US 8818770

I have confirmation of the key bibliographic data and relevant dockets. Let me retrieve the independent claims' full text to describe them accurately.

US Patent 8,818,770 B2 — Summary

Bibliographic data (verified against USPTO/Google Patents records)

• Patent number: US 8,818,770 B2 (lit. "8818770" — do not confuse with similar EagleView numbers such as 8,818,770's sibling/related patents 8,825,454, 8,078,436, 8,670,961, 8,209,152, or 9,135,737)
• Title: Pitch determination systems and methods for aerial roof estimation
• Inventor: Chris Pershing
• Assignee (original): Eagle View Technologies, Inc. (Google Patents renders it "EagleView Technologies Inc.")
• Application / filing date: US 13/438,288, filed April 3, 2012 — a continuation of US 12/467,244 (filed May 15, 2009), which claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/197,904 (filed Oct. 31, 2008)
• Priority date: October 31, 2008
• Issue (grant) date: August 26, 2014
• Earlier publication: US 2012/0191424 A1 (published July 26, 2012)
• Legal status: Active; Google Patents shows an anticipated expiration of May 15, 2029 (I could not independently verify the terminal-disclaimer/PTA basis for that date, so treat it as approximate)
• Abstract: "User interface systems and methods for roof estimation are described. Example embodiments include a roof estimation system that provides a user interface configured to facilitate roof model generation based on one or more aerial images of a building roof. In one embodiment, roof model generation includes image registration, image lean correction, roof section pitch determination, wire frame model construction, and/or roof model review. The described user interface provides user interface controls that may be manipulated by an operator to perform at least some of the functions of roof model generation. In one embodiment, the user interface provides user interface controls that facilitate the determination of pitch of one or more sections of a building roof. This abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring an abstract, and it is submitted with the intention that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Per the PTAB's Final Written Decision in IPR2016-00590, claims 1 and 19 are the independent claims of the '770 patent. (The Google Patents text supplied to me did not include the full claim set, so I relied on the PTAB decision and Justia/patent-publishing reproductions of the claim text; I did not independently verify the total claim count or whether any later claims are also independent.)

Claim 1 (computer-implemented process / method): A roof-estimation process in which the system (a) displays a GUI containing a first aerial image of a building's roof plus at least one "visual marker" the user can move over that first image in the same display window; (b) moves the marker to a location on the roof in response to user input; (c) stores in computer memory data representing that first-marker location; (d) displays a second aerial image of the same roof from a different viewpoint; (e) automatically displays a second visual marker at the corresponding location on the roof in that second image, based on the stored location from the first image; and (f) generates and outputs a roof estimate report (via a report generation engine) containing one or more top-plan views of a roof model annotated with numerical values for slope, area, and/or edge lengths of at least some of the model's planar roof sections. In essence, it claims correlating a point the operator clicks in one aerial view to the same physical point in another aerial view, and using that registration to produce an annotated roof report.

Claim 19 (non-transitory computer-readable medium): A computer-readable medium whose executable instructions cause a processor to (a) let a user input building-location data; (b) fetch aerial imagery of that building's roof, including first and second aerial images showing different views; (c) receive an indication of a location selected on the roof as a result of movement of at least one "first visual marker" in a GUI over the displayed first aerial image; (d) use that indication to identify the corresponding location of the roof in the first aerial image; and (e) display a "second visual marker" at the corresponding location in the second aerial image based on the location to which the user moved the first marker. (Claim 20, dependent, adds that the first visual marker is an interactive control the user can manipulate to specify multiple corresponding points across the different images in the aerial imagery.) The claim text I retrieved was truncated before its closing element, so I cannot confirm whether claim 19 also recites the report-generation/output step that closes claim 1.

Relevant proceedings (for the specific number 8818770)

• IPR2016-00590 (Xactware Solutions / Verisk Analytics v. Eagle View / Pictometry): PTAB instituted review of claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19 and, in its Final Written Decision (Aug. 14, 2017), found the petitioner had not proven those claims unpatentable.
• IPR2017-00025 (Xactware v. Eagle View): PTAB declined to institute (not instituted — merits), April 13, 2017.
• CAFC — Xactware Solutions, Inc. v. Eagle View Technologies, Inc., Nos. 2018-1053, 2018-1055, 2018-1056, 2018-1110 (decided March 6, 2019, nonprecedential): Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's final written decisions upholding validity, including claims of the '770 patent (substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that Avrahami did not disclose the "moving"/"movement" limitations).
• District court: Eagle View Technologies, Inc. v. Xactware Solutions, Inc., D.N.J. No. 2:15-cv-07025 (also docketed 1:15-cv-07025), and a later New Jersey case (1:21-cv-10669), involve the '770 patent among related EagleView patents.

CAFC 2026 docket check — important caution

I searched for 2026 CAFC activity specific to patent 8818770 and found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket directed to the '770 patent itself. The prominent February 3, 2026 CAFC decision in Eagle View Technologies, Inc. v. Nearmap US, Inc., No. 24-1488 (nonprecedential, affirming PTAB obviousness findings), concerns different EagleView patents — U.S. Patent Nos. 8,670,961 and 8,078,436 ("Aerial Roof Estimation Systems and Methods") — not 8,818,770. I flag this because the titles and technology family overlap, but per your instruction I am not treating that case as pertaining to 8818770.

Uncertainty notes

• Full claim text was not present in the supplied Google Patents body text; independent-claim descriptions above are drawn from the PTAB Final Written Decision (claim 1 reproduced in full there) and Justia's published claim text (claim 19, partially truncated). I have high confidence in the substance but recommend verifying claim 19's final element(s) and the total claim count directly in the USPTO full-text (PatFT/Patent Center) record.
• The anticipated expiration date (2029-05-15) reflects Google Patents' assumption; I did not locate the underlying terminal-disclaimer document to verify it.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 8,818,770. Let me search several sources.

I have good initial results. Let me dig deeper into the specific district court and Federal Circuit cases identified, including the New Jersey case 1:21-cv-10669 and the CAFC appeals.

Let me verify the specific patents involved in the GAF case (1:21-cv-10669) and the details of IPR2016-00590, plus check for any recent IPR activity on the '770 patent.

