US 11190373

I'll search for the patent's claim text, abstract, and CAFC docket information.

Let me try to retrieve the '373's own claim text and CAFC docket information directly.

Let me try to retrieve the literal claim text of the '373 itself.

Patent Summary: US 11,190,373 B1

Bibliographic data (verified)

Source: the authoritative full text supplied (Google Patents, US11190373B1), cross-checked against Unified Patents and PatentGuru family listings.

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Abstract

Verbatim (as published; note the authoritative full-text scrape dropped the abstract block, so this is from the Golden/patent-attribute mirror — treat as high-confidence but not primary-sourced):

"A system receives vehicle metric data from a gateway device connected to a vehicle. The vehicle gateway device gathers data related to operation of the vehicle and/or location data. The system receives data from multiple vehicles in a fleet. The vehicle gateway device gathers vehicle metric data at a high frequency. Instead of transmitting a large amount of vehicle metric data at a fine level of granularity, the vehicle gateway device aggregates and buckets the vehicle metric data over a period of time (such as, every five minutes). The system uses the bucketed data for fleet management analysis."

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Plain-language overview of the claimed subject matter

⚠️ Threshold uncertainty — read before relying on this section

I could NOT retrieve the literal, verbatim claim set of US 11,190,373. The authoritative full text I was given rendered the description and classifications but its claims block was dropped by the scraper (the patent is a B1 with no pre-grant publication, so there is no separately published claim set to fall back on). I also could not obtain page 1 of the patentimages PDF in this session.

Therefore I will not state "claim X is independent and reads as follows" as if quoting. What I can give you, with sourcing, is:

1. The ITC-asserted claim set (authoritative, from the Federal Register and Commission notices), and
2. The substance of claim 15 in plain language, taken from Samsara's own infringement complaint — i.e., the patent owner's own characterization of its independent claim, and
3. The specification's claim-support passages, which describe each embodiment family the claims are drawn from.

The earlier analysis sections in this file flagged this same gap; one of them nonetheless asserted that "the '373's independents are claims 1 and 6." That statement traces to the continuation US 11,855,801's claim set, not the '373's. I flag that as a probable error — the ITC record shows claims 15/17/18 asserted against the '373, and Samsara's complaint describes claim 15 as a system claim, which is inconsistent with the '801's claim 15 (a dependent method claim for bucketing). Treat the '373's claim set as not established until the issued patent's claims column is pulled.

What is actually verified about the claim set

Plain-language restatement of the independent claim(s), as best established

Claim 15 (system — verified substance): A fleet-analytics system pairing an on-vehicle gateway with a back-end computer. The gateway collects and sends up vehicle performance data. The server looks across a whole fleet's historical data, measures how much fuel/energy those vehicles actually used over several different time windows, then statistically works out which driving behaviors correlate with fuel/energy consumption and how strongly — i.e., it derives weights for metrics like cruise-control use, coasting, idle time, hard acceleration, or RPM band. Those derived weights are then applied to one specific vehicle's data to produce a fuel/energy efficiency score for that vehicle, which is shown to the user in an alert, report, or interactive dashboard.

The distinguishing idea versus, say, a fixed-formula fuel score is the middle step: the weighting of each driving metric is not preset but is learned/derived from correlations observed across the fleet's own fuel/energy data.

The gateway/bucketing claim family (likely claim 1 in the '373, mirrored in US 11,855,801): On the vehicle, the gateway reads raw data off the vehicle bus (OBD-II/J1939), turns it into discrete metrics, sorts each metric into buckets/ranges (e.g., an "800–1700 RPM" green band; cruise-control on/off; coasting true/false; idle true/false; brake-event categories), aggregates time or counts per bucket over a period, and — only when an aggregation time threshold (e.g., 5 minutes) elapses — uploads the summarized aggregate rather than the raw millisecond-level stream. This is the bandwidth-saving architecture the abstract describes.

The safety-score variant (the spec describes it in parallel): Same correlation-and-weighting machinery, but the outcome variable is safety (derived from driver-history data or predictor metrics), yielding a safety score surfaced in an alert/report/GUI.

The battery-charge-estimate variant: The gateway relays historical battery data; the server builds a customized charge-estimate function for that specific battery from charge records (start state of charge, end state of charge, energy charged), then estimates the current state of charge after a charge start time — solving the problem that some vehicles' computers are off while charging so the current state of charge cannot be read live.

Which claims are independent: I have not confirmed the full independent-claim inventory. Based on the specification's distinct claim-support families and the ITC's asserted set, the most probable independent claims are in the 1 / 6 / 15 / 17 / 18 region, but I am not asserting that as fact.

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USPTO and CAFC 2026 docket search — results

Searched specifically for patent number 11190373. No results for similar numbers were returned (searches for citation tables repeatedly surfaced other patents' data — e.g., US 9,426,720's 760-citation list, and US 11,365,980's "Patent Citations (101)" table — and I have excluded those as not attributable to the '373).

• USPTO (PTAB): No AIA trial proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) exists on US 11,190,373. Zero FWDs, zero cancellations, zero § 315(e)(2) estoppel. The '373 is PTAB-virgin. (PGR window closed ~2022-08-30; CBM program sunset September 2020 — so IPR on §§ 102/103 is the only AIA vehicle remaining.)
• USPTO (assignment record): Exactly one recorded instrument — the nine inventors → Samsara Inc., recorded 2021-05-04. No post-issuance transfer. Reel/frame and recording correspondent not retrieved.
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1393 (Certain Vehicle Telematics, Fleet Management, and Video-Based Safety Systems…), Samsara v. Motive Technologies:
  • Instituted 2024-03-12 (89 FR 19356). Asserted patents: the '621, '130, and '373.
  • ALJ Final Initial Determination, 2025-09-08: as to the '373, claim 15 infringed by Motive's "Fuel Score v1" and "v2" but not "v3"; claim 18 not infringed; claims 15 and 18 not shown invalid for anticipation or obviousness; claims 15 and 18 held patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101; technical prong of domestic industry not satisfied.
  • Commission determination, 2026-02-05 (published 2026-02-10, FR Doc. 2026-02577): reviewed in part (the '130 § 101 question, the '373 technical prong, and the economic prong), affirmed no § 337 violation, investigation terminated.
  • Source: https://www.usitc.gov/system/files?file=secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1393_notice02052026sgl.pdf
• CAFC 2026 dockets: The Google Patents litigation block for this family lists Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case 26-1630. I could not independently corroborate docket 26-1630 in this session — no CAFC opinion, order, or briefing schedule was surfaced. It is plausible that 26-1630 is Samsara's appeal of the Commission's 2026-02-05 no-violation determination (an appeal of an ITC determination is filed with the Federal Circuit, not the PTAB), but I am not confirming that mapping. Note that Judge/Motive's litigation and Samsara's appeals do not create PTAB activity or PTAB estoppel.
• District court: D. Del. 1:24-cv-00084 (filed 2024-01-24), transferred to N.D. Cal. as 3:24-cv-06049; and N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-00902 (Motive's mirror action). The '373 was asserted in the Samsara action.

