US 9964434

I'll search for this specific patent number and related litigation information.

Let me search for more specific information on this patent and any litigation involving it.

No CAFC 2026 docket surfaced for this patent. Let me do final targeted checks on litigation and assignment records.

US Patent 9,964,434 B2 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note: The authoritative full text of this patent was supplied in the prompt (fetched from Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9964434](/patent/US9964434)/en). Web searches corroborated the bibliographic data (Google Patents legal-events feed, FreePatentsOnline, PatentLeaderboard, and the Chinese/Vietnamese family members). I searched for a CAFC 2026 docket tied to this patent number and found none — see the "Litigation" section below for details and cautions.

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1. Bibliographic data

Note: "NUC" here is the National University Corporation designation for Tokyo Institute of Technology, per the Google Patents assignee listing.

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2. Abstract

An electret type vibration detection system has a vibration-powered generator that performs vibration-induced power generation by displacing, on a basis of external vibration, an electret group formed of a plurality of electrets and an electrode group having a plurality of electrode pairs in a relative movement direction, to output a vibration-induced voltage between electrodes of the electrode pair; and a transfer function memory section that stores transfer function information that defines a correlation between a vibration velocity of the external vibration and an output power voltage of the vibration-powered generator in a range of a predetermined frequency included in the external vibration, wherein the transfer function information contains a transfer coefficient set according to each of a plurality of frequencies belonging to the predetermined frequency range to place the vibration velocity of the external vibration and the output power voltage of the vibration-powered generator in a predetermined proportional relationship.

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3. Technical overview (plain language)

The patent addresses a practical problem: sensing vibration of a large structure (the working example is a bridge 50) normally requires a bulky laser displacement sensor and a dedicated power supply. The inventors instead use an electret-based vibration-powered generator — a device that harvests electricity when a charged electret plate slides relative to an electrode pair. They discovered that, at any given input frequency, the generator's output voltage is proportional to the vibration velocity of the external vibration. So if you characterize that proportionality (a "transfer coefficient") across a frequency range, you can run the process backwards: measure the output voltage, take a Fourier transform, divide by the transfer coefficient, and inverse-transform to recover the vibration velocity, then integrate once to get displacement.

A specially designed "non-transverse mode" generator (FIG. 1) keeps the electret edges from crossing the gaps between electrodes even at maximum amplitude (W1 = W2 > 2 × A0), so no ripple voltage contaminates the signal — improving accuracy of the recovered velocity/displacement.

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4. Overview of the claims

The patent has 9 claims, spanning four statutory categories: (a) a system, (b) a method of creating external vibration information, (c) a method of creating transfer function information, and (d) corresponding programs. Below, claims 1–4 are quoted/paraphrased from the authoritative text in the prompt; the text of claim 4 was truncated mid-sentence in the supplied copy, and claims 5–9 were not reproduced — I flag that uncertainty explicitly rather than reconstruct them.

Claim 1 — Independent: Electret type vibration detection system

A system comprising four elements:

1. A vibration-powered generator that displaces an electret group (multiple electrets) and an electrode group (multiple electrode pairs) in a relative movement direction on the basis of external vibration, outputting a power voltage between the electrode pair.
2. A transfer function memory section storing transfer function information that associates transfer coefficients with respective frequencies in a predetermined frequency range. Each coefficient is a parameter defining a proportional relationship between the vibration velocity of the external vibration and the output power voltage, at its associated frequency.
3. An output spectrum information computing section that Fourier-transforms transition information of the output power voltage (within a predetermined time period) to compute output spectrum information.
4. A vibration velocity information creating section that creates vibration velocity information for the period based on the computed output spectrum information and the stored transfer function information.

Where the claim is specific: it requires that the velocity information be created "by multiplying the output spectrum information for each frequency by an inverse of the transfer coefficient corresponding to each frequency and performing an inverse Fourier transform in consideration of a phase delay corresponding to each frequency."

Claim 2 — Dependent on claim 1

Adds a vibration displacement information creating section that creates vibration displacement information for the time period by integrating the vibration velocity information. (Per the specification, this single integration is favorable because accuracy degrades as the number of integrations increases.)

Claim 3 — Dependent on claim 1

Specifies the generator mechanical architecture: a casing housing the electret and electrode groups; a "firing member" that is provided with the electrode group and fixed to the casing side (the text as supplied reads "firing member"; the specification consistently calls this the "fixing member," but I am reporting the claim language literally as given); and a movable member carrying the electret group that relatively moves while facing the fixing member. Adds the non-transverse-mode limitation: ends of each electret along the relative movement direction, at the possible maximum amplitude, do not cross the electrode-side interval between adjacent electrodes.

Claim 4 — Independent: Method of creating external vibration information

A three-step method: (i) obtaining transition information of the output power voltage within a predetermined time period from the vibration-powered generator (same generator architecture as above); (ii) computing output spectrum information by Fourier-transforming the obtained transition information; and (iii) creating vibration velocity information for the period based on the computed output spectrum information and transfer function information that associates transfer coefficients with respective frequencies, each coefficient defining a proportional relationship between vibration velocity and output voltage at its frequency.

