US 10521846

I'll search for this specific patent number across USPTO and litigation sources.

Let me search for litigation involving this patent and its claims.

Let me get the actual granted claims and check for any Federal Circuit activity.

US Patent 10,521,846 — Analyst Summary

Important sourcing note: I was able to retrieve the patent's bibliographic data, abstract, and claim text from Google Patents and the pre-grant publication record. I could not locate any U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket entry specifically naming US 10,521,846. The litigation I found for this patent family is all district-court activity (Texas). I did not find results for similar/other patent numbers in a way that would contaminate the record, but treat the identifiers below literally as given.

Bibliographic Data

Abstract (as published)

Systems, apparatus, and methods are disclosed for accurately identifying a mobile thing motion activity (MTMA; e.g., stationary, walking, running, biking, driving, etc.) associated with a mobile thing (MT) using sensor data from one or more sensors associated with a wireless communication device (WCD) transported by the MT, so as to enable targeted selection and communication of an advertisement that is suited for the identified MTMA. The one or more sensors produce sensor data indicative of physical movement of the WCD in three dimensional space and may include, for example, one or more of the following: an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, etc.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

⚠️ Claim-set caveat: The claim text I retrieved is from the pre-grant publication US 2015/0142578 A1. Granted claims in US 10,521,846 can differ (e.g., renumbering, narrowing, or added independent claims), and the publication snippet was truncated after claim 11/15. You should verify against the actual issued claim set (e.g., the granted PDF/PatentCenter) before relying on exact language.

Two independent claims appear in the publication:

Claim 1 — Method (ad selection based on detected motion activity)
A method for use with a WCD carried by a "mobile thing" (MT, e.g., a person). The steps are:

1. Determine the MTMA (what the carrier is doing — stationary, walking, running, biking, driving, etc.) based on data from WCD sensors. The sensors measure physical movement of the WCD in 3D space, producing data sets of three movement values plus a time value (one value per axis of a 3D coordinate system), expressly to permit statistical analysis of the movement.
2. Select an advertisement based at least in part on that determined MTMA.
3. Cause the advertisement to be communicated to the WCD.

In short: detect how the phone is physically moving → infer the activity → pick an ad suited to that activity → deliver it.

Claim 11 — Wireless Communication Device (WCD) apparatus
A WCD carried by the MT, comprising:

• Transceiver(s) to reach a remote computer system that selects/provides the targeted advertisement;
• Sensor(s) producing the same 3D-movement data sets (three values + time) supporting statistical analysis;
• Memory storing program code and processor(s) executing it, the code being configured to:
  • determine the MTMA from the sensor data and the statistical analysis;
  • communicate the sensor data and/or the derived MTMA to the remote system to enable selection of an advertisement suited to the determined MTMA; and
  • receive and locally present the advertisement to a user interface of the WCD.

In short: the same core idea implemented device-side, where the remote server does the ad selection while the WCD senses motion, reports it, and displays the resulting ad.

(The publication excerpt ended mid-claim-15, so additional independent claims in the granted patent cannot be ruled out from what I retrieved.)

Representative dependent claims add: delivery by email/text (claim 2); also using an MT identification (ID) (claim 3); also using WCD location (claim 4); receiving payment / monetizing the ad delivery (claim 5); enabling an advertiser via a remote system (claim 6); user on/off toggle for ads (claim 7); sensor being an accelerometer and/or gyroscope (claim 8); determining a mathematical relationship between data sets in the 3D coordinate system (claim 9); and performance either on the WCD or on remote computer system(s) (claim 10).

Litigation / Docket Notes (as distinct from CAFC)

The patent record shows an extensive district-court litigation footprint (per Unified Patents litigation data), including several W.D. Tex. cases, plus matters in S.D. Tex., N.D. Tex., and E.D. Tex. Specifically relevant to "2026 dockets," I located:

• Big Will Enterprises Inc v. Enterprise Holdings Inc, No. 1:26-cv-00652 (W.D. Tex.), filed 03/18/2026, Cause of Action: Patent Infringement, Nature of Suit 830.

Other listed Texas cases include Nos. 6:23-cv-00774, 6:23-cv-00571, 6:23-cv-00403, 6:23-cv-00341, 6:22-cv-00993, 4:23-cv-04847, 2:23-cv-00090, 4:23-cv-00197, 4:23-cv-00257, 1:24-cv-00042, 1:24-cv-01393, 1:24-cv-00833, 1:24-cv-00871, 1:24-cv-01200, 1:24-cv-01392, 1:24-cv-00799, 4:24-cv-00078, 4:24-cv-00069, 1:25-cv-01650, 1:25-cv-00941, 1:25-cv-01929, 1:25-cv-01063, 1:25-cv-00179, 1:25-cv-00129, and 1:26-cv-00652.

Uncertainty statement: I found no CAFC 2026 docket or opinion citing US 10,521,846. A CAFC opinion surfaced in my search (Wildseed Mobile / 24-1846, decided 4-30-2026) concerns an unrelated mobile-advertising patent family — it does not involve this patent number. If a Federal Circuit appeal of one of the above Texas cases exists, I could not confirm it from the sources available to me, and I will not assert one exists.

Bottom Line

US 10,521,846 (Big Will Enterprises, ex-Iot Human Messaging) claims technology for selecting targeted ads based on a phone's inferred physical-motion activity (standing/walking/running/biking/driving), where the motion sensing is characterized by 3D accelerometer/gyroscope-style data sets (three axis values + timestamp) enabling statistical analysis. Its independent claims are a method (detect MTMA → select ad → deliver to WCD) and a device (sensors + processor reporting MTMA to a remote ad-selection server). The patent is active with adjusted expiration in 2032 and is the subject of numerous Texas district-court infringement suits, including a 2026 W.D. Tex. case (1:26-cv-00652). No Federal Circuit 2026 docket for this patent was located, and the exact granted-claim wording (versus the pre-grant publication) should be confirmed from the issued patent before being relied upon.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 10521846 using the sources you specified.

I found substantial litigation. Let me gather more detail on the remaining cases, including defendant names for several docket numbers.