Based on my research of PTAB, district court, and Federal Circuit records, US Patent 8,818,770 ("Pitch Determination Systems and Methods for Aerial Roof Estimation," owned by Eagle View Technologies, Inc.) has been involved in the following litigation. I've prioritized live web results over any training data, and all case numbers below are reproduced literally as found.

1. District Court — Eagle View v. Xactware / Verisk (the "Xactware Action")

• Plaintiffs: Eagle View Technologies, Inc. and Pictometry International Corp.
• Defendants: Xactware Solutions, Inc. and Verisk Analytics, Inc.
• Jurisdiction / Court: U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (Camden vicinage)
• Case No.: 1:15-cv-07025 (RMB-SAK) — frequently cited in PTAB and other records as "2:15-cv-07025 (D.N.J.)"
• Filing date: September 23, 2015 (complaint date; the docket lists the case as filed in 2015)
• Status / Outcome: The '770 patent was expressly asserted as a patent-in-suit (Count of the complaint; EagleView later narrowed to 24 claims spanning the '436, '840, '152, '770, '454, '376 and '737 patents). After a 12-day jury trial (begun Sept. 9, 2019), the jury returned a verdict for EagleView on Sept. 25–26, 2019, finding willful infringement and awarding $125 million in damages (Judgment entered Sept. 26, 2019). A permanent injunction was entered Oct. 18, 2019. Defendants appealed to the Federal Circuit. The case then settled: the parties stipulated to vacate the judgment and permanent injunction and to dismiss all claims and counterclaims with prejudice (D.N.J. stipulation/order, ~Nov. 2021), and the appeals were dismissed. Source documents: EagleView complaint (eagleview.com, dated 2015-09-23); IPR2016-00590 Final Written Decision (identifying the '770 as involved in this case); stipulation to vacate (gov.uscourts.njd.325251.987.1.pdf); EagleView press releases (Sept. 26 and Oct. 21, 2019).

2. PTAB IPR — Xactware v. Eagle View (IPR2016-00590)

• Petitioner: Xactware Solutions, Inc. (some aggregator records list "Verisk Analytics Inc."; the PTO docket and Final Written Decision identify Xactware as petitioner, with Verisk affiliated)
• Patent Owner: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Case No.: IPR2016-00590 (Patent 8,818,770 B2)
• Filing date: February 8, 2016
• Status / Outcome: Institution granted Aug. 15, 2016, as to claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19. Final Written Decision dated Aug. 14, 2017 — the Board found Xactware failed to show the challenged claims unpatentable (EagleView prevailed). Affirmed by the Federal Circuit (see #4 below).

3. PTAB IPR — Xactware v. Eagle View (IPR2017-00025)

• Petitioner: Xactware Solutions, Inc.
• Patent Owner: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Case No.: IPR2017-00025 (Patent 8,818,770)
• Filing date: October 5, 2016
• Status / Outcome: Institution denied — Not Instituted (Merits) per the Board's decision of April 13, 2017; petition fees refunded; proceeding terminated April 13, 2017.

4. Federal Circuit — Xactware v. Eagle View (appeal of IPR2016-00589/590/591/592)

• Appellant: Xactware Solutions, Inc.
• Appellee: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Case Nos.: 2018-1053, 2018-1055, 2018-1056, 2018-1110 (consolidated; appeals from IPR2016-00589, -00590, -00591, -00592)
• Filing/Decision: Decided March 6, 2019 (nonprecedential)
• Outcome: The court affirmed the Board's Final Written Decisions upholding validity of claims of the '454, '770, '152, and '737 patents — including, as to the '770, the Board's finding that the "moving"/"movement" limitations were not disclosed in the Avrahami reference.

5. Federal Circuit — Eagle View v. Xactware/Verisk (appeals of the Xactware Action)

• Appellants (Defendants below): Xactware Solutions, Inc. and Verisk Analytics, Inc.
• Appellees (Plaintiffs below): Eagle View Technologies, Inc. and Pictometry International Corp.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Case Nos.: 2021-1048 (lead), 2021-1049 (member), 2021-1743 (member) — related to D.N.J. 1:15-cv-07025
• Filing dates: 21-1048 and 21-1049 docketed Oct. 14, 2020 (notices of appeal filed Oct. 8, 2020); 21-1743 docketed March 2021 (notice of appeal filed March 15, 2021)
• Status / Outcome: Consolidated; oral argument held Oct. 8, 2021 before Judges Taranto, Clevenger, and Chen. The underlying dispute settled; the parties stipulated to vacate the district court judgment and permanent injunction and dismiss the action with prejudice, and the appeals were dismissed. Unified Patents lists the CAFC cases as closed (termination date listed as Nov. 8, 2021 for the lead case).

Notes / cautions

• Related family litigation (does not appear to assert the '770 itself): The Google Patents record for this patent family also flags a later New Jersey case — Eagle View Technologies, Inc. et al. v. GAF Materials LLC, No. 1:21-cv-10669 (D.N.J., filed May 4, 2021, Judge Renee Marie Bumb) — and related EagleView litigation against Nearmap US (filed in the District of Utah the same day). The available record indicates those cases assert related family patents (e.g., the '436, '840, '376, '152, '880, '961, '568, '960, '149, 8,593,518, and 9,135,737 patents) rather than 8,818,770 itself, so I have not counted them as "involving" the '770 patent absent confirmation.
• I could not verify from the materials retrieved whether the '770 patent's claims ultimately went to the jury in the Xactware Action (post-trial filings indicate the Xactware verdict pertained to claims of the '436, '840, and '376 patents), but the '770 was unambiguously asserted in that case (per the complaint and EagleView's May 18, 2017 claim-narrowing to 24 claims spanning seven patents including the '770), and the IPR2016-00590 Final Written Decision expressly identifies the '770 as "involved in" that district court matter.
• I saw a July 2026 news item about the USPTO Director agreeing to review a PTAB decision invalidating claims of an EagleView roof-measurement patent, but I could not confirm from the retrieved snippets that 8,818,770 is the patent at issue, so I have omitted it rather than speculate.