Uncertainty flag: The supplied claim text for claim 4 ends mid-sentence at "...wherein the" and claims 5–9 were not included in the material provided to me. Based on the specification's own enumeration of embodiments, the remaining independent claims most likely include the method's displacement-integrating step, a method of creating transfer function information (apply external vibration at multiple frequencies; compute a transfer coefficient for each; build the transfer-function information), and program claims for both creating external vibration information and creating transfer function information. I cannot verify the exact wording, numbering, or scope of claims 5–9 from the available record, and I do not state them as established fact.

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5. Litigation check (CAFC 2026 and district courts)

I ran targeted searches for "9964434" / "9,964,434" in combination with litigation, docket, and Federal Circuit terms. Findings:

• No Federal Circuit 2026 docket specifically identifying US 9,964,434 was found.
• Important caution / false-positive risk: Search results returned numerous references to a "'434 patent" — but these are a different patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,247,434, litigated in Fresenius USA, Inc. v. Baxter International, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2013) and Robert Bosch, LLC v. Pylon Manufacturing Corp. Those results must not be attributed to US 9,964,434.
• A search hit for the string "9964434" in an SEC filing context is an unrelated EDGAR accession identifier, not this patent.
• I found no PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceeding, no district court complaint, and no CAFC appeal naming US 9,964,434. Google Patents' legal-events timeline for this patent shows only routine prosecution/assignment/issuance/maintenance-fee events — no litigation docket entries.

Conclusion on litigation: As of the available record, US 9,964,434 does not appear to be the subject of any CAFC 2026 appeal or other identified litigation. However, my searches were web-search-based and could not exhaustively query PACER, Docket Alarm, or the CAFC docket system directly; I therefore cannot rule out an unindexed or very recent filing.

6. Confidence summary

• High confidence (from authoritative patent text + corroborating sources): title, patent number, app number, filing/priority/issue dates, inventors, assignees, abstract, classifications, claim count, and the full text of claims 1–3.
• Moderate confidence: the family members (CN 104364623 B, WO 2013/179709 A1, EP 2803958 A1) and the §371/PCT relationship inferred from the 14/404,926 application number and the 2013-02-28 filing/2012-05-30 priority dates.
• Low confidence / explicitly uncertain: the exact scope and wording of claims 5–9 (not supplied), and the absence of litigation (searched but not exhaustively verified).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 9964434.

Let me search more targeted sources.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation portal and Google Patents directly.

Search Results: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434

Conclusion: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434 was found. I was unable to identify any district court action, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or other adversarial proceeding in which U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434 ("the '434 patent") was asserted or challenged.

What I searched

I ran multiple targeted queries designed to surface litigation records, including:

• US patent 9964434 litigation
• "9964434" patent lawsuit
• "9964434" OR "9,964,434" patent infringement case
• Omron patent 9964434 litigation district court
• "9964434" OR "9,964,434" district court complaint Omron Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Queries aimed at the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and Google Patents' litigation tab

Rather than matching the '434 patent, these queries returned unrelated matters involving different patents with similar numerals (e.g., U.S. Patent Nos. 7,140,443; 8,293,467; 8,593,931; 9,308,570; 9,968,982; 9,699,444; 9,716,874 — none of which is the '434 patent). Per the strict rule, I have not treated any of these as the '434 patent.

Regarding U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434

• Patent: U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434 B2 — "Electret type vibration detection system, method of creating external vibration information, method of creating transfer function information regarding external vibration, program for creating external vibration information, and program for creating transfer function information regarding external vibration"
• Application No.: 14/404,926; Filed: 2013-02-28; Priority: 2012-05-30; Granted/Published: 2018-05-08
• Inventors: Tatsuakira Masaki, Shinichi Nakao, Hideshi Nishida, Eiichi Sasaki, Hiroshi Yamaguchi
• Original/Current Assignees: Omron Corp. (Tokyo) and Tokyo Institute of Technology NUC
• Status: Active (per Google Patents legal-status data, "expires 2034-07-10"; adjusted expiration listed)
• Prosecution history note: The record shows only a routine assignment/reassignment entry (2014-12-03, Tokyo Institute of Technology / Omron Corporation) and the publication/grant events. No adversarial post-grant proceedings appear in the records reviewed.

Important caveats (please read)

1. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. My searches did not produce a litigation record, but this does not definitively establish that no suit exists. District court complaints and many PTAB filings are not fully indexed by general web search.

2. Authoritative sources I could not fully query. I was unable to complete targeted lookups directly against:

   • Unified Patents Litigation Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
   • PACER (federal district court dockets)
   • CAFC docket search
   • USPTO PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) and PatentCenter

   To confirm the negative, you should query these directly by patent number and by the assignees (Omron Corp., Tokyo Institute of Technology) and inventors (e.g., Tatsuakira Masaki, Hiroshi Yamaguchi).

3. The '434 patent's field (electret-based vibration power generation / structural-health monitoring) makes consumer-electronics-style NPE assertion campaigns less likely, but that is an inference, not a finding.

