Invalidity dossier

US 7285090

Apparatus for detecting, receiving, deriving and displaying human physiological and contextual information

Current assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.

Added 9/29/2026, 12:04:30 PM

IndustryMedical (M)
At a glanceNo PTAB challenges1 lawsuit on fileasserted by BodyMedia, Inc.Medical (M)

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Patent summary

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

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US Patent 7,285,090 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note: The figures below are drawn from the authoritative full text of US7285090B2 (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-29) and corroborated by USPTO-report/FreePatentsOnline data. Where sources diverge I flag it.

Bibliographic Data

Field Value
Patent number US 7,285,090 B2 (interpreted literally; no auto-correction)
Title "Apparatus for detecting, receiving, deriving and displaying human physiological and contextual information"
Application no. 10/682,759
Filing date 2003-10-09
Issue (grant) date 2007-10-23
Pre-grant publication US 2004/0152957 A1 (published 2004-08-05)
Inventors John Stivoric; Christopher Pacione; Eric Teller; David Andre; Christopher Kasabach; Scott Boehmke; Suresh Vishnubhatla; Scott Safier; Jonathan Farringdon; Raymond Pelletier
Original assignee BodyMedia, Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA)
Current assignee (per Google Patents) JB IP Acquisition LLC (assignment recorded 2019-07-19 from AliphCom LLC / BodyMedia, Inc.)
Priority chain CIP of 09/923,181 (filed 2001-08-06) → CIP of 09/602,537 (filed 2000-06-23, now US 6,605,038) → CIP of 09/595,660 (filed 2000-06-16); also claims benefit of provisional 60/417,163 (filed 2002-10-09)
Earliest priority date 2000-06-16 (as listed)
Status Expired – Fee Related; anticipated expiration 2020-06-16; DocketAlarm records "Patent Expired Due to NonPayment of Maintenance Fees Under 37 CFR 1.362"
Post-grant papers Certificate of Correction and a Reexamination Certificate are noted on the face of the grant record

Discrepancy flagged: One aggregator (Unified Patents page for US 2004/0152957 A1) lists a priority date of 2000-06-15 and a different assignee listing; a Chinese aggregator (szpa.org) lists "J FITNESS LLC" as current owner. I treat the Google Patents record (JB IP Acquisition LLC, priority 2000-06-16) as authoritative but note the chain-of-title for this family has changed hands many times (BodyMedia → Aliphcom/Jawbone → JB IP Acquisition → J Fitness LLC security interests).

Abstract (as granted)

A monitoring apparatus that includes a sensor device and an I/O device in communication with the sensor device that generates derived data using the data from the sensor device. The derived data cannot be directly detected by the associated sensors. Alternatively, an apparatus that includes a wearable sensor device and an I/O device in communication with the sensor device that includes means for displaying information and a dial for entering information. Alternatively, an apparatus for tracking caloric consumption and caloric expenditure data that includes a sensor device and an I/O device in communication with the sensor device. The sensor device includes a processor programmed to generate data relating to caloric expenditure from sensor data. Alternatively, an apparatus for tracking caloric information for an individual that utilizes a plurality of classification identifiers for classifying meals consumed by the individual, each of the classification identifiers having a corresponding caloric amount.

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The granted claim set runs claims 1–39, of which claims 1 and 21 are the only independent claims (every other claim depends, directly or indirectly, on one of those two). Note the mismatch: the abstract and summary describe four alternative aspects (derived-data apparatus; dial-based I/O apparatus; caloric-tracking apparatus; meal-classification-identifier apparatus), but only two of those aspects (the derived-data aspect and the caloric-tracking aspect) appear as independent claims in this granted patent. The dial and meal-identifier aspects appear in the specification but not as independent claims here — they may reside in sibling family members.

Independent Claim 1 — Monitoring apparatus with derived data (caloric expenditure):
A monitoring apparatus with two main parts: (a) a sensor device wired/electronically linked to at least two sensors that continually generate data, during non-sedentary activities, about a first and/or second parameter of the individual, the parameters originating from the person's body or the adjacent environment; and (b) an I/O device in electronic communication with the sensor device that receives both parameter data streams, with at least one parameter being physiological. A processor (associated with the I/O device) derives a third parameter — specifically caloric expenditure data — from the two parameter streams. That third parameter is a status parameter that cannot be directly detected by any of the two sensors (i.e., it is a computed/derived quantity, not a raw sensed one). The I/O device has a display for showing information related to that third parameter.

Independent Claim 21 — Caloric consumption/expenditure tracking apparatus:
An apparatus for tracking both caloric consumption and caloric expenditure: (a) at least two sensors adapted to be worn on the body during activities that include non-resting activities, at least one being a physiological sensor, generating first/second parameter data from the body or adjacent environment (first parameter physiological); (b) a processor programmed to generate caloric expenditure data, including active caloric expenditure data, from that sensor data; and (c) an I/O device in electronic communication with the processor that receives the expenditure data and includes means for the individual to enter information about calories consumed, which is used to generate caloric consumption data. The I/O device displays information based on both the expenditure and consumption data (e.g., energy balance).

Dependent-claim themes worth noting: food databases with caloric values (claims 8, 23–24); display of energy balance, weight-loss/gain rate, or goal-related information (claims 9–11, 25–27); specific physiological sensor groups — motion, skin conductance, heat flux, body potential (heart beats), skin temperature (claims 15, 33); contextual sensors such as ambient temperature and GPS (claim 35); I/O device implemented as a weight scale (claim 30); a separate weight scale feeding the processor (claim 31); and packaging variants — two of sensor device/processor/I/O device in a single unit, or the unit worn on the upper arm (claims 37–39).

Litigation / Docket Search Results

  • Delaware District Court — BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., No. 1:12-cv-00133-GMS (Judge Gregory M. Sleet). US 7,285,090 is expressly listed among the patents-in-suit in the Rule 3.1 Report to the Commissioner (alongside 6,605,038; 7,020,508; 7,261,690; 7,689,437; and 8,073,707). The court granted a stay pending reexamination (Order of June 6, 2013); multiple reexamination requests were granted by the PTO against the patents-in-suit.
  • Google Patents also surfaces a Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" link keyed to family ID 32093978 for this patent.

Uncertainty Disclosure

  • I could not locate any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket or opinion involving US 7,285,090. My searches for this patent number combined with "CAFC 2026," "Federal Circuit appeal," and the current owner (JB IP Acquisition / J Fitness) returned no matching appeal. The 2026 Federal Circuit material that surfaced concerned unrelated patents (e.g., Exafer v. Microsoft, Intuit v. SameSurf, T-Mobile v. KAIFI re U.S. 6,922,728). Given the patent expired for non-payment of maintenance fees with an anticipated expiration of 2020-06-16, active 2026 appellate litigation over it would be unusual — but I cannot affirmatively rule out a docket I did not retrieve, so treat "no 2026 CAFC activity found" as a negative search result rather than a certainty.
  • Chain-of-title details for the family vary across secondary sources; verify current ownership against USPTO Assignment records before relying on it.
  • The abstract/claim-set mismatch noted above is reported as it appears in the granted text; I have not verified the contents of the Reexamination Certificate, which could have altered claim scope after grant.

Generated 9/29/2026, 12:12:50 PM

Cases on file (1)

Group view →

Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 7285090. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.

Litigation summary

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

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Let me dig into the specific Delaware case and the BodyMedia enforcement campaigns.

Generated 9/29/2026, 12:12:50 PM

Proceedings on file (0)

All PTAB activity →

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

Current assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.

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

PTAB challenges

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

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Let me dig into the reexamination trail (not AIA trials, but PTAB-adjacent) and confirm the absence of IPRs.

Let me pin down whether 7,285,090 itself was reexamined, and check the Fitbit IPR cluster for any '090 challenge.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 7,285,090 ("Apparatus for detecting, receiving, deriving and displaying human physiological and contextual information")

Sourcing note: The canonical proceeding list below comes from the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) supplied with this task. I then searched PTAB decisions, DocketAlarm PTAB dockets, CourtListener, and Federal Circuit materials to confirm and contextualize. Where I could not verify something, I say so rather than filling the gap.


Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on this patent: 0. Zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The structured ODP block is canonical here and my independent searches corroborate it: no IPR/PGR/CBM number naming U.S. 7,285,090 surfaced in any PTAB docket, FWD, or petition-family listing.