Litigation Involving US Patent 10,521,846

Findings summary: US 10,521,846 ("Targeted advertisement selection for a wireless communication device (WCD)") is owned by Big Will Enterprises, Inc. (assigned from IoT Human Messaging LLC, effective 2020-01-20; a corrective assignment was recorded 2024-09-16). The patent has been asserted in a large enforcement campaign across multiple Texas federal district courts, almost always together with four or five related family patents (US 8,559,914; US 8,737,951; US 9,049,558; US 8,452,273; and in some suits US 8,977,230). In essentially every complaint found, US 10,521,846 appears as Exhibit 1 to the complaint — i.e., it is a lead asserted patent.

Important caveat: The Google Patents litigation record for this patent is a "Family has litigation" listing, meaning some docket numbers listed there may involve related family patents rather than the '846 patent specifically. Below I separate cases I could directly confirm involve US 10,521,846 (complaints showing "Exhibit 1 – U.S. Patent No. 10,521,846") from a list of additional docket numbers where I could not confirm the defendant or the specific patent asserted.

A. Confirmed cases asserting US 10,521,846

All plaintiffs below are Big Will Enterprises, Inc.; plaintiff's counsel in essentially all is Brett T. Cooke (Law Office of Brett T. Cooke).

B. Additional docket numbers listed in the patent's litigation record (defendant/patent not confirmed)

These appear in the "Family has litigation" record on the patent page but I could not confirm the defendant or that the '846 patent (as opposed to a family member) was specifically asserted:

• W.D. Tex.: 1:24-cv-01392, 1:24-cv-01393, 1:25-cv-00179, 1:25-cv-01650, 1:25-cv-01929, 1:26-cv-00652
• E.D. Tex.: 2:23-cv-00090
• N.D. Tex.: 4:23-cv-00257, 4:24-cv-00078

Note on case renaming: The docket listings show anomalies I did not correct (per your instruction to interpret identifiers literally). For example, the complaint PDF at <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.312902/gov.uscourts.nysb.312902.2747.0.pdf> displays as if its case name were "Big Will Enterprises Inc. v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company" while its case number is 6:22-cv-00993; unrelated CourtListener documents were returned under that same name. I flag this rather than resolving it.

C. Related (non-litigation) proceeding

• Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art contest on US 10,521,846 (Big Will Enterprises), run 2024-08-14 to 2024-10-15; $2,000 awarded 2024-12-03 to Mani Manikandan and Dinesh Swami for prior art on at least claim 1. Unified described the patent as "asserted against SafeDrivePod International, Aware360, Solutions Into Motion Limited, and Matrix Telematics Limited." This is a crowdsourced prior-art search, not an IPR or court case.
  • Source: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2024/12/3/2000-awarded-for-big-will-messaging-patent-prior-art and https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/49SQ4Nhqz6niPzGph

D. Key sources

• Google Patents record (family litigation list): https://patents.google.com/patent/US10521846/en
• Unified Patents litigation portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
• Dockets/Justia: 1:2025cv00941 (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/1:2025cv00941/1172851254), 1:2024cv00799, 1:2025cv01063
• CourtListener: 6:23-cv-00341 (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67356478/), 4:23-cv-04847 (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68127596/)
• RPX Insight: 6:23-cv-00403 (Uber) — https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172742386-big-will-enterprises-v-uber-technologies
• PatSnap litigation analyses for the Matrix Telematics, Overhaul, Earnix, and Solera matters

Overall outcome pattern: No case found has produced a merits ruling on validity or infringement. The campaign has resolved almost entirely through early, pre-answer voluntary dismissals under FRCP 41(a)(1)(A)(i) — some with prejudice (Overhaul, Matrix Telematics, Earnix) and at least one without prejudice (Solera). The only case found with a defendant substantively engaged is SafeDrivePod International B.V. (answer + counterclaim). Several 2025 filings (Knight-Swift, Loomis) appear to remain pending.

Limitations: I could not verify the filing dates for a few cases (Overhaul, Solera, Earnix, Rivian) beyond approximations; where exact dates were not retrievable I so indicate. Docket data may since have updated.

I'll start by verifying the canonical PTAB list against what's publicly discoverable.

The search surfaced a Unified Patents prior-art contest on this exact patent — a strong signal of a possible follow-on IPR. Let me chase that and cross-check the PTAB docket.

Let me check whether the PATROLL prior art turned into an actual petition, and scan for any family-wide challenges or appeals.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 10,521,846 B2

Patent: "Targeted advertisement selection for a wireless communication device (WCD)" — App. No. 14/606,421, filed 2015-01-27, granted 2019-12-31; priority date 2008-01-16; current assignee Big Will Enterprises Inc. (originally IoT Human Messaging LLC).

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — zero active, zero claims invalidated, zero claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials — sourced from the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal block, which returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding for this patent, and corroborated by targeted public searches that surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, termination, or Federal Circuit appeal naming US 10,521,846.

The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore "untested, not hardened." Unlike a patent that has survived IPRs, this one carries no PTAB validation and no PTAB estoppel: no claim has been canceled (so nothing is sanction-bait), but no claim has been confirmed valid either, and no defendant is foreclosed by § 315(e)(2) from running any ground. The claim set is a blank slate at the Board — which cuts both ways.

Proceedings

None on file

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical USPTO ODP list — contains no AIA trial proceedings for US 10,521,846. That means there is no proceeding number to report, no panel to name, no grounds of record, no institution ruling, and no FWD. I am not supplying a proceeding number, petitioner, or outcome, because none exists in the source of record, and fabricating one here would be materially harmful to a defendant relying on this memo.

What I affirmatively searched for and did not find (this is the negative finding, and it is the deliverable):

Near-misses I checked and excluded — so a defendant does not have to re-verify these:

• IPR2025-01023, Samsung Elecs. Co. v. CM HK Limited — challenges U.S. Patent No. 10,852,846 (Liou et al.), a numerically similar but wholly unrelated patent. Do not conflate these.
• IPR2025-00819, ClearCorrect Operating LLC v. Align Technology, Inc. — mentions "Big Will Enterprises" only because a Lex Machina docket exhibit lists Big Will among high-volume W.D. Tex. plaintiffs. It is not a challenge to the '846 patent.
• Unified Patents PATROLL contest on US-10521846-B2 — not a trial proceeding, but highly relevant (see below).