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Uncertainty statement

Not authoritative / not retrieved, and I will not fabricate these:

1. The '373's literal claim set (claims 1–20) is not retrieved. The claim overview above is reconstructed from Samsara's complaint, the ITC record, and the spec's claim-support text — it is not a substitute for the issued claims.
2. The abstract above is from a mirror, not the primary document (the authoritative scrape dropped it). Content is consistent with the specification and with the three continuation family members, all of which publish essentially identical abstract text.
3. Which claims of the '373 are independent is not confirmed. A prior section's assertion that the '373's independents are claims 1 and 6 is likely a bleed-over from continuation US 11,855,801 and should be re-verified.
4. Priority date 2020-05-01 vs. 2020-04-30 is unresolved across sources.
5. CAFC 26-1630 is unverified. Its existence is attributed to this family by the Google Patents litigation block only.
6. ITC 337-TA-3722 appears in the family litigation block but is anomalous against the ITC's sequential numbering (the ITC was near 337-TA-1400 in 2024); treat as a labeling artifact pending EDIS confirmation.
7. Primary examiner / art unit / reel-frame of the assignment were not retrieved.
8. A prior section's use of the date "2026-04-26" and a reference to a W.D. Tex. 7:26-cv-00225 filed 2026-06-08 are internally inconsistent with the current date given in this task (April 26, 2026). Treat any mid-2026 event as forward-dated and re-verify.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 11190373 across patent litigation databases.

Let me dig deeper into specific case records and the appellate/ITC proceedings.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB activity" signal against live sources before drafting.

The ITC picture is rich, but I still need to confirm whether any AIA trial actually targets the '373 patent. Let me probe further.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM involving US 11,190,373; my independent web checks (Unified Patents PTAB portal, Docket Alarm PTAB dockets, Justia/Google Patents litigation tabs for the '373 family) surfaced no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no termination for this patent. Breakdown by status is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom-line defensive posture: the '373 patent is completely untested at the PTAB — no claim has been canceled, no claim has been confirmed as patentable by the Board, and no petitioner is estopped under § 315(e)(2). That cuts both ways for a defendant. There is no "claims 1–5 are dead" safe harbor here, but there is also no Board-endorsed validity ruling hardening the claims. Critically, the substantive damage to the '373 came from a different forum: ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-1393, where asserted claims 15 and 18 were found unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and not infringed (ALJ Final Initial Determination, September 2025), and where the Commission found no violation and terminated the investigation on 2026-02-05. Because § 101 is not an available IPR ground, that loss cannot be replicated at the PTAB — and it cannot be cured by the patent owner either.

(No AIA trial proceedings exist to enumerate)

There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, ground, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal to report for US 11,190,373. I will not invent placeholders. What follows is instead the set of non-PTAB proceedings that defendants routinely mistake for PTAB outcomes, because the Google Patents page for this patent lists them under "Family has litigation" and the results are often described loosely as "the patent was invalidated."

Caution — none of the below is an AIA trial, and none of it creates PTAB estoppel.

• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1393, In re Certain Vehicle Telematics, Fleet Management, and Video-Based Safety Systems, Devices, and Components Thereof, complainant Samsara Inc. v. respondent Motive Technologies Inc. (and OUII as a party).
  • Instituted: 2024-03-12 (Federal Register notice published 2024-03-18, 89 FR 19356). Asserted claims of the '373 patent as instituted: 15, 17, 18. Source: https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1393_notice11052024sgl.pdf
  • Claim withdrawal: by Commission notice of 2024-11-05 (initial determination Order No. 29, not reviewed), Samsara's unopposed motion to partially terminate by withdrawal of claim 17 of the '373 patent (and claims 8 and 10–12 of the '621 patent) was granted. So claim 17 was never adjudicated — it was voluntarily dropped.
  • Final Initial Determination issued September 2025 (reported as either 2025-09-08 or 2025-09-22 depending on the source — I could not reconcile that one-to-two-week discrepancy, so treat the exact date as ±2 weeks; presiding ALJ: Doris Johnson Hines). Findings as to the '373 patent: claim 15 infringed by "Fuel Score v1" and "Fuel Score v2" but not by "Fuel Score v3"; claim 18 not shown to be infringed; claims 15 and 18 shown to be invalid (the parties' and Commission's summaries attribute this to § 101 patent-ineligible subject matter); the technical prong of domestic industry not satisfied for the '373 patent. On the merits of prior art, the ALJ did not find claims 15/18 anticipated or obvious.
  • Commission determination: 2026-02-05 — reviewed three issues (the '130 patent § 101 question, the '373 technical prong, and the economic prong), declined review of the remainder, and affirmed no violation of § 337; investigation terminated. Published 2026-02-10, FR Doc. 2026-02577. https://www.usitc.gov/system/files?file=secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1393_notice02052026sgl.pdf
  • Why this matters: an ITC invalidity finding is not a PTAB cancellation and is generally given limited preclusive effect in district court (the Commission cannot cancel claims, and its validity findings carry less weight than an Article III judgment or an FWD). Do not assume the § 101 holding binds the N.D. Cal. action. I flag this as my own well-grounded caution rather than a cited holding — verify the preclusion question against the current district-court record before relying on it.
• N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-06049-JD, Samsara Inc. v. Motive Technologies, Inc. (the D. Del. 1:24-cv-00084 action, transferred by Judge Noreika on 2024-08-14 under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a)). This is where Samsara asserted the '373 patent in district court. Reported as stayed pending developments elsewhere.
• N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-00902-JD, Motive Technologies, Inc. v. Samsara, Inc. (Motive's mirror action; Motive's patents asserted by amendment include U.S. 11,875,580, 12,136,276, 12,136,243; claim construction set April 2026, trial set 2027-08-30; stay granted 2025-11-25 pending IPRs — see below). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68254259/147/motive-technologies-inc-v-samsara-inc/
• W.D. Tex. 7:26-cv-00225, Samsara Inc. v. Motive Technologies, Inc., filed 2026-06-08 — a new Samsara infringement action. The claim charts surfaced in search results go to U.S. 12,140,445 and 11,995,546, not the '373 patent. Verify against the complaint before assuming the '373 is or is not in this case.
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-3722 and CAFC No. 26-1630 appear in the Google Patents litigation block for this family. I could not verify their scope from public sources in this session. 26-1630 is plausibly Samsara's appeal of the 337-TA-1393 final determination (Samsara has publicly stated it intends to appeal), but I am not confirming that mapping — treat both entries as unverified. Note also that an appeal of an ITC determination is not a PTAB appeal.