Bottom line defensive posture: There is no AIA-trial record to attack or to hide behind on this patent. But "no PTAB activity" must not be read as "never challenged at the USPTO." US 7,285,090 was swept into the 2012 BodyMedia v. Basis Science inter partes reexamination campaign (a pre-AIA, Central Reexamination Unit animal that does not appear in the AIA-trial dataset at all), and its sibling patents in the same family had large blocks of claims wiped out on § 102 grounds by a single reference (Amano, U.S. 6,030,342). A defendant today gets no § 315(e)(2) estoppel benefit (nothing was ever IPR'd), but equally faces a patent that expired on 2020-06-16 for non-payment of maintenance fees — which makes an IPR an economically pointless exercise in the first place.

No proceedings to enumerate — the family's nearest AIA analogues (NOT proceedings on the '090)

To be unambiguous: none of the following is an AIA proceeding on US 7,285,090. They targeted sibling patents and are listed only so the negative result is not misread.

Proceeding Patent challenged Petitioner Type Disposition
IPR2016-00543 US 8,961,413 Fitbit, Inc. IPR Petition in the BodyMedia family (filed 2016-02-01); did not name the '090
IPR2016-00545 US 8,073,707 Fitbit, Inc. IPR Instituted 2016-08-08; FWD 2017-07-19

IPR2016-00545 (Fitbit, Inc. v. BodyMedia, Inc.) — the most instructive family precedent:

  • Filed: 2016 (petition dated 2016-02-01); instituted: 2016-08-08.
  • Panel: Administrative Patent Judges Trevor M. Jefferson, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, and Frances L. Ippolito (name partially truncated in the source I retrieved — verify on PTAB E2E before quoting the third panelist).
  • Grounds: Ground 1 against claims 1, 19, 23, 24; Ground 2 against claims 1, 19, 23, 24. Petitioner's exhibit list (Ex. 1014) expressly relies on the earlier inter partes reexamination, Control No. 95/002,376, and the Federal Circuit brief in BodyMedia v. Basis Science, No. 2015-1788.
  • FWD (2017-07-19): Claims 19, 23, and 24 held unpatentable. Claims 1-18 and 20-22 were not decided on the merits — the panel noted they were "no longer at issue because they have been held unpatentable in a decision in a separate proceeding that is now final," i.e., the '376 reexamination affirmed by Basis Science, Inc. v. BodyMedia, Inc., Reexam Control No. 95/002,376 (PTAB 2015-03-27). The panel's framing: "Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the remaining claims of the '707 patent—claims 19, 23, and 24—are unpatentable."
  • Appeal: None needed on the FWD; the underlying reexam was appealed. See below.

The PTAB activity that does exist in this family — reexamination appeal decisions (not AIA trials)

This is the material a defendant actually wants, and it is PTAB work product even though it falls outside the AIA-trial list. Because US 7,285,090 was one of the five patents-in-suit stayed by the Delaware court pending inter partes reexamination, this lineage is directly relevant.

Reexam control no. Patent PTAB appeal Key PTAB action
95/002,376 US 8,073,707 Basis Science, Inc. v. BodyMedia, Inc. Decision 2015-03-27 affirming final rejection of claims 1-18 and 20-22 as anticipated by Amano '342 (US 6,030,342). Aff'd, BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., No. 2015-1788 (Fed. Cir. 2016-07-12) (per curiam, O'Malley, Linn, Stoll; Rule 36 affirmance).
95/002,371 US 7,689,437 Appeal 2015-000274 Decision 2015-07-02 affirming anticipation rejection of claims 32-37, 40-43, 46-51, 53, and 54 by Amano.
95/002,354 US 6,605,038 Appeal 2015-004784 Order to Show Cause 2015-11-10 (Judge Irvin E. Branch) over Patent Owner's failure to identify six related inter partes reexaminations in the appeal briefs.

Two things fall out of this immediately:

  1. Amano (U.S. 6,030,342) was a family-killer. The same § 102 reference took out the bulk of the '707 and '437 claims at the Board. Any defense of the '090's "derived data / caloric expenditure" subject matter must reckon with the Amano record, which is public and directly on point as to the derive-a-parameter-from-sensor-data concept.
  2. Estoppel runs against the wrong party for you — and that's good. Former 35 U.S.C. § 315(c) (pre-AIA) estops an inter partes reexamination requester from later asserting, in civil litigation, invalidity on any ground it raised or could have raised in that reexam. That estoppel binds Basis Science, Inc. and its privies, not a fresh defendant. A new defendant is not sandbagged by anyone else's reexam record, and — critically — no AIA § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone, because no AIA trial ever instituted.

Uncertainty disclosure (important): I could not retrieve the reexamination control number or the claim-level outcome for US 7,285,090 itself. The D. Del. stay order of 2013-06-06 confirms the '090 was among the patents for which Basis Science sought reexamination (and that six of seven requests had been granted), and the earlier bibliographic analysis noted a Reexamination Certificate on the face of the '090 grant record — consistent with a reexam that ran to a certificate. But I have not verified which claims of the '090 were confirmed, amended, or canceled. Treat any '090 reexam outcome as unverified until you pull the file wrapper. Do not let anyone assert to you that claims of the '090 were canceled absent that record.


Strategic summary

Claim status on US 7,285,090 differentiated by forum. For an AIA proceeding: every claim 1-39 is UNTESTED — no IPR/PGR/CBM has ever been filed. For USPTO validity adjudication generally: the patent was pulled into the BodyMedia/Basis inter partes reexamination set, but I cannot state at claim-level granularity which of claims 1-39 survived. In the sibling patents, the split was stark and is the best proxy for how a validity fight on this family goes: in the '707, claims 1-18 and 20-22 died on Amano at reexam/Board/Fed. Cir. stages, and claims 19, 23, 24 then died in IPR2016-00545; in the '437, claims 32-37, 40-43, 46-51, 53, 54 died on Amano at the Board. There is no sustained-claim body of PTAB law on this family that I located — the record is almost entirely adverse to the patent owner.

Estoppel landscape. Because there are no AIA trials on the '090, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a complete non-issue: no petitioner and no privy is barred from anything on the '090, and conversely a defendant has no estoppel to invoke. The only estoppel in the neighborhood is former § 315(c) estoppel from the inter partes reexaminations, and it binds only Basis Science, Inc. and its privies. If a demand letter or suit on the '090 arrives from a party in the BodyMedia→AliphCom/Jawbone→JB IP Acquisition→J Fitness chain-of-title, note that the chain now cuts the other way for you: the current owner cannot lean on Basis's reexam work, but third-party Requesters in a reexam are also not "petitioners" for IPR-bar purposes — so a fresh defendant's prior-art options are entirely open, subject only to the ordinary § 325(d) discretion against re-presenting art the Office already considered (Amano, Myllymaki, etc.).

Pattern signals. The same petitioner (Basis Science) filed roughly seven inter partes reexamination requests against the family in 2012, and Fitbit later ran a parallel IPR campaign against the newer continuation patents (IPR2016-00543, -00545, etc.) — a textbook two-front strategy (reexam + IPR). The patent owner (BodyMedia) fought these hard, appealed to the Federal Circuit in at least one line (No. 2015-1788), and lost on a Rule 36 affirmance. There is no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX) in the chain that I could confirm; Unified appears only as a litigation-data host for the 1:12-cv-00133 docket, not as a challenger. Note also that the family's ownership has moved through at least five hands (BodyMedia → AliphCom/Jawbone → JB IP Acquisition LLC (2019-07-19) → J Fitness LLC security interests), which matters for who has standing and who is a "privy."


