Invalidity dossier

US 10209082

Method and apparatus for matching probe points to road segments utilizing a trajectory identifier

Current assignee: Here Global BV

Added 9/24/2026, 4:31:54 PM

At a glanceNo PTAB challengesNo litigation on fileAutomotive (A)

Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash

Patent summary

Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.

✓ Generated

I'll search for this specific patent number.

Let me verify details and check for any 2026 litigation/docket activity.

Let me confirm the full claim set and check for any litigation involving this specific patent.

US Patent 10,209,082 — Analyst Summary

Source basis: The authoritative full text provided (fetched from Google Patents, 2026-09-24) plus web search results. Where I could not verify something against an authoritative source (e.g., USPTO PatentCenter or a CAFC docket), I flag it explicitly.

Bibliographic Data

Field Value
Patent number US 10,209,082 B2
Title Method and apparatus for matching probe points to road segments utilizing a trajectory identifier
Application no. US 15/147,406
Pre-grant publication US 2017/0322035 A1 (published 2017-11-09)
Filing date 2016-05-05
Issue (publication) date 2019-02-19
Priority date 2016-05-05
Inventor Ole Henry Dorum
Assignee HERE Global B.V. (original and current)
Related PCT / EP PCT/EP2017/060562 (WO2017191204A1); EP17722000.1 (EP3452782A1)
Anticipated expiration 2036-05-05
Status Active (per Google Patents legal-status indicator; not a legal conclusion)
Classifications G01C21/30 (map/contour matching); also G01C21/28, G01C21/32; G08G1/0112 (floating car data)

Abstract (as issued)

A method, apparatus and computer program product match probe points to road segments utilizing a trajectory identifier, increasing accuracy of matching probe points, e.g., in ambiguous locations. For a probe point having a respective trajectory ID and associated with an ambiguous link tuple, the method identifies each probe point having that trajectory ID unambiguously matched to a first or second branch extending away from the ambiguous link tuple. It separately determines the number of such probe points unambiguously matched to the first and second branches, and matches the probe point associated with the ambiguous link tuple to one of the branches based on those numbers.

Independent Claim Overview (plain language)

Note on numbering: I can authoritatively confirm independent claim 1 (method) and independent claim 9 (apparatus) from the claim text returned in search results. The specification also describes a computer program product embodiment and a "means-for" apparatus embodiment, which typically correspond to further independent claims in this patent family; I could not verify the exact claim numbers of those additional independent claims from an authoritative claim listing, so I flag that as an uncertainty rather than assert it.

Claim 1 (Method):

  1. For a probe point that (a) has a trajectory identifier (ID) and (b) is associated with an "ambiguous link tuple" (two or more map links the probe point satisfies matching parameters for, so it can't be confidently assigned to one), identify every other probe point sharing that same trajectory ID that is unambiguously matched to either a first branch or a second branch extending away from the ambiguous link tuple.
  2. Separately count how many same-trajectory-ID probe points are unambiguously matched to the first branch versus the second branch.
  3. Match the ambiguous-tuple probe point to the first or second branch based on those two counts (i.e., route the vehicle's earlier-in-time-trajectory point to whichever downstream branch its trajectory actually followed).

Claim 9 (Apparatus):
An apparatus with at least one processor and memory storing code that causes the apparatus to perform the same three-step logic of claim 1. In the granted version, claim 9's preamble specifies the trajectory ID identifies probe points collected by a device at least for a period of time, and defines the ambiguous link tuple as two or more road-network links to which the probe point is matched.

Key dependent-claim concepts (claims 2–8, and mirror dependents for the apparatus):

  • Match only when the count difference exceeds a predefined amount (claim 2); if the counts differ by less than that amount, leave the probe point on the ambiguous link tuple (claim 3).
  • Where multiple probe points with different trajectory IDs are on the ambiguous tuple, identify matching trajectories in a single traversal of both branches (claim 4) — an efficiency feature central to the patent.
  • Compute a confidence value from the ratio of counts on the two branches (claim 5).
  • Precede the process with map matching (e.g., the incorporated map-centric technique of U.S. App. Ser. No. 14/752,159) and identify ambiguous-tuple probe points from it (claim 6).
  • Compare along the same predefined length of both branches (claim 7).
  • Handle branches that split into sub-branches (claim 8).

Litigation / Docket Check (as requested)

  • No CAFC 2026 docket activity for US 10,209,082 was found. My searches returned zero results tying this patent number to a Federal Circuit appeal or a 2026 appellate docket. I cannot confirm that none exists — this is a negative search result, not an authoritative "no activity" finding.
  • No court complaint asserting this specific patent was found either. A district-court hit I retrieved (N.D. Ill., HERE/Nokia/earthmine) concerned a different patent (RE42,289), not the '082 patent.
  • The only related-family reference surfaced was a later HERE patent, US 11,415,431 ("Method and apparatus for disambiguating probe points within an ambiguous probe region," Dorum, filed 2019-03-27, issued 2022-08-16), which lists US 10,209,082 in its prior-art citations — i.e., a same-assignee follow-on, not litigation.

Uncertainty Notes

  • I did not access USPTO PatentCenter or a court docket system directly; the bibliographic data above is corroborated by the provided authoritative full text and multiple secondary sources (Google Patents, Justia), which agree.
  • The precise claim numbers of the computer-program-product and "means-plus-function" apparatus independent claims are not confirmed. Do not rely on a specific number for those without checking the granted claim set.
  • "Active" legal status is the source's indicator and does not represent a legal conclusion (maintenance fees, etc., were not verified).

If you need the exact granted claim set (including the CPM/means claims) or a definitive litigation history, the next step would be a direct USPTO PatentCenter / PACER / CAFC docket query for 10,209,082, which I could not complete within this session.

Generated 9/29/2026, 6:50:58 PM

Cases on file (0)

Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 10209082. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.

No cases on file mention this patent. Upload a CSV or add a case manually in Admin → Manage litigation cases.

Litigation summary

Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.

✓ Generated

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10209082 across multiple sources.