Statutory posture that limits what could still appear: the '846 patent issued 2019-12-31, so the PGR window under § 321(c) closed 2020-09-30, and the CBM program's sunset (new petitions after 2020-09-16) has passed. IPR is now the only AIA vehicle left for a challenger, and only for a party not barred under § 315(b). That materially narrows the universe of proceedings that could plausibly still be filed.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,521,846 has been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed at the PTAB — there is no certificate under § 318(b) and no surviving-claim carve-out to report. Every claim that issued on 2019-12-31 is live as issued. Public district-court materials indicate claim 1 is the primary asserted claim (Unified Patents' PATROLL contest was expressly scoped to "at least claim 1 of US-10521846-B2," and third-party complaint analyses chart claim 1 against dashcam and fleet-telematics G-sensor functionality). I flag that claim scope characterization as derived from litigation pleadings and a third-party claim-charting summary, not from any PTAB record — there is no PTAB record.

Estoppel landscape: no estoppel exists in either direction. Because no IPR was ever instituted with respect to this patent, no petitioner (or privy) is subject to § 315(e)(2) estoppel on any ground, and no defendant inherits a "reasonably could have raised" limitation from anyone else. For a defendant being asserted against today, the full prior-art universe remains available — before the district court and, if eligible, before the Board. The practical constraint is not estoppel but § 315(b): a defendant served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '846 patent more than one year before filing will be time-barred from its own IPR absent joinder. Given Big Will's filing wave (W.D. Tex. suits from 2022 through 2026, per the litigation entries in the record), many already-served defendants have blown that clock. A newly-served defendant has exactly one year from service — that is the single most time-sensitive item in this memo.

Pattern signals: no PTAB pattern, but a clear pre-IPR pattern. The same actor — Unified Patents, a defensive aggregator — ran a $2,000 PATROLL crowdsourcing contest seeking prior art on claim 1, opened 2024-08-14 and closed 2024-10-15, with winners announced 2024-12-03. Contest records state the patent was then asserted against SafeDrivePod International, Aware360, Solutions Into Motion Limited, and Matrix Telematics Limited. A PATROLL contest is a challenge to validity and a harbinger of an IPR, but on this record it did not mature into one as of the most recent ingest — no Unified-filed petition appears. Unified is not in the chain as a petitioner. Separately, Big Will Enterprises is described in Lex Machina docket data as a High-Volume Plaintiff and has asserted the '846 patent together with family members US 9,049,558; 8,737,951; 8,559,914; 8,452,273; and 8,977,230 across dozens of W.D. Tex. cases, predominantly before Judge Alan D. Albright. Whether any of those family patents has PTAB history is a portfolio question I could not verify in this session — treat it as open.

Two caveats on the negative finding. First, PTAB petitions are not publicly visible for the first few months of pendency, so a recently filed petition could be uncaptured. Second, I could not directly query PTAB E2E / the PTAB API in this session; the zero-count rests on the canonical ODP block plus public searches. Both are addressable with a single E2E docket lookup at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/, searching application 14/606,421 and patent 10,521,846.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the zero with a direct register check before you rely on it. Pull the full public file at PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) for App. No. 14/606,421 / Patent 10,521,846, and pull the patent's full transaction history. Do not treat this memo's negative finding as a substitute for that check if you are preparing a § 315(b) deadline calendar or an IPR decision.

2. Docket the one-year bar immediately. For any newly served defendant, § 315(b) runs 12 months from service of the complaint. There is no instituted IPR to piggyback on and no joinder target, so your own petition (or a stipulation, or a stay strategy) must be filed inside that window. For defendants served in 2022–2024, assume you are barred and plan a district-court-only defense.

3. Use the PATROLL output as a free invalidity head start. Unified published the winning submissions — https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2024/12/3/2000-awarded-for-big-will-messaging-patent-prior-art — and the contest page is https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/49SQ4Nhqz6niPzGph. Note that contest entrants had to avoid art already cited during prosecution, so this art is likely new to the file wrapper — exactly what you want for both an IPR petition and a § 282 district-court defense, with no § 325(d) discretion to worry about and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaching.

4. Because no IPR has been instituted, you are not estopped — but you also cannot point to a cancellation. There is no FWD to link and no claim to call "dead." If opposing counsel's demand letter leans on claim 1, your leverage is the crowdsourced prior art and the § 101/§ 112 exposure of a 2008-priority motion-classification-and-ad-serving claim set, not any PTAB result. Anyone who tells you "claims 1–5 have been canceled" is wrong; no claim of this patent has been canceled.

5. Check the asserted family before filing anything. The '846 patent travels in a complaint package with US 9,049,558, 8,737,951, 8,559,914, 8,452,273, and 8,977,230. If any of those has PTAB history, estoppel and claim-preclusion dynamics change across the package, and a single coordinated challenge may be more efficient than patent-by-patent. Verify each individually at PTAB E2E before scoping a petition.

What the absence means: well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs, and this one has been asserted widely since at least 2022. The absence of any petition five-plus years post-grant is itself a signal — it suggests challengers have concluded the art is hard to find (hence the crowdsourced contest), or that the economic exposure per defendant is too small to justify a petition, or that § 315(b) bars have already closed. Any of those readings favors a district-court invalidity posture over a Board-first strategy.

I'll research this patent's ownership chain. Let me search for the assignment records, assignees, and litigation activity.

Good context. Now let me dig into the specific assignment records and the parties' backgrounds.

Let me find the specific assignment reel/frame records and correspondent details.

I hit the tool-call limit, so here is my reconstruction based on the authoritative patent record you supplied plus the cross-references I was able to retrieve. Where a field (notably correspondent of record and most reel/frame numbers) was not retrievable, I say so plainly rather than inventing it.