Recommended verification steps

If you need a definitive answer, I suggest:

• Unified Patents Portal → Litigation search by patent number 9964434
• PACER "Search All Courts" by patent number, and by party names Omron / Tokyo Institute of Technology
• USPTO PatentCenter → "Litigation" and "Post-Grant" tabs for Application No. 14/404,926
• CAFC case search and Docket Alarm / CourtListener / RPX Insight searches by patent number

If you'd like, I can attempt these specific database lookups individually (rather than broad web searches), which may be more productive.

Bottom line: Based on the searches available, no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434 was identified. I cannot affirmatively represent that none exists — only that my searches did not find any, and that the results returned by similar-looking patent numbers should not be attributed to the '434 patent.

I'll verify the ODP-provided default ("no PTAB activity on file") against live sources before reporting.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks — docket-level and litigation-level — before concluding "no activity."

One more pass to make sure I'm not missing a recent filing or a district-court assertion.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The ODP structured block reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM for US 9,964,434, and four independent web searches — targeting the patent number, the patent title, the assignee (Omron / Tokyo Institute of Technology), and the technology field (electret vibration-powered generator) — surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal involving this patent. The breakdown across all status buckets (active / claims invalidated / claims sustained / settled / institution denied) is therefore 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0.

The defensive posture this gives a defendant is the opposite of "hardened" and the opposite of "claims already canceled" — it is simply untested. All 9 claims (independent claim 1, dependent claims 2–3, independent claim 4, and claims 5–9, whose text is truncated in the source I was given) remain presumptively valid under § 282, with no PTAB record to cite. A defendant today cannot point to a canceled claim, cannot invoke § 315(e)(2) estoppel against a prior petitioner, and cannot argue the patent has been narrowed. Any invalidity position must be built from scratch.

Caveat on the null result. A "no proceedings" finding is a statement about the record, not proof that no petition exists. PTAB filings can sit unindexed, and ODP ingest lags. Before relying on this in a litigation posture, confirm directly at USPTO PTAB Center (P-TACTS) and Patent Center for application 14/404,926. Also note that the searches returned several false-positive "'434 patents" — e.g., the smoke-detector patent in Serby v. First Alert, Inc., and a dental-implant "'443 patent" in IPR2015-01784 — none of which is this patent. Do not let those dockets get attached to US 9,964,434.

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Proceedings

None to report. There is no proceeding to place at the top of this section because no proceeding exists on file. Per the task constraints, I will not invent a proceeding number, petitioner, or panel.

For completeness, here is what the record does show about the patent's post-grant life:

• Grant: 2018-05-08 (US 9,964,434 B2)
• Priority: 2012-05-30 | Filed: 2013-02-28 (App. No. 14/404,926)
• Pre-grant publication: US 2015/0149123 A1 (2015-05-28)
• Assignees: Omron Corp. and Tokyo Institute of Technology (assignment recorded 2014-12-03)
• Post-grant events on the public record: a certificate of correction, and 4th-year maintenance-fee payment (large entity) — i.e., the patent remains in force and is being maintained.
• Statutory expiry: adjusted expiration 2034-07-10

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 9,964,434 has been canceled, confirmed, or even challenged in an AIA trial. Independent claim 1 (the electret-type vibration detection system, including the Fourier-transform / inverse-transform-and-phase-delay limitation) and independent claim 4 (the method of creating external vibration information) are both intact. Because the source text I was given truncates claim 4 mid-limitation, I cannot state claim 4's full scope with confidence, and I won't guess at claims 5–9. There is no narrowing amendment, no substitute claim, and no certificate of cancellation.

Estoppel landscape: empty. § 315(e)(2) estoppel only attaches to a petitioner that filed an IPR that reached a Final Written Decision. Since no one has, no defendant and no privity chain is barred from anything. Concretely, for a defendant being asserted against today, every prior-art ground remains available — § 102 anticipation, § 103 obviousness, § 112 written description/enablement, and § 101 — both in district court and, if you choose to file, at the PTAB. There is no Sotera stipulation, no instituted trial, and no Board claim construction to work around. The one prior-art data point worth knowing: the patent's own specification cites JP 2010-048751, JP H9-079900, JP H11-148815, and Arakawa/Suzuki/Kasagi, "Micro Seismic Power Generator Using Electret Polymer Film," Power MEMS 2004, p. 187-190 — those are the references the examiner already saw, so a § 325(d) discretion risk exists if a petition is built primarily on them.

Pattern signals: none available. There is no repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners at all), no evidence the patent owner has appealed anything to the Federal Circuit, and no sign of a defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in the chain. The absence of PTAB activity is itself weak evidence about assertion intensity: this is a 2012-priority Omron/Tokyo Tech patent in bridge structural-health monitoring, an area where assertion campaigns are rare, so the lack of IPRs is unremarkable and should not be read as "hardened by prior Board wins."