The initial results returned noise. Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Findings: Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,209,082

Bottom line: I could not find any litigation — filed, pending, or terminated — in which U.S. Patent No. 10,209,082 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

What I searched

I ran searches against Google Patents (the authoritative text source), Unified Patents' litigation case list (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), Justia Dockets, CourtListener, and general web queries combining the patent number with the owner (HERE Global B.V.) and with litigation-specific terms. Keyword searches for "10209082" returned only:

  • The patent's own Google Patents page.
  • Unrelated documents that coincidentally contain the same digit string (e.g., a Brazilian exam roster, a PubChem compound ID, and a Chinese priority application number 201610209082.X belonging to ZTE — none of which are this patent).

No docket, complaint, PTAB petition, or ITC filing referencing U.S. 10,209,082 was located.

Important caveat on "no results"

Absence of results in the sources I could reach is not proof that no case exists. Litigation databases are not perfectly indexed, complaints are sometimes filed and quickly dismissed or transferred, and district-court dockets require PACER access that general web search may not surface. I am stating only that my searches returned no such case, not that none exists.

Related but DISTINCT litigation (do not conflate with '082)

The search results surfaced several cases involving HERE Global B.V. as a party — but each concerns different patents, not U.S. 10,209,082. I list them only to flag the near-misses I ruled out:

Case Court / Case No. Filed Patents at issue Plaintiff / Defendant Status
Metataste General Trading LLC v. HERE Global B.V., et al. D. Del. 1:19-cv-01379 2019-07-24 U.S. 9,609,487 B2 Metataste (plaintiff) v. HERE entities Docket retrieved 2019-09-20; later status not confirmed here
Route Guidance Systems LLC v. HERE Global BV N.D. Ill. 1:22-cv-02274 2022-05-01 (not '082) Route Guidance Systems LLC (NPE) Listed as Closed on Unified Patents
Facet Technology Corp. v. HERE Global BV E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00269 2024 U.S. 9,335,255; 9,671,328 Facet Technology (plaintiff) Pending (per complaint analysis; note statutory disclaimer of certain '255 claims filed 2024-12-09)
UNH-hosted Activision litigation docs — 1986 unrelated — Not relevant

None of these dockets asserts U.S. 10,209,082.

Recommended verification steps

To confirm definitively, I would suggest checking, with direct access rather than web search:

  1. PACER — search the patent number in the "Patent/Trademark" field across all district courts.
  2. USPTO PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) and USPTO Patent Center — for post-grant challenges naming 10,209,082 (the Google Patents page shows no adverse proceedings listed, consistent with none).
  3. Unified Patents Portal and Docket Navigator / Lex Machina — proprietary litigation databases that index by patent number.
  4. ITC EDIS — for Section 337 investigations.

I want to be explicit: I do not have high-confidence knowledge of any litigation over U.S. 10,209,082, and my tool-based searches corroborate that no such case is publicly discoverable. If you have PACER or Docket Navigator access, that would give a definitive answer.

Generated 9/29/2026, 6:50:54 PM

Proceedings on file (0)

All PTAB activity →

AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.

No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.

PTAB challenges

AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.

✓ Generated

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for U.S. Patent No. 10,209,082: 0. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials — the USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured record supplied for this analysis returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and my independent web searches (Google Patents family view, PTAB/PTACTS document hits, Unified Patents portal, general docket queries) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming 10,209,082.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this is not a "hardened" patent in the sense of one that has survived attack — it is an untested patent. There is no FWD, no claim cancellation, no adverse Board claim construction, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against anyone. All claims must therefore be treated as presumptively live and untested, and any defendant is potentially the first challenger.


No proceedings to report

Because the canonical structured list is empty and my searches corroborate it, there are no proceeding entries to populate with petitioner, panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal fields. Per the operating instruction, the default is "no PTAB activity on file," and that default is what the evidence supports here.

Evidence trail (what I actually checked):

Source Query Result
USPTO ODP structured block (provided) AIA trial proceedings for 10,209,082 No proceedings returned
Google Patents US10209082B2 family/legal-events view Looked for "PTAB," "IPR," "adverse proceeding" entries Only prosecution/assignment events listed; no trial events
Web search "10,209,082" IPR petition HERE Global No relevant hits
Web search "US 10,209,082" OR "10209082" petition for inter partes review Patent Trial and Appeal Board No relevant hits
Web search 10209082 PTAB inter partes review No relevant hits
Web search PTAB IPR "HERE Global" ... map matching probe points HERE-family map-matching patents surfaced (e.g., US 10,852,443 B2, US 11,906,309, US 11,428,534), but no PTAB proceeding on any of them in the returned results

False positives I ruled out (do not conflate with this patent):

  • A PTAB institution-decision excerpt I retrieved discusses "…the '082 patent" in the context of a "controlled current source"/"current amplifier" (LED-driver-type subject matter) — a different patent that also happens to be nicknamed "'082." It is not U.S. 10,209,082 (map matching). Do not cite that decision as involving this patent.
  • The digit string 10209082 also appears as a PubChem compound ID and as a Chinese priority application number 201610209082.X (ZTE, PCT/CN2017/072054, "Method and device for resource allocation"). Neither is this patent.
  • IPR2024-01293 (Bitsgap Holding OU v. Intercurrency Software LLC, patent 10,062,107) and IPR2021-01531 both appeared in results purely as generic PTAB-document noise.

Caveat on the negative finding: this is an absence-of-evidence conclusion drawn from the ODP block plus public web sources. It is not a PACER/PTACTS-certified negative. If a petition was filed but not yet accorded a filing date, or if the ODP ingest lags recent filings, it would not appear in any of my sources. Treat "0 proceedings" as high confidence but verify against PTAB E2E/PTACTS directly before relying on it in a filing or opinion.


Strategic summary

Claim status of 10,209,082: entirely UNTESTED. No claim of this patent has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. That is materially different from the posture of the patents I found litigated in the companion research — e.g., U.S. 9,609,487 B2 (D. Del. 1:19-cv-01379), U.S. 9,335,255 / 9,671,328 (E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00269, with a statutory disclaimer of certain '255 claims filed 2024-12-09), and the Route Guidance Systems / Metataste campaigns. None of those patents is 10,209,082, and none of their outcomes transfer to it. If a demand letter asserts 10,209,082, the sender cannot point to any PTAB or court determination of validity, because none exists.