Inventors

Notes / patterns:

• The '846 application was filed by the inventors in their own names (individual applicants), not by a corporate employer. There is no corporate co-assignee or employer-assignee at filing — the inventors held the property personally until the 2016 assignment to Iot Human Messaging LLC. That "individual inventors → self-formed LLC" sequence is the front end of the classic monetization chain.
• Maria Khomenko is a named co-inventor on sibling family patents US 8,452,273 and US 9,049,558 (both asserted alongside the '846), but the Google Patents bibliographic data for US 10,521,846 lists only Jones and Horstemeyer as inventors. I could not confirm Khomenko's presence on the '846 itself — flagging as uncertain.
• Scott A. Horstemeyer shares a name with a well-known Atlanta patent attorney; I could not verify whether this is the same person from the sources retrieved, so I am not treating that as a finding. It is at most a point to check.
• The family's priority reaches back to 2008-01-16, the application was filed 2015-01-27, and the inventors did not paper the IP over to an entity until 2016 — i.e., roughly 8 years of personal ownership before formation of the holding vehicle.

Original assignee

Iot Human Messaging LLC — named as original assignee of record (Google Patents bibliographic "Original Assignee").

• Line of business: Appears to be a non-operating patent-holding vehicle, not a product company. I found no evidence of any commercial product, revenue, or manufacturing associated with Iot Human Messaging LLC. It received the '846 by assignment from the inventors in 2016 and later conveyed it onward.
• Product embodying the claims: None found.
• Current status: On the available record it functions as an intermediate holding entity that has divested the patent. I could not retrieve a state of incorporation or a dissolution/merger filing — treat status as not fully determined. Google Patents lists the current assignee as Big Will Enterprises Inc., not Iot Human Messaging.

Assignment timeline

Source: Google Patents legal events ("reassignment") for US 10,521,846. Important data caveat: the Google Patents reassignment table does not expose reel/frame or correspondent fields. The only reel/frame I can cite with confidence is 039178/0241, which is referenced inside the corrective-assignment text itself. I could not independently retrieve the remaining reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record, so:

• I am not fabricating reel/frame numbers I did not see.
• Correspondent of record is a genuine data gap — see the NPE signal 3 discussion.

Chronological records:

• 2016-07-18 (executed) / recorded 2016-07-18 — Reel 039178/0241 (inferred: this is the reel/frame the 2016-08-30 corrective assignment refers back to)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Scott A. Horstemeyer; M. Kelly Jones (the inventors)
  • Assignee: Iot Human Messaging LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources consulted.
  • Context: Formation of the holding vehicle — inventors convey the family to their own LLC.

• 2016-08-30 (executed) / recorded 2016-08-30 — Reel not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Correction (corrective assignment)
  • Assignor: Scott A. Horstemeyer; M. Kelly Jones
  • Assignee: Iot Human Messaging LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable.
  • Context: Administrative correction — "CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT TO CORRECT THE APPLICATION NUMBER 61694981 PREVIOUSLY RECORDED AT REEL: 039178 FRAME: 0241." Points to the original instrument at 039178/0241.

• 2020-01-18 (executed) / recorded 2020-01-18 — Reel not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Iot Human Messaging, LLC
  • Assignee: Big Will Enterprises Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable.
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter. This conveyance moves the patent out of the holding LLC and into the entity that later becomes the plaintiff. It pre-dates the first known assertion (Nationwide, filed 2022-09-21) by roughly 2.5 years.

• 2024-09-16 (executed) / recorded 2024-09-16 — Reel not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Assignment (appears to be a second/re-recording involving the same two parties)
  • Assignor: Iot Human Messaging, LLC
  • Assignee: Big Will Enterprises, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable.
  • Context: Cleanup / confirming assignment during active litigation. Same parties as the 2020 record; the 2024 date sits in the middle of a very active asserting campaign, suggesting a title-cleaning or confirmatory recording rather than a new economic transfer.

Verification: Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "10521846"); legacy index — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Correspondent-of-record fields should be pulled directly from the Assignment Center abstract of title, which I could not open.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10521846
    2008 : Priority date
    2015 : Application filed by Jones and Horstemeyer
    2016 : Inventors assign to Iot Human Messaging LLC
         : Corrective assignment recorded
    2019 : Patent issued
    2020 : Iot Human Messaging assigns to Big Will Enterprises
    2022 : First known assertion of the patent
    2024 : Second assignment record to Big Will Enterprises

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The patent moved from individual inventors to Iot Human Messaging LLC (no products found), then to Big Will Enterprises Inc. — which Unified Patents explicitly designates "an NPE" ("owned and asserted by Big Will Enterprises Inc., an NPE," PATROLL contest, Aug–Oct 2024). This is external designation, not name-based inference. Reel 039178/0241 (inventors → LLC) and the 2020-01-18 record (LLC → BWE).

2. Known asserter in the chain — present. Big Will Enterprises Inc. is a Unified Patents PATROLL target and is tagged a "High-Volume Plaintiff" in PTAB/USPTO docket material (e.g., 1:24-cv-01563, 1:23-cv-01133). It is not one of the legacy names (Acacia, Marathon, IV, etc.), but it is surfaced by Unified Patents as a high-frequency asserter — which is what this signal asks for. Sources: https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/49SQ4Nhqz6niPzGph and https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2024/12/3/2000-awarded-for-big-will-messaging-patent-prior-art.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (data gap). I could not retrieve the assignment correspondent of record for any of the four recordings, so I cannot confirm or deny recurrence. For completeness: the repeat litigation counsel is Brett T. Cooke, Eureka Intellectual Property Law, PLLC, 20507 Tamarron Drive, Humble, Texas 77346, who appears as plaintiff's counsel across essentially the entire Big Will campaign (e.g., 4:23-cv-04847 Autoliv service address; 6:22-cv-00993 Nationwide; 1:25-cv-00941 Knight‑Swift; 1:24-cv-01393 Shenzhen Viofo). Litigation counsel ≠ recording correspondent, so I am not scoring this as a hit — but it is the single recurring lawyer in this family and should be checked against the Assignment Center correspondent fields.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only two assignees appear (Iot Human Messaging LLC → Big Will Enterprises). The two Big Will recordings are ~4.5 years apart, not a <24-month chain of chained LLCs. No shared-principal evidence found.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2020-01-18 transfer to BWE pre-dates the earliest known assertion (2022-09-21) by ~2.5 years, and the 2024-09-16 recording post-dates numerous suits. Neither satisfies the "within 6 months before first suit" test.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding, and no sale-of-patents-through-estate event, was found for Iot Human Messaging or the inventors.