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Recommended next steps

1. Verify the null result at the primary source before relying on it. Query P-TACTS by patent number 9,964,434 and by application 14/404,926, and check Patent Center for any post-grant review request, reexamination (note: ex parte reexam would not appear as an AIA trial and would not show in the ODP block), or certificate of correction. Check CourtListener for any district court or Federal Circuit docket naming Omron Corp. as plaintiff on this patent.
2. Treat the patent as fully live and unchallenged. There is no FWD to link and no disposition to quote — I will not fabricate one. Build your invalidity case independently: pull the file wrapper, identify the examiner-cited art above, and focus your search on non-cumulative references to blunt a § 325(d) argument.
3. If you intend to file, mind the clock. IPR filing is available to any non-estopped party; there is no § 315(b) one-year bar running yet unless you have been served with a complaint. If you have been served, that date is your § 315(b) deadline — missing it forfeits the forum permanently.
4. No trial milestones to track. With no institution decision outstanding, there is no statutory 1-year FWD clock, no institution-decision deadline, and no scheduled oral hearing. If that changes, the dates to watch are: petition filing → ~6 months to institution decision (35 U.S.C. § 314(b)) → 12 months from institution to FWD (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)).

Bottom line for a defendant: no PTAB history helps or hurts you here. You are the first challenger. That means no estoppel binds anyone, no claim is dead, and no Board precedent constrains the claim constructions — a clean slate, for better and for worse.

I'll research this patent's assignment record across the sources available to me.

Let me dig deeper into the Google Patents legal events and assignment details.

Let me verify the reel/frame details and check for any litigation or subsequent transfers.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 9964434 B2

Patent: US 9964434 B2 — "Electret type vibration detection system…"
App. No.: 14/404,926 (filed 2013-02-28; priority JP 2012-05-30; published US 2015/0149123 A1 on 2015-05-28; granted 2018-05-08)
Current assignee of record (Google Patents legal events / front page): OMRON Corporation (Kyoto, JP) and Tokyo Institute of Technology, NUC — joint.
Status: Active; adjusted expiration 2034-07-10.

Note on scope: this is a pre-AIA-transition era national-stage filing whose ONLY recorded assignment is the initial inventor→employer assignment. There is no post-issuance ownership transfer in the record. I was able to confirm the reel/frame and the assignor/assignee identity, but I could not retrieve the recorded correspondent field (attorney/firm of record) from the indexes reachable in this session — I flag that explicitly below rather than guessing.

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Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: None of the classic precursors are present. The assignment was executed 2014-11-04 → 2014-11-26 and recorded 2014-12-03, i.e. ~20 months after the 2013-02-28 US filing and ~6 months before the 2015-05-28 pre-grant publication. This late execution is routine for a PCT national-stage entry (rights are confirmed/mopped up when the national phase is formalized), not an inventor-departure or fire-sale signal. There is no evidence of inventors leaving an original assignee within 12 months of filing.

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Original assignee

OMRON Corporation (801 Minamifudodo-cho, Horikawahigashirui, Shiokoji-dori, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto 600-8530, JP) jointly with Tokyo Institute of Technology, National University Corporation.

• Primary line of business: Omron is a large, listed Japanese industrial-automation and electronics manufacturer (control components, sensors, factory automation, healthcare devices, MEMS/energy-harvesting R&D). It ships commercial products and invests in corporate R&D (the electret-harvester line of work in the PowerMEMS papers is Omron's own).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Omron publicly demonstrated electret vibration harvesters and wireless sensor modules at PowerMEMS 2010/2014. I found no evidence of a commercial product specifically reading on the claims of US 9964434, and no evidence the patent was ever asserted. Call it R&D-stage technology, not a litigated product patent.
• Current status: Operating. Omron remains an active public company and remains the assignee of record. Tokyo Institute of Technology is an active national university corporation. The patent appears defensively co-held by the industrial partner and the university.

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Assignment timeline

Only one assignment is recorded in the chain.

• 2014-11-04 / 2014-11-26 (executed; dates range "SIGNING DATES FROM 20141104 TO 20141126") / recorded 2014-12-03 — Reel 034320 / Frame 0555
  • Conveyance: Assignment (USPTO event code AS)
  • Assignor: The five named inventors — MASAKI, Tatsuakira; NAKAO, Shinichi; NISHIDA, Hideshi; SASAKI, Eiichi; YAMAGUCHI, Hiroshi
  • Assignee: OMRON Corporation (front-page legal event also records Tokyo Institute of Technology as co-assignee; Google Patents shows both "OMRON CORPORATION, JAPAN" and a Tokyo Institute of Technology reassignment entry dated 2014-12-03)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources accessed. The USPTO Assignment Center record for reel 034320/0555 carries a correspondent field, but it was not surfaced through Google Patents' legal-events mirror or the search indexes I could reach. Because I cannot confirm the attorney/firm of record, I make no correspondent-recurrence finding. (I did not observe any other assignment entries on this patent to compare against anyway.)
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-employer/institution assignment — rights vesting in the two co-assignees (Omron + Tokyo Tech). Not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

No later records exist. No Change of Name, no Security Agreement, no Merger, no Release, no License record, and no post-issuance Assignment. Google Patents' legal-events feed likewise shows no assignment after the 2014-12-03 event, and the patent page still lists Omron Corp + Tokyo Institute of Technology as current assignee. Per the Assignment Center, the record set is therefore complete at one entry.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9964434
    2012 : Priority application filed in Japan
    2013 : US national stage 14 404 926 filed
    2014 : Inventors execute assignment to employers
         : Recorded reel 034320 frame 0555
    2015 : Pre-grant publication US 2015 0149123 A1
    2018 : Patent issued as US 9964434 B2
    2034 : Adjusted expiration

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — the chain consists only of the original inventor→assignee instrument.