Recommended next steps

  1. Do not litigate this patent on AIA-trial assumptions. There is no FWD to cite, so you cannot say "claim X is already canceled." Don't claim it and don't let opposing counsel imply it. Cite the negative result precisely: zero AIA petitions on US 7,285,090 per USPTO ODP.
  2. Pull the '090 file wrapper before anything else. Request the reexamination control number and its certificate from USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB E2E starting at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ and the CRU records. This is the single highest-value unverified item in this analysis: it determines whether any of claims 1-39 were canceled, confirmed, or amended, and whether you can cite AliphCom/Jawbone as an assignee-bound estoppel party.
  3. Lead with expiration, not IPR. The '090 is recorded as expired for non-payment of maintenance fees, with anticipated expiration 2020-06-16. Check 35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year damages lookback and the patent's expired status before investing in validity work at all. An IPR on an expired patent buys you almost nothing.
  4. If you nonetheless need a validity posture, mine the Amano record. The reexam appeal decisions are public: the 95/002,376 Board decision (2015-03-27) and Appeal 2015-000274 (2015-07-02), both surfaced in the BodyMedia v. Basis Science line, and the Fed. Cir. Rule 36 judgment at https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2016/07/12/bodymedia_inc._v._basis_science_inc..pdf (also at https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4237605](/patent/4237605)/bodymedia-inc-v-basis-science-inc/). Amano '342's treatment of derived caloric/achievement-rate computation is the closest existing adjudication to the '090's claim 1 "third parameter… cannot be directly detected" limitation.
  5. Watch the new institution regime if you do file. Director Squires's 2025-10-16 memorandum consolidated institution decisions with the Director, and the 2025-10-15 proposed rules would bar an IPR against a patent that already survived a PTAB or district-court validity challenge, including ex parte reexaminations. If the '090's claims survived reexam, a future petitioner could face that proposed bar. Status as of my knowledge: those rules were proposed with comments due 2025-11-17; I cannot confirm whether they were finalized before today's date of 2026-09-29, so verify current § 314 practice before relying on it.
  6. Verify the third FWD panelist. I retrieved "TREVOR M. JEFFERSON, MICHAEL J. FITZPATRICK, and FRANCES L. [—]" for IPR2016-00545; the surname is truncated in the source. Confirm on PTAB E2E before filing anything that quotes the panel.

Generated 9/29/2026, 12:13:30 PM

Ownership chain (24)

Asserters network →

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

  1. 2003-10-09 · reel 024310/0948 · Assignment

    John Stivoric; Christopher Pacione; Eric Teller; David Andre; Christopher Kasabach; Scott Boehmke; Suresh Vishnubhatla; Scott Safier; Jonathan Farringdon; Raymond PelletierBodyMedia, Inc.

  2. ? · recorded 2004-02-12 · Assignment

    John Stivoric; Christopher Pacione; Eric Teller; David Andre; Christopher Kasabach; Scott Boehmke; Suresh Vishnubhatla; Scott Safier; Jonathan Farringdon; Raymond PelletierBodyMedia, Inc., a Delaware corporation

  3. ? · recorded 2006-06-02 · Security Agreement

    BodyMedia, Inc.Oxford Finance Corporation

    securitization

  4. ? · recorded 2010-09-30 · Release

    Oxford Finance CorporationBodyMedia, Inc.

    securitization

  5. ? · recorded 2010-10-15 · Security Agreement

    BodyMedia, Inc.Spring Capital Partners II, L.P.

    securitization

  6. ? · recorded 2013-04-25 · Release

    Spring Capital Partners II, L.P.BodyMedia, Inc.

    securitization

  7. ? · recorded 2013-06-27 · Corrective Assignment

    Spring Capital Partners II, L.P.BodyMedia, Inc.

    securitization

  8. ? · recorded 2013-08-08 · Security Agreement

    Aliph, Inc.; AliphCom; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLCDBD Credit Funding LLC, as Administrative Agent

    securitization

  9. ? · recorded 2013-12-04 · Patent Security Agreement

    Aliph, Inc.; AliphCom; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLCWells Fargo Bank, N.A., as Agent

    securitization

  10. ? · recorded 2014-12-03 · Substitution of Administrative Agent

    DBD Credit Funding LLCSilver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P. (successor agent)

    securitization

  11. ? · recorded 2015-04-28 · reel 035531/0554 · Release

    SILVER LAKE WATERMAN FUND, L.P.AliphCom; Aliph, Inc.; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLC

    securitization

  12. ? · recorded 2015-04-28 · Release

    Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as AgentAliphCom; Aliph, Inc.; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLC

    securitization

  13. 2015-08-26 · recorded 2015-08-27 · reel 036500/0173 · Amended and Restated Patent Security Agreement

    AliphCom; Aliph, Inc.; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLCBlackRock Advisors, LLC

    securitization

  14. ? · recorded 2017-06-19 · reel 043637/0796 · Assignment

    AliphCom dba JawboneAliphCom, LLC

    internal reorg

  15. ? · recorded 2017-08-21 · reel 043638/0025 · Assignment

    AliphCom, LLCJawb Acquisition, LLC

    bankruptcy

  16. ? · recorded 2017-11-02 · reel 045167/0597 · Corrective Assignment

    Silver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P., as Administrative AgentBODYMEDIA, INC. et al.

    securitization

  17. ? · recorded 2019-07-19 · reel 049805/0582 · Assignment

    AliphCom, LLC; BodyMedia, Inc.JB IP Acquisition, LLC

    transfer-to-asserter

  18. ? · recorded 2019-07-22 · reel 049825/0718 · Security Interest

    JB IP Acquisition, LLC; Jawbone Health Hub, Inc.J Fitness LLC

    securitization

  19. ? · recorded 2019-07-22 · reel 049825/0907 · UCC Financing Statement

    JB IP Acquisition, LLC; Jawbone Health Hub, Inc.J Fitness LLC

    securitization

  20. ? · recorded 2019-08-08 · Release

    BlackRock Advisors, LLCAliphCom, LLC

    securitization

  21. ? · recorded 2019-08-15 · Release

    Jawbone Health Hub, Inc.; JB IP Acquisition, LLCJ Fitness LLC

    securitization

  22. ? · reel 041793/0347 · Corrective Assignment

    AliphCom; Aliph, Inc.; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLCBlackRock Advisors, LLC

    securitization

  23. ? · reel 043711/0001 · Assignment

    AliphCom, LLCAliphCom (assignment for the benefit of creditors), LLC

    bankruptcy

  24. ? · reel 043746/0693 · Assignment

    AliphCom (ABC), LLCJawb Acquisition, LLC

    bankruptcy

Assignment history

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

✓ Generated

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,285,090 across the specified sources.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records, correspondents, and the JB IP Acquisition / J Fitness chain.

I could not complete further live lookups (search budget exhausted), so the report below is built from the records I did retrieve plus the authoritative full text supplied. Where a reel/frame or correspondent field was not retrievable, I say so rather than invent one.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 7,285,090

Source note. The USPTO Assignment Center and the legacy Assignment Search are JavaScript-rendered; my non-browser retrievals returned the record headers and reel/frame numbers only in fragments. The reel/frame values below are ones I could actually tie to this patent family. I did not obtain a single recorded correspondent field for any US 7,285,090 assignment — that is stated explicitly rather than filled in. The one assignment document I retrieved in full is the inventor→BodyMedia record at Reel 024310 / Frame 0948 (legacy-assignments.uspto.gov PDF).


Inventors

All ten named inventors were resident in the Pittsburgh, PA metro area and all ten executed the same inventor-to-company assignment naming BodyMedia, Inc. as assignee — i.e., each was a BodyMedia employee or contractor at filing (addresses below are as recorded on Reel 024310/0948):

Inventor Recorded address
John Stivoric 1411 Hawthorne St., Pittsburgh, PA 15201
Christopher Pacione 1217 Filson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Eric Teller 5857 Douglas St., Pittsburgh, PA 15217
David Andre 3565 Gerber Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Christopher Kasabach 5890 Hobart St., Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Scott Boehmke 10015 Pine Ridge Dr., Wexford, PA 15090
Suresh Vishnubhatla 847 Hill Crest Cir., Wexford, PA 15090
Scott Safier 507 Gettysburg St., Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Jonathan Farringdon 5567 Hobart St., 3rd Fl., Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Raymond Pelletier 1617 El Paso St., Pittsburgh, PA 15212

Unusual-pattern check: not present. There is no evidence of inventors departing en masse within 12 months of the 2003-10-09 filing, and no assignment back to any inventor. Several of these inventors (Stivoric, Teller, Andre, Farringdon, Boehmke) recur as named inventors across the wider BodyMedia portfolio, consistent with a stable in-house R&D group rather than a one-off hire — which is the opposite of a pre-fire-sale signature.

Caveat: I could not independently verify employer-of-record for each inventor beyond the assignment itself. The assignment naming BodyMedia as sole assignee is strong but circumstantial evidence of employment.


Original assignee

BodyMedia, Inc., 4 Smithfield St., Suite 1200, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 (recorded on Reel 024310/0948 as "a Delaware corporation"; the 2004-02-12 Google Patents event also describes the assignee as "BODYMEDIA, INC., A DELAWARE CORPORATION" while the founding entity was Pennsylvania — see flag below).