7. Privateering — not present / unclear. No evidence of an operating company transferring to an NPE to assert against its competitors. The chain originates with individual inventors, not a corporate sponsor. BWE's own complaint asserts it "has incorporated its patented technology in its own test platforms" (W.D. Tex. 1:26-cv-00652), but that is a self-serving pleading statement and there is no evidence of commercial product sales.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. To the contrary, Unified Patents is running prior-art crowdsourcing against this patent.

Assertion footprint (supporting context): dozens of infringement suits naming the '846 across the Western, Southern, Eastern, and Northern Districts of Texas, including Nationwide (2022), Solera and Matrix Telematics (2023), Overhaul, SafeDrivePod, Aware360, Kia America, Shenzhen Viofo, Rivian, Osram/Autozone, Loomis Armored, Knight‑Swift, Frotcom, Geometris, and Enterprise Holdings (2026), all captioned with plaintiff Big Will Enterprises Inc. Dockets verified at CourtListener, Justia Dockets, and RPX Empower (example: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172896619-big-will-enterprises-v-enterprise-holdings).

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two or more strong signals are present. (1) The patent was conveyed out of a non-operating holding LLC (Iot Human Messaging LLC, reel 039178/0241 and the 2020-01-18 assignment) into Big Will Enterprises Inc., an entity that third-party Unified Patents expressly designates "an NPE." (2) Big Will is a high-volume, litigation-first plaintiff with dozens of '846 suits spanning multiple Texas districts, and it is a Unified Patents PATROLL target for invalidating this very patent. The chain has no defensive-aggregator terminus and no operating-company product evidence other than BWE's own pleading assertions. The one material gap is the assignment correspondent of record, which I could not retrieve and which should be checked directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 10521846) to complete the picture.

I'll research US patent 10521846 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the specific citation lists for this patent.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,521,846 B2

Important upfront caveat on completeness. The authoritative full text of US 10,521,846 B2 supplied to me (fetched from https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10521846B2](/patent/US10521846B2)/en) contains the front-matter, abstract, classification, "Definitions," and litigation sections, but it does not include the "Patent Citations / References Cited" list itself. My web searches likewise surfaced the litigation data and forward-citation counts for the patent but did not return a verbatim, itemized examiner citation list for US 10,521,846 B2. I therefore cannot guarantee this is the complete set of references cited on the face of this patent. Below I (a) state the verified bibliographic facts, (b) present the citations I could actually tie to this patent or its family from the searches, and (c) flag each item's confidence level. I will not invent citation entries I could not retrieve.

1. Verified bibliographic facts (high confidence)

Priority/continuation family (NOT prior art — same disclosure):

• US 12/354,927 (filed 2009-01-16) → US 8,559,914 B2
• US 13/935,672 (filed 2013-07-05) → US 9,049,558 B2
• US 14/049,527 (filed 2013-10-09) → US 8,737,951 B2
• US 14/606,421 (filed 2015-01-27) → US 10,521,846 B2 (this patent); related sibling US 9,141,974 (MT identification/MTMA using sensor data).

Because all family members share the 2008-01-16 priority, none of them can qualify as § 102 prior art against this patent.

2. The claims to be measured against any reference (medium-high confidence)

Claim 1 (from the publication as reproduced at patents.justia.com/patent/20150142578):

1. A method for use in connection with a WCD transported by an MT, comprising: determining an MTMA associated with the MT … based at least in part upon sensor data … measuring physical movement of the WCD in three dimensional space and producing data sets comprising three movement values and a time value … in order to permit statistical analysis; selecting an advertisement based at least in part upon the determined MTMA; and causing the advertisement to be communicated to the WCD.

Dependent claims 2–10 add, e.g., e-mail/text delivery (claim 2), MT identification (claim 3), location (claim 4), monetization/payment (claim 5), advertiser notification (claim 6), user opt-in/opt-out (claim 7), accelerometer/gyroscope source (claim 8), a mathematical relationship across data sets (claim 9), and local-vs-remote execution (claim 10). Claim 11 is the WCD apparatus counterpart; claims 12–14+ add ID, location, etc.

Anticipation test: To anticipate under § 102, a single reference must disclose all three core elements — (i) MTMA determined from 3-axis, time-stamped sensor data using statistical analysis, (ii) ad selected based on that MTMA, and (iii) the ad caused to be communicated to the WCD.

3. References identified in connection with this patent

3a. US 8,160,615 B1 — higher confidence as a cited/targeted-advertising reference

• Full citation: US 8,160,615 B1.
• Date: Appears as a granted US patent; described in the retrieved PDF text as a handset-based personalization/targeted-marketing system.
• Description: Describes providing targeted marketing to wireless devices ("wireless devices 120–122") based on associations generated by an application program, and a representative handset architecture (DSP 502, memory 504, RF transceiver 508, GPS sensor 538, etc.).
• Relevance / potential § 102: If it also derives a user motion/activity state from device sensors, it could touch claim 1. As retrieved, it discloses ad targeting based on associations/user profile and device location — i.e., it maps onto the "selecting an advertisement" and "causing the advertisement to be communicated" limitations (claims 1, 2, 4, 6). It does not appear to disclose MTMA determination from 3-axis accelerometer statistical analysis, so a § 102 anticipation of claim 1 is unlikely; it is better characterized as § 103 combination art.

3b. US 2009/0187593 A1 — targeted media/content delivery

• Full citation: US 2009/0187593 A1 ("targeted media content").
• Date: Published 2009-07-23 (publication-level; published before this patent's 2015 filing but after the 2008 priority date — i.e., potentially prior art only against the 2015 filing date, not the 2008 priority date).
• Description: A media-distribution system that creates metadata for media content, classifies content into groups, and each wireless device runs a "media module" that determines a user profile 46 and selects media content based on a correlation between the user profile and media content metadata (passive user data, active user data, user inferences).
• Relevance / potential § 102: Correlates to claim 1's "selecting an advertisement" and, because it profiles active user data (content/services accessed, location, time), to location-based targeting (claim 4). It does not disclose MTMA-from-accelerometer selection. Again § 103 material rather than a clean § 102 anticipation, and its post-2008 publication date limits it to the 2015 filing date.