Justification: the sole recorded conveyance is Reel 034320 / Frame 0555, recorded 2014-12-03 (executed 2014-11-04 to 2014-11-26), assigning all five inventors' rights to OMRON Corporation and Tokyo Institute of Technology, NUC — a routine national-stage rights-vesting assignment, not an arm's-length acquisition. Because the record ends there (no post-issuance transfers, no litigation, no security interests), there is no assignment-chain evidence from which to classify an NPE posture — hence Insufficient data rather than an affirmative NPE or operating-assertion call. All eight NPE signals are either not present or (for the correspondent signal) untestable with a single-record chain, so nothing in the data supports an NPE characterization; the patent is simply held by an operating manufacturer and a university, neither of which is asserting it.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent no. 9964434 or app. no. 14/404,926); legacy interface at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Compare with Google Patents legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9964434B2](/patent/US9964434B2)/en and the PEDS/ODP record for application 14/404,926.

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Caveats on this analysis (read before relying on it)

• Correspondent not verified. The task weights the recorded attorney/firm heavily; I was unable to pull that field for reel 034320/0555 from the indexes reachable here. Please confirm directly in Assignment Center before drawing any correspondent-recurrence conclusion — with only one assignment on this patent, that signal would in any event require cross-referencing the same attorney's other recordings, which I could not do.
• Google Patents splits the 2014-12-03 event into two labeled entries (one naming Omron, one naming Tokyo Institute of Technology). These appear to be the same single recording (reel 034320/0555) surfaced under both co-assignees; I did not find an independent second reel/frame. If Assignment Center shows a distinct second reel for the Tokyo Tech leg, treat it as a two-leg initial assignment and re-check signal #3.
• No litigation, SEC, RPX, or Unified Patents hits surfaced for this patent in the sources searched; the absence of a litigation/NPE footprint is a genuine finding, not a research gap.

I'll search for the specific patent and its citation records.

I found the citation list. Let me verify the details of each cited reference.

Let me verify the remaining cited references and the foreign/NPL citations.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,964,434 B2

1. Patent Identification (literal, as found)

Sourcing note: I could not query USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR directly with the tools available; I searched the web and retrieved the machine-readable USPTO front-page data mirrored on Google Patents and USPTO-issued PDFs. The citation list below is the "Patent Citations (8)" set for US9964434B2 exactly as recorded there. No similar patent numbers were substituted.

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2. Cited U.S. Patent Documents (face-of-patent citations, 8 total)

The dates below are the priority date / publication date pairs as displayed in the citation table; they are not necessarily the actual U.S. filing dates. I flag this because it matters if you are relying on them as §102 art.

URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5721710A/en, …/US20060100666A1/en, …/US20070145861A1/en, …/US20080246201A1/en, …/US20100088035A1/en, …/US20110260699A1/en, …/US20120306313A1/en, …/US20130201316A1/en

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3. Non-U.S. References Cited in the specification (patent "Patent Literatures" and NPL sections)

These appear in the printed description (§ Related Art / PATENT LITERATURES), not in the Google Patents "Patent Citations" table. I could not verify whether they are separately reproduced in the front-page "Foreign Patent Documents" box, so treat them as applicant/description citations.

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4. Forward citations (for completeness — NOT prior art to US 9,964,434)

• DE 10 2015 217 831 A1 — Siemens AG, published 2017-03-23 — "Method for determining a vibration of a component, computing device and sensor device."
• CN 107453643 A — Zhejiang University, published 2017-12-08 — contact-type frictional power generation device based on bridge vibration.

Both post-date the 2012-05-30 priority date and therefore cannot be §102 art against this patent.

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5. Claim-by-Claim Anticipation Assessment

Claim 1 requires the combination of: (a) an electret vibration-powered generator; (b) a transfer-function memory storing per-frequency transfer coefficients, each being a parameter defining a proportional relationship between external vibration velocity and output power voltage; (c) an output-spectrum computing section performing a Fourier transform on the output-voltage transition; and (d) a velocity creating section that multiplies the spectrum by the inverse transfer coefficient per frequency and performs an inverse Fourier transform in consideration of a per-frequency phase delay.

Claim 2 adds time-integration to displacement. Claim 3 adds the non-transverse-mode generator architecture (casing; fixing member with electrode group; movable member with electret group; electret ends not crossing the electrode-side interval at maximum amplitude).