Estoppel landscape: nothing is estopped. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted on this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel bars no one. A defendant facing assertion today may raise any prior-art ground it can assemble — printed publications under §§ 102/103, plus § 112 and (if a CBM-eligible theory were available, now narrowed post-SAS/§ 18 sunset) § 101 — without concern that a prior petitioner already "raised or reasonably could have raised" it. The corollary risk cuts the other way as well: there is no prior Board claim construction to borrow or to attack, so a defendant must build its own constructions from scratch, and § 315(b)'s one-year bar will start running only if and when that defendant is served with a complaint alleging infringement.

Pattern signals. (1) No repeat-petitioner pattern — there is no petitioner to be a repeat petitioner. (2) No patent-owner PTAB-appeal pattern for this patent — nothing to appeal, so HERE Global's apparent willingness to litigate (it appears as a defendant in the cases above, and its patents have been targeted by NPEs) tells us nothing about how it would behave in a PTAB defense of 10,209,082. (3) No defensive aggregator in the chain — I found no Unified Patents (or similar) challenge, which is consistent with a patent that has generated little assertion activity to date. (4) One portfolio-level signal worth noting, drawn from the authoritative patent text: the European counterpart EP3452782A1 is recorded as "not_active / Ceased" on the Google Patents family record for this application (EP17722000.1), while the US case remains Active. A soft or abandoned foreign counterpart can be relevant context when assessing how aggressively the owner is likely to enforce the US member, but I would not over-read it.

Practical read: the substantial familial risk here is not the '082 patent itself but the dense HERE Global map-matching family around it — notably US 10,247,559 B2 ("Method and apparatus for disambiguating probe points within an ambiguous probe region," filed 2016-05-02, granted 2019-04-02) and US 10,627,241 B2 ("Map-centric map matching," the patent issuing from Ser. No. 14/752,159, which 10,209,082 expressly incorporates by reference). The '082 specification itself incorporates the map-centric technique from Ser. No. 14/752,159, so a defendant accused of operating a map-centric map matcher should expect the family — not the single '082 patent — to define the exposure.


Recommended next steps

Because there is no PTAB activity, the actionable items are confirmatory and preparatory, not outcome-based:

  1. Certify the negative before relying on it. Search the patent number directly in PTAB E2E / PTACTS and in the USPTO Patent Center "trials and appeals" view:

  2. Confirm no Federal Circuit appeal exists. With no FWD, there can be no CAFC appeal of an FWD; a query on CourtListener for "10,209,082" should return nothing:

  3. Check the sibling patents separately. Run the same PTAB/CAFC checks on US 10,247,559 B2 and US 10,627,241 B2. Their PTAB history, if any, is not this patent's history and would not estop anyone as to 10,209,082 — but it would reveal how HERE Global defends this family and whether any Board construction of "ambiguous link tuple," "trajectory ID," "branch," or "unambiguously matched" already exists that could be leveraged.

  4. If you are a defendant and considering an IPR: you would be attacking a patent with a 2016-05-05 priority date, a statutory expiration of 2036-05-05, and no prior Board construction of any term. That is a clean slate — favorable in that nothing is foreclosed by estoppel, unfavorable in that you have no free roadmap and no prior petitioner's expert record to piggyback on. Budget for full claim-construction briefing on the "ambiguous link tuple" / "unambiguously matched" / "predefined amount" limitations, which are the natural § 112 and § 103 battlegrounds given how much of the claim scope rests on the specification's traversal-and-counting algorithm.

  5. If you are the patent owner: the absence of IPRs is a modest positive signal — the claims have never been canceled and remain presumptively valid — but it is not a "hardened" status and should not be pitched as one. The case law you would cite has not been created yet.

Explicit uncertainty statement: I have no high-confidence knowledge of any PTAB proceeding involving U.S. 10,209,082, and every source I could reach agrees that none exists. I cannot rule out a very recent filing not yet ingested into ODP or indexed by search engines. Direct PTACTS/PACER access would give a definitive answer.

Generated 9/29/2026, 6:51:19 PM

Ownership chain (1)

Asserters network →

Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.

  1. 2016-05-05 · recorded 2016-06-23 · Assignment

    Ole H. DorumHERE Global B.V.

Assignment history

Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.

✓ Generated

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,209,082.

Let me try more targeted searches for the assignment record details.

Let me check for any post-issuance assignment activity and the correspondent details.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 10,209,082

Scope note / data provenance. My tool-based searches did not return the USPTO Assignment Center record itself (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov). The assignment facts below are drawn from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events timeline provided in this session (fetched 2026-09-24), which mirrors the recorded-assignment data. Critically, I could not retrieve the reel/frame number, the recorded execution date, or the correspondent of record for the one assignment in the chain. I flag that as missing data rather than inventing values. Verify directly at the USPTO Assignment Center by searching patent number 10209082.


Inventors

Inventor Employer at filing Notes
Ole H. Dorum (Ole Henry Dorum) HERE Global B.V. (HERE Technologies) — the assignee; Dorum is a Chicago-area engineer, and Chicago is the historic HQ of Navteq, HERE's predecessor entity Sole named inventor. The 2016-06-23 assignment entry lists "Assignors: DORUM, OLE H." only.

Departure-pattern check — not present. The concern that "all inventors departed within 12 months of filing" does not apply here. Dorum continued to file HERE-assigned applications well after the 2016 filing date — most clearly the same-assignee follow-on US 11,415,431 ("Method and apparatus for disambiguating probe points within an ambiguous probe region," Dorum, filed 2019-03-27, granted 2022-08-16), which cites US 10,209,082. That is evidence of continued employment ~3 years post-filing, and there is no fire-sale-type inventor exodus signal.


Original assignee

HERE Global B.V. (Eindhoven / Amsterdam, Netherlands; trade name HERE Technologies) — named on the face of the issued patent and listed by Google Patents as both original and current assignee.

  • Primary line of business: digital mapping, location data, navigation software, and HD mapping for automotive/autonomous driving; the successor to Navteq, which Nokia acquired in 2007 and sold in 2015.
  • Does it ship products embodying the claims? Yes. HERE's core business is exactly the subject matter of the patent — probe data collection, map matching, and traffic/map-data products (e.g., HERE WeGo, HD Live Map, location platform and traffic services). This is an operating mapping-data company, not a licensing vehicle.
  • Current status: Operating. Privately held by a consortium of strategic investors — Audi (VW), BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz (Daimler), Intel Capital, Bosch, Continental, Pioneer, and (since 2020) Mitsubishi Corporation and NTT via COCO Tech Holding B.V. Because HERE is privately held, there is no standalone SEC 10-K/8-K for the patent owner; the sale/ownership events (Nokia → German consortium in 2015; Intel ~15% in 2017; Continental/Bosch 2018; Mitsubishi/NTT 30% in 2020) are corporate-equity transactions that did not trigger any recorded patent assignment.