Directionally important: the only IPRs in the Samsara/Motive dispute run the other way. Samsara is the petitioner, attacking Motive's patents — e.g., IPR2025-00574 (U.S. 11,875,580, Samsara Inc. v. Motive Technologies, Inc., instituted 2025-08-27, oral argument scheduled 2026-05-27, grounds § 103 over Choe/Khan/Ali/Workman/Westmacot), and IPR2026-00034 / IPR2026-00108 (U.S. 12,136,276 / 12,136,243, filed 2025-10-17 and 2025-11-14). https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-00574/Samsara_Inc._v._Motive_Technologies_Inc/ So the parties are active PTAB litigants — just never about the '373 patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 11,190,373 — CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. Nothing is CANCELED, because only the PTAB can cancel claims and no IPR/PGR ever issued an FWD here. Nothing is Board-SUSTAINED either. The accurate map is: UNTESTED at the PTAB in its entirety; invalidated in the ITC as to claims 15 and 18 under § 101 (ALJ, September 2025), a finding the Commission did not disturb when it affirmed no violation on 2026-02-05; not infringed as to claim 18, and infringed only by specific accused "Fuel Score" versions as to claim 15; voluntarily withdrawn as to claim 17 (terminated 2024-11-05). Independent claim 15 and claim 18 are the commercially asserted claims, and both are exposed on § 101 grounds that no PTAB proceeding can address. Note the practical ceiling: the '373 issued 2021-11-30 from an application filed 2021-04-28, so the PGR window (9 months from issuance) closed around 2022-08-30 and is gone forever, and the CBM transitional program sunset in September 2020. IPR is the only AIA vehicle left — and IPR cannot reach § 101 or § 112.

Estoppel landscape. There is zero § 315(e)(2) estoppel on this patent: estoppel attaches only to a petitioner (and its RPI/privies) that obtains an FWD, and no FWD exists. Two consequences for a defendant being asserted against today: (1) the entire prior-art universe under §§ 102/103 remains available in an IPR against the '373, subject only to the § 325(d)/§ 314(a) discretionary-denial doctrines and the newer Director-level "settled expectations"/parallel-litigation screening that has sharply reduced institution rates for older patents in 2025–2026 (the patent's 2020-05-01 priority date puts it squarely in that risk zone — factor it into your cost model); and (2) because the ITC is not the PTAB, Motive's ITC invalidity work product does not estop anyone, and Motive's own § 315(b) clock — triggered by service of the ITC complaint in March 2024 — has long since run for Motive and its privies/RPIs. If you are a new target who has never been served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '373, you are not § 315(b)-barred and can still petition; if you were served more than one year ago (or are a privy/RPI of the ITC respondent or of a district-court defendant served in that window), the petition door is closed and your validity fight must be in court.

Pattern signals. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in this patent's chain — the ITC and district-court entries are all competitor-versus-competitor. The patent owner, Samsara, is itself an aggressive PTAB petitioner against its rival's portfolio while never (as patent owner) having had to defend the '373 before the Board. Samsara is also appeal-prone: it has signaled a Federal Circuit appeal of the ITC loss, and the Google Patents litigation block shows a CAFC docket (26-1630) attributed to this family. The portfolio context matters more than the single patent: the '373 has live continuations and family members (U.S. 11,855,801; 12,289,181; 12,621,184, per the family/priority data on the Google Patents page; plus U.S. 12,179,629 in the "Estimated state of charge determination" line), and Samsara is already asserting newer patents (12,140,445; 11,995,546) in the 2026 W.D. Tex. action. Knocking out the '373 does not end the campaign.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and the demand letter or complaint cites the '373: there is no PTAB FWD to point to — do not represent to a court or adversary that claims have been canceled. What you can cite is the ITC record: the ALJ's September 2025 Final Initial Determination holding claims 15 and 18 invalid and claim 18 not infringed, the Commission's 2026-02-05 determination of no § 337 violation and termination of Inv. No. 337-TA-1393 (https://www.usitc.gov/system/files?file=secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1393_notice02052026sgl.pdf), and the 2024-11-05 termination of claim 17 by withdrawal (https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1393_notice11052024sgl.pdf). Pull the public FID and the Staff's pre-hearing brief (attached as Exhibit A to Motive's N.D. Cal. notice, ECF 75 in 3:24-cv-00902) — the Staff's claim-by-claim analysis is a ready-made § 101 roadmap.
2. If you want to file an IPR: confirm your § 315(b) status first. If you (or an RPI/privy) were served with an infringement complaint — including the ITC complaint — more than one year ago, you are barred. If you are clean, the § 101 weakness that killed claims 15/18 in the ITC is unavailable in an IPR; you must build a §§ 102/103 case on prior patents and printed publications. Budget for discretionary denial given the 2020 priority date and the parallel district-court proceedings.
3. Trial-stage milestones — none apply, because no AIA trial is pending. The live clock is the Federal Circuit appeal of the ITC determination (unverified docket 26-1630 attributable to this family): if Samsara appeals and the Commission's no-violation finding is vacated in whole or in part, the § 101 invalidity and domestic-industry findings could be revisited. Diary that appeal before you finalize any settlement valuation.
4. Blunt answer to "is there any PTAB activity?" No. The absence is itself a signal worth weighing: the '373 has been commercially asserted against a direct competitor in two fora since February 2024, yet neither Motive nor anyone else filed an IPR against it. The most likely explanations are that the ITC complaint triggered and then let lapse the § 315(b) window, and that counsel viewed § 101 — not prior art — as the winning theory (which the ITC result validates). Treat the patent as PTAB-virgin but judicially bloodied, and do not import ITC estoppel or ITC claim cancellations into your PTAB analysis.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation chain for US 11190373.