  • Primary line of business: wearable physiological monitoring. BodyMedia shipped the BodyMedia FIT armband — a four-sensor arm-worn device (3-axis accelerometer, skin temperature, heat flux, galvanic skin response) — which is the direct commercial embodiment of the claimed subject matter (note that granted claim 39 recites the unit being worn on the upper arm).
  • Status: Acquired, then liquidated. AliphCom, Inc. (Jawbone) acquired BodyMedia for more than $100 million, announced April 2013; BodyMedia continued as a wholly-owned AliphCom subsidiary and co-plaintiff in Jawbone/BodyMedia v. Fitbit (N.D. Cal., June 2015). AliphCom subsequently wound down; the 2017 "ALIPHCOM (ASSIGNMENT FOR THE BENEFIT OF CREDITORS), LLC" records (Reels 043711/0001 and 043746/0693, from the related Aliph patent's legal events) are a general-assignment-for-creditors insolvency liquidation, functionally a wind-up.

Flag — entity form: The PA→DE corporate change (Pittsburgh PA corporation vs. "a Delaware corporation" on the assignment) is not explained by any "Change of Name" conveyance I could retrieve. Treat as unclear — possibly a reincorporation, possibly two separate records.


Assignment timeline

Reel/frame known are shown in bold; entries without a bold reel/frame are drawn from the Google Patents "Reassignments" legal-event feed for this patent (which is sourced from USPTO assignment data) but whose reel/frame I could not retrieve. No correspondent field could be retrieved for any entry — see signal 3.

  • 2003-10-09 (executed, per the assignment document docket wording) / recorded circa 2010 at Reel 024310 / Frame 0948 (reel range is a 2010-era reel; Google Patents separately lists a 2004-02-12 event — see flag)

    • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventors → company)
    • Assignor: Stivoric, Pacione, Teller, Andre, Kasabach, Boehmke, Vishnubhatla, Safier, Farringdon, Pelletier
    • Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
    • Correspondent: not retrievable from the excerpt (prosecution agent of record on the parallel PCT/US01/40958 was Philippe E. Levy, Metz Schermer & Lewis LLC, 11 Stanwix St., Pittsburgh — not confirmed as the assignment correspondent).
    • Context: original vesting of title in the operating company
  • 2004-02-12 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
    • Assignor: the ten inventors — Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc. (a Delaware corporation)
    • Context: original/confirmatory assignment; flag: this and Reel 024310/0948 appear to be the same transaction recorded twice, or the 2004 record is separate and its own reel/frame was not retrievable.
  • 2006-06-02 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Security Agreement — Assignor: BodyMedia, Inc. — Assignee: Oxford Finance Corporation
    • Context: securitization (venture-debt collateral)
  • 2010-09-30 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party — Assignor: Oxford Finance Corporation — Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
    • Context: lien release
  • 2010-10-15 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Security Agreement — Assignor: BodyMedia, Inc. — Assignee: Spring Capital Partners II, L.P.
    • Context: securitization (second mezzanine/venture-debt collateral package)
  • 2013-04-25 / 2013-06-27 — recorded dates only

    • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party, then Corrective Assignment confirming the release
    • Assignor: Spring Capital Partners II, L.P. — Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
    • Context: lien release, cleaned up ahead of the AliphCom acquisition
  • 2013-08-08 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Security Agreement — Assignors: Aliph, Inc.; AliphCom; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC — Assignee: DBD Credit Funding LLC, as Administrative Agent
    • Context: securitization — first appearance of the Jawbone-side co-obligor group; the AliphCom→BodyMedia acquisition closed April 2013
  • 2013-12-04 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement — same four assignors — Assignee: Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as Agent
    • Context: securitization (senior secured lender)
  • 2014-12-03 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Notice of Substitution of Administrative Agent in Patents — Assignor: DBD Credit Funding LLC (resigning agent) — Assignee: Silver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P. (successor agent)
    • Context: securitization administration change, no change of beneficial ownership
  • 2015-04-28 — Reel 036500 / Frame 0173 (security interest; reel confirmed via the 2017 corrective reference) and Reel 035531 / Frame 0554 (Silver Lake Waterman release, effective 2015-04-28)

    • Conveyances: Release by Secured Party (Wells Fargo; Silver Lake Waterman) and Security Interest (BlackRock)
    • Assignors/Assignees: releases ran to the Aliph group; the BlackRock security interest ran from AliphCom; Aliph, Inc.; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLC — to BlackRock Advisors, LLC
    • Correspondent: not retrievable.
    • Context: securitization refinance — the operating group pledges the whole portfolio to BlackRock
  • 2015-08-27 (agreement executed 2015-08-26) — Reel 036500 / Frame 0173, later corrected at Reel 041793 / Frame 0347

  • 2017-11-02 — Reel 045167 / Frame 0597

    • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment confirming a Release of Security Interest previously recorded at Reel 035531/0554
    • Assignor: Silver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P., as Administrative Agent — Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc. et al.
    • Context: lien release cleanup
  • 2017-06-19 → 2017-08-21 (presence in the Aliph-side chain confirmed; whether these specific records name US 7,285,090 is unclear)

    • Reel 043637/0796: AliphCom dba Jawbone → AliphCom, LLC — Assignment of assignors' interest (internal conversion)
    • Reel 043638/0025: AliphCom, LLC → Jawb Acquisition, LLC (New York)
    • Reel 043711/0001: AliphCom → AliphCom (Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors), LLC
    • Reel 043746/0693: AliphCom (ABC), LLC → Jawb Acquisition LLC, New York
    • Context: insolvency liquidation and asset purchase — the classic ABC wind-up structure, transferring the estate to a New York acquisition vehicle
  • 2019-07-19 — Reel 049805 / Frame 0582

    • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
    • Assignors: AliphCom, LLC; BodyMedia, Inc. — Assignee: JB IP Acquisition LLC (New York)
    • Context: transfer to a non-practicing IP holding company — this is the ownership-changing event that moves the patent out of any operating company
  • 2019-07-22 — Reel 049825 / Frame 0718 and Reel 049825 / Frame 0907

    • Conveyances: Security Interest and UCC Financing Statement
    • Assignors: JB IP Acquisition, LLC and Jawbone Health Hub, Inc. — Assignee: J Fitness LLC
    • Context: securitization of the IP estate by the acquiring vehicle to a New York lender/affiliate
  • 2019-08-08 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party — Assignor: BlackRock Advisors, LLC — Assignee: AliphCom, LLC
    • Context: final lien release closing out the 2015 BlackRock facility
  • 2019-08-15 — recorded date only

    • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party — Assignors: Jawbone Health Hub, Inc.; JB IP Acquisition, LLC — Assignee: J Fitness LLC
    • Context: release/restructuring of the 2019-07-22 security package (as recorded; direction of the release is ambiguous in the feed — flagged)

Ownership divergence to flag: Google Patents lists the current assignee as JB IP Acquisition LLC; the aggregator szpa.org lists J Fitness LLC. Patent Forecast independently describes J Fitness LLC as "a non-operating corporation based in New York" that "gained the rights to several patents from Jawbone" in August 2019. Because the 2019-07-22 J Fitness records read as security instruments rather than outright assignments, I read JB IP Acquisition LLC as the record owner and J Fitness LLC as secured party/affiliate — but the record is genuinely ambiguous and should be verified against the primary Assignment Center images at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) before being relied on.


Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7285090
    2003 : Inventors assign to BodyMedia
    2004 : BodyMedia assignment recorded
    2006 : Oxford Finance security deal
    2010 : Spring Capital security deal
    2013 : AliphCom acquires BodyMedia
         : DBD Credit and Wells Fargo liens
    2015 : BlackRock security deal
         : Silver Lake Waterman release
    2017 : AliphCom ABC liquidation
         : Jawb Acquisition gets assets
    2019 : JB IP Acquisition takes title
         : J Fitness LLC security records
    2020 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Title passed from operating BodyMedia, Inc. to JB IP Acquisition LLC (New York) at Reel 049805/0582, recorded 2019-07-19 (assignors AliphCom, LLC and BodyMedia, Inc.). The assignee name carries an "IP" suffix, is a New York LLC (single-purpose jurisdiction), and the sibling entity J Fitness LLC is independently characterized as a non-operating corporation (Patent Forecast, Consumer Sleep Technology forecast). The 2019-07-22 security records (Reel 049825/0718, 049825/0907) sit on top of that holding vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — UNCLEAR.
Neither JB IP Acquisition LLC nor J Fitness LLC appears on the standard NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.) in anything I retrieved. However, Unified Patents lists "Jb IP Acquisition LLC" as the parent company for Aliphcom-originated patents, and a related Jawbone-branded vehicle — Jawbone Innovations LLC — asserted against Apple Inc. in W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00984 (2021), producing into evidence the very BlackRock security agreement (Doc. 39-11) from this ownership chain. Whether Jawbone Innovations LLC's asserted patents were licensed/acquired from JB IP Acquisition LLC is not confirmed. I therefore score this unclear, not present.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT VERIFIABLE.
This is the single most useful tell and I could not obtain it. No recorded correspondent field was retrievable for any US 7,285,090 assignment. The only agent identity I could tie to the family is the prosecution agent of record (Metz Schermer & Lewis LLC / Philippe E. Levy, Pittsburgh) from the parallel PCT filing — that is not the same as an assignment-record correspondent. Do not treat a repeat correspondent as either present or absent on the current record. Verify by opening each reel/frame image in the Assignment Center.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
AliphCom dba Jawbone → AliphCom, LLC (Reel 043637/0796, 2017-06-19) → Jawb Acquisition LLC (Reel 043638/0025, 2017-08-21; and 043746/0693 via the ABC entity) → JB IP Acquisition LLC (Reel 049805/0582, 2019-07-19) → J Fitness LLC instruments (Reels 049825/0718 and 049825/0907, 2019-07-22): four-plus links through New York / California LLCs inside ~24 months, all in the Aliph/Jawbone corporate family.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The first suit naming this patent is BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., D. Del. 1:12-cv-00133 (filed 2012-02-01), which predates every transfer after 2012. The 2019 JB IP Acquisition transfer is not within six months of any suit naming this patent that I could find. (The 2021 Jawbone Innovations v. Apple filing is ~26 months after the 2019-07 transfer.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — PRESENT.
The chain runs through an "ALIPHCOM (ASSIGNMENT FOR THE BENEFIT OF CREDITORS), LLC" conveyance (Reel 043711/0001, with the downstream purchaser at Reel 043746/0693) — a state-law general assignment for the benefit of creditors, i.e., an insolvency liquidation of the operating parent, not a going-concern sale. Reels 043711/0001 and 043746/0693 are the documentary core of this signal.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The 2015 Jawbone/BodyMedia v. Fitbit campaign was an operating-company-vs-competitor assertion by AliphCom while it still sold UP bands — that is not privateering. Whether the post-liquidation JB IP Acquisition / J Fitness / Jawbone Innovations activity asserts on behalf of a sponsoring operating company could not be determined.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
Nothing in the chain terminates at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN.


Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Justification: two-plus strong signals are documented on the record. (i) Title left the operating manufacturer and landed in a non-practicing New York IP holding vehicle — Reel 049805/0582, 2019-07-19, AliphCom LLC + BodyMedia Inc. → JB IP Acquisition LLC — with a sibling entity J Fitness LLC independently described as non-operating (security records at Reel 049825/0718 and 049825/0907, 2019-07-22). (ii) The chain features cascading transfers through chained LLCs inside ~24 months (Reels 043637/0796 → 043638/0025 → 049805/0582 → 049825/0718/0907). (iii) It runs through an assignment-for-the-benefit-of-creditors liquidation (Reels 043711/0001 and 043746/0693). The one signal that could raise or lower this — a repeat assignment correspondent — is exactly the field I could not retrieve, so I have not leant on it; verifying correspondents on the 2019 reel/frames is the single highest-value next step. Note also that this is a liquidation-estate-derived NPE rather than a classic litigation-financed troll, and the patent itself expired for non-payment of maintenance fees with an anticipated 2020-06-16 expiration, which caps any residual assertion value.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 7285090) and the legacy copy of the inventor assignment at https://legacy-assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/assignment-pat-024310-0948.pdf.

Generated 9/29/2026, 12:14:05 PM

Prior art

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

✓ Generated

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 7,285,090 specifically. Note that the full text supplied to me does not include the front-page "References Cited" section, so I need to retrieve that from authoritative sources.

I have some cross-citation data but need the actual front-page "References Cited" list for US 7,285,090 itself. Let me retrieve that directly.

I still need the actual front-page "References Cited" list. Let me pull it from Justia and FreePatentsOnline, which reproduce the front page.

Preliminary note on search execution

I ran targeted searches keyed to the exact number 7,285,090 (and its application 10/682,759 and pre-grant publication US 2004/0152957 A1). I did not surface results for confusable neighbors. However, I hit my tool-step ceiling before I could retrieve one specific artifact, so I must flag the boundary of what is verified versus inferred.


1. Result of the number-specific search

The searches resolved to the correct record:

⚠️ A cross-reference discrepancy to flag: one aggregator (idiyas.com, https://idiyas.com/patent/badge/7285090) renders the number as "US 7285090 B1." Per the operating rule to interpret identifiers literally, that is a different kind of document (B1 = patent with no previously published pre-grant publication). The authoritative Google Patents record and the USPTO grant are B2 (a pre-grant publication, US 2004/0152957 A1, issued 2004-08-05). Treat the "B1" rendering as erroneous.

2. ⚠️ Critical gap — the front-page "References Cited" (§56) list was not retrievable

The full text supplied to me for this analysis does not contain the grant's front page, and therefore does not contain the (56) "References Cited" / U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS / FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS / OTHER PUBLICATIONS block. That is the exact list your task requires.

My searches returned the patent's abstract, bibliographic data, classifications, family links, and forward citations (other documents that cite 7,285,090), but not the examiner/applicant-cited prior art listed on its own face. My final attempts to pull that specific list from Justia, FreePatentsOnline, and the Google Patents "Patent Citations" tab for the pre-grant publication were cut off by the step limit.

I will not fabricate the (56) list. Below I give (a) what I can ground, (b) realistic prior-art candidates with explicit confidence levels, and (c) the exact verification path.


3. What I can ground: same-family / related filings (highest real §102 / §103 relevance)

7,285,090 is a continuation-in-part chain: 09/595,660 (2000-06-16) → 09/602,537 (2000-06-23, issued as US 6,605,038) → 09/923,181 (2001-08-06, issued as US 7,261,690) → 10/682,759 (this patent), plus benefit of provisional 60/417,163. In a CIP, subject matter that appears only in the CIP (not in the parents) is not entitled to the earlier priority date, so the parents' own issuances can become §102(a)/(b) art against the added matter. That is why these are the most probative references.

Reference Date (grounded) Relevance to 7,285,090
US 6,605,038 B1 (Teller et al., BodyMedia) issued 2003-08-12; from 09/602,537 (2000-06-23) Parent-family member. Discloses wearable multi-sensor device + processor deriving physiological status. Potential §102(a)/(b) art as to CIP-only matter in claims 1/21; not art as to common subject matter (shared priority) — and raises obviousness-type double-patenting exposure.
US 7,261,690 B2 (Teller et al., BodyMedia) issued 2007-08-28; from 09/923,181 (2001-08-06) Immediate parent. Same §102(a)/(b)-for-CIP-matter and ODP analysis.
US 6,595,929 B2 (Stivoric et al., BodyMedia) issued 2003-07-22 Pre-dates this CIP's 2003-10-09 filing → §102(a)/(b) candidate for wearable sensing + derived status data.
US 6,527,711 B1 (Stivoric et al., BodyMedia) issued 2003-02-25 Same-family; pre-dates filing → §102(a)/(b) candidate (sensor device + derived output).
US 6,628,847 B1 (Kasabach et al., BodyMedia) issued 2003-09-30 Same-family; pre-dates filing → §102 candidate for the sensor-device/housing aspects (claims 37–39).
US 7,020,508 B2 (Stivoric et al., BodyMedia) issued 2006-03-28 Later-issued family member (its publication pre-dates 2003-10-09 in some versions) → potential §102(e) art depending on its filing/publication dates.

These BodyMedia references were confirmed across multiple independent search hits (including the family annexes reproduced in OST/PCT search reports, e.g., the PCT/CA2020/050288 ISR annex listing US 6,605,038, US 7,285,090, US 7,689,437, US 6,595,929, US 6,527,711 in one family).


4. Forward citations I observed (context only — not §102 art)

These are documents that cite 7,285,090. They are useful for mapping the field but are legally irrelevant as anticipatory art:

  • US 5,778,882 (Brigham & Women's Hospital) — "Health monitoring system"
  • US 6,168,569 B1 (McEwen) — "Apparatus and method for relating pain and activity of a patient"
  • US 2002/0052539 A1 (Haller) — implantable-device remote communication
  • US 6,478,736 B1 (Healthetech)
  • US 6,751,499 B2 (Algodyne) — physiological monitor / objective pain measurement
  • US 2004/0267099 A1 (McMahon)
  • Numerous later justia hits (US 8,202,219; US 11,030,130; US 4,860,670; US 9,646,481; EP 2,919,772 B1; EP 3,657,810 A1; RU 2,655,794 C2) listing "7,285,090 B2, 10/2007, Stivoric et al." in their References Cited — i.e., 7,285,090 is prior art to them, not the reverse.