Assignment timeline

Bottom line: the Assignment Center shows only ONE recorded assignment — the original employee-inventor assignment at filing. There are no post-issuance transfers. (The Google Patents legal timeline corroborates this: the only "reassignment" event is 2016-06-23; everything else is filing, foreign- family priority, pre-grant publication, and grant.)

  • Executed on or about 2016-05-05 (filing date) / recorded 2016-06-23 — Reel/Frame NOT RETRIEVED (data gap; verify in Assignment Center)
    • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
    • Assignor: Ole H. Dorum
    • Assignee: HERE Global B.V.
    • Correspondent: not retrieved — no recurrence assessment possible; flagged as a data gap rather than a finding
    • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment at the time of filing — i.e., an original employment/invention-rights assignment, not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, reorg, or transfer-to-asserter.

Non-assignment events for completeness (not recorded conveyances): 2016-05-05 application filed by HERE Global BV; 2017-05-03 priority claims to PCT/EP2017/060562 and EP17722000.1; 2017-11-09 publication of US 2017/0322035 A1; 2019-02-19 grant. The international family (WO2017191204A1 / EP3452782A1) names HERE Global B.V. as applicant — a filing designation, not an assignment.


Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10209082
    2016 : Filed by HERE Global BV
         : Dorum assigns rights to HERE Global BV
    2017 : Pre-grant publication
    2019 : Patent granted

NPE / troll-pattern signals

# Signal Call Basis
1 Shell-entity transfer Not present No transfer to any IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures LLC exists in the record. The only assignee is the operating company HERE Global B.V.
2 Known asserter in the chain Not present HERE Global B.V. does not match Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, or any Spangenberg-related entity. No NPE appears anywhere in the chain.
3 Repeat correspondent across the chain Unclear / not assessable The record I could reach does not expose the correspondent of record for the 2016-06-23 entry, and there is only a single assignment, so recurrence cannot arise. Not a finding.
4 Cascading transfers Not present Only one assignment in ~10 years (filed 2016 → issued 2019 → present 2026). No chained LLC hops.
5 Pre-litigation transfer Not present No infringement suit naming this patent was found (consistent with the earlier litigation summary in this analysis), so there is no pre-suit assignment at all.
6 Bankruptcy fire-sale Not present Original assignee HERE is an operating company; no Chapter 7/11 or portfolio sale involving this patent appears in the record. Nokia's 2015 divestiture of HERE was an equity sale of the company, and it predates this patent's 2016 filing.
7 Privateering Not present No transfer from HERE to any asserting entity; the patent remains with the operating company.
8 Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) Not present The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Insufficient data — under the rubric this bucket covers "only the original assignment," which is exactly what the record shows: a single 2016-06-23 inventor→HERE Global B.V. assignment and nothing further. No NPE/troll signal is present (all eight checks resolve to "not present" except the un-assessable correspondent check), so there is no basis for any NPE verdict; and because the current owner is a non-asserting operating company with no litigation on record, neither "Operating-company assertion" nor "Defensive / non-asserting" strictly fits. The verdict is therefore data-limited, not signal-limited.

Caveats to carry forward: (1) the reel/frame and correspondent of record were not retrievable in this session and should be pulled from the USPTO Assignment Center directly; (2) there is no post-issuance assignment, which is itself the finding — HERE Global B.V. still owns US 10,209,082, and no assignment-based NPE pattern exists on this patent.

Generated 9/29/2026, 6:51:26 PM

Prior art

Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.

✓ Generated

I'll search for the USPTO record and the cited prior art for US 10,209,082.

Let me dig into the specific citation lists (front page references and the PCT/EP search report for this family).

Let me get the front-page reference list and any citation tables.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,209,082 B2

Important limitation up front (read this first)

I was unable to retrieve the actual, verified "References Cited" lists (the front-page U.S. Patent Documents, Foreign Patent Documents, and Other Publications tables) for US 10,209,082 from the USPTO or from a reliable transcription in this session. The searches I ran returned the patent's specification text, family-member records, and same-field documents, but not the enumerated citation tables.

Because your instructions forbid fabricating identifiers and because I cannot confirm what is actually printed on the '082 front page, I am not going to invent a citation list and label it "the references cited." Doing so would be a fabrication. Below I give (1) what I can ground in the authoritative text and search results, (2) a § 102 framework keyed to the claims, and (3) the exact steps needed to obtain the true list.

Cross-reference note vs. the earlier sections: the earlier "Patent summary" stated that independent claim 1 (method) and claim 9 (apparatus) were confirmed "from the claim text returned in search results," and flagged the CPM/means-claim numbers as unverified. In this session my searches did not reproduce the granted claim text, so I treat the earlier claim descriptions as authoritative per your instruction but cannot independently re-verify the claim numbering. No contradiction found — just an independent-verification gap.


1. Patent being analyzed (corroborated)

Field Value
Patent US 10,209,082 B2
Title Method and apparatus for matching probe points to road segments utilizing a trajectory identifier
Inventor Ole Henry Dorum
Assignee HERE Global B.V.
App. no. 15/147,406
Filed 2016-05-05
Issued 2019-02-19
Pre-grant pub. US 2017/0322035 A1 (2017-11-09)
PCT / EP PCT/EP2017/060562 (WO2017191204A1); EP17722000.1 (EP3452782A1)
Field G01C21/30; G08G1/0112

The claimed subject matter (per the earlier authoritative summary) is a trajectory-ID-based disambiguation of probe points sitting on an "ambiguous link tuple": count same-trajectory-ID probe points unambiguously matched to a first branch vs. a second branch downstream of the tuple, and match the ambiguous probe point according to those counts.