Key sources: PTAB Final Written Decision IPR2016-00590 (eagleview.com hosted copy); Federal Circuit opinion 18-1053 (Justia/CourtListener); Unified Patents PTAB and CAFC case lists (portal.unifiedpatents.com, filtered to patent 8818770); D.N.J. dockets for 1:15-cv-07025 and 1:21-cv-10669 (CourtListener, Justia, UniCourt); EagleView press releases (Sept. 26, 2019 and Oct. 21, 2019); stipulation to vacate (D.N.J. docket entry 987).

Proceedings overview

Although the USPTO ODP structured block in this prompt is empty (no AIA trials ingested as of the last ODP pull), independent verification flags two Inter Partes Reviews on US 8,818,770 that are confirmed by the Google Patents litigation metadata and the Unified Patents PTAB docket portal: IPR2016-00590 (instituted; Final Written Decision — claims sustained) and IPR2017-00025 (institution denied on the merits). Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated/canceled, 5 claims sustained (1, 10, 11, 14, 19), 0 settled, 1 institution denied. Bottom line for a defendant: this patent is hardened, not wounded — every claim that was instituted for trial survived, the FWD was affirmed by the Federal Circuit, and no claim of the patent has ever been canceled in an AIA trial.

IPR2016-00590 — Xactware Solutions, Inc. v. Eagle View Technologies, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016-02-08
• Status: Final Written Decision (2017-08-14) — trial concluded; claims upheld. (Note: the ODP block says "no AIA trial proceedings on file," but this case is confirmed by the Google Patents litigation feed, Unified Patents PTAB portal, and the PTAB FWD itself.)
• Judge panel: APJs Stacey White, Bryan Moore, and Garth Baer (docket services also list Howard Blankenship on the docket; panel composition for the FWD is as recorded in PTAB papers).
• Petition grounds (instituted grounds, per FWD Paper 41 and Institution Decision Paper 12):
  • Avrahami + Applicad — § 103(a) — claims 1, 11, 14
  • Avrahami + Applicad + Abhyanker — § 103(a) — claims 10 and 19
• Institution decision: Instituted 2016-08-15 (Paper 12) as to claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19, the Board finding a reasonable likelihood that Xactware would prevail on those claims.
• Final Written Decision (2017-08-14, Paper 41): Petitioner proved nothing. The Board held Xactware "has not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19 of the '770 patent are unpatentable" (35 U.S.C. § 316(e)). Claims 1 and 19 are the independent claims; no claim was canceled — all five instituted claims were sustained. A key evidentiary driver: the Board found the Pictometry software user guide Xactware relied on was not publicly accessible and therefore not prior art, echoing its finding in a related case.
• Settlement / termination: None — the case was fought to a final written decision.
• Appeal: Yes. Xactware appealed, along with three sibling IPR appeals, to the Federal Circuit: Xactware Solutions, Inc. v. Eagle View Technologies, Inc., No. 18-1053 (consolidated with 18-1055, 18-1056, 18-1110; covering IPR2016-00589, -00590, -00591, -00592), argued 2019-03-04, decided 2019-03-06 (nonprecedential; Prost, C.J., Moore and Wallach, JJ.). The CAFC affirmed, holding substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that the "moving" and "movement" limitations are not disclosed in Avrahami, and that the Board did not err in refusing Xactware's untimely-raised argument about seed-point placement. Opinion: CourtListener (linked below).
• Defensive value: For any defendant, this is the single most important datum: the two independent claims (1, 19) and three dependent claims (10, 11, 14) most likely to be asserted were tried and sustained, and that result is now affirmed law of the case for Xactware. An IPR defense built on Avrahami/Applicad/Abhyanker combinations is dead on arrival — the exact grounds were litigated and lost.

IPR2017-00025 — Xactware Solutions, Inc. v. Eagle View Technologies, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016-10-05
• Status: Not Instituted — Merits (institution denied 2017-04-13; proceeding terminated the same day; post-institution fees refunded).
• Judge panel: APJs Bryan Moore, Garth Baer, and Stacey White (per PTAB docket listings).
• Petition grounds: Xactware's follow-up petition asserted alternative § 103 grounds against the '770 patent, supported by the Avrahami and Applicad references, McKeown, and Pictometry training/user materials (see exhibits 1003–1006 and the Declaration of Harold Schuch, Ex. 1007) — i.e., a second bite at claims it had already attacked in IPR2016-00590.
• Institution decision: Denied 2017-04-13 (Paper 9). This was one of a series of Xactware serial-petition denials (with IPR2017-00021, -00027, -00034) in which the Board exercised discretion under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a) / 37 C.F.R. § 42.108(a). Even though § 325(d) did not bar the grounds (they were not "the same or substantially the same prior art or arguments"), the Board found Xactware's strategy of "filing multiple attacks, adjusting along the way based on Patent Owner's contentions and the PTAB's decision responding to a prior challenge" inequitable and prejudicial to EagleView, weighing the five General Plastic-style factors against institution.
• Final Written Decision: None — no trial was instituted.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement; terminated by denial of institution on 2017-04-13; Xactware's request for refund of post-institution fees was approved (Papers 10–11).
• Appeal: No appeal of the denial.
• Defensive value: Confirms the Board's view that Xactware had already had (and, in IPR2016-00590, lost) its chance on the claims of this patent. For a new defendant, it has no estoppel effect, but it is a strong signal that the art Xactware could assemble (Avrahami, Applicad, McKeown, Pictometry materials) was found insufficient or non-public, twice over.

Strategic summary

Claims status. No claim of US 8,818,770 has ever been canceled in an AIA trial. SUSTAINED (instituted and upheld in IPR2016-00590, affirmed on appeal): claims 1, 10, 11, 14, 19 — including both independent claims (1 and 19). UNTESTED in an instituted trial: the remaining claims (2–9, 12–13, 15–18), which were not the subject of a final written decision. Anyone asserting this patent today can point to a clean PTAB and CAFC record; the asserted-claim universe has been validated, not narrowed.