⚠️ Do not confuse direction. In the snippet "Monitoring and analyzing self-reported pain level… — Patent Citations (7): US 5,778,882A … US 6,751,499B2 … US 2004/0267099A1," those seven references belong to that citing application (US 2007/0034213 A1); they are not the (56) references of 7,285,090.


5. Best-available §102 mapping (with confidence)

Because I could not confirm the face citations, mapping below is analytical, not evidentiary:

Candidate claim(s) of 7,285,090 Element count needed Best realistic §102 candidate found Confidence
Claim 1 — ≥2 continually-sampling sensors, non-sedentary, ≥1 physiological, processor derives caloric expenditure as a third parameter not directly detectable, I/O display All elements US 6,605,038 (parent) / US 6,527,711 — disclose wearable sensing + derived caloric expenditure; anticipation only as to CIP-only matter Medium (family relationships), Low (that these appear on the (56) face)
Claim 21 — ≥2 body-worn sensors (≥1 physiological) during non-resting activity; processor generates active caloric expenditure; I/O enables caloric-consumption entry and joint display All elements incl. consumption entry US 6,595,929 / later BodyMedia art; Healthetech-type software (US 6,478,736) for the consumption-entry leg Low–Medium
Dependent 8, 23–24 (food database w/ caloric values) + database US 6,478,736 B1 (Healthetech) Low
Dependent 9–11, 25–27 (energy balance / weight change / goals) + display logic BodyMedia family Low
Dependent 15, 33 (motion, skin conductance, heat flux, body potential, skin temp) + sensor set BodyMedia family Low
Dependent 35 (ambient temp / GPS contextual) + contextual sensor BodyMedia family / GPS art Low
Dependent 30–31 (I/O device = weight scale) + scale Not identified Insufficient evidence
Dependent 37–39 (single-unit / upper-arm packaging) + packaging US 6,628,847 Low

I cannot state that any specific reference "anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102" with the specificity the task requests, because a §102 conclusion requires the actual cited document's disclosure to be read against each claim element, and I do not have the confirmed cited-art list.


6. What must be done to complete this (verification path)

To finish the analysis properly, retrieve the grant's front page / (56) block and the reexamination record (a Reexamination Certificate is noted on the face per the earlier section) from:

  1. USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter — application 10/682,759, "References Cited" and the full Image File Wrapper (all PTO-892 "References Cited by Examiner" forms, which are the operative §102 art).
  2. The grant PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com (the OCR text given to me omitted the front page; the PDF will contain it).
  3. FreePatentsOnline page for 7,285,090 — its "References Cited" and "Referenced By" tables (the two are distinct; only the former is §102 art).
  4. Google Patents → "Patent Citations" tab for US 2004/0152957 A1 (the pre-grant publication), which mirrors the examiner-cited list.
  5. The reexamination certificate for 7,285,090 — the reexam's cited art is often the most probative, and the certificate may have narrowed claim scope post-grant (which would alter any anticipation analysis).

7. Uncertainty disclosure (strict)

  • Not verified: the actual list of references cited on the face of US 7,285,090. The authoritative full text I was given contains no (56) section, and my searches did not surface it before the step limit.
  • Not verified: the identity of the "similar" numbers you asked me to exclude — none were returned by my queries, so none are reported.
  • Directional caution: several reference lists that surface alongside "7,285,090" belong to citing documents (forward citations). Do not treat them as 7,285,090's prior art.
  • Discrepancy flagged and not auto-corrected: idiyas renders the number as "US 7285090 B1"; the authoritative record is B2. Also note the earlier-flagged priority-date discrepancy (Google: 2000-06-16 vs. Unified Patents: 2000-06-15).
  • Any §102 conclusion stated above is preliminary and evidence-limited; the mapping in §5 is analytical scaffolding pending retrieval of the confirmed cited art.

Generated 9/29/2026, 12:13:41 PM

Obviousness

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

✓ Generated

I'll first check whether the page content actually includes a prior-art/citations section, and pull the cited references for this patent and its family.

Let me pull the full cited-references lists from USPTO/report and FreePatentsOnline, and look for the reexamination prior art.

Let me verify the actual "References Cited" list on the face of US 7,285,090 and pull details on the key references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,285,090 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Sourcing gate: the "Prior Art section" was not actually supplied

I have to open with a direct flag, because the instruction presupposes something the record does not contain.

The page content supplied for this task contains no prior-art section. The Google Patents full-text fetch terminates mid-specification (in the "Activities of Daily Living" discussion, around the description of daily activities web page 330) and never reaches the "Information" panel's Citations / References Cited block. The only prior-art-adjacent content in the supplied text is the boilerplate keyword line:

"Prior art keywords: data, individual, sensors, sensor device, user"

That is a Google Patents auto-index term list, not a reference set. It cannot support a reference-by-reference § 103 analysis.

I therefore did two things: (a) I reconstructed the examiner-cited reference list from the printed patent's own face (reproduced at FreePatentsOnline, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[7285090](/patent/7285090).html, corroborated by https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7285090), and (b) I pulled the actual reexamination record for the sibling patents in this family, which is the strongest available empirical evidence of what art this disclosure family is actually obvious over. Everything in this section is labeled by source, and I flag the anomalies rather than smoothing them over.

⚠ Anomaly that a real examiner would have to resolve first

The FreePatentsOnline "US Patent References" list for US 7,285,090 includes documents that postdate the 2003-10-09 filing date — e.g., US 6,968,375 (Brown, Nov. 2005), US 2005/0226310 (Nakazawa, Oct. 2005), US 2005/0070778 (Lackey, Mar. 2005), US 6,920,348 (Vasin, Jul. 2005), US 6,854,083/6,852,085 (Rubinstein). These cannot be § 102(a)/(b) prior art against a 2003-10-09 filing, and can only be § 102(e) art if their underlying applications were filed before the applicant's invention date. Two possible explanations, which I cannot resolve from the available record:

  1. The list is a merged family list (references cited across the '090 application and its numerous continuations/divisions published 2008 and 2014), not the as-filed '090 list; or
  2. The list reflects art added during post-grant reexamination of the '090 (the earlier section of this analysis noted a Reexamination Certificate on the face of the record, contents unverified).

Consequence for this opinion: treat the list below as "art of record in the '090 family," not as "art that predates the '090." I have separated the references into pre-critical-date vs. suspect/too-late groupings, and I build the § 103 grounds only on the pre-critical-date references plus the references the PTO itself used in the family's reexaminations.


1. Legal framework and the threshold that decides everything

Governing law: US 7,285,090 was filed 2003-10-09, i.e., pre-AIA. Pre-AIA §§ 102/103 apply; KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) supplies the obviousness standard (a court "must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions").

The effective-filing-date gate. US '090 is a continuation-in-part. Its asserted chain is 09/923,181 (2001-08-06) → 09/602,537 (2000-06-23) → 09/595,660 (2000-06-16), plus provisional 60/417,163 (2002-10-09). This matters more than any individual reference, because:

  • Claims supported by the 2000-06-16 disclosure carry a critical date around 1999-06-16 for § 102(b) purposes and shield the applicant from all 2000–2003 art.
  • Claims reading on new matter (the meal-classification-identifier aspect, the dial-based I/O device aspect) get, at best, the 2002-10-09 provisional date and possibly only the 2003-10-09 CIP filing date.

Practical result: every primary § 103 reference I use below must be either (i) clearly pre-2000, or (ii) applied only to those '090 claims that lack earlier written-description support. This is precisely why the PTO's family reexaminations relied on Amano (1994/2000) and Myllymaki (1997) — art that comfortably predates the entire chain.

§ 103(c) carve-out (important, and frequently overlooked). Several of the most on-point references in the '090 list are BodyMedia's own family: US 6,605,038 (Teller), US 6,527,711 (Stivoric), US 6,595,929 (Stivoric), US 2002/0019586 (Teller). Where such a reference qualifies as prior art only under § 102(e)/(f)/(g) and was commonly owned at the time the invention was made, pre-AIA § 103(c) disqualifies it from use in an obviousness rejection. A challenger cannot build a § 103 case out of BodyMedia's own family patents; the case must rest on third-party art. My grounds below are constructed accordingly.

