE 4133060 A1 (the EPO's own X+Y pairing).
3. Best § 103 starting point tied to the claimed architecture: JP‑A‑2002‑36919, since it is the applicant's own admitted background and supplies the manager-controller genus the '697 claims build on.
4. No verified reference reaches the dependent-claim heart of the patent (the three-layer foreknowledge+feedback damping: FCdff/FCdfb, FCbff/FCbfb, Fwrcff/Fwrcfb). Those are where the '697 is genuinely differentiated, and I found no anticipatory art mapped to them.

4. How to obtain the definitive U.S. citation list (recommended next step)

To complete what you actually asked for — every patent citation on the U.S. face of 7,457,697:

1. USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) → search 7457697 → open the "References Cited" / front-page tab. This is the authoritative U.S. list.
2. USPTO Patent Center → Application 11/020,003 → "Documents & Transactions" → the "Notice of References Cited" / PTO‑892 forms give the examiner's itemized citations and where each was applied.
3. Google Patents https://patents.google.com/patent/US7457697B2/en → the "Patent Citations (n)" and "Cited By (n)" panels render the full table in the collapsed/sidebar view (search-engine indexing did not expose it to my queries, but the page itself does).
4. Global Dossier for the family (EP 1547846) to cross-check the EPO's itemized citations against the U.S. list.

If you can paste the front-page "References Cited" list (or the PTO‑892 contents), I will map each reference — U.S. and foreign — to the specific claims of 7,457,697 under pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e), and separate the anticipatory ("X"-type) references from the combination-only ones.

5. Caveats carried forward

• I did not auto-correct any identifier. All numbers above are reproduced literally as retrieved. Consistent with the earlier sections, I again note the family discrepancy: EPO DOCDB renders the U.S. member as "US 2005143886 A1," while the authoritative U.S. record is US 2005/0143896 A1 — flagged, not normalized.
• D1 and D2 descriptions are deliberately thin. I did not retrieve their text, and per the operating rule I will not fabricate a technical summary of a reference I have not read. If you need substantive claim-mapping to D1/D2, I need the documents.
• No litigation was found on '697 in the earlier section; its "Expired – Fee Related" status makes third-party validity challenges unlikely, so there is no PTAB/IPR record supplying an alternative art list.
• The "[XY]"/"[Y]" tags are EPO Art. 54/56 EPC categories, not U.S. statutory categories; I have translated them to § 102/§ 103 only as an analytical convenience, and the distinction matters if you rely on this for anything formal.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art record for the patent. Let me pull the cited references and related art.

Let me try to retrieve the examiner-cited reference lists directly.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,457,697 B2 ("Vehicle integration control system and program")

Bottom line: The '697 claims recite a two-tier control architecture (supervisory "manager" + element controller) plus function-level vibration-damping of the driver's torque request using fore-aft tire forces and at least one of head displacement / body pitch. Both halves of that combination were squarely in the art by the 2003‑12‑24 priority date. The architecture half is admitted prior art from the applicant's own specification (JP‑A‑2002‑36919). The damping half is the well‑worn subject matter of "reducing vibrations in the driveline" (B60W 30/20) and sprung‑mass ride control. A strong § 103 case exists via a small number of references; claim 21 falls with claim 1.

⚠️ Two caveats before I start — please read them.

1. Record limitation. The Google Patents rendering supplied to me for this task does not include the machine-readable "References Cited / Cited By" block, and my searches did not recover the face-of-patent citation list. I therefore build the case on (a) the reference the applicant itself cites and discusses — JP‑A‑2002‑36919; (b) the prior-art keywords the page does expose (value, driving force, vehicle, vibration damping, vehicle body); and (c) one Denso reference I did confirm is linked to this number — US 2004/0083043 A1 (Akiyama), "Integrated vehicle control system." Where I name secondary references as field exemplars rather than as verified-of-record citations, I say so. Do not represent any of the flagged references as having been before the examiner without pulling the file wrapper.
2. Date discrepancy (flagged, not corrected). My system date is 2026‑09‑30; this task header says 2026‑04‑26. It does not affect the analysis, but I am not silently reconciling it.

1. Governing law and burden

The application was filed 2004‑12‑21 with priority to 2003‑12‑24 — pre‑AIA. Pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs, and § 103(c) remains live (common ownership is a real defense here; see § 7.3). The framework is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) — scope/content of the claims; differences over the prior art; level of ordinary skill; secondary considerations — as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). The test is not what the references individually teach, but what the combined teachings would have suggested to a POSITA (In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981)), with a reasonable expectation of success (In re O'Farrell, 853 F.2d 894 (Fed. Cir. 1988)). Motivating rationales are catalogued at MPEP § 2143(A)–(G).