3c. US 8,811,957 B2 — advertising methods/apparatus for wireless systems

• Full citation: US 8,811,957 B2 ("Advertising methods and apparatus for use in a wireless communications system").
• Date: Granted 2014-08-19 (post-priority, pre-2015 filing).
• Description: A mobile communications device stores advertisements with target-audience constraints (device type, minimum reachable device count, demographic) and decides whether to transmit an advertisement when a constraint is satisfied; includes a comparison module and decision module. Discusses historical buying habits/nature of work as targeting data.
• Relevance / potential § 102: Relates to claims 1, 5, 6 (advertising distribution, reward/monetization, advertiser notification). It targets by audience constraint, not by sensed MTMA, so no anticipation of claim 1; § 103 combination only.

3d. References appearing in the search set but which I could NOT confirm as citations of THIS patent (do not rely on these)

The following appeared in my search results but are tied to different matters; I flag them so they are not mis-attributed to US 10,521,846:

• US 4,901,194 A (Steinman et al., 1990-02-13) and US 8,861,166 B2 (Illinois Tool Works, 2014-10-14) and US 2016/051713 A1 (Robert, 2016-02-25) — these were cited in the International Search Report of WO 2019/108898 A1 (a different application), not shown as citations of US 10,521,846.
• Collins '227 (US 2008/0xxxxx, ad selection by location + current user interests) and Chmaytelli '453 (location-based ads using base stations/towers) — these appear in a PTAB petition (IPR) for the '296 Patent (unrelated patent number), not in US 10,521,846.
• US 8,810,438 / "Personal property security device" tables, and the US 2010/0156788 A1 "Cited By (19)" listing — in these, US 10,521,846 appears as a forward citation (i.e., 10,521,846 is cited by other patents) or in a priority-application table, not as a reference cited against it.

4. Bottom line

1. Verified family/priority: US 10,521,846 B2 (app. 14/606,421), priority 2008-01-16, granted 2019-12-31, Big Will Enterprises (orig. Iot Human Messaging). Its continuations (US 8,559,914; US 9,049,558; US 8,737,951; US 9,141,974) are same-family, not prior art.

2. Most relevant art retrieved: the targeted-advertising references US 8,160,615 B1, US 2009/0187593 A1, and US 8,811,957 B2. Each maps well onto the advertising limitations of claim 1 (and claims 2, 4, 5, 6), but none of them, as retrieved, discloses determining an MTMA from three-axis, time-stamped accelerometer data via statistical analysis — the distinctive first element of claim 1. They are therefore best treated as § 103 obviousness-combination candidates, not clean § 102 anticipations, of claim 1. The strongest § 102 candidates would be references that combine both accelerometer-based activity recognition and ad selection; I did not retrieve a single reference in the citation set doing both.

3. Confidence limits (please verify): Because the authoritative text I was given omits the face-of-patent "References Cited" list, and because my searches did not return that list verbatim, the citation set above may be incomplete, and the exact cited-reference set should be confirmed against the USPTO PatentCenter/Public Pair "References Cited" tab or the printed front page of the patent (item (56)). I have deliberately not fabricated any additional entries.

If you can supply the printed "(56) References Cited" block from the patent front page (or the PatentCenter citation listing), I can convert this into a complete, claim-by-claim § 102/§ 103 chart for every cited reference.

I'll start by pulling the cited prior art and family/claim context for US 10,521,846 so the § 103 analysis is grounded in the actual references of record.

Let me pull the actual "Prior Art" and "References Cited" listings for this patent from the patent pages.

Let me retrieve the cited prior art list ("Patent Citations") from the patent's own page and FPO record.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,521,846 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

0. Sourcing note (important)

The authoritative page text supplied in the prompt contains the "Prior art keywords" field (wcd, mtma, data, designed, program code) and the "Prior art date" (2008‑01‑16), but the page's underlying "Patent Citations" table was not included in the supplied text — it is truncated before the claims/citation listing. I therefore could not literally read off a citation list from that field. Rather than invent one, I reconstructed the reference set from retrievable records of the same patent/family and from the references cited in the closest art of record. Where I am not certain of a bibliographic detail (exact publication date, exact title), I flag it rather than state it as fact.

Also flagged up front: the claim text I chart below is from the pre‑grant publication US 2015/0142578 A1 (the publication of application 14/606,421, which issued as the '846 patent) as reproduced at https://patents.justia.com/patent/20150142578 and https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2015/0142578.html. If the granted claims differ from the published ones, the charts must be re‑run against the granted text. The claim set I analyze is reproduced in §1.

1. The claim set at issue (published claim text)

Independent claim 1 (method) requires, in substance:

• (a) MTMA determination element — "determining a mobile thing motion activity (MTMA) associated with the MT that is transporting the WCD based at least in part upon sensor data, the sensor data derived from one or more sensors associated with the WCD, the one or more sensors measuring physical movement of the WCD in three dimensional space and producing data sets comprising three movement values and a time value, each of the three movement values indicative of physical movement of the WCD relative to a respective axis in a three dimensional (3D) coordinate system at the time value in order to permit statistical analysis of the physical movement";
• (b) ad selection element — "selecting an advertisement based at least in part upon the determined MTMA"; and
• (c) delivery element — "causing the advertisement to be communicated to the WCD."

Dependents add: email/text delivery (cl. 2); MT identification as an additional selection input (cl. 3); WCD location as an additional input (cl. 4); payment/monetization (cl. 5); advising an advertiser's remote computer system (cl. 6); user on/off control (cl. 7); accelerometer/gyroscope (cl. 8); determining a mathematical relationship between different data sets to enable analysis in the 3D coordinate system (cl. 9); WCD‑side or remote‑side implementation (cl. 10). Claim 11 is the mirror‑image WCD apparatus claim (transceiver to a remote system that "select[s] a targeted advertisement," sensors producing 3‑axis‑plus‑time data sets, code to determine MTMA via statistical analysis, and code to receive/display the ad), with dependents 12–15 mirroring 3, 4, 8 and a system claim.

Analytic point: only one limitation in claim 1 is arguably non‑routine — the 3‑axis‑plus‑time‑value data‑set format tied to statistical analysis. Elements (b) and (c) (selecting an ad based on user/device context and sending it to a mobile device) were, by the 2010–2013 window, among the most heavily populated areas of the art.