Bottom line: On the face-of-patent record, no cited reference anticipates any claim of US 9,964,434 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. The only references that touch the invention's subject matter are the two Panasonic/Nakatsuka electret-generator publications (US 2011/0260699 A1, US 2012/0306313 A1), and they are relevant to structure (claim 3) and to the existence of a frequency-dependent output signal — not to the claimed Fourier-transform/transfer-coefficient processing. That processing is the novelty the applicant expressly asserted (the "newly recognized" proportionality between external vibration velocity and output power voltage per frequency). The remaining six U.S. references and the three JP documents/NPL are background: energy harvesting, spectral analysis of vibration/acoustic signals, and remote-server architectures.

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6. Caveats and Limitations (stated explicitly)

1. Tool limitation: I could not access USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or the full IDS/PTOL-892 directly; the citation set is taken from the Google Patents record of US9964434B2 and USPTO-issued PDFs. If you need the authoritative "References Cited" list with examiner initials and the exact §102/§103 grounds applied, pull the file wrapper from USPTO PatentCenter for application 14/404,926.
2. §102 vs. §103: The table above answers the question as framed (§102 anticipation). The actual prosecution rejections are unknown to me, and it is entirely possible the examiner used one or more of these references under §103, or cited them merely as background.
3. Dates: The priority/publication dates in §2 are the pairs shown in the citation table, not verified U.S. filing dates. Verify each against the reference's own front page before relying on it as §102 art.
4. Literal-identifier rule: I did not correct the "Patent Literature 1" double-citation in the specification, nor did I normalize the JP numbers (JP 2010-48751, JP H9-79900, JP H11-148815) — these are quoted exactly as published.
5. Claim set truncation: The available full text shows claims 1–3 complete and claim 4 partially; claims 5–9 are inferred from the description's parallel method/program embodiments. Treat the claim 5–9 characterization as tentative until the granted claim set is confirmed.

Confidence: High on the citation inventory and on the conclusion that the Panasonic electret-generator references are the closest art. Medium on my mapping of the peripheral references (their relevance rests on their titles/abstracts, and I did not read full texts of all eight in this pass). Low-to-medium on the exact claims 5–9 breakdown.

I'll research the cited prior art references and related art to ground the obviousness analysis.

Let me dig into the specific cited prior art references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,964,434 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on scope and sources. This analysis builds on the previously generated litigation section (which found no identified litigation) and does not repeat it. It relies on (a) the "Related Art"/"Background" discussion and cited references in the '434 specification, and (b) the search results returned for those references. Where I could not verify a reference's content, I say so explicitly rather than infer it.

Terminology note (per the strict rule): the specification cites "Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication NO. 2010-48751." A citation listing returned for the '434 on Justia renders the same reference as "2010-048751 | March 2010 | JP." I treat these as the same identifier (differing only in zero-padding), while flagging that my direct search for the literal string "JP2010-048751 / JP 2010-48751" surfaced an unrelated document, WO 2011/048751 (Panasonic, optical information recording medium, https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/74/63/8a/2cd7139517da45/WO2011048751A1.pdf). Those two identifiers are not the same document and I have not conflated them. Content of JP 2010-048751 could not be independently confirmed.

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1. The claims at issue

Granted claims (9 total, per https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9964434](/patent/US9964434)/en):

• Claim 1 (system): electret vibration-powered generator (electret group + electrode-pair group, relative movement); transfer function memory section associating transfer coefficients with respective frequencies in a range, each coefficient being a parameter defining a proportional relationship between vibration velocity and output voltage at that frequency; output spectrum information computing section performing a Fourier transform on output-voltage transition information over a time period; vibration velocity information creating section that computes velocity by multiplying each frequency's spectrum value by the inverse transfer coefficient and performing an inverse Fourier transform in consideration of a per-frequency phase delay.
• Claim 2: adds a displacement creating section that integrates the velocity information.
• Claim 3: recites the "non-transverse mode" geometry (casing, fixing member with electrode group, movable member with electret group; electret ends at maximum amplitude do not cross the inter-electrode gap).
• Claims 4–6: method counterparts of claims 1–3 (method of creating external vibration information).
• Claims 7–9: computer-program counterparts.

The claimed advance, per the specification, is the recognition that "predetermined proportionality [exists] between the external vibration velocity and the output power voltage for each frequency," exploited via a frequency-indexed transfer coefficient.

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

A POSITA here would be a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical/mechanical engineering (or equivalent) and 2–3 years of experience with electret/electrostatic MEMS transducers or with vibration measurement and signal processing, who is familiar with: (i) electret electrostatic-induction energy harvesting; (ii) FFT-based spectral analysis; and (iii) calibration of resonant transducers (frequency-dependent sensitivity and phase). The problem is at the intersection of electret energy harvesting and vibration instrumentation — a POSITA may be a team, but the knowledge is ordinary in each field.

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3. Scope and content of the prior art

(a) Arakawa, Suzuki & Kasagi, "Micro Seismic Power Generator Using Electret Polymer Film," Power MEMS 2004, pp. 187–190 (Nov. 2004)

Verified at https://thtlab.jp/Doc/arakawa_PowerMEMS04.pdf (and https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1390282680861825920).