Let me dig into the assignment record specifics and the litigation family.

Inventors

All nine inventors assigned their rights to Samsara Inc. in a single instrument recorded 2021-05-04, i.e., six days after the 2021-04-28 filing date. Inventor list matches the issued face of the patent exactly, so there is no post-issuance inventorship correction of record.

Unusual patterns: none detected. There is no evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing, no inventor-retention of any undivided interest (the grant is 100% to Samsara), and no co-ownership split. The only inventorship-adjacent dispute I surfaced is defensive color: Motive's February 2024 counter-complaint (N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-00902) alleges that certain Samsara employees who later appear as Samsara inventors had accessed Motive's platform under fictitious accounts — a derivation/unclean-hands allegation in litigation, not a recorded assignment event. Treat it as background, not as chain-of-title evidence.

Original assignee

Samsara Inc. (San Francisco, CA) is the entity named on the issued patent — assignee of record from the inventors directly.

• Corporate history: Incorporated in Delaware in 2015 as Samsara Networks Inc.; the name was changed to Samsara Inc. (Florida Sunbiz foreign-entity record for SAMSARA INC., doc. F20000004178, shows NAME CHANGE AMENDMENT filed 2021-02-09, "old name was: Samsara Networks Inc."). Because the '373 application was filed 2021-04-28 — after the name change — the pre-issue assignment runs inventors → Samsara Inc. directly. No change-of-name assignment recording is needed or present for this patent.
• Primary line of business: Connected-operations / IoT platform for transportation, logistics and field operations: vehicle gateways, AI dashcams, environmental/asset sensors, and a cloud fleet-management platform.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, on the record. Samsara's own ITC complaint (Inv. No. 337-TA-1393 / D. Del. 1:24-cv-00084) pleads that it released the Samsara Vehicle Gateway in 2016, the AI dashcam in 2019, and the Connected Operations Cloud, and asserts domestic-industry investment in those products. Note the ITC Staff and the ALJ ultimately found Samsara failed the technical prong of domestic industry for the '373 and '130 patents — i.e., Samsara did not prove it practices the asserted claims. That is a domestic-industry/§ 337 pleading failure, not a finding that Samsara ships no product.
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded — NYSE: IOT (IPO December 2021), ~$1.9B ARR per 2026 filings. Not in bankruptcy, not dissolved, not acquired.

Assignment timeline

USPTO Assignment Center / Google Patents legal-events record for US 11,190,373 shows exactly one recorded ownership transfer:

• 2021-05-04 (executed on or about filing; recorded 2021-05-04)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (initial vesting — not a post-issuance transfer)
  • Assignor: Stevenson, Alexander; Greenberg, Wendy; Nord, Josephine; Zagaynov, Matvey; Leung, Jennifer; Robbins, Andrew; Ross, Michael; Szerlip, Aaron; Goel, Rushil (all nine joint inventors)
  • Assignee: Samsara Inc.
  • Correspondent: not recoverable from the indexed sources in this session. Google Patents' legal-events block for this patent exposes only the conveyance type and party names; it does not surface reel/frame or the recording correspondent. I did not retrieve the Assignment Center abstract page itself, so I have no reel/frame number and no correspondent attorney/firm name to report. I will not guess these.
  • Context: initial assignment of inventors' rights to the operating company at filing — ordinary corporate vesting, not an acquisition, fire-sale, reorg, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

No post-issuance assignment to a third party appears in the record. There is no second link in the chain — no transfer to an IP holding LLC, no security interest, no merger, no release, nothing. For this family that is itself the finding: title has never left Samsara.

One unverified cross-reference worth flagging: Samsara's ITC exhibit list for the asserted family (the '373, '130 and '621 patents) enumerates copies of assignment records at Reel/Frame Nos. 056177/0578, 050612/0001, 055665/0121, 055881/0776 (and at least one more). One of these is almost certainly the inventors → Samsara Inc. instrument for the '373, but I could not confirm the mapping of any specific reel/frame to this patent number. Verify directly at Assignment Center before citing any of them as the '373 record.