2. Level of ordinary skill (POSITA)

A POSITA at 2003‑12 would have had a B.S. in mechanical, electrical, or controls engineering (or equivalent) plus roughly 2–5 years in automotive powertrain/chassis electronic control, and would be conversant with: torque-based engine control and drive-by-wire electronic throttle maps; longitudinal vehicle dynamics and tire-force estimation; suspension/ride models; seat-to-head transmissibility and whole-body vibration (ISO 2631‑1, 1997); and in-vehicle network architectures (CAN) with "coordinator"/"manager" ECUs. The '697 specification's own reference numerals (ENGINE ECU 51, ATECU 53, BRAKE ECU 55, STEERING ECU 57, VEHICLE GENERALIZING ECU 61 with a VEHICLE CONTROL COORDINATOR 71) reflect that this skill set was conventional. This is a predictable art — a point that materially weakens any "unexpected results" argument.

3. What claim 1 actually requires

Key scope observation: because of (i) the purely functional "predetermined program" recitation, (ii) the "at least one of" alternative in 1.5, and (iii) the fact that the patent derives both head displacement and pitch angle from the same front/rear suspension strokes (spec formulas (2) and (3), both functions of hsf, hsr), a single reference that computes body pitch from front/rear suspension stroke and filters a driver torque demand accordingly would meet 1.1–1.6. That is a narrow gap to close.

4. The reference set

4.1 Primary — JP‑A‑2002‑36919 (of record; cited and discussed in the specification)

The applicant's own characterization: it "discloses a vehicle integration control system for stabilizing vehicle behavior," achieved "by rapidly sending and receiving important information between a plurality of constructional element controllers," the controllers "for processing control subjects such as engine output and braking force," with "a manager controller… for generally controlling the operations of the plurality of constructional element controllers."

• Teaches: the two-tier manager + element controller architecture (1.1, 1.2); a manager that receives driver-demand information and issues operation guides to the engine/brake controllers (1.3); a coordination point at which a driving-force guide value is set (1.4 architecture).
• Does not teach (on the applicant's own account): vibration-damping correction of the driver request using fore-aft tire forces + head displacement / pitch angle.

This is the single most important admission in the file. Half of claim 1 is conceded prior art by the specification.

4.2 US 2004/0083043 A1 → US 6,810,314 B2 (Akiyama; Denso) — § 102(e) art

"Integrated vehicle control system," filed 2002‑10‑18 (before the '697 priority date), published 2004‑04‑29, granted 2004‑10‑26. It surfaces in the citation graph for this number. As a U.S. application publication/patent, it qualifies as § 102(e) prior art as of its 2002‑10‑18 filing date. It is useful for the integrated-control / coordinated-driver-request-as-guide-value architecture.
⚠️ Material limitation: it is commonly owned by Denso with the '697 patent, which triggers pre‑AIA § 103(c) — commonly owned § 102(e)/(f)/(g) art is disqualified for use in an obviousness combination. See § 7.3. Verify the chain of title before relying on it.

4.3 Secondary art for each damping layer — field exemplars, flagged for verification

These are the technical categories that supply the correcting-value limitations. The '697 specification itself frames each as a discrete, known problem domain:

I could not verify specific document numbers for the driveline-torsion, sprung-mass, and occupant-vibration categories from the '697 face-of-patent citation list within my search budget. Treat those categories as technically grounded but citation-pending.

5. The combinations

Combination A (lead): JP‑A‑2002‑36919 + a driveline-torsion damping reference

Chart: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and the architecture of 1.4 from JP‑A‑2002‑36919; the substance of 1.4 from the torsion-damping reference (model-based feed-forward correction of demanded torque + driveshaft-twist feedback).
Motivations (MPEP 2143):

• (A) Known methods for the intended purpose. Both references control the same physical quantity (driveline torque) to improve vehicle behavior. Damping the demanded torque is a known technique for the known problem of driveline excitation.
• (D) Known technique applied to a known device ready for improvement. JP‑A‑2002‑36919's manager is expressly a coordination layer that sets operation guides for element controllers — i.e., a device ready for improvement. Inserting a torque-shaping correction at that layer is the natural, predictable use of the disclosed architecture.
• (C)/(F) Design incentive. NVH/"driveability" is a standing automotive design objective; the market forces and design incentives rationale applies directly.
• Reasonable expectation of success. Model-based torque shaping is deterministic in a predictable art, and the '697 confirms this by implementing it with a single constant-gain block (Kptfb) plus a recurrence formula.
• Same field of endeavor. In re Keller — the combined teachings, not individual references, control.

Combination B: Combination A + a sprung-mass/pitch damping reference

Adds 1.5(c)-pitch and the corresponding half of 1.6. Motivation: the same torque-shaping lever that excites/reduces driveline torsion also excites/reduces sprung-mass pitch; a POSITA would recognize the two as coupled through the same input and would seek to damp both. Predictable result.

Combination C: Combination A + an occupant-vibration (ISO 2631‑1 / seat-to-head) reference

Adds 1.5(c)-head and the remaining half of 1.6. Motivation: whole-body vibration standards and occupant comfort were an express automotive objective; deriving head motion from front/rear suspension strokes is routine geometry (the spec's own formula is a two-point interpolation). Predictable result.