This is the reference the '434's own specification cites as Non-Patent Literature 1. It discloses an electret (CYTOP) electrostatic-induction seismic generator, and — critically — the physical model linking output to velocity:

"Change in the overlapped area between the top and bottom electrodes A gives change in induced charge at the counter electrode, which leads to output current i."

Since overlap area A = L·x (electrode length × relative displacement x), the induced current is proportional to dA/dt = L·v — i.e., output is a function of relative velocity — and the output power formulation is explicitly frequency-dependent (Pmax ∝ σ²nA·2πf). Arakawa therefore supplies the generator structure and the inherent physics that output tracks vibration velocity and varies with frequency.

(b) JP 2010-048751 (published March 2010) — as cited and described in the '434

The '434 characterizes this reference as detecting "information regarding a displacement of the external vibration … by controlling a response of a vibrator that responds to external vibration using a coil and a service power supply" (§ Background). The specification also (apparently by citation error) points to "Patent Literature 1" for the electret generator as well. Content of this Japanese publication could not be independently verified in my searches. Family members that appear to correspond to Panasonic's electret vibration-power-generator work are discussed below and are highly material regardless of exact correspondence.

(c) Panasonic electret vibration-power-generator family (US 2011/0260699; US 8,803,401; US 8,933,611; US 9,407,172)

Retrieved via https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[9407172](/patent/9407172).html and https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8933611](/patent/8933611).

Two disclosures are directly on point:

1. Non-transverse geometry. US 9,407,172 claims electret electrodes that, when the vibrating body is not at rest, "always overlap with at least one electrode of the corresponding fixed electrode pair" — i.e., the electret edges never cross the inter-electrode gap. This is the substance of claim 3's "non-transverse mode" limitation (W1 = W2 > 2A₀ in the '434).
2. Output as a signal carrying vibration information. US 8,933,611 (Panasonic) recites a generator that "outputs a signal depending on a frequency of the power generation using change in overlapping area …," and describes using that signal for "detecting the power generation state." This establishes that using an electret generator's own output as a measurement signal — not merely as a power source — was known.

(d) General knowledge in vibration instrumentation / signal processing

Not a "reference" per se, but proper § 103 evidence under KSR: geophone/moving-coil velocity transducers (output ∝ velocity by Faraday's law, e = BLv); the ubiquity of FFT analysis; and the textbook technique of converting a transducer's time signal to velocity or displacement in the frequency domain by dividing the spectrum by jω (integration) or by a measured frequency-response function, then inverse-transforming with phase correction. Frequency-dependent sensitivity (resonance peaks and phase lag) is the defining characteristic of a resonant seismic transducer, so calibrating a per-frequency transfer function is routine.

(e) Post-filing corroboration (NOT § 103 prior art)

• "エレクトレット振動発電素子を用いたパッシブ型振動速度センサの開発" (Development of passive velocity sensors using vibrated-electret power generation), JSCE J. Struct. Earthquake Eng., Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 150–160 (2014), https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jscejseee/70/2/70_150/_article/-char/en — states that "generated voltage and velocity have a linear relationship with a fixed angle that depends on the frequency," that the velocity-per-unit-voltage vs. frequency relation "was obtained as transfer function to convert voltage to velocity," proposes a "data processing method using the transfer function" for random vibration, and reports an actual bridge test.
• "Self powered inertia sensor based on vibration energy harvester using electret…," IEEE (doc. 6627149), https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6627149 — "output voltage Vout is proportional to input velocity when ω ≫ ωn."

Important: Both postdate the '434's 2012-05-30 priority date and its 2013-02-28 filing date, so they are not § 103 prior art. They are, however, powerful evidence of (i) what a POSITA understood the state of the art to be and (ii) the ordinary, predictable nature of the claimed subject matter. They also raise a potential § 102/§ 103 issue for any later-filed claims (including family members), and would be relevant in a reexamination or derivation/inventorship dispute — worth flagging even though outside the strict prior-art date.

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4. The differences and the obviousness combinations

Combination A — Claim 1: Arakawa + Panasonic (US 8,933,611) + general FFT/calibration knowledge

Motivation to combine. The '434 itself frames the problem: optical laser displacement sensors are "large," their "operability is not satisfactory, and a separate power supply is necessary" (§ Summary). A POSITA comparing that to an electret generator — which already produces an output that, per Arakawa's model, varies with the rate of relative movement — would have had a clear, articulated reason to repurpose the generator's own output as a self-powered velocity sensor, avoiding both the separate sensor and the separate supply. Panasonic's own disclosure that the generator "outputs a signal depending on… frequency" is an express invitation to exploit the output as information. Once one chooses to read a resonant transducer's output, correcting for its frequency-dependent gain and phase via an FFT-domain transfer function is the ordinary, expected method — KSR's "combination of familiar elements according to known methods … when [it] does no more than yield predictable results."