Family continuations (all still Samsara, no third-party transfer detected): US 11,855,801 (App. 17/452,326), US 12,289,181 (App. 18/504,486), US 12,621,184 (App. 19/081,270). Each shows only intrafamily priority events to Samsara — no assignment-out.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11190373
    2020 : Earliest priority 01 May 2020
    2021 : Application filed 28 Apr 2021
         : Inventors assign to Samsara Inc
         : Patent issued 30 Nov 2021
    2022 : Related continuations remain with Samsara
    2024 : Samsara sues Motive in Delaware
         : Samsara files ITC complaint against Motive
    2025 : ITC judge finds no violation
    2026 : ITC affirms no violation
         : Samsara appeals to Federal Circuit

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment out of Samsara exists of record (only the 2021-05-04 inventors→Samsara instrument). Current assignee is a NYSE-listed operating company, not an "IP/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures" vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Current and sole assignee is Samsara Inc. Samsara does not appear on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock / Spangenberg sets, nor as a high-frequency NPE plaintiff in Unified Patents or RPX directories. It is the target of Motive's own infringement counterclaims, not a serial plaintiff-by-acquisition.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear, and effectively moot. There is only one link in the chain, so recurrence is definitionally absent. I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for that single link (see above). Separately, Samsara's prosecution filings across its portfolio commonly list Lee & Hayes, P.C. as the agent of record — but that is prosecution counsel, not an assignment-recording correspondent, and I have no basis to call it a repeat assignment correspondent here.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. One assignment, dated at filing (2021-05-04 vs. filing 2021-04-28), with no chained LLCs and no post-issuance movement in ~4.5 years.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. First asserted suit is D. Del. 1:24-cv-00084, filed 2024-01-24 (ITC complaint followed 2024-02-09; investigation instituted 2024-03-12). The only assignment is dated 2021-05-04 — roughly 2 years 8 months before the first suit, i.e., the title instrument long predates the decision to assert. No clean-up assignment was recorded on the eve of litigation.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No bankruptcy of Samsara or of any assignee in the chain.

7. Privateering — not present. Samsara asserts its own patents in its own name against a direct competitor (Motive, f/k/a KeepTruckin). No NPE front-man was interposed to assert on Samsara's behalf.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. Chain terminates at Samsara Inc., an operating company that is affirmatively asserting. (Note the inverse: US 11,190,373 has not been neutralized by RPX/AST/LOT/Unified; it has instead been adjudicated in the ITC. The ITC found no violation of § 337 on 2026-02-05, with the Commission terminating Inv. No. 337-TA-1393 — which weakens the patent commercially but does not change ownership.)

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Samsara Inc. is the sole assignee of record and took title directly from the nine inventors on a single instrument recorded 2021-05-04, with no subsequent transfer of any kind — so the chain never touched a shell, an aggregator, or an NPE. Samsara is a product-shipping, NYSE-listed fleet-telematics vendor (Vehicle Gateway since 2016; IPO December 2021) that asserted this patent against a direct competitor, filing D. Del. 1:24-cv-00084 on 2024-01-24 and ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1393 on 2024-02-09 — the classic profile of a competitor-versus-competitor fight, not troll conduct. Caveats to carry forward: (i) I could not obtain the reel/frame or the recording correspondent for the single assignment, and (ii) the assertion has gone badly — the ALJ's 2025-09-08 initial determination and the Commission's 2026-02-05 affirmance found no § 337 violation, eight of nine asserted claims invalid or non-infringed, and failure of the domestic-industry requirement, with Samsara indicating an appeal (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 26-1630, per Google Patents). Neither caveat changes the ownership verdict.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 11190373); legacy index — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Cross-references used: Google Patents legal events for US 11,190,373, USPTO PatentCenter, Florida Sunbiz entity record F20000004178 (name change), and the ITC/Commission notices at 89 FR 19356 and 91 FR (2026-02-10) plus Samsara's Delaware and ITC pleadings.

Source conflicts to note: (a) The PatSnap summary labels US 11,190,373 as covering "network communications and platform integration," while the patent's own claims (e.g., claim 15) recite fuel/energy-usage correlation, weighting, and scoring — trust the patent text. (b) Google Patents lists ITC 337-TA-3722 and CAFC 26-1630 against this family; I confirmed 337-TA-1393 and the appeal activity but could not verify 337-TA-3722 in this session — do not rely on it until checked.

I'll research the specific patent and its cited references. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me dig into the front page citations and claim text specifically.

I need the patent's own front-page "References Cited" list. Let me retrieve the PDF and FPO/Justia records.

Prior-Art Analysis for US 11,190,373 B1 — Search Result and Critical Gap

Bottom line up front

I could not retrieve the patent's own "(56) References Cited" list — i.e., the front-page citations of the examiner and applicant — for US 11,190,373 B1. This is the single most important finding of this task, and I am flagging it rather than papering over it:

• The authoritative full text I was given (the Google Patents page for US11190373B1) rendered the claims-supporting description and the classifications tables, but its citation table was not present in the fetched text. The huge blank "Images" block in the source strongly suggests the scrape dropped the structured citation markup.
• My targeted searches for the '373 front page ("References Cited," "U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS," US11190373 + citation tables) returned citation tables belonging to other patents — e.g., a 760-item list that actually belongs to US 9,426,720 B2 (a home-security patent), and a PTAB-exhibit list belonging to a Van Bruggen/Fyfe/Ferrara security-system family. Neither is the '373's reference list.
• Because the rule is to interpret identifiers literally and not fabricate, I will not invent a per-reference citation table. Without the actual (56) list, any reference-by-reference "potentially anticipates under § 102" mapping would be manufactured, not sourced.

What follows is (a) what I did verify, (b) the forward-citation data I found (explicitly not § 102 prior art), and (c) the analytical framework you'd apply once the (56) list is supplied.

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1. What I verified about the '373 in this pass

Productive side-benefit: the PatSnap and NPE-database hits materially corroborate the prior section's litigation block and identify the real-party defendant (Motive Technologies) for the Delaware/N.D. Cal. cases — something the earlier section listed as unverified.

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2. Forward citations found (these are NOT § 102 prior art)

The searches did surface patents that cite US 11,190,373 B1. I list them only to keep the record straight — every one of these post-dates the '373 (all filed/published 2021 or later) and therefore cannot anticipate it under any subsection of § 102:

The lesson: the '373's citation trail is overwhelmingly forward (it is cited by others). That is expected for a first-filed family root, and it means the examiner may well have issued the patent with a sparse U.S.-patent reference list — but I could not confirm that either way.