Combination D (full claim 1): A + B + C

Because claim 1 uses "at least one of" head displacement or pitch angle, Combination B alone satisfies 1.5/1.6. Combination D is belt-and-suspenders, and it maps the specification's three-layer scheme (crewmember + body + driveshaft) — the applicant's own Figures 4/5 architecture.

On the "synergy" counterargument: the applicant will argue that summing three correcting values at the manager layer produces an unexpected whole. Under In re Urbanski, 809 F.3d 1237 (Fed. Cir. 2016), a new or additional advantage is not patentable; the combination must produce an unexpected result, not merely aggregate known benefits. Aggregation is exactly what the patent discloses: FCm = FCd + FCb (formula 1), and Fwg = Fwrc + FCm (formula 10). Simple summation of independently-motivated corrections is a classic obviousness fact pattern.

6. Dependent claims 2–20

7. Where the obviousness case is weakest — and why it still holds

7.1 Placement of the correction in the manager rather than the engine controller. This is the patent's structural hook. Rebuttal: placement of a computation is a design choice with predictable results (MPEP 2143(B)); and JP‑A‑2002‑36919's manager already sets operation guides for element controllers, so the manager is the disclosed coordination node.

7.2 Feed-forward + feedback rather than feedback alone. A secondary reference disclosing only feedback damping would leave a gap. Rebuttal: (i) the claim does not require both terms — claims 2–20's FF+FB split is the dependent-claim feature, not a claim 1 requirement; (ii) the spec's own alternative of a pre-computed ROM map shows the applicant regarded the architecture as an implementation convenience.

7.3 § 103(c) common ownership — the strongest defense point. If the examiner used US 6,810,314 / US 2004/0083043 A1 (Akiyama) or any other commonly-owned Denso § 102(e) art in a § 103 combination, the patent owner can disqualify it under pre‑AIA § 103(c) (see MPEP 2144.03). A defendant drafting an IPR must therefore prefer non-Denso, non-commonly-owned art for every secondary reference. JP‑A‑2002‑36919 is a third-party (non-Denso) reference, which makes it the ideal primary.

7.4 Anticipation vs. obviousness. I see no single reference that anticipates claim 1 as a whole — the manager-layer + force/pitch-based damping + guide-value-substitution combination is a genuine multi-reference assembly. The case is a § 103 case, not a § 102 case.

7.5 Secondary considerations. No evidence of nexus-proven commercial success, licensing, copying, or industry praise exists in the record I reviewed. Note the earlier sections of this analysis found no litigation and no PTAB proceeding on this patent — there is no IPR FWD, no claim construction, and no cancellation of any claim to build on. The claims stand exactly as issued in 2008.

8. Claim 21 (program claim)

Claim 21 recites "[a] program for making a computer function as the manager controller in the vehicle integration control system according to claim 1." Its patentability rises and falls entirely with claim 1 — it adds no structural or functional limitation of its own. If claim 1 is obvious over Combination B or D, claim 21 is obvious for the same reasons, and the additional step of expressing the manager's logic as a stored program readable from "a flexible disk, an optical magnetic disk, a CD‑ROM, a hard disk, a ROM, a RAM" was, by 2003, routine. Note separately (not a § 103 point) that a bare program-function claim carries § 101 exposure: the previously-generated sections correctly flag that no court or PTAB decision addresses claims of this patent, so there is no authority to cite either way.

9. Verification checklist before filing anything

1. Pull the actual "References Cited" and "Cited By" blocks from the '697 file wrapper (USPTO Patent Center / Global Dossier) — that is where the real § 103 references live, and my searches did not recover them.
2. Confirm US 6,810,314 / US 2004/0083043 A1's assignment chain and common-ownership status at the time the '697 invention was made (§ 103(c) disqualification risk).
3. Identify non-Denso driveline-torsion, sprung-mass/pitch, and occupant-vibration references predating 2003‑12‑24, and confirm each is prior art under § 102(a)/(b) — not § 102(e) — to avoid § 103(c) entirely.
4. Verify JP‑A‑2002‑36919's actual disclosure (machine translation) rather than relying on the applicant's characterization — the applicant's own description is an admission, but the reference may disclose more than admitted.
5. Check the EP 1547846 A1 / EP 1686001 A1 prosecution histories — EPO search reports often cite art that a US continuation or the JP counterpart record also identifies, and they are retrievable from Espacenet/register.
6. Confirm the maintenance-fee/expiration status before funding any validity work at all (the record shows "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2027‑02‑26). An expired patent still supports past damages for the period it was in force, but the cost/benefit of an invalidity campaign changes entirely.

Confidence statement. I am confident in the legal framework, the claim-scope reading, and the technical characterization of the field. I am not asserting specific disclosures of specific secondary references I could not retrieve, and I have flagged every such point rather than fabricating a passage citation.