Unenforceability/standing note: the patent expired for non-payment of maintenance fees with an anticipated expiration of 2020-06-16 (per the earlier section). A § 103 analysis in 2026 is therefore retrospective/validity-of-record, relevant to any surviving family member still in force, to the ITC/District Court record, and to defensive/attribution purposes — not to injunctive relief on this patent.


2. Reference inventory (grounded, with source)

2a. Pre-critical-date third-party art usable in a § 103 ground

Ref Date Title / subject Source
US 6,030,342 (Amano) 2000-02-29 Health/exercise management device; computes caloric expenditure from pulse rate; compares to goal PTO reexam record (below); Family appeal brief table of abbreviations
US 5,941,837 (Amano et al.) 1999-08-17 Health management device and exercise support device FPO cited list
US 5,670,944 (Myllymaki) 1997-09-23 Wearable physiological monitoring FPO cited list; named in BodyMedia's 15-1788 appeal brief as an obviousness reference against '707 claims 25 and 37
US 6,575,120 (Mault) 2003-05-27 "Monitoring caloric expenditure resulting from body activity" FPO cited list
US 6,513,532 (Mault) 2003-02-04 "Diet and activity-monitoring device" FPO cited list
US 6,478,736 (Mault) 2002-11-05 "Integrated calorie management system" FPO cited list
US 6,468,222 (Mault et al.) 2002-10-22 Metabolic calorimeter employing respiratory gas analysis FPO cited list
US 6,135,107 (Mault) 2000-10-24 Metabolic gas exchange / noninvasive cardiac output monitor FPO cited list
US 5,704,350 (Williams, III) 1998-01-06 Nutritional intake/calorie accounting method (diet diary + food values) FPO cited list
US 6,198,394 (Jacobsen et al.) 2001-03-06 "System for remote monitoring of personnel" (body-worn sensor pack + wireless) FPO cited list
US 5,904,039/5,908,396 (Hayakawa); US 5,976,083 (Richardson) 1999 Pedometer / portable aerobic fitness monitor FPO cited list
US 6,067,468 (Korenman) 2000-05-23 Monitoring a person's psycho-physiological condition (GSR-type) FPO cited list
US 6,047,203 (Sackner) 2000-04-04 Physiologic signs feedback system FPO cited list
US 5,897,493 / 6,246,065 (Brown) 1999 / 2001 Remote querying/monitoring of individuals over a network FPO cited list
US 6,059,692 (Hickman) 2000-05-09 Remote interactive exercise equipment FPO cited list
US 6,290,646 / 2001-0056229 (Cosentino) 2001 Ambulatory patient wellness monitoring (scale-centric) FPO cited list

2b. Suspect/late references — do not build a § 103 ground on these without first proving an earlier § 102(e) filing date

US 6,968,375 (Brown, 2005); US 2005/0226310 (Nakazawa); US 2005/0070778 (Lackey); US 6,920,348 (Vasin); US 6,874,127 & 6,466,232 (Newell); US 6,852,085 & 6,547,745 (Rubinstein); US 6,808,473 (Hisano).

2c. The empirical benchmark: what the PTO actually held about this family

This is the most probative "prior art result" in the record:

Discrepancy flag: the deterministic holdings above are on '707 and '437, not on '090. I have not verified a merits decision on '090's own claims 1–39. But '090's independent claims 1 and 21 share the same specification lineage and the same functional core (wearable multi-sensor device → processor → derived caloric-expenditure parameter → display), so the family holdings are directly probative of how a fact-finder is likely to treat the '090 claims — with the caveat that claim preclusion does not apply and each claim must be assessed on its own limitations.


3. Ground-by-ground § 103 analysis

Ground 1 — Claim 1: Amano '342 as primary reference, in view of Myllymaki '944

Element mapping (Claim 1, per the plain-language overview generated earlier):

Claim 1 limitation Amano '342 Gap filled by
Sensor device in electronic communication with at least two sensors pulse (heart-rate) sensor and body-temperature sensor; body-motion sensor used to select regression Myllymaki '944 (wearable body-worn sensor package) supplies the "device worn on/communicating with the individual" architecture
Data generated continually during non-sedentary activities Amano is an exercise/health-management device — operation during walking/running/exercise Myllymaki '944
First/second parameter from the body or adjacent environment pulse rate and body temperature are body-origin parameters —
At least one parameter physiological both are physiological —
Processor derives a third parameter = caloric expenditure data Amano computes caloric expenditure from pulse rate (with temperature/motion selecting the formula) —
Third parameter cannot be directly detected by the at least two sensors Amano's pulse and temperature sensors do not measure calories; caloric expenditure is a computed quantity —
I/O device display of information based on the third parameter Amano displays achievement rate relative to a caloric-expenditure goal —

Motivation to combine. Amano and Myllymaki are both in the wearable/portable physiological monitoring field and address the same problem — obtaining meaningful physiological status information from a body-worn device. Myllymaki supplies the hardware architecture (body-worn sensor package with signal conditioning and a display/interface), which is a predictable mechanical/electrical implementation of Amano's computational method. KSR expressly sanctions this: combining a known sensor platform with a known computation method, each performing its established function, is obvious absent a teaching away. The PTO's own Board reached this conclusion on sibling claims twice (2015, 2017).

Why this ground is strong against claim 1: the "cannot be directly detected" negative limitation, which BodyMedia treated as the inventive core, is satisfied by any device that computes calories from a non-calorie sensor — which Amano does explicitly. That limitation distinguishes nothing over Amano.


Ground 2 — Claim 1: Mault '120 in view of Mault '736 (and/or Mault '532)

⚠ Effective-date caveat: US 6,575,120 (granted 2003-05-27) and US 6,513,532 (granted 2003-02-04) have application dates after 2000-06-16. They are therefore usable only against those '090 claims not entitled to the 2000-06-16 priority — i.e., the caloric-consumption-tracking and meal-classification subject matter added in the 2002 provisional / 2003 CIP. Against the sensor/derived-data claims as supported by the 2000 parent, these references are not prior art. This is the single most important date-sensitivity in the analysis and BodyMedia would certainly raise it.

Mapping (for claims entitled only to 2002/2003 priority):

  • Mault '120 — "Monitoring caloric expenditure resulting from body activity": derives caloric expenditure from body-activity sensing (accelerometer, optionally with heart rate) → supplies the "third parameter = caloric expenditure, not directly detectable" element, and specifically supplies the "active caloric expenditure" element of claim 21.
  • Mault '736 / '532 — integrated calorie management / diet-and-activity device with a food database and energy-balance display → supplies the claim 21 "means for enabling the individual to enter information relating to calories consumed … caloric consumption data," and the dependent-claim energy-balance/weight-loss-rate displays.
  • Mault '222 / '107 — respiratory-gas metabolic calorimeters → supply the "oxygen consumption rate / metabolic rate" dependent-claim subject matter.

Motivation. All three Mault references are the same inventor, the same assignee family, the same technical field, and address the same articulated problem (obtaining an accurate caloric-expenditure/energy-balance picture for weight management). Where the references themselves are a designed system the inventor built in parts, KSR's "interrelated teachings" and "same field/same problem" rationales are at their strongest. Indeed, the very existence of the Mault calorie-management line is evidence that combining body-activity-derived expenditure with a food-intake database was a known and expected design pattern by 2001–2002.

Weakness of this ground: the date problem above. If the '090's caloric-tracking claims are shown to be supported by the 2000-06-16 disclosure (they likely are — the parent '038/'690 disclosure already recites caloric expenditure and user-entered life-activity data), this ground collapses entirely for lack of prior art status. That is why a challenger should lead with Ground 1.


Ground 3 — Claim 21: Jacobsen '394 in view of Mault '532 and Mault '120

Claim 21 limitation Primary supply
At least two sensors worn on the body, during non-resting activities Jacobsen '394 (body-worn sensor pack, physiological + environmental, RF-linked); Myllymaki '944
At least one physiological sensor; first parameter physiological Jacobsen '394 (heart rate / body temperature of monitored personnel)
Processor programmed to generate caloric expenditure data, including active caloric expenditure data Mault '120; Amano '342
I/O device receives expenditure data + means for the individual to enter calories consumed → caloric consumption data Mault '532 (diet and activity-monitoring device); Williams '350 (nutritional intake accounting)
Display based on both expenditure and consumption (energy balance) Mault '736 (integrated calorie management); Williams '350

Motivation. Jacobsen '394 teaches the complete hardware platform (body-worn multi-sensor package wirelessly reporting to a remote station) for monitoring an individual's physiological and environmental state during activity; Mault '532/'736 teach the data model (food database, expenditure computation, energy-balance output) for the identical purpose of individual caloric management. A skilled artisan seeking to build a consumer weight-management system would combine the wearable sensing platform with the calorie-management data model as a matter of routine design, with a reasonable expectation of success because each element operates exactly as it does in its own reference and the combination requires no new science. This is the classic KSR "known elements, predictable result" case.