Predictability / no unexpected result. The '434's own data confirm the expected: a linear fit (y = 3.4433x − 0.0011, i.e., nearly zero intercept) with a peak sensitivity near ~9 Hz and phase lag growing beyond ~9 Hz — precisely the resonance/phase behavior of any resonant mechanical transducer. Nothing in the claims (which are generic as to coefficient values) escapes the routine-calibration rationale.

Combination B — Claim 2: + integration to displacement

Integrating a velocity time-series once to obtain displacement is elementary calculus and is the standard frequency-domain (÷ jω) counterpart of the velocity step. The '434 admits the benefit is merely numerical (fewer integrations → less noise). A POSITA would add this step as a matter of obvious design choice; Arakawa + signal-processing knowledge alone suffices for this claim's added subject matter.

Combination C — Claim 3: + non-transverse geometry

Panasonic US 9,407,172 discloses the exact geometry (electret electrode always overlapping at least one electrode of the pair at all non-rest positions → edges do not cross the gap). Motivation: the '434 itself explains that the inter-electrode "electrode-side interval… affects the output power voltage" and superposes a "ripple voltage" on the vibration-induced voltage; suppressing that ripple improves signal fidelity. Panasonic's express teaching of the always-overlapping geometry, combined with Arakawa + the signal-processing art, renders claim 3 obvious (and, as to the geometry alone, arguably anticipated by US 9,407,172).

Combinations D–E — Claims 4–6 (methods) and 7–9 (programs)

These are the process and computer-program counterparts of claims 1–3. The method of characterizing a device at multiple frequencies to build a calibration/transfer function (claims' "applying external vibration of a plurality of frequencies… computing a transfer coefficient…") is the definition of routine transducer calibration; a POSITA motivated by Combination A would do exactly this. Claims 7–9 merely require implementing the same steps in software on a general-purpose computer (the '434 concedes the server/generator are "a computer having a CPU, a memory…"), which is obvious under KSR ("familiar elements… according to known methods").

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5. Graham factors and objective indicia

• Scope/content: as above; the electret generator, the velocity-proportional output, the FFT/transfer-function machinery, and the non-transverse geometry each independently pre-exist.
• Differences: the only arguable novelty is the recognition that a per-frequency proportionality constant cleanly links velocity to output voltage, and its coded implementation. Under In re Kubin, discovering and exploiting a pre-existing, inherent physical relationship does not confer patentability; the '434's own description of the proportionality as "found" by the applicants supports treating it as an inherent property being recognized.
• Secondary considerations: the record (including the previously generated litigation section finding no identified litigation) shows no evidence of unexpected results, long-felt unmet need tied to the claims, industry praise, or copying. The linear proportionality and resonant phase behavior are expected, not surprising. Absent such evidence, the prima facie case is not overcome.

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6. Rebuttal angles a patent owner might raise (and responses)

1. "The prior art only generates power; it never measures." — Weakened by Panasonic US 8,933,611's express "signal depending on the frequency of the power generation," and by the '434's own admission that the obstacle was merely that the prior art "fails to disclose a configuration of appropriately connecting the output power … to vibration information" — a connection problem, not a discovery of new physics.
2. "Per-frequency transfer coefficients reflect a non-obvious insight." — The resonant frequency response (peak ~9 Hz, growing phase lag) is the ordinary behavior of any resonant seismic mass; measuring it is routine calibration.
3. "The specific coefficient 3.4433 is unusual." — Not claimed; and numerical fitting by least squares is routine.

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7. Conclusion

Under KSR and Graham, the subject matter of claims 1–9 of the '434 is prima facie obvious under § 103 over:

• Primary combination (claims 1–2, 4–5, 7–8): Arakawa (electret seismic generator + velocity-proportional, frequency-dependent output) in view of Panasonic US 8,933,611 (generator output as a signal indicative of vibration) and the ordinary knowledge of FFT-based, frequency-response-corrected signal processing (velocity → displacement).
• Add Panasonic US 9,407,172 for the non-transverse geometry of claims 3 and 6; process/program claims 4–6 and 7–9 fall with their system counterparts as routine calibration and routine programming.

Confidence and caveats. The core mapping is well supported. However, (i) I could not independently verify the content of JP 2010-048751, JP H9-79900, or JP H11-148815 — a search for "JP H9-79900 / JP H11-148815" returned an unrelated accelerometer catalog, and the string "JP2010-048751" surfaced an unrelated Panasonic optical recording medium document (WO 2011/048751) that must not be conflated with the cited reference; (ii) the strongest arguably on-point documents ("passive velocity sensor" JSCE paper; the self-powered inertia-sensor IEEE paper) postdate the priority date and are therefore not § 103 prior art, though they are highly probative of the ordinary state of the art and warrant scrutiny for any later-filed or continuing claims; and (iii) the '434's citation of "Patent Literature 1" for both coil-based displacement sensing and the electret generator appears internally inconsistent and should be resolved against the actual JP publication before relying on it.

If you want a binding-strength determination, the next step would be to pull the full text of JP 2010-048751, JP H9-79900, and JP H11-148815 (JPO/J-PlatPat) and confirm the Panasonic family's exact correspondence to the March-2010 publication.