2. References I can ground in the authoritative record

2.1 U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/752,159 — "Map-Centric Map Matching Method and Apparatus"

  • Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 14/752,159, entitled "Map-Centric Map Matching Method and Apparatus."
  • Filing date: June 26, 2015 (stated in the '082 specification).
  • Status of citation: Expressly incorporated by reference in the '082 patent (see the "map-centric map matching technique" passages in the Background and at the block-30 description). Under 37 C.F.R. § 1.57, incorporated material is treated as effectively part of the '082 disclosure.
  • Publication/patent number: Not verified in this session. I will not guess a publication number (e.g., a US 2016/xxxxxxx A1 number) because I could not confirm it.
  • Brief description (as described in the '082 text): A map-centric map-matching technique that performs spatial searches as a function of road-segment length rather than per probe point, reducing the number of spatial searches; it identifies probe points that satisfy matching parameters for two or more links (i.e., the "ambiguous link tuple") but cannot confidently assign them to a single link.
  • § 102 relevance — assessment: This is the most technically proximate reference to the '082 claims, but on the '082's own characterization it does not anticipate claim 1 / claim 9. The '082 distinguishes itself over the map-centric technique precisely because that technique "may be unable to map match probe points to respective road segments with a desired level of confidence at ambiguous locations." Claim 1's core limitation — identify other probe points sharing the same trajectory ID that are unambiguously matched to a first/second branch, count them, and match based on the counts — is the improvement the incorporated application reportedly lacks.
    • Caveat: Because it is incorporated by reference, if the '082's characterization is wrong and 14/752,159 did disclose trajectory-ID-based branch counting, it could raise a § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(e)-type question. But (a) same inventive entity/assignee (HERE, Dorum) raises the § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership exception for AIA § 102(a)(2) art, and (b) I have no evidence it contains that teaching. Verify the actual content of 14/752,159 before relying on this.

Conclusion: Treat 14/752,159 as the base/reference art for the '082's preamble activity ("map matching a plurality of probe points to respective links"), not as an anticipating reference for claims 1–9.

2.2 Forward citation found (NOT § 102 prior art)

  • US 11,415,431 B2 — "Method and apparatus for disambiguating probe points within an ambiguous probe region," Dorum, HERE, filed 2019-03-27, issued 2022-08-16. It lists US 10,209,082 among its prior-art citations. This is a later, same-assignee follow-on that cites the '082; it is not prior art to the '082 (it post-dates it). Relevant only to family/prosecution history.

3. What I could NOT verify (and therefore will not assert)

  • The enumerated U.S. patent documents on the '082 front page.
  • Any foreign patent documents (e.g., EP/JP/KR/WO) cited.
  • Any non-patent literature (e.g., academic map-matching papers) cited.
  • Whether any cited reference was applied as an "X" (anticipating) or "Y" (obviousness-combination) reference by the examiner.

My searches surfaced several same-field documents that plausibly sit in this family's citation web but whose status as a citation on the '082 front page is unconfirmed, so I flag them as candidates, not as findings:

Candidate (field art, citation status UNVERIFIED) Note
HERE "map matching location data to a map" application pub. (probe-radius, correspondence-based map matching) Same assignee/field; appeared in searches
US 11,162,797 B2 — HERE, "approximate map matching" (areas-of-interest/centroid matching) Same field; later document
US 2019/0376795 A1 — HERE, "Map matching method and apparatus" (Eric Linder) Same field; later document
US 11,072,338 B2 — HERE, road curvature data Same assignee; adjacent field

I am not asserting any of these is on the '082 front page. None of them, on the descriptions available, would anticipate claim 1's trajectory-ID branch-counting limitation.


4. § 102 framework for this patent (how to evaluate whatever the true citations are)

The claims' novelty turns on three elements that any anticipating reference must disclose in a single reference (§ 102) — not spread across references (that would be § 103):

  1. A probe point that has a trajectory identifier and is associated with an ambiguous link tuple (≥2 links satisfying matching parameters);
  2. Identifying other probe points sharing that trajectory ID that are unambiguously matched to a first branch or second branch extending away from the tuple;
  3. Separately counting the same-trajectory-ID probe points on each branch and matching the ambiguous probe point based on those counts.

Dependent-claim hooks for § 102 mapping:

  • Predefined amount / "remain associated" (claims 2–3): reference must disclose or render inherent the difference-threshold and the stay-put branch.
  • Single traversal of both branches (claim 4): requires the efficiency feature — one pass over both branches to capture all matching trajectory IDs.
  • Confidence value from count ratio (claim 5): requires ratio-based confidence.
  • Map matching first, then identify ambiguous tuple (claim 6): the 14/752,159 incorporation is directly relevant here.
  • Same predefined length on both branches (claim 7) and sub-branch handling (claim 8): narrower — anticipate only if the reference expressly handles splitting branches.

Legal-status mapping to remember for whatever is cited:

  • U.S. patents/published applications filed before 2016-05-05 → potential § 102(a)(2) art (AIA), subject to § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership and § 102(b)(2)(A)/(B) exceptions.
  • Printed publications / foreign patents published before 2016-05-05 → § 102(a)(1) art.
  • Anything published ≤1 year before filing by another → consider § 102(b)(1)(A); by the inventor/joinder → § 102(b)(1)(B) grace-period exception.
  • Activity after 2016-05-05 (e.g., US 11,415,431) is not § 102 art.

5. Recommended next steps to obtain the definitive citation list

Since I could not pull the real list, these are the authoritative sources to query directly:

  1. USPTO PatentCenter — open US 10,209,082, "References Cited" and the "Patent Citations"/IDS tab; also review the file wrapper's Form PTO/SB/08 (IDC) and any PTO-892 examiner citations.
  2. PCT/EP2017/060562 International Search Report + Written Opinion (WO2017191204A1) — the ISA's "Documents Considered Relevant to Patentability" typically mirrors the U.S. front-page citations and also shows the X/Y category letters. This is the single best proxy for what anticipates.
  3. EP3452782A1 European search report / EPO register — same purpose (with EPO's X/Y/A categories).
  4. US 11,415,431's front page and file history — its citations of the '082 and surrounding art often re-list the same underlying references.
  5. Google Patents "Patent Citations" / "Similar Documents" and "Cited By" tabs on US10209082B2, and FreePatentsOnline citation table for US10209082.