Estoppel landscape. Under § 315(e)(2), Xactware and its privies (including parent Verisk Analytics and related entities in the coordinated IPR campaign) are estopped in the D.N.J. litigation and before the PTAB from re-raising any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2016-00590 — i.e., the Avrahami/Applicad/Abhyanker § 103 combinations and substantially similar art. A new, unrelated defendant is not estopped and may still petition, but must bring different art: the Avrahami/Applicad/McKeown combinations have been adjudicated, and the Pictometry user materials were held not publicly accessible (a defect that is fatal to any § 102/§ 103 ground built on them regardless of who files).

Pattern signals. This is a textbook serial-petition cautionary tale. The same petitioner (Xactware, backed by Verisk) filed two IPRs on this patent — the first instituted and lost at FWD and again at the CAFC (18-1053), the second denied as an inequitable follow-up under § 314(a). The patent owner (EagleView) has been aggressive and successful: it beat 13 of 14 Xactware IPR challenges across its portfolio (~93% of 153 challenged claims survived), won a $125M willful-infringement jury verdict and permanent injunction in the parallel D.N.J. case (2:15-cv-07025), and defended the PTAB wins on appeal. There is no defensive-aggregator involvement on the petitioner side here (Unified Patents merely tracks the docket); the petitioner was a commercial competitor. Note that the Google Patents litigation feed also shows later non-PTAB activity (D.N.J. 1:21-cv-10669; CAFC 21-1048, 21-1049, 21-1743) — those are district-court/CAFC matters, not AIA trials, and I could not verify their specifics within this search run.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant facing assertion of this patent today: know that your adversary holds a validated patent on its core claims. Do not premise a defense on the art already run. The FWD in IPR2016-00590 is unambiguous: "Petitioner has not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19 of the '770 patent are unpatentable" — and the Federal Circuit affirmed. FWD: USPTO PTAB / copy hosted at EagleView (2017-08-14 Paper 41); CAFC affirmance: Xactware v. Eagle View, 18-1053 (Fed. Cir. 2019-03-06), on CourtListener.
• No AIA trial is pending, so there are no institution-decision deadlines, oral-hearing dates, or FWD due dates to track. The realistic PTAB path for a non-privy defendant is a fresh IPR on genuinely different prior art (different references, different combinations, or § 112 grounds never raised), filed within one year of service of a complaint — and even then, expect the Board to scrutinize serial-petition dynamics under § 314(a)/General Plastic if anyone in your chain has petitioned before.
• If you are Xactware/Verisk or a privy, the § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a hard floor: do not re-litigate Avrahami/Applicad/Abhyanker or reasonably-available variations, in the PTAB or in district court. Your realistic exposure is infringement liability on claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19, which have now survived two adversarial validity gauntlets.

Key sources: IPR2016-00590 FWD (PTAB Paper 41, 2017-08-14); IPR2017-00025 Institution Decision (PTAB Paper 9, 2017-04-13); CAFC 18-1053/18-1055/18-1056/18-1110 (decided 2019-03-06) — CourtListener; PTAB dockets via Unified Patents IPR2016-00590 and IPR2017-00025.

Inventors

• Chris Pershing (sole named inventor). Employer at the time of filing: Eagle View Technologies, Inc. (the recorded 2012 "Assignment of Assignor's Interest" names PERSHING, CHRIS as assignor to Eagle View Technologies, Inc. — consistent with an employment/obligation-to-assign capture; see Google Patents legal-events entry dated 2012-09-20). No unusual pattern: a single inventor assigning to his employer at filing is the ordinary course, and I found no evidence he departed the company shortly after filing.

Original assignee

• Eagle View Technologies, Inc. (now doing business as EagleView; Google Patents renders the name "EagleView Technologies Inc.").
• The entity named on the issued patent and the current owner per the assignment-derived legal events (all post-2012 recordations are security agreements and releases, not changes of title).
• Products: Yes — EagleView ships the aerial roof-measurement/estimation product line that embodies the claimed subject matter (interactive roof-model generation from aerial imagery, producing annotated roof reports with slope/area/edge-length data used by roofers, insurers, and solar installers).
• Line of business: Aerial imagery acquisition, roof measurement, and property-data analytics for insurance, construction, and government markets.
• Current status: Operating, privately held (institutional/PE-backed capital structure evidenced by the recurring Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and HPS Investment Partners lien records). Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

Important caveat: I could not pull the USPTO Assignment Center's reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record names during this session (web searches did not surface the Assignment Center detail pages, and I will not fabricate reel/frames). The chronology below is reconstructed from the USPTO-derived assignment events published on Google Patents for '770 (recordal dates shown). Every entry flagged "security agreement"/"release" is a lien or lien release, not a transfer of title — Eagle View Technologies, Inc. has remained the owner throughout. Verify reel/frame and correspondent data directly at the USPTO Assignment Center before citing them in any filing.

• ~2012-04-03 (application filed) / recorded 2012-09-20 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest (inventor → company)
  • Assignor: Chris Pershing
  • Assignee: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Standard capture of the inventor's interest to the employer/assignee at filing.

• recorded 2015-07-20 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: First Lien Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.; Pictometry International Corp.
  • Assignee: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Debt-financed recapitalization/LBO financing; patent collateral granted as security only — no change in beneficial ownership.

• recorded 2015-07-20 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Second Lien Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.; Pictometry International Corp.
  • Assignee: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Companion second-lien financing on the same date; security interest only.

• recorded 2017-09-22 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Release of Second Lien Security Interest
  • Assignor: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc.
  • Assignee: Pictometry International Corp.; Eagle View Technologies, Inc.; OmniEarth, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Second-lien payoff/release following a 2018 refinancing; confirms title stayed with the operating companies.

• recorded 2018-08-14 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Second Lien Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
  • Assignee: HPS Investment Partners, LLC
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Refinancing — HPS took the second-lien position (security interest only).

• recorded 2018-08-23 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: First Lien Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
  • Assignee: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc., as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Re-set first-lien facility in the same refinancing (security interest only).

• recorded 2018-08-29 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Release of First Lien Security Interest in Patents
  • Assignor: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc., as Collateral Agent
  • Assignee: Pictometry International Corp.; OmniEarth, Inc.; Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Release of the prior 2015 first-lien grant upon the 2018 refinancing.