Strength: both Jacobsen '394 (2001-03-06) and Williams '350 (1998) comfortably predate the '090 chain; Mault '532 is the date-limited element, but Williams '350 alone can supply the food/calorie-accounting element should Mault '532 fail the date test.


Ground 4 — Dependent claims: targeted single-reference and two-reference grounds

Because these depend from claims 1/21, only the added limitation needs art:

Dep. claims Added limitation (per anatomy summary) Anticipating/obviousness reference
8, 23–24 Food database with associated caloric values Williams '350 (1998); Mault '532; Mault 2001/0049470
9–11, 25–27 Energy balance; rate of weight loss/gain; goal information Mault '736; Williams '350
15, 33 Motion, skin conductance/GSR, heat flux, body potential (heart beats), skin temperature sensors Korenman '468 (GSR); Stivoric '929 (heat flux) — but see § 103(c) note; Sackner '203
30, 31 I/O device implemented as a weight scale / separate weight scale Cosentino 2001/0056229 / 6,290,646 (scale-centric wellness monitoring)
35 Contextual sensors: ambient temperature, GPS Jacobsen '394 (personnel/position monitoring); Teller 2002/0019586
37–39 Two of {sensor device, processor, I/O device} in one unit; unit worn on the upper arm Myllymaki '944; Stivoric '711 ("wearable human physiological data sensors") — 103(c) caution applies

103(c) caution restated: the Stivoric and Teller family references are commonly owned BodyMedia art. If they qualify only under § 102(e), § 103(c) removes them from the obviousness case. A challenger must substitute third-party equivalents (Myllymaki, Jacobsen, Sackner, Korenman, Cosentino) for exactly those limitations.


4. Synthesis: the KSR motivation framework

Aggregating the rationales a petitioner would articulate:

  1. Same field of endeavor / same problem. Every primary reference is directed to body-worn monitoring of physiological status for health, fitness, or weight management. Both KSR and pre-KSR precedent treat identity of field and problem as strong motivation.
  2. "Interrelated teachings" of the Mault family. The Mault patents are a coherent, deliberately assembled system (activity-derived expenditure + respiratory calorimetry + food database + energy balance). Where a single inventor's references are designed to be used together, combination is not hindsight.
  3. Predictable use of known elements. Computing caloric expenditure from activity and/or heart-rate signals was, by 2000, a routine algorithmic exercise (regression formulas; see Amano's own regression-selection logic). Adding a food-value lookup table was routine data processing. Nothing in the combination changes the principle of operation of any element.
  4. Design incentive / market pressure. Consumer demand for personal weight-management devices, plus miniaturization of accelerometers and body-worn sensors, supplies the "market forces" rationale recognized in KSR and Dystar/Perfect Web lineage.
  5. No teaching away identified. I found no reference in the record (nor in the reexamination decisions) in which any cited reference disparaged multi-sensor-derived caloric expenditure, wearable form factors, or user-entered food data. This is notable, because the "cannot be directly detected" limitation invites a teaching-away argument — but the art is uniformly positive about derived-value computation.

BodyMedia's likely rebuttals (and how they fare)

  • Date/priority defense against Mault '120/'532/'736. Strong for claims entitled to 2000-06-16; ineffective against Amano/Myllymaki/Williams/Jacobsen.
  • § 103(c) common-ownership defense against its own family references. Strong, but it eliminates the applicant's own art rather than defeating third-party art.
  • Teaching away / criticality of the "cannot be directly detected" limitation. Weak — Amano computes calories from pulse rate, which is a value the sensors cannot directly detect.
  • Unexpected results in multi-sensor fusion (GSR + heat flux + accelerometer). Potentially strong as to specific dependent claims (the heat-flux measurement improvements of Stivoric '929 were themselves separately patented), but this is a claim-scope argument, not a defense of claims 1/21 generally.

Secondary considerations (Graham factors) — brief

BodyMedia had genuine evidence of commercial success (the BodyMedia armband; the Jawbone acquisition of BodyMedia; the market-wide adoption of wrist/arm activity trackers). However, the nexus is weak for the specific claims here: the asserted products practice a broad, mature disclosure, and the PTO's sibling-patent holdings (Amano anticipation; Amano+Goodman obviousness) show the market success did not flow from the narrow derivations of claims 1/21. A court would likely find the success more attributable to form factor, connectivity, and brand than to the claimed "derived third parameter" concept. Note also that the family's enforcement history (D. Del. 1:12-cv-00133; the D. Del. stay pending reexamination; N.D. Cal. 3:15-cv-02579; ITC 337-TA-963; IPR2016-00545) supplies substantial litigation-motive and licensing-demand context, which cuts against, rather than for, non-obviousness.


5. Conclusion

Claims 1 and 21 are, in my assessment, more likely than not invalid under pre-AIA § 103 on the grounds above — with claim 1 substantially the stronger case because it is defensible solely with pre-2000 art (Amano '342 + Myllymaki '944).

  • Claim 1: Anticipated by, or at minimum obvious over, Amano '342; obvious over Amano '342 in view of Myllymaki '944 under KSR. This tracks the PTO's two prior holdings on the same specification family.
  • Claim 21: Obvious over Jacobsen '394 in view of Mault '532 and/or Williams '350, with Mault '120 supplying "active caloric expenditure" — but survivable if the claim is shown to be entitled to the 2000-06-16 priority date, in which case Mault '120/'532/'736 drop out as prior art and only Jacobsen '394 + Williams '350 remain.
  • Dependent claims: each maps cleanly onto a specific, pre-2003 reference in the patent's own cited list, with 103(c) creating the only meaningful obstacle (the BodyMedia-owned family references).

6. Confidence, contradictions, and things I could not verify

Cross-references to previously generated sections:

  • The earlier Patent summary correctly flagged that only two of the four abstract aspects appear as independent claims (1 and 21). That observation is material to this analysis: it means the meal-classification and dial aspects must be attacked (if at all) through dependent claims or sibling family members, and those are exactly the claims most exposed to the Mault/Williams art because they rely on the later priority dates. No contradiction — this reinforces the date-gate analysis above.
  • The earlier summary noted a Reexamination Certificate on the face of the '090 record. I could not retrieve its contents, so I cannot rule out that claims 1–39 were amended or cancelled post-grant. That is the single largest unresolved variable in this opinion.

Explicit uncertainties:

  1. No prior-art section was present in the supplied page, as stated in § 0. My reference list is a reconstruction from the printed patent face (FPO/USPTO-report) and the reexamination record — not the material the task instruction referenced. If the intended "Prior Art section" contained a different reference set (e.g., the as-filed IDS or a specific office action), this analysis should be re-run against it.
  2. Reference dates are inconsistent with the 2003-10-09 filing for roughly a dozen documents in the FPO list (Brown '375, Nakazawa '310, Lackey '778, Vasin '348, Newell '127, Rubinstein '085). I flagged this rather than assuming the list is the as-filed prior-art set.
  3. Disclosure content for US 5,670,944 (Myllymaki), US 6,575,120 (Mault), US 6,198,394 (Jacobsen), and US 5,704,350 (Williams) was verified only as to number, date, and title (plus Myllymaki's role as a named obviousness reference in BodyMedia's Federal Circuit brief, No. 2015-1788). My element-by-element mappings rest partly on the titles and on field knowledge; a rigorous opinion would quote the specific columns/lines of each reference, which I could not retrieve.
  4. Full claim text for claims 1–39 was not in the supplied page (the fetch truncated before the claims). I relied on the plain-language claim characterization in the earlier generated section, which the instructions designate as authoritative. If that characterization omitted limitations, the mappings above may need adjustment.
  5. Date discrepancy: the task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the document fetch timestamp is 2026-09-29. I have not reconciled these; nothing in the analysis turns on it.
  6. I did not locate any Federal Circuit 2026 docket or opinion on US 7,285,090 (consistent with the earlier section's negative search result), and I found no merits decision specifically on '090's own claims. The holdings I rely on are those for US 7,689,437 and US 8,073,707 in reexam Nos. 95/002,371 and 95/002,376 and IPR2016-00545.

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Generated 9/29/2026, 12:14:43 PM

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