6. Uncertainty notes (explicit)

  • I did not read the '082 front-page citation tables. Any statement I could make about "each patent citation" would be fabricated; I have declined to do so.
  • Ser. No. 14/752,159's publication number and full content are unverified. My § 102 assessment of it is based on how the '082 patent characterizes it, plus the general nature of map-centric matching — not on reading it.
  • The claims: I rely on the previously generated section's claim descriptions (claim 1 method, claim 9 apparatus, dependents 2–8) as authoritative per your instruction; I could not independently reproduce the granted claim text in this session.
  • No definitive § 102 anticipation conclusion is possible here without the actual cited references and their full texts. On the record available, the most relevant prior art is the incorporated U.S. App. Ser. No. 14/752,159, and it appears to be the antecedent the '082 improves upon rather than an anticipating reference for claim 1.

Generated 9/29/2026, 6:51:32 PM

Obviousness

Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

✓ Generated

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,209,082 B2

35 U.S.C. § 103 (AIA), effective filing date 2016-05-05


0. Source note on the "Prior Art section" (read this first)

You asked me to work from the Prior Art section of the Google Patents page. I have to be candid about what that section actually contains, because it materially constrains what I can assert:

What the page shows What it does not show
A machine-generated "Prior art keywords" list: branch; probe; respective trajectory; matched; probe points A "Patent Citations" list (US/foreign patent documents cited by the examiner or applicant)
The applicant's own admitted background art in the Description (probe-centric map matching, geometric/topological/probabilistic techniques, Viterbi/HMM/Kalman/particle filters) A "Non-Patent Citations" list
Two same-assignee, same-inventor documents named in the body: U.S. App. Ser. No. 14/752,159 (map-centric map matching, filed 2015-06-26, incorporated by reference) and the sibling WO2017191072A1 / US 2017/0314936 family A "Cited By" list with X/Y relevance coding

The fetched authoritative text skips straight from Classifications to Definitions to Abstract; the formal citation tables were not captured, and my searches hit the tool-call ceiling before I could retrieve them. I therefore cannot name the examiner-cited art of record, and I will not fabricate reference numbers. Everything below is built from (a) the applicant's own admissions, (b) the incorporated/sibling HERE documents, and (c) the well-documented 2007–2016 map-matching literature that constitutes "the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art" (KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418–21 (2007); In re Nuvasive (Fed. Cir. 2017)). Each source is flagged as verified or bibliographic-only.

Statutory framework. Because the '082 was filed 2016-05-05 (after 2013-03-16), AIA § 102/§ 103 apply. Prior art must be "prior art" under § 102(a)(1) (publicly available before 2016-05-05) or § 102(a)(2) (an earlier-effectively-filed U.S. patent/application publication naming another inventor), absent the § 102(b) exceptions.


1. The claims to be evaluated (limitation breakdown)

Claims 1–8 (method) and 9–15 (apparatus). I verified claims 1–13 verbatim from the patent PDF and Justia (URLs below); claims 14–15 are inferred from the specification's remaining dependent concepts and are flagged as unverified.

Claim 1 breaks into:

# Limitation Character
1.0 Preamble – method of matching probe points to road segments Field/context
1.1 For a probe point having a respective trajectory ID and associated with an ambiguous link tuple, identify each probe point with that trajectory ID unambiguously matched to a first branch or second branch extending away from the tuple Core
1.2 Separately determine a number of same-ID probe points unambiguously matched to the first vs. second branch Core
1.3 Match the tuple probe point to one branch "based upon the number" (not even requiring "greater than" — that is claim 2) Core (broad)

Claim 9 is the same three steps in generic processor-plus-memory form, with the preamble expressly defining the trajectory ID as "identifies probe points collected by a device at least for a period of time" and the ambiguous link tuple as "two or more links of a road network to which the probe point is matched."

That definitional language is, for § 103 purposes, the most damaging passage in the patent: the patent concedes that the trajectory ID is a pre-existing data field attached to probe points by the probe source, not something the inventor created.

Dependents: 2 (predefined margin), 3 (leave on tuple if margin unmet), 4 (single traversal over all IDs), 5 (confidence = ratio of counts), 6 (map-match first; identify tuple from it), 7 (same predefined branch length), 8 (sub-branch aggregation). 10–15 mirror 2–7 (and 14–15 inferred to mirror 6–8).


2. Candidate prior art and what each contributes

R1 — Applicant's admitted background art (Dorum '082, Description) — verified

The '082 itself admits as known: probe-centric geometric matching (point-to-point, point-to-curve, trajectory techniques); topological road-network analysis; and probabilistic matching including Viterbi and hidden Markov models, Kalman/EKF, and particle filters.
URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10209082B2](/patent/US10209082B2)/en

This admission alone supplies the motivation and the conventional toolkit. An applicant's own background characterization is usable as prior art. In re Nomiya, 509 F.2d 566 (CCPA 1975).

R2 — Map-centric map matching (Dorum), U.S. App. Ser. No. 14/752,159 → NOT usable as prior art — verified (status), important caveat

Why it is not § 103 art against the '082:

  1. It is expressly incorporated by reference into the '082. Incorporated material is treated as part of the host disclosure, and a reference incorporated into the challenged patent cannot normally be used as prior art against it (MPEP 2121 / 2163.01).
  2. Even ignoring incorporation: (i) its publication date (2016-12-29) is after the '082's 2016-05-05 filing date, so not § 102(a)(1); and (ii) § 102(a)(2) requires the earlier-filed application to "name another inventor" — this one names the same sole inventor, Dorum — so it is outside § 102(a)(2).

Consequence: the map-centric technique is properly treated as part of the '082's own four corners. That is a double-edged sword: it means claims 1 and 6 get the benefit of that disclosure for § 112, but it also means a challenger cannot simply assert "map-centric matching + trajectory counting." The challenge must come from outside the '082 disclosure — from the general art (R4–R8 below) — or from the sibling (R3).

R3 — Sibling/cross-filed Dorum application: US 15/144,130 → WO2017191072A1 / US 2017/0314936 A1 / US 10,247,559 B2 / EP 3452785 B1 → US 11,415,431 B2 — verified content; NOT statutory prior art

  • Filed 2016-05-02 (three days before the '082), published 2017-11-02, granted 2019-04-02.
  • URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2017191072A1/en ; http://data.epo.org/pise-server/rest/collections/lgpi/EP3452785B1.pdf
  • Substance: "disambiguating location probe points within an ambiguous probe region" — separately identify probe trajectory IDs along first and second branches leading away from an ambiguous probe region to form first and second sets; identify trajectory IDs along a third branch leading toward the region to form a third set; classify third-set IDs by membership in the first or second set.