• recorded 2025-03-28 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: First Lien Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.; Pictometry International Corp.
  • Assignee: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: New first-lien financing in 2025 (security interest only).

• recorded 2025-04-09 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Release of First Lien Security Interest in Patents
  • Assignor: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc.
  • Assignee: OmniEarth, Inc.; Pictometry International Corp.; Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Release of the March 2025 first-lien grant.

• recorded 2025-04-14 — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: HPS Investment Partners, LLC
  • Assignee: Eagle View Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: HPS released its second-lien position; leaves Eagle View Technologies, Inc. as record owner free of the recorded 2018–2025 liens.

No assignment transferring title away from Eagle View Technologies, Inc. appears in the record. The chain is: Pershing → Eagle View Technologies, Inc. (2012), followed exclusively by lender lien filings and releases (2015–2025).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8818770
    2008 : Priority provisional filed
    2009 : Parent application filed
    2012 : Continuation filed
         : Pershing assigns to EagleView
    2014 : Patent granted
    2015 : Morgan Stanley first lien
         : Morgan Stanley second lien
         : First suit filed in New Jersey
    2017 : Second lien released
         : IPR validity upheld
    2018 : HPS takes second lien
         : Morgan Stanley first lien reset
         : First lien released
    2025 : New first lien recorded
         : Liens released to EagleView

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only assignees other than Eagle View Technologies, Inc. are Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc. and HPS Investment Partners, LLC — regulated financial institutions acting as lenders/collateral agents. Their 2015/2018/2025 recordations are styled "Security Agreement" and were each followed by a "Release" back to the operating obligors, which is the signature of a collateral lien, not a shell-entity transfer of title.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Eagle View Technologies, Inc. is not on the Acacia/Marathon/IV/IPNav-type NPE lists referenced, and neither Morgan Stanley nor HPS is a patent asserter. EagleView is the plaintiff-owner in the D.N.J. litigations (e.g., 2:15-cv-07025) asserting the '770 patent against Xactware Solutions/Verisk — a direct competitor — and successfully defended the patent in IPR2016-00590 (Final Written Decision Aug. 14, 2017; affirmed by the Federal Circuit in 2019).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. I could not retrieve the correspondent-of-record names from the USPTO Assignment Center during this session, so I cannot test for a recurring recording attorney. This is a data-availability gap, not an affirmative finding; check the reel/frame records via the Assignment Center link below.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. No chained LLC-to-LLC title transfers exist. The 2015→2017→2018→2025 sequence is a conventional lien/refinancing/release cycle tied to the company's debt structure (Morgan Stanley first lien, HPS second lien), all running against the same operating-company obligors.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The D.N.J. suit (2:15-cv-07025) postdates the July 20, 2015 Morgan Stanley lien filings by roughly two months, but those filings are financing liens, and title never left EagleView — so the chain was not rearranged to enable assertion or establish standing. EagleView was owner before and after.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No bankruptcy proceedings involving Eagle View Technologies, Inc. or the patent appear in the record.

7. Privateering — Not present. EagleView asserts in its own name against competitors (Xactware/Verisk; related Nearmap litigation involves sibling EagleView patents). No operating-company-to-NPE handoff is recorded.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN; it terminates at Eagle View Technologies, Inc. as the operating owner after the 2025 lien releases.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Eagle View Technologies, Inc. (EagleView) is the original and current record owner of the '770 patent; every post-2012 assignment event is a security agreement or release with lenders Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and HPS Investment Partners (recorded 2015-07-20, 2018-08-14/23, 2025-03-28 and the corresponding releases), not a transfer to any shell, NPE, or aggregator. EagleView ships aerial roof-measurement products embodying the claims and has asserted the patent directly against competitor Xactware/Verisk in D.N.J. (2:15-cv-07025), prevailing before the PTAB in IPR2016-00590 (FWD Aug. 14, 2017) and on appeal. None of the eight NPE signals is affirmatively present; the only open item is correspondent-of-record data, which I could not retrieve in this session and which does not bear on the ownership determination.

Verify the underlying reel/frame and correspondent detail at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 8818770; alternate index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

I'll research the prior art cited against US 8,818,770 by searching USPTO and other patent databases.

Let me dig deeper into the citations on the face of the '770 patent and the prior art asserted in IPR2016-00590.

I found the primary IPR art (Avrahami). Now let me get the complete front-page citation list for the '770 patent itself.

I was unable to pull the complete scanned front-page "References Cited" list before hitting the search-step limit, so I will flag exactly what is verified versus inferred. Here is my analysis.

Prior Art Analysis — US Patent 8,818,770 B2 ("Pitch Determination Systems and Methods for Aerial Roof Estimation")

Method note (important caveat)

The full examiner-cited list on the face of the '770 patent is not reproduced in the Google Patents full-text body, and my searches were cut off before I could retrieve a clean copy of the front-page reference list (USPTO Patent Center image or the Google Patents "Citations" tab). The items below are those I could verify from primary/secondary records — principally (a) the PTAB Final Written Decision in IPR2016-00590 and the CAFC decision in Xactware Solutions, Inc. v. Eagle View Technologies, Inc., Nos. 2018-1053, -1055, -1056, -1110 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 6, 2019), and (b) database listings (Justia, Google Patents, Unified Patents portal). I have not fabricated a "complete" citation list; a handful of additional references almost certainly appear on the front page and are not enumerated here because I could not confirm them.