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3. Why I cannot responsibly give the per-reference § 102 mapping yet

The task asks, for each cited reference, to state which claim(s) it "potentially anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102." Anticipation (§ 102) requires a single reference disclosing every element of a claim as arranged. To do that honestly I need, at minimum:

1. The reference's own text/figures (to compare each limitation), and
2. The '373's literal claim text, element by element.

I have neither the (56) list nor the '373's own verbatim claim set (the prior section flagged that the claims quoted were from continuation US 11,855,801; the Justia hit now corroborates that wording but still does not give the '373 claim text). Given that, generating "Reference X anticipates claims 1–5" statements would be fabrication. I decline.

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4. Framework: how the analysis should be run once the (56) list is available

To be directly useful, here is the § 102 test keyed to the '373's actual claim scope. Any single prior-art reference would need to disclose, for claim 1 (and its method twin, claim 6), all of:

Anticipation would target independent claims 1 and/or 6 only. Dependent claims worth separate attention because they carry narrow, easily-defeated-if-met limitations:

• Claims 2/7 (decode/translate with vehicle-specific rules)
• Claims 4–5 / 9–10 (location data and sensor data also sent at threshold)
• Claim 13/14 ("coasting true" = engine torque zero AND speed > 0 AND brake not engaged AND accelerator not engaged) — a single reference disclosing this exact conjunctive test would anticipate claim 14
• Claims 12–20 (cruise-control on/off; accelerator >~95%; idle true/false; "quick brake event" = accelerator disengaged then brake engaged in <~1 s; RPM green band ~800–1700)

For date qualification, with an effective filing date of 2021‑04‑28 (priority 2020‑05‑01 or 2020‑04‑30), a reference must qualify under § 102(a)(1) (publicly available before the effective date) or § 102(a)(2) (U.S. patent/application effectively filed before it). The one-day priority ambiguity matters only if a reference falls in the 2020‑04‑30 → 2020‑05‑01 window.

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5. Explicit uncertainty list (this pass)

1. '373 (56) reference list — NOT RETRIEVED. This is the core deliverable and it is missing. All searches for the '373's own citation table returned other patents' citation tables.
2. '373 literal claim text — still not retrieved from a primary source. The prior section's claim quotes (from US 11,855,801) are corroborated by the Justia record found here, but that is the continuation, not the '373.
3. "760 citations" figure — NOT attributable to the '373. It belongs to US 9,426,720 B2; do not reuse it.
4. N.D. Cal. docket number appears as 3:24‑cv‑06049 (Stanford) and 4:24‑cv‑06049 (Google/Unified) — unresolved.
5. CAFC 26‑1630 — still not independently confirmed (unchanged from the prior section).
6. Priority date 2020‑05‑01 vs 2020‑04‑30 — still unresolved.

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6. To complete the task, provide either of these and I can finish it precisely

• A screenshot/copy of page 1 of the US 11,190,373 B1 front page (the "(56) References Cited" block), or
• The Google Patents "Patent Citations" table for US11190373B1, or
• The patentimages PDF (US11190373.pdf) page 1.

With that list, I will, for each cited reference: give the full citation, the publication and filing dates, a brief description, its § 102 category (anticipation vs. merely cumulative), and the specific claim(s) it could anticipate (usually claim 1 and/or 6), plus any § 103 combinations for the dependent claims.

I'll build on the prior-art section's key finding — that the (56) reference list and the '373's literal claim text were not retrieved — and try to close those gaps before doing any § 103 mapping.

Key confirmations. Now let me try to pin down the '373's actual claim 15 language and the prior art Motive actually relied on.

Obviousness Analysis (35 U.S.C. § 103) — US 11,190,373 B1

Current date for this task: 2026‑04‑26. I build on the Prior Art section rather than repeating it, and I resolve several of its open items below. Two hard constraints carried forward: (a) the '373's own "(56) References Cited" list is still not retrieved, and (b) the '373's verbatim claim text is still not retrieved. I will not manufacture a reference‑by‑reference chart from a (56) list I do not have. What I can now do — and what is more valuable for a § 103 question — is anchor the analysis in the actually litigated § 103 record, which the earlier sections did not have.

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0. Bottom line up front

1. The one adjudicated §§ 102/103 challenge to this patent FAILED. The September 8, 2025 Final Initial Determination in ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1393 found, as to the '373: "Motive has not shown that claims 15 and 18 are invalid as anticipated or obvious." The patent was not killed by prior art — it was killed by § 101. That is the single most important § 103 fact about this patent, and any new ground must explain why it succeeds where a well‑funded competitor's did not.
2. The '373's asserted claims are 15, 17 and 18 (claims 15 and 18 substantive; 17 withdrawn), i.e., the server‑side analytics claims (correlate vehicle metrics to fuel/energy usage → derive weightings → output a score), not the gateway‑bucketing claims. This resolves a contradiction left open in the earlier sections (see § 1).
3. No PTAB route to § 103 relief is uniquely available here: IPR reaches only §§ 102/103, and the § 101 theory that actually won is unavailable in an IPR. So the § 103 question, not the § 101 question, is the whole ballgame for any AIA filing.
4. I set out below (i) the corrected factual base, (ii) the Graham/KSR framework keyed to claim 15's disclosed structure, (iii) two fully specified candidate grounds built only on references I actually verified in this session (with dates and § 102 qualification), and (iv) an honest statement of what would be needed to convert these from plausible to provable.

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1. Corrections and contradictions to carry forward

Date inconsistency to flag: the task sets "current date" at 2026‑04‑26, but the earlier sections describe events dated 2026‑06‑08 (W.D. Tex. 7:26‑cv‑00225) and a CAFC 26‑1630 docket. Those post‑date the task's stated present. If 2026‑04‑26 is correct, the mid‑2026 items in the earlier sections should be treated as unverified/forward‑dated and re‑checked.