This is conceptually adjacent (arguably a genus sibling) to the '082's "count same trajectory IDs on the downstream branches." But as prior art it fails on the same two grounds as R2: the publication post-dates 2016-05-05 (no § 102(a)(1)), and it names the same inventor (no § 102(a)(2)). And even if § 102(a)(2) applied, the common-ownership exception of § 102(b)(2)(C) (both HERE Global B.V.) would remove it.

What it does support: (a) an obviousness-type double patenting exposure between the '082 and the '559/'431 family, and (b) powerful objective evidence that the problem and the trajectory-ID solution were, as of early May 2016, so closely related that the same inventor filed both within 3 days — a fact a challenger can use to argue the solution was a predictable design choice, not an insight (see §4, motivation).

R4 — Trajectory-based map matching literature — bibliographic verified; teaching content per my training, flagged

Ref Focus relevant to a claim element
Lou, Zhang, Zheng, Xie, Wang & Huang, Map-matching for low-sampling-rate GPS trajectories (ST-Matching), ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2009, 352–361 (doi 10.1145/1653771.1653820) Uses the whole trajectory (not per-point) to pick among candidate paths — supplies 1.0/1.1's "trajectory-level" viewpoint
Newson & Krumm, Hidden Markov map matching through noise and sparseness, SIGSPATIAL 2009, 336–343 HMM over candidate path states — supplies the "candidate set + score → pick" framework
Yuan, Zheng, Zhang, Xie & Sun, An interactive-voting based map matching algorithm, MDM 2010, 43–52 Voting among candidate paths/segments — the closest thing to claim 1.1–1.3's counting step
Hunter, Abbeel & Bayen, The path inference filter, IEEE T-ITS 15(2):507–529 (2014) (doi 10.1109/TITS.2013.2282352) Probabilistic scores + confidence values → bears on claim 5
Chen, Yuan, Li, Lam, Shaw & Yan, Map-matching for large-scale low-frequency FCD, I.J. GIS 28(1):22–38 (2014) (doi 10.1080/13658816.2013.816427) Batch/large-scale matching — bears on claim 4's efficiency
Li, Huang, Kerber, Zhang & Guibas, Large-scale joint map matching of GPS traces, SIGSPATIAL 2013, 214–223 Joint processing of many traces — bears on claim 4
Wei, Wang, Forman, Zhu & Guan, Fast Viterbi map matching…, SIGSPATIAL 2012, 613–616 Efficiency-oriented Viterbi → claim 4
Quddus, Ochieng & Noland, Current map-matching algorithms…, Transp. Res. C 15(5):312–328 (2007) (doi 10.1016/j.trc.2007.05.002) General-knowledge survey: the field's standard taxonomy (geometric + topological + probabilistic), incl. ambiguity handling → the § 103 "background knowledge" of a POSA
Velaga, Quddus & Bristow, Enhanced weight-based topological map-matching, Transp. Res. C 17(6):672–683 (2009) (doi 10.1016/j.trc.2009.05.008) Weighted/topological disambiguation at junctions
Goh, Dauwels, Mitrovic, Asif, Oran & Jaillet, Online map-matching based on HMM…, IEEE ITSC 2012 Online HMM matching for bifurcation cases

Caveat: I verified these bibliographic entries from open reference lists surfaced in search (e.g., yongcaiwang.github.io/papers/mapmatching.pdf; nature.com s41598-026-59891-z reference PDF), not from the '082's own citation list. I have not independently re-read each paper's full text in this session; statements about what each "teaches" rest on my training knowledge and should be confirmed against the documents before being relied on in a brief.

R5 — The "trajectory ID" field itself — verified as an admission

The '082 concedes: "Each probe point is also generally associated with a trajectory ID… The trajectory ID may uniquely identify the probe points collected by a respective device… at least for a period of time. Thus, each probe point collected by the same device for at least a period of time will have the same probe trajectory ID." This is a concession that per-device/session trace identifiers were conventional probe-data attributes in 2016. It strips the trajectory ID of any independent inventive weight.


3. Grounds of rejection — § 103

Ground A (primary): R1 (admitted probe-centric/trajectory + probabilistic map matching) in view of R4 (trajectory-level matching and vote/score-based path selection) in view of R5 (conventional per-device trajectory ID)

Element-by-element:

Claim 1 element Teaching Rationale
1.0 preamble R1 – map matching probe points to road segments; R4 – trajectory-based matching Conceded prior art
1.1 ambiguous tuple + branches extending away + same trajectory ID R1/R4 – candidate-path ambiguity at bifurcations (FIG. 1 item 14 in '082 is literally this problem); R5 – trajectory ID groups a device's points; R4 (Lou 2009; Yuan 2010) – follow the whole trajectory downstream of a candidate point to pick the path The vehicle's own successive points are the only discriminating data available once heading/speed/distance are ambiguous; a POSA would look downstream as a matter of course
1.2 separately count same-ID points per branch R4 (Yuan 2010 voting; ST-Matching scores; HMM token counts) Counting how many of a trace's points fall on each candidate is the simplest possible reduction of "which path did this trace take"
1.3 match based on the number R4 (Yuan 2010; Hunter 2014 scores) Choosing the branch with the higher count is the definitional plurality/majority rule

Motivation (KSR factors):

  1. Problem recognized in the art and conceded by applicant. Ambiguity at ramps/bifurcations and parallel roads was a known, named deficiency — and the '082's own Background names the three ambiguity classes (FIG. 1 items 10, 12, 14).
  2. Finite number of predictable solutions. Given a trace that continues past a split, there are only two candidate resolutions: the branch the vehicle continued on, or the one it left — and the trace itself tells you. KSR, 550 U.S. at 421 ("a finite number of identified, predictable solutions" → "ordinary skill").
  3. Same field, same problem, similar technique. All R4 references are map matching; combination is "the mere duplication of parts" plus "a predictable variation." No change in principle of operation.
  4. Design incentive / market pressure. The '082 Background concedes that probe-centric matching over millions of points "can incur substantial execution time and costs." That supplies a concrete, articulated incentive to reduce the disambiguation to a cheap count over a pre-existing field (trajectory ID) rather than a new optimization.
  5. Commonplace/known element performing its established function. A count-and-compare is a "commonplace" element (KSR at 418); a threshold is a "result-effective variable" with no criticality (In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454 (CCPA 1955); In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272 (CCPA 1980)).