2. Threshold issue: effective priority date drives the art set

The '846 is a divisional of 14/180,558 (filed 2014‑02‑14), which is a CIP of 14/049,527 (2013‑10‑09, now US 8,737,951), which is a CIP of 12/354,927 (2009‑01‑16, now US 8,559,914), claiming benefit of provisional 61/021,447 (2008‑01‑16); the '558 application is also a CIP of PCT/US13/56753 (2013‑08‑27) branching from 13/935,672 (2013‑07‑05) (priority chain reproduced at https://www.patents-review.com/a/20150142578-targeted-advertisement-selection-wireless-communication.html and in the family listing at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9141974](/patent/US9141974)).

Two consequences:

1. The 2008 date buys the applicant very little for the ad‑targeting claims. The ad‑selection‑by‑MTMA subject matter was added in the later‑filed continuation/CIP layers. Unless the 2008/2009 specifications provide § 112 written description for "determin[ing] MTMA … select[ing] an advertisement based at least in part upon the determined MTMA," the ad claims are entitled at best to the 2013‑10‑09 or 2014‑02‑14 date (and AIPA/AIA art rules attach accordingly). A challenger should demand the priority‑support showing first, because most of the strongest art below was published 2010–2011, i.e., before the CIP chain dates.
2. Even under the earliest possible date, the movement‑analysis art relied on below (e.g., Kwapisz et al., KDD 2010; EP 2383691) post‑dates 2008 and would then be § 102(a) art only for the later‑dated claims — reinforcing why the priority question is dispositive.

The '846's own specification also contains an admission that supplies much of the motivation analysis: "The 'average/mean' and 'variance/SD' are most commonly used in previous research on human MT," and the specification states the MTMAI system "currently uses average and SD of the vertical acceleration and net horizontal acceleration," plus higher‑order moments. A patent that characterizes its own statistical toolkit as conventional research practice is in a weak position on the "statistical analysis" element.

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

A POSITA here would be a worker with a bachelor's in EE/CS (or equivalent) and 2–4 years of experience in mobile/wireless application development, with working familiarity with (i) MEMS accelerometer/gyroscope signal processing and activity recognition, (ii) client/server mobile advertising platforms, and (iii) the published activity‑recognition literature. That skill level is what makes the combinations below "mere" combinations rather than inventive syntheses.

4. Reference set (with where each can be verified)

5. Ground 1 (primary): R1 in view of R4 — renders claim 1 obvious

Claim 1 element (a): R1 discloses determining a state of movement of the device — a species of "mobile thing motion activity" — from accelerometer/GPS/signal‑strength data, including distinguishing walking from traveling in a car (speed thresholds). Element (a) is therefore disclosed except for the express "data sets comprising three movement values and a time value … in order to permit statistical analysis."

R4 fills precisely that gap: it teaches the conventional practice of sampling a three‑axis mobile‑phone accelerometer to produce time‑stamped 3‑axis sample sets and applying statistical analysis (mean, standard deviation, higher‑order features) to classify walking, jogging, sitting, standing. R9 (the applicant's own family) confirms the same data structure — the '846 specification describes "average and SD of the vertical acceleration and net horizontal acceleration" and higher‑order moments as the mechanism.

Elements (b) and (c): R1 literally recites an "advertisement selection module for selecting an advertisement from a set of advertisements based on the state of movement" and an "advertisement transmittal module for transmitting the advertisement to the device."

Motivation: R1 and R4 are in the same technical field (context inference from mobile‑device motion for content delivery). R1's ad selection is only as good as its movement classification; R4's statistically grounded, multi‑axis classification is a known technique for improving exactly that classification. Under KSR, using a more discriminating classifier to make a known context‑based ad selector more accurate is "the application of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results." There is also an express design incentive: walking vs. driving audiences command different ad radiuses, formats and advertiser categories in R1 itself and in R2.

6. Ground 2: R3 in view of R4 and R2 — renders claims 1 and 8 (and 11) obvious

R3 is arguably the closest single reference to the ad‑centric independent claims.

• Element (a): R3 receives "acceleration signals" and determines "physical state information … including information about motion," including orientation derived from "change in angles … based on the received acceleration signals in three dimensions." Motion‑state determination from 3‑D accelerometer data is thus disclosed.
• Element (b): R3's "request for content includes information about motion," and the ad/content is selected (including selected in a media format) based on that motion state.
• Element (c): R3 presents the content at the mobile device.
• Residual gap: R3's claim language is framed around orientation/position/posture (standing, lying down) rather than locomotion categories (walking/running/biking/driving), and it does not recite the "three movement values + time value" data‑set format expressly.

R4 supplies the locomotion‑category classification and the 3‑axis‑plus‑time statistical data structure; R2 supplies the express teaching that motion state (walking vs. car speed) drives advertisement selection and targeting radius, plus direction‑of‑travel context. Combining R3's accelerometer‑driven motion state with R4's activity classifier and R2's motion‑based ad relevance is a textbook KSR combination: same field, overlapping problems, finite number of identified predictable solutions, reasonable expectation of success.

Claim 8 (accelerometer/gyroscope) is squarely met by R3 (accelerometer) and R1 (accelerometer/GPS/signal‑strength; the specification's own sensor list includes gyroscope), and depends only on the choice of a known motion transducer.

7. Ground 3: R5 in view of R6/R2 and R4 — renders claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 as obvious

R5 pre‑dates the '846 by years and directly discloses the business method skeleton: selecting advertisements for a wireless device and communicating the selection to the wireless device, with selection keyed to current interest and current device location, inserting ads into ad spaces in served content. R6 adds motion/orientation as an ad‑display trigger, and R2 adds motion‑state‑dependent ad relevance. R4 again supplies 3‑axis/time/statistical MTMA determination.

Combining an established wireless targeted‑advertising platform (R5) with an accelerometer‑based activity classifier (R4) to produce an advertisement chosen according to what the user is doing is the paradigm case of KSR factor (F) — competitive/market pressure to differentiate ad inventory — and factor (A) — combining known elements according to known methods.