A. The most relevant prior art (litigation-tested)

1. Avrahami et al., "Extraction of 3D Spatial Polygons Based on the Overlapping Criterion for Roof Extraction from Aerial Images" (non-patent literature)

• Full citation: Yair Avrahami et al., Extraction of 3D Spatial Polygons Based on the Overlapping Criterion for Roof Extraction from Aerial Images, International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (ISPRS Archives), presented Aug. 29–30, 2005 (conference/session on photogrammetric image analysis).
• Date: Published/presented 2005 (well before the Oct. 31, 2008 priority date) — qualifies as prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)/(b) and under § 102(a)(1) as in force for this patent's examination.
• Brief description: A photogrammetric technique for extracting roof outlines from aerial images by reconstructing three-dimensional spatial polygons. The algorithm identifies roof sections from multiple views and applies an "overlapping criterion" to define/close 3D polygonal roof primitives from the imagery — i.e., automatic/semi-automatic building-roof polygon extraction from overlapping aerial photographs.
• Relevance to the claims: This is the art that Xactware/Verisk actually pressed in IPR2016-00590, where the PTAB instituted review of claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19. The petitioner argued that Avrahami disclosed (or rendered obvious) the claimed visual-marker registration workflow and the roof-report features.
• § 102 anticipation assessment — result of record: The Board found the petitioner had not proved the claims unpatentable, and the Federal Circuit affirmed (Mar. 6, 2019, nonprecedential), expressly holding that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that Avrahami does not disclose the "moving"/"movement" limitations — the user-driven movement of a visual marker over a displayed first aerial image and the automatic display of a second marker at the corresponding location in a second aerial image (the core of independent claims 1 and 19). Because that feature is the heart of claim 1 (and claim 19, which carries the same registration logic), Avrahami is therefore not a viable § 102 anticipatory reference for claims 1, 10, 11, 14, or 19 on the record as found.
• Sources: CAFC opinion, Xactware v. Eagle View, Nos. 2018-1053 et al. (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4596947](/patent/4596947)/xactware-solutions-inc-v-eagle-view-technologies-inc/); PTAB IPR2016-00590 (Final Written Decision Aug. 14, 2017).

2. Pictometry public-use/publication evidence (non-patent literature, IPR2017-00025)

• Full citation: Various Pictometry® end-user/training publications, e.g., "Pictometry EFS Getting Started Guide," "Pictometry Administrative Training," "GIS Pictometry Oblique Imagery Training," ASPRS Manuals, and Pictometry technical announcements dated Dec. 6–7, 2006 (petitioner exhibits 1006–1029 in IPR2017-00025).
• Date: 2006–2007 public disclosures (before the Oct. 31, 2008 priority date).
• Brief description: Pictometry's oblique aerial-imagery software disclosed interactive tools for measuring and outlining structures from multiple oblique aerial views — the general commercial environment arguably similar to the claimed GUI-based registration workflow.
• § 102 assessment — result of record: The PTAB declined to institute IPR2017-00025 (decision Apr. 13, 2017), so no anticipation holding was reached on the merits; these materials did not establish a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on § 102/§ 103 grounds against claims of the '770 patent.
• Source: Unified Patents PTAB portal, IPR2017-00025 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2017-00025); PTAB exhibit list.

B. References that appear on the face of the patent (partially verified)

3. Faugeras, "What can be seen in three dimensions with an uncalibrated stereo rig?" (non-patent literature)

• Full citation: Olivier Faugeras, What can be seen in three dimensions with an uncalibrated stereo rig?, in Computer Vision — ECCV '92 (G. Sandini ed.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 588, Springer-Verlag, 1992, pp. 563–578.
• Date: 1992.
• Brief description: Foundational computer-vision paper on projective (uncalibrated) stereo geometry — showing that 3D structure can be recovered up to a projective transformation without camera calibration. This maps directly to the '770 specification's discussion of photogrammetric triangulation from two or more viewpoints for reconstructing 3D roof geometry.
• Where verified: Justia's bibliographic record for the '770 patent lists this paper among the patent's cited references (https://patents.justia.com/patent/8818770). Its likely purpose is background art relevant to image registration/model reconstruction.
• § 102 assessment: This is theoretical stereo-geometry background; it does not disclose a roof-estimation GUI, visual markers, or annotated roof reports, so it is not a credible § 102 anticipation reference for claims 1–20. At most it is general background ("A"-type art).

4. US 2,791,151 — "Method of and Apparatus for Aerotriangulation with Convergent Photography"

• Full citation (as best verified): U.S. Patent No. 2,791,151, issued May 7, 1957 (inventor/assignee not confirmed in my retrieval). Title per Google Patents: Method of and Apparatus for Aerotriangulation with Convergent Photography.
• Date: 1950s (priority/publication decades before the '770 priority date).
• Brief description: Classic photogrammetry patent on aerotriangulation using convergent photography — determining ground coordinates of points from overlapping photographs — conceptually related to the '770 patent's multi-image triangulation/registration disclosure.
• Basis for inclusion: Google Patents' citation records for US 2,791,151 list US 8,818,770 B2 among citing patents, indicating the '770 patent family cites this reference (consistent with the '770 specification's reliance on classical photogrammetric triangulation). I verified this only indirectly (the 2,791,151 Google Patents page listing 8818770 and its family members); I did not see the corresponding entry on the '770 patent's own front page, so treat this as probable but not fully confirmed.
• § 102 assessment: Remote from the GUI-marker and report-generation claims; background art only. No realistic § 102 anticipation of any claim.

C. Summary of § 102 anticipation exposure by claim

Bottom line

• The most relevant prior art for US 8,818,770 is the Avrahami 2005 ISPRS paper, because it is the only reference that survived to a merits decision against these claims — and it lost: the '770's registration-marker "moving"/"movement" feature was found absent from Avrahami, defeating anticipation (and obviousness) of claims 1, 10, 11, 14, and 19.
• I could not fully enumerate every reference on the patent's front page before my search limit; if you need the complete examiner-cited list, the authoritative source is the USPTO Patent Center image of the '770 patent's first page or the Google Patents "Citations" tab (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8818770B2](/patent/US8818770B2)/en — "Patent Citations (16)" per one search snippet, which I did not have time to enumerate individually). Items 3 and 4 above are the only front-page-type references I could corroborate from available snippets, and I've flagged the confidence level of each.

The searches surfaced the key IPR record. Let me now retrieve the actual claim language of the '770 patent and the Board's limitation-by-limitation analysis, plus the face-of-patent citations if available.