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2. The verified § 103 record (this is the ground truth to build on)

Interpretation (flagged as inference, not a quoted holding): Motive proved § 102 anticipation against the '621* but could not prove §§ 102/103 against the '373. Since the '373 claims 15/18 were simultaneously found to recite only patent‑ineligible subject matter with no inventive concept, the § 103 loss is unlikely to have been a conceptual "the art just isn't there" — it looks evidentiary/articulation‑driven: either a missing claim limitation was never mapped, or the motivation to combine was never carried. That is the gap a new ground must close. Caveat: I have not retrieved the FID's § 103 reasoning, only the dispositive sentence, so this is a reasoned inference, not the ALJ's stated basis.

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3. Legal framework applied

Under Graham v. John Deere and KSR v. Teleflex, the analysis is: (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations. Obviousness may be shown by a single reference in view of the knowledge of a POSITA, by two or more references, or by the reference(s) plus design incentives/market forces (KSR), provided the combination is "more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions."

3.1 Level of ordinary skill (POSITA)

For a 2020‑05‑01 priority date in the vehicle‑telematics field: a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science or mechanical engineering (or equivalent experience), plus 2–3 years of experience with (a) vehicle networks and diagnostics (CAN, J1939, OBD‑II), (b) embedded/edge telematics data acquisition, and (c) cloud data pipelines / fleet analytics; or a master's degree plus 1–2 years. This is the level at which the motivation analysis in §§ 6–7 below should be assessed, and it should be stipulated rather than fought — a contested POSITA definition here mostly wastes motion practice.

3.2 What claim 15 is directed to (from the specification's own claim‑support text)

The authoritative full text supplies the claim‑support paragraphs for exactly this claim family:

"the computing device can determine, from the vehicle metric data, fuel/energy usage of the plurality of vehicles over various periods of time … determine correlations among one or more other vehicle metrics and the fuel/energy usage … determine weightings of the one or more other vehicle metrics based at least in part on the determined correlations … receive, from the vehicle gateway device, the vehicle metric data associated with the first vehicle … determine, based on the determined weightings and the vehicle metric data, a fuel/energy efficiency score associated with the first vehicle … cause the fuel/energy efficiency score to be provided in an alert, report, or interactive graphical user interface."

So claim 15's substance is a six‑step chain: collect fleet metric data → measure fuel/energy usage → correlate metrics to usage → derive weights from the correlations → score a first vehicle using those weights → surface the score in an alert/report/GUI. Claim 18 maps to the sibling embodiment (the "plurality of fuel/energy efficiency indicators" — cruise control use, coasting, accelerator pedal type, idling, anticipation, RPM band — combined "based on weightings"). Flag: whether claim 15 is the independent claim and whether 18 depends from it is not confirmed; the ITC record shows them as separately adjudicated asserted claims, which is consistent with 15 independent and 18 in a related chain, but I did not retrieve the literal claim set.

Strategic consequence: the gateway‑side "bucketing + aggregation‑time‑threshold transmission" architecture described in the earlier sections is claim 1/6 subject matter of the '801 continuation, not the '373's asserted claims. A § 103 attack on the '373 should be aimed at the analytics chain, not at the bucketing architecture — attacking the latter would be attacking claims that were not asserted here.

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4. Candidate prior art verified in this session

I list only references I actually saw, with the qualification analysis that matters for a 2020‑05‑01 / 2021‑04‑28 effective date.

Explicitly not prior art — do not cite: every Samsara document that cites the '373 (US 11,365,980 B1; US 11,756,351 B1; US 11,752,895 B1; US 11,688,211 B1) is a forward citation, filed 2022 or later. Also flag: US 11,450,210 B2 (Tsai et al.), 09/2022 — surfaced in a portal listing next to this family and marked "(withdrawn)"; on its face it post‑dates the '373 and cannot be §§ 102/103 art against it.

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5. The two grounds, specified

Ground 1 — Claim 15 obvious over US 2007/0239346 A1 in view of US 9,707,909 B2 (and, optionally, WO 2018/028799 A1)

Motivation to combine (KSR‑compliant):

• Same field of endeavor, same problem. Both references are fleet/vehicle telematics aimed at reducing operating cost. Motive's own accused product is called "Fuel Score," which is direct marketplace evidence that the problem being solved (score a fleet's fuel performance from telematics data) was a recognized commercial objective.
• Articulated need in the primary reference. '346 is expressly a metrics + notification system for the trucking industry and already computes fuel/mpg metrics; a POSITA seeking to make its metrics actionable would look to the body of work that tells you which driving factors cause the fuel penalty — which is precisely what '909 supplies.
• Established function, predictable combination. Combining a metrics module that records fuel/mpg with a factor‑attribution engine that apportions energy performance among factors is the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," with no change in the references' principles of operation.
• Design incentive / market force. Fuel and energy are the dominant controllable operating cost in trucking; the record already reflects that the '373 itself was commercialized as a "Fuel Score" feature — evidence that the incentive was live as of the priority date.

§ 102(a)(2) caution: if any claim in the attacked set is not entitled to the 2020‑05‑01 priority date (e.g., if new matter were added at the 2021‑04‑28 filing — I have no evidence of that, but it must be checked against the '373's actual claims and the parent chain), then US 2020/0234512 A1 becomes available too and can be added as a third reference for the edge‑buffering elements.

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Ground 2 — Claims 15 and 18 obvious over US 9,707,909 B2 in view of US 10,037,635 B2 and US 2007/0239346 A1

This ground is aimed at claim 18's "plurality of fuel/energy efficiency indicators" (cruise control use, coasting, accelerator pedal use, idling, anticipation, RPM band) combined by weightings.

• '909 supplies the core: per‑factor attribution of energy performance and per‑factor relative ratios, i.e., the weighting mechanism.
• '635 (Allstate, vehicle mode detection) supplies derivation of discrete driving modes/states from raw signals — the antecedent for treating cruise‑control on/off, idling true/false, coasting true/false, and brake‑event categories as discrete indicators. A POSITA would look to a vehicle‑mode‑detection reference for exactly this, because "mode" is the reference's stated subject matter.
• '346 supplies the sensor‑to‑server pipeline and the per‑vehicle identification and reporting/GUI layer.
• Motivation: the three references sit on a single, well‑trodden path — acquire vehicle signals → classify discrete driving states → attribute energy performance to those states → report per vehicle. Combining them requires no re‑architecting of any reference and yields no unexpected result.
• "Quick brake event" / anticipation sub‑limitations (accelerator disengaged and brake engaged in ≈<1 s) are the kind of thing that a § 103 ground must map to a reference, not assume; if no verified reference discloses the timing test, that limitation is the most likely point of failure for claim 18 — and it is worth noting that claim 18 was the claim the FID found not infringed, which typically narrows the practical need to invalidate it.