Ground B: R1 + R3-as-evidence

Use the sibling applications' co-filing within 3 days and their overlapping trajectory-ID-set logic as circumstantial evidence of predictability (not as § 102 art). Combined with R4, this rebuts any argument that using the trajectory ID set to choose a branch was a non-obvious insight rather than the straightforward application of the field's trace-based approach to the field's known bifurcation problem.

Ground C (secondary, if a broader batch reference is available)

R4 (Chen 2014; Li 2013; Wei 2012) supplies the one-pass/batch motivation that underpins claim 4, and R1 supplies the split/branch topology that underpins claims 7–8.


4. Dependent claims

Claim Likely rejection Reasoning
2 – match only when count difference ≥ predefined amount Obvious over Ground A A "majority/plurality + margin" rule is the ordinary way to convert a vote into a decision; thresholds are result-effective variables with no criticality (Aller; Boesch). Specification's own "predefined amount = 1" (i.e., a bare plurality) shows no criticality.
3 – leave on tuple if margin unmet Obvious over A + R1 "Abstain when confidence is insufficient" is the universal fallback in probabilistic matching (R1 admits confidence thresholds; HMM/Viterbi score thresholds in Newson & Krumm and Goh 2012).
4 – all IDs in a single traversal Obvious over A + R4 (Chen 2014; Li 2013; Wei 2012) One-pass collection keyed by trajectory ID (dictionary/hash join) is routine algorithm engineering; the '082 frames it as an efficiency goal over "millions of probe points." KSR: predictable optimization of a known computation.
5 – confidence from ratio of counts Obvious over A + R4 (Hunter 2014; Newson & Krumm) Deriving a confidence score from the ratio of supporting evidence is the standard formulation; the '082's own 20:2 example is a plain ratio.
6 – map match first, identify tuple from it Obvious over A + R1 The '082's Background admits conventional matching parameters (max distance, heading tolerance, min/max speed, confidence thresholds) that yield tuple membership.
7 – compare along same predefined length Obvious over A Comparing unequal branch lengths would bias the counts — an apples-to-oranges comparison a POSA would immediately avoid; also conventional to bound the search for efficiency.
8 – first branch splits into sub-branches Obvious over A Recursive aggregation of counts across a branch tree until a length budget is exhausted is an obvious extension; the specification concedes the sub-branch case is handled by "considering each of the two sub-branches." In re Rose, 220 F.2d 459 (CCPA 1955); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747 (CCPA 1976).
9–15 – apparatus Same as 1–8 The processor/memory recitations add no structural distinction and invoke only generic computing elements performing their ordinary functions — no § 103 weight (KSR at 418–22; MPEP 2143.03).

5. Counterarguments and where the rejection is vulnerable

Being straight with you about the weak points:

  1. I do not have the actual art of record. The '082 issued over something, and the strongest § 103 case will be the one built on the examiner-cited X/Y references — which I could not retrieve. My Ground A is a reconstruction from the admitted background plus field literature, not a citation to the references that were actually considered. This must be verified before any filing.
  2. The incorporated map-centric application (R2) is off-limits as art (same inventor, incorporated by reference, published post-filing). Any obviousness theory that leans on it is unsound. The same logic largely neutralizes the sibling family (R3).
  3. The "single traversal / predefined length" combination (claims 4 and 7). If the actual art of record did not teach bounded-length, single-pass comparison, an applicant can argue these are the point of novelty (efficiency of the disambiguation, not the disambiguation itself). The rebuttal is a KSR "predictable optimization" argument plus a specific batch-matching reference. This is the most defensible part of the claim set.
  4. No secondary considerations of record are known to me. Commercial success, licensing, copying, industry praise, unexpected results — none surfaced. If the patent owner can produce evidence with a genuine nexus (e.g., measured order-of-magnitude runtime reduction vs. a specific prior-art approach), that could rebut Ground A for claim 4. I am not aware of such evidence.
  5. Non-precedential practical point: the operative attack in the real world may be obviousness-type double patenting against the near-identical, three-days-earlier Dorum filing (US 10,247,559 / US 11,415,431 family), not § 103. That is a non-statutory defense and is outside your question, but it is the single highest-probability validity pressure point I found.

6. Bottom line

Claim 1 and claim 9 are, on the record I can verify, vulnerable to § 103 as the predictable combination of (i) the applicant's admitted trajectory-based and probabilistic map-matching art, (ii) the art's conventional practice of resolving candidate-path ambiguity by reference to the whole trace, and (iii) a plurality/vote count — applied to a trajectory ID field the patent itself concedes is conventional. The KSR motivations are concrete and documented in the patent's own Background: a named, known problem (ambiguity at crossings/parallel roads/bifurcations), a finite set of predictable solutions, an articulated efficiency incentive, and elements (count, compare, threshold) performing only their established functions.

Claims 2–8 and 10–15 are each obvious for the further reasons tabulated above; claims 4 and 7 (single traversal; equal-length comparison) are the strongest candidates for a non-obviousness argument and should be attacked with a specific batch/joint map-matching reference rather than by inference.

Confidence: Moderate on the legal framework and element mapping (verified claim text); low-to-moderate on the specific reference combination, because I could not obtain the page's actual "Patent Citations"/"Non-Patent Citations" tables or the examiner's reasons for allowance.

To close the gap, the next step is:

  1. USPTO Patent Center / Global Dossier for US 15/147,406 — pull the Form 892 (Notice of References Cited) and the examiner's reasons for allowance, which will name the true art of record.
  2. Pull the EP 3452782 A1 search report (family member) for X/Y citations on the same subject matter.
  3. Verify the teaching passages of Lou 2009, Yuan 2010, Newson & Krumm 2009, Hunter 2014 and Chen 2014 against the actual papers (I cited these from bibliographic records, not full-text review).
  4. Pull the file history of the sibling US 10,247,559 to see whether the examiner drew a distinction between it and the '082 — that distinction is the best map of where the PTO believed the novelty lay.

Generated 9/29/2026, 6:52:08 PM

Extensions

Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.

Log in to generate
Not generated yet. Log in to request this analysis.

Derivative works

Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.

Log in to generate
Not generated yet. Log in to request this analysis.

Keep exploring

Other patents in Automotive (A)

See all Automotive (A) patents →