Dependents mapped:

• Cl. 2 (email/text): plain‑vanilla delivery channel; R5's delivery‑to‑wireless‑device teaching plus routine messaging channels. No non‑obvious weight.
• Cl. 3 (MT ID as additional input): R5 and R8 (targeted marketing based on associations/profiles) teach profile‑ or identity‑keyed ad selection; R9/Mc's family teaches deriving MT identity from WCD sensor data. Combining identity and activity inputs is a finite, predictable design choice. Motivation: twofold relevance (who + what they are doing).
• Cl. 4 (location as additional input): Expressly disclosed by R5 and R2 (radius expands with speed), and by R7 (movement event + location + ad sent to device).
• Cl. 5 (receiving payment / monetary benefit): Inherent in any server‑side ad‑serving/monetization architecture — R5, R2 ("server … pushes these [offers] first"), and R8 all contemplate advertiser‑funded delivery. This is a business‑model recitation, not a technical advance.
• Cl. 6 (advising advertiser's RCS of the MTMA): R2's server‑push architecture and R5's platform‑side selection/injection architecture make notifying the advertiser‑side system of the targeting parameter a predictable implementation detail.
• Cl. 7 (user enable/disable): Consent/opt‑out toggles are routine and, as of the relevant window, mandated by privacy practice; no technical contribution.
• Cl. 9 (mathematical relationship between data sets to enable 3‑D analysis): This is the hardest limitation and the one where the record is most ambiguous. The 3‑D reference‑frame/normalization teaching corresponds to the applicant's own family disclosure (see the sibling/priority document titled "…determining a mathematical relationship between the different data sets to enable analysis of the different data sets in the 3D…" at https://patents.google.com/patent/US9141974). A challenger must be careful: same‑family documents are awkward art and cannot be treated as prior art merely because they share a priority chain. This limitation should be attacked with independent 3‑D normalization/attitude‑estimation art rather than family documents; I cannot responsibly name a specific such reference with high confidence without the page's citation list.
• Cl. 10 (WCD or remote implementation): Client‑vs‑server placement is a conventional architectural allocation (R1 and R2 are server‑centric; R3 and R7 are device‑centric) — claims both options, so the choice is admitted to be a design variable.

8. Motivation‑to‑combine statement (usable in an invalidity contention)

For each ground, the articulated rationale is: (1) Same field of endeavor — context‑aware delivery of advertisements to portable/wireless devices (R1, R2, R3, R5, R6, R7, R8 all share this). (2) Same problem — knowing what the device user is doing improves ad relevance; R1 and R2 state it expressly. (3) Predictable result — substituting a statistically superior 3‑axis activity classifier (R4) for a coarse speed/gesture detector (R1/R2/R6) yields a better‑classified context and therefore better ad selection, with no change in the underlying architecture. (4) Finite set of solutions — motion inference from an on‑board accelerometer/gyroscope, in a client‑server split, is the identified set. (5) Design incentives — advertiser demand for contextually relevant inventory and the practical constraints of mobile power/bandwidth. No reference teaches away; to the contrary, each of R1, R2, R3 and R6 explicitly invites further refinement of the motion determination.

Absence of secondary considerations. Nothing in the record I retrieved shows unexpected results, industry praise, licensing due to the ad‑selection features, or failure of others. The extensive litigation history on the Google Patents page (many Texas W.D./N.D./E.D./S.D. cases, e.g. case 6:23‑cv‑00774, 1:25‑cv‑01650 — see the litigation links on https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10521846B2](/patent/US10521846B2)/en) is evidence of asserted value, not of non‑obviousness; if anything it predicts a crowded invalidity‑contention environment.

9. Where the patent is strongest — and the honest caveats

1. Claim 9's mathematical‑relationship/3‑D‑framework limitation is the only element I cannot confidently map to a specific named reference from what I retrieved. It is the place where the applicant's family does substantive technical work (the reference‑framework/normalization methodology described at FIG. 5 of the specification). Expect this to be the claim‑scope the patentee retreats to.
2. The specific 4‑category taxonomy (standing / walking / running / biking / driving) with tuned higher‑order moments of vertical acceleration is more specific than R1–R4 individually teach, but the specification itself calls mean/SD "most commonly used in previous research," and the classifier construction is an optimization exercise.
3. Priority support is the pressure point. If the ad‑selection and 3‑D‑dataset limitations are not supported by the 2008/2009 parents, the effective date moves to 2013–2014, and the pre‑CIP art (R1, R2, R4, R5) becomes even more squarely applicable. Conversely, if the earlier date is upheld, the analysis above migrates to § 102(a) for the later‑added claims and to obviousness for the rest — the outcome for claim 1 does not change materially.
4. Do not treat same‑family patents (US 8,559,914; US 8,737,951; US 9,141,974; US 9,049,558) as § 103 prior art without first establishing that they are not commonly owned/benefited under the applicable § 102 regime. They are useful for claim construction and admission purposes (e.g., what the inventors considered conventional), not as primary art.
5. Claim‑text verification is required. My charts use the published US 2015/0142578 A1 claims. Before filing anything, re‑chart against the granted claim set of the '846.
6. § 101 note (out of scope but material): claims 1–10 recite selecting and delivering advertising based on sensor‑derived context — a candidate Alice step‑two problem that is independent of the § 103 analysis above and, in combination with the weak § 103 posture of the ad‑targeting claims, is likely the more dangerous attack.

10. Bottom line

• Claim 1: Obvious over EP 2383691 (R1) + Kwapisz (R4), and independently over US 9,224,100 (R3) + Kwapisz (R4) + US 2010/0205036 (R2). The only arguably non‑routine element — 3‑axis‑plus‑time data sets subjected to statistical analysis — is disclosed as conventional in R4 and admitted as conventional in the '846 specification itself.
• Claims 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10: Obvious over the same grounds plus US 9,0163227 (R5), US 8,850,365 (R6), US 2011/0161136 (R7), US 8,160,615 (R8).
• Claim 3: Obvious over R1/R3 + R4 (or R5/R8) further in view of the MT‑identification disclosures of the inventors' own lineage (R9).
• Claim 9, and the apparatus claims 11–15 to the extent they import claim 9's 3‑D mathematical‑relationship limitation: These are the only limitations for which I cannot, on the record I retrieved, supply a specific anticipatory/obviousness mapping with high confidence. That is a function of not having the page's full citation list, and I am stating it as an unresolved gap rather than asserting the limitation survives — it should be re‑run once the granted claim text and the actual "Patent Citations" table are available.