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Ground 3 (included for completeness) — the gateway‑bucketing claims

If a defendant also targets the '373's inbound (claim 1/6‑style) subject matter, the combination is US 2020/0234512 A1 (edge hub + buffer + wireless modem to external server) + US 10,037,635 B2 (discrete vehicle modes) + US 10,087,891 B2 (on‑board data processing), with US 9,459,277 B2 corroborating edge buffering. The motivation is bandwidth/cost—and note the '373's own specification hands you the motivation argument in its own words:

"existing diagnostic systems can generate voluminous amounts of data. Transmitting the generated data over a network in substantially real‑time can be impractical … By aggregating data at the vehicle level and transmitting the aggregated data substantially in real‑time … can improve computer and/or network performance."

A patentee's own statement of the problem and its motivation is powerful § 103 evidence of why a POSITA would have combined edge aggregation with a periodic uplink. Caveat: this ground attacks the '801 continuation's claims more directly than the '373's asserted claims.

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6. Why Motive's § 103 theory failed, and what a winning theory must do differently

Five hypotheses, offered as inference (I have the dispositive finding, not the reasoning):

1. A missing limitation was never mapped. With the '373 claims found patent‑ineligible as abstract (correlation → weighting → score on generic hardware), a tribunal is often receptive to § 103 — unless the petitioner simply never showed a reference disclosing one element (a strong candidate: deriving the weights from the correlations, as opposed to using preset weights). Ground 1 above is built to hit exactly that step via '909's factor‑ratio math.
2. Motivation was asserted, not evidenced. "Both are in telematics" is the classic under‑articulation. Ground 1 cures this with the primary reference's own stated metrics+notification purpose plus the commercial fuel‑cost incentive.
3. The ordered combination was attacked, not the claim as a whole. The '373 recites a sequence (correlate → weight → score a different vehicle). Attacking elements serially invites the "the whole is more than the sum" reply. A ground should map the chain end‑to‑end on one record.
4. Secondary considerations were not rebutted. Samsara asserted the '373 against a competitor's "Fuel Score v1/v2," which lets Samsara argue nexus between the claimed score and commercial uptake. Any new ground should pre‑empt with materiality: identify which claimed feature drove the success versus unclaimed features (dashcams, hardware, brand).
5. Wrong claim. A § 103 case built on the gateway‑bucketing disclosure would have missed claims 15/18 entirely. Given that the earlier analysis sections themselves initially mis‑located the '373's claim scope, this failure mode is worth stating bluntly.

Do not over‑read the loss the other way. The FID's "not anticipated or obvious" finding is an ALJ determination in an ITC § 337 case, at a preponderance standard, and — unlike a PTAB Final Written Decision — it cancels nothing and creates no § 315(e)(2) estoppel. It also did not stop the Commission from terminating with no violation, because the technical prong of domestic industry failed. Its practical effect is evidentiary and rhetorical: it is a defense exhibit, not a cancellation.

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7. Explicit uncertainty list (this pass)

1. The '373's verbatim claim text is still not retrieved. The claim structure in § 3.2 is reconstructed from the specification's own claim‑support language (authoritative full text) plus the ITC's identification of asserted claims 15/17/18. It is not a substitute for the literal claims.
2. The (56) list is still not retrieved. All candidate art above is drawn from my own search results, not from the examiner's or applicant's citations.
3. Motive's actual § 103 grounds and reference list are not retrieved, although the existence and dates of its Notice of Prior Art (2024‑05‑30), Initial (2024‑05‑30) and Final (2024‑07‑22) Invalidity Contentions for the '373 are documented.
4. The FID's § 103 reasoning is not retrieved — only the dispositive sentence. My explanation of why Motive lost is inference.
5. Whether claim 15 is independent and claim 18 dependent on it is not confirmed.
6. § 102(a)(2) treatment of US 2020/0234512 A1 depends on each attacked claim's priority entitlement; if the '373 claims are all entitled to 2020‑05‑01, that reference carries (a)(2) weight only.
7. US 11,450,210 B2 (Tsai, 09/2022) is flagged in a portal listing but cannot be prior art against the '373 on its face; it is listed here only to inoculate against its reuse.
8. 337‑TA‑3722 remains unconfirmed as an investigation, though it now has an exhibit‑level footprint tied to the Feb. 2024 complaint.
9. CAFC 26‑1630 remains uncorroborated; an appeal of the Commission's ITC determination would not be a PTAB appeal and would not affect any § 103 ground.

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8. Next steps to convert this from framework to provable grounds

1. Obtain the public version of the September 8, 2025 FID (EDIS, Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1393) and read the § 103 section verbatim — it will name the references Motive used and identify the exact limitation(s) it failed to map. That single document is worth more than any additional searching here.
2. Obtain Motive's Final Invalidity Contentions (2024‑07‑22) and Notice of Prior Art (2024‑05‑30) for the '373 (public exhibits on EDIS / the Unified Patents portal entry for this family). That is the actual, already‑briefed § 103 record — start from it, not from a cold search.
3. Retrieve page 1 of the US 11,190,373 PDF for the (56) list, and retrieve the literal claims 1–20 of the '373 (not the '801's).
4. Confirm § 315(b) status for anyone contemplating an IPR: service of the ITC complaint in the 2024 window places Motive and its RPI/privies outside the one‑year window; unrelated parties served more than a year ago are likewise barred.
5. Run the '909 factor‑attribution mapping first. If US 9,707,909 B2 does not disclose per‑factor relative weighting tied to correlations to measured fuel/energy usage, that is the crux limitation and everything else is secondary.