Preliminary note on the "Prior Art" sources available

The full Google Patents text supplied for US 8,818,770 B2 does not contain a discrete "Prior Art" (References Cited) section — the fetched page is truncated before the claims and the front-page citation list, and the "prior art keywords" shown there ("roof, building, image, roof structure, location") are classification tags, not statutory prior-art references. I therefore ground this § 103 analysis in the prior art that was actually developed and litigated against the '770 patent, which is the most reliable evidence of the closest art: the record of IPR2016-00590 (Final Written Decision of Aug. 14, 2017), the affirmed Federal Circuit decision in Xactware Solutions, Inc. v. Eagle View Technologies, Inc., Nos. 2018-1053, -1055, -1056, -1110 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 6, 2019), and the D.N.J. trial record in Eagle View v. Xactware, No. 1:15-cv-07025. Per the task rule, all identifiers are reproduced literally.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 8,818,770 B2 ("Pitch Determination Systems and Methods for Aerial Roof Estimation")

1. The claims at issue (scope of the analysis)

Per the PTAB Final Written Decision, claims 1 and 19 are the independent claims; dependent claims 10, 11, 14 were also challenged in IPR2016-00590, and claim 12 was the subject of a non-instituted ground (IPR2017-00025) and of a trial argument (Hsieh + Applicad). I do not have the verbatim claim text from the supplied patent body (it is absent from the truncated page), so element mapping below relies on the claim language as reproduced in the litigation record, with the caveats already stated in the summary above.

In substance, claim 1 requires a computer-implemented roof-estimation method in which the system: (a) displays a GUI with a first aerial image of a building roof and at least one user-movable visual marker in the same display; (b) moves the first visual marker to a first location on the roof in response to user input; (c) stores data representing that location; (d) displays a second aerial image of the same roof from a different viewpoint; (e) automatically displays a second visual marker at the corresponding location on the roof in the second image based on the stored location; and (f) generates and outputs, via a report generation engine, a roof estimate report containing one or more top plan views of a model of the roof annotated with numerical values for slope, area, or edge lengths of planar roof sections. Claim 19 is a non-transitory computer-readable medium version that adds receipt of building-location data and retrieval of aerial imagery (the element that the Board treated as supplied by Abhyanker).

The two feature clusters that carried the patentability dispute are: (i) the user-driven "moving"/"movement" of a first marker and the automatic placement of a corresponding second marker in a second aerial image, and (ii) the report-generation output (annotated top-plan views with slope/area/edge-length values).

2. Prior art references (as identified in the IPR and litigation record)

Avrahami — Yair Avrahami et al., Extraction of 3D Spatial Polygons Based on the Overlapping Criterion for Roof Extraction from Aerial Images, Int'l Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol. XXXVI, Part 3/W24 (CMRT05, Aug. 29–30, 2005) (IPR Ex. 1003). A paper on semi-automatic 3D roof extraction from overlapping aerial images. The operator manually points to the center of a roof area in a left image (seed point); the system segments the area, extracts a bounding polygon, estimates height, transfers the seed point to the right image, segments/extracts a matching polygon there, and iteratively matches the two polygons ("sliding" along the epipolar line) to extract the 3D spatial polygon. Avrahami discloses that the initial manual seed point (shown as an asterisk) is displayed in the left image and the corresponding pointer is transferred automatically to the right image.

Applicad — Applicad Product Bulletin, Key Features of Our Roofing Software (2002) (IPR Ex. 1004). Commercial roofing-estimation software literature. It discloses generating roofing estimates/measurement reports — roof-section geometry, areas, slopes — i.e., the commercial report-generation dimension that Avrahami (an academic photogrammetry paper) lacks.

Abhyanker — US Patent Application Publication 2007/0220174 A1 (Sept. 20, 2007) (IPR Ex. 1006). Discloses a networked system in which a user supplies a property address/location and the system retrieves and displays aerial/satellite imagery of that location for property-related analysis — i.e., the address-driven image-acquisition element.

Other art in the record. In IPR2017-00025 (denied institution, merits, Apr. 13, 2017), Xactware again relied on Avrahami and Applicad. At trial in D.N.J. 1:15-cv-07025, Xactware additionally argued that Hsieh (a roof-reconstruction reference; DTX-354) in combination with Applicad rendered claim 12 of the '770 patent obvious; per the trial record Dr. Mundy testified Hsieh's recommended approach used single images, which the court/jury weighed against the two-image requirement. I was unable to retrieve a complete citation for Hsieh before my search budget expired, so I flag it only as a record-identified secondary combination rather than asserting its bibliographic details.

3. Level of ordinary skill in the art

Neither the FWD nor the CAFC opinion sets out a detailed POSITA definition in the retrieved excerpts, but the dispute's framing indicates a person working at the intersection of (i) photogrammetry / computer vision for aerial roof reconstruction, (ii) GUI-based semi-automatic modeling tools, and (iii) roofing-industry measurement and estimating software — i.e., an engineer or technical professional with a few years' experience in aerial-image modeling and/or roof-estimation software, familiar with standard stereo-matching and image-registration techniques and with roofing industry units (slope in inches-per-foot, area in squares/square footage).

4. The combinations most likely to render claims obvious

The instituted grounds define the two most natural combinations:

A challenger's additional candidate (pressed at trial, never instituted): Hsieh + Applicad for claim 12.

5. Element mapping and the prima facie case

Avrahami supplies the core two-image correlation. Element (a) — displaying a first aerial image of a roof — is directly disclosed (Avrahami's left/right image pair, Fig. 1). Element (b)/(c) — the operator indicating a point on the roof and the system storing that location — maps onto Avrahami's step (1): "the operator manually points to the center of the [roof] area" and selects a seed point, whose coordinates the algorithm then uses. Element (e) — a corresponding indicator appearing in the second image — maps onto Avrahami's teaching that "the appropriate pointer in the right image … was transferred automatically" after the initial manual seed point is placed. Element (d) — two images from different viewpoints — is inherent in Avrahami's stereo/overlap geometry.

Applicad supplies the missing report-generation output. Element (f) — a report generation engine outputting top-plan views annotated with slope/area/edge-length values of planar roof sections — is the dimension most remote from Avrahami, an academic extraction paper that stops at the 3D polygon. Applicad is roofing-industry estimating software whose disclosed function is precisely to take measured roof sections and produce annotated estimates with areas, slopes and edge/ridge/valley quantities usable for repair/replacement bidding.

Abhyanker supplies the address-driven acquisition in claim 19 (and the claim-10 "module that performs image acquisition, roof modeling, and report generation" limitation): receiving a building location from a user and fetching corresponding aerial imagery over a network, which Avrahami/Applicad do not describe.

Why a POSITA would have been motivated to combine

• Complementary gaps / functional relationship (KSR, 550 U.S. at 417): Avrahami produces a geometric 3D roof polygon but is silent on turning that geometry into a deliverable roof-estimate product. Applicad produces roofing estimates but presupposes roof measurements have already been obtained (it is an estimating/reporting tool, not a photogrammetric roof extractor). A POSITA seeking an end-to-end aerial roof-estimation system — one who has just used Avrahami's semi-automatic extraction to obtain planar roof-section geometry — would naturally look to Applicad-class software for the known, predictable next stage: converting section geometry into slope/area/edge-length values and an annotated plan-view report. The combination is the textbook "known technique … to improve [a] device … in the same way" and the union of two known elements yielding only predictable results.
• Same field / same purpose: Both references address roof modeling/estimation — Avrahami from the image-processing side, Applicad from the contracting side. The field's commercial objective (accurate roof measurements for estimating) supplies the common purpose that makes the references "reasonably pertinent" to the same problem.
• Semi-automatic operator paradigm already in Avrahami: Because Avrahami is explicitly operator-in-the-loop, adding Applicad's operator-facing report output would not require a change in the basic interaction model — the operator already seeds and supervises the extraction, and would naturally review the derived measurements in a report.
• For claim 19: The motivation to add Abhyanker is likewise conventional: a networked system that takes an address, retrieves imagery, and returns a property analysis is the standard deployment architecture for a software service of this type; adding address-based image retrieval to an Avrahami/Applicad engine is the predictable application of a known business-method/network element to make the tool usable by remote customers (roofing contractors, insurers).
• Reasonable expectation of success: Each reference operates on well-understood data (aerial images → roof polygons → roof measurements → report). The intervening computational steps (storing marker coordinates, projecting a stored 3D point into a second registered view) were routine photogrammetric/GUI techniques by 2008, so a POSITA would expect the pieces to work together without undue experimentation.

6. The disputed limitations — where the prima facie case breaks down

The litigated record shows the case was not won or lost on motivation; it was lost on disclosure of specific limitations:

1. "Moving"/"movement" of the first visual marker in response to user input. The Board found — and the Federal Circuit affirmed as supported by substantial evidence — that Avrahami does not disclose these limitations. Avrahami's operator interaction is a single click placing a seed point, after which all polygon extraction and matching is automatic. The Board rejected Xactware's untimely argument that placing subsequent seed points after a first seed point (with segmentation around each) disclosed "movement" of a marker. On the '770 claim language, "moving … a first visual marker … to a first location in response to input" connotes a continuously manipulable GUI marker (cf. the specification's draggable registration markers of FIGS. 4A–4F and the pitch marker of FIGS. 5A–5D), not a one-shot point selection. Avrahami's asterisk/pointer is an output annotation of an already-computed seed, not a user-dragged marker whose motion is tracked and stored.
2. Automatic display of the second marker "at the corresponding location" based on the stored first-marker location. While Avrahami does disclose automatic transfer of a pointer to the right image, the mapping of that pointer is driven by epipolar/height estimation in the right image space; whether it constitutes displaying at "the corresponding location … based on the stored location" was disputed, and the Board did not credit petitioner's reading.
3. Report output limitations. Even with Applicad in the combination, the Board's decision (and the CAFC affirmance) reflects that petitioner's mapping of the specific annotated top-plan-view report element was not sufficient to carry the claim, particularly when the "moving"/"movement" limitations were already missing from the primary reference.

7. Secondary considerations (objective indicia) — the decisive weight in the IPR

Even assuming the references and motivation arguments, the Board held the petition failed because of strong, nexus-backed objective indicia of non-obviousness: commercial success of EagleView's Twister and Render House products (found coextensive with the challenged claims), shown by financials and by unrebutted evidence that ~96% of the top-25 U.S. insurers and over 30,000 contractors used EagleView's 3D aerial roof-measurement reports, with the products used by roughly one-fifth of the roofing-contractor market; plus industry praise, including from competitors (Verisk itself). Citing Tec Air and Apple v. Samsung, the Board concluded that even a prima facie case would have been outweighed. The Federal Circuit found no clear error in the nexus analysis and affirmed.

8. Bottom-line assessment

• The strongest § 103 combination on the merits is Avrahami + Applicad (+ Abhyanker for claims 10/19). The motivation-to-combine story is genuinely strong: Avrahami provides the two-image, semi-automatic roof-extraction core; Applicad provides the roofing-report output; Abhyanker provides address-driven image acquisition. A POSITA building an aerial roof-estimation service in 2008 would have had sound, conventional reasons to join them, and the combination has the flavor of aggregating known elements for their known purposes.
• But the combination was tested and failed twice (PTAB FWD Aug. 14, 2017, affirmed Mar. 6, 2019) on a preponderance standard, because (i) the pivotal "moving"/"movement" and automatic second-marker limitations were found not disclosed in Avrahami — a finding of fact insulated on appeal by substantial-evidence review — and (ii) objective indicia independently outweighed the prima facie case. The alternate Hsieh + Applicad ground for claim 12 was not instituted and was rejected at trial.
• An analyst's honest conclusion: The combination is a credible prima facie obviousness theory and the motivation analysis is readily articulated, but the claim language's emphasis on user-driven movement of an on-screen marker — as opposed to one-shot seed-point placement plus automatic processing — is the feature that separates this patent from the closest art, and it is the reason the asserted combinations do not "render the claims obvious" as a matter of the established record.

Uncertainty flags: (1) verbatim '770 claim text was not in the supplied patent page; element mapping rests on claim language from the PTAB/district-court records; (2) full face-of-patent "References Cited" list was not retrievable in my searches, so examiner-cited art beyond the IPR record is not analyzed here; (3) complete bibliographic details for "Hsieh" were not verified. These should be confirmed in the USPTO Patent Center full-text record before reliance in any formal validity opinion.