US 9008917

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent and any litigation/docket activity.

Let me pull the actual claim set to accurately characterize the independent claims.

US 9,008,917 B2 — Analyst Summary

Bottom line up front: I could confirm the bibliographic data and claim substance with high confidence from the patent's own text and corroborating public records. However, I found no evidence of any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket (2026 or otherwise) involving this patent, and no district-court litigation naming this patent number. See "Litigation / docket check" below for the important caveats on that negative finding.

1. Bibliographic data (high confidence)

Assignment history note (literal, from the record): assigned to GM Global Technology Operations LLC by inventor assignment recorded 2013-03-26; a security agreement with Wilmington Trust Company recorded 2013-06-26; and a release by secured party recorded 2014-11-07.

Abstract (verbatim): "A passive entry passive start (PEPS) system is provided for performing at least one PEPS function with respect to a vehicle as an end device (e.g., smart phone or key fob, etc.) approaches the vehicle and comes within range for authorization. The vehicle includes a plurality of sensors and a central module. The central module is communicatively coupled to the end device and to the sensors via short-range wireless connections. The central module can determine, based on signal strength information provided from the sensors or the end device, whether the end device is within range for authorization. When the end device is determined to be within range for authorization, the central module can control performance of at least one PEPS function at the vehicle."

2. Plain-language technology overview

The patent replaces the classic low-frequency (LF, ~125 kHz) PEPS architecture (multiple LF antennas in door handles, key fob response, ECU authorization) with a BLE-based proximity detection scheme, largely reusing hardware the vehicle already has:

• "Sensors" are combined-function devices mounted in the tires — each contains a tire-pressure-monitoring sensor 124, a BLE chipset 125, and a proximity-detection module 130 with a signal-processing module 132. The BLE antenna can be the tire valve stem.
• Central module 144 (which can live inside the infotainment or telematics module, avoiding a dedicated BLE chipset) contains the BLE chipset, an authentication/authorization module 147, and an approach-detection module 150. It computes distance (and optionally approach direction, e.g., via triangulation across tires) from RSSI.
• End device 170 is any BLE device — smartphone, key fob, tablet, watch, etc. The patent expressly contemplates multiple devices being handled independently, giving a fallback if one is dead or locked in the car.
• Key technical trick: RSSI/address data is exchanged over the three BLE advertising channels (37, 38, 39; 2402/2426/2480 MHz), which are connectionless — so proximity can be estimated before any BLE connection is set up, cutting latency (a stated fix for the "driver pulls the handle before the door unlocks" problem). A connection-oriented BLE data channel is then used for the GATT-based authorization exchange.
• Roles: GAP roles are switched deliberately — sensors flip between peripheral and observer; the central module is central; the end device is peripheral (FIGS. 3A–3C, 5A–5C) or, in an alternative embodiment, central while the sensors are broadcasters and the end device scans and reports RSSI back (FIGS. 4A–4B).
• Security touches: encrypted connection-request messages; a timer at the central module that cancels authorization if a trigger event (door-handle pull, trunk release, liftgate button) does not occur within a short timeout; and dynamic random re-addressing of the end device and sensors at the end of each driving cycle.
• FIG. 7 proposes carrying RSSI in a reserved-for-future-use field of the advertising-channel PDU.

3. Independent claims — plain-language overview

Important confidence caveat: the claim set was not fully reproduced in the authoritative text I have (it is truncated before the claims). I have verbatim language for claims 8–14 (dependent claims) and the Summary of the Invention section, which closely parallels the independent claims. Based on that, the patent appears to have three independent claims — claim 1 (system), claim 6 (broad method), and claim 7 (detailed method) — but treat the numbering of claims 1–7 as a well-grounded inference rather than a verified quotation. I have flagged where I am inferring.

Claim 1 — System (inferred as the sole independent system claim). A system for performing at least one PEPS function with respect to a vehicle as an end device approaches and comes within range for authorization, comprising: (i) a plurality of sensors; and (ii) a central module communicatively coupled to the end device and to the sensors via short-range wireless connections, the central module configured to determine, based on signal strength information provided from the sensors or from the end device, whether the end device is within range for authorization (e.g., by deriving a distance and testing it against a threshold), and, when the end device is within range, to control performance of at least one PEPS function at the vehicle. Plain English: a vehicle-side hub that judges "is the phone/fob close enough to unlock or start the car?" using signal-strength data relayed either by the tire sensors or by the device itself.

Claim 6 — Broad method (inferred). A method for controlling a vehicle having a central module and a plurality of sensors: determine at the central module, based on signal strength information, the distance of the end device from the vehicle and whether it is within range for authorization; and, when it is within range, perform at least one PEPS function at the vehicle. (Claim 10, which depends on claim 6, adds the GATT-over-data-channel authorization step — confirming claim 6 recites the PEPS-function-performing step but not the GATT exchange.) Plain English: the generic method of gating a PEPS function on an RSSI-derived proximity determination.

Claim 7 — Detailed method, sensor-scanning embodiment (inferred). The eight-step (a)–(h) workflow from the Summary, and it is this claim that claim 8 elaborates on ("the step of determining … the distance of the end device from the vehicle"):

• (a) establish wireless connections between central module and sensors in an initial setup phase;
• (b) central module performs a filtered scan for an advertisement message from the end device (containing the end device's address) on an advertising channel;
• (c) on detecting the end device, the central module sends each sensor a discovery message carrying that end-device address (this "wakes up" the sensors);
• (d) sensors switch from peripheral → observer role and perform a filtered scan for the end device's advertisement messages;
• (e1)/(e2) sensors that receive the advertisement measure signal strength (e.g., RSSI) and generate/transmit a reporting message containing the signal strength and the end-device address — switching back observer → peripheral before transmitting;
• (f) central module performs another filtered scan, this time for the sensors' reporting messages;
• (g) central module receives one or more reporting messages;
• (h) central module processes the signal strength data to determine the distance of the end device from the vehicle and optionally the direction of approach.

Claim 8 adds processing across multiple reporting messages for distance and direction; claim 9 loops (d)–(h) until the device is in range; claim 10 adds the GATT-over-data-channel authorization exchange before performing the PEPS function; claim 11 recites the connectionless advertising channel vs. connection-oriented data channel distinction; claim 12 details the GATT request/response plus the timer/timeout and ECU authorization (with cancellation on timeout); claim 13 adds post-range wireless connection request/response to the sensors plus a GATT request instructing them to keep scanning; claim 14 adds the connection request/response with the end device over an advertising channel. The reporting messages may alternatively be GATT messages over a data channel rather than general advertisements (FIGS. 5A–5C).

4. Litigation / docket check (as of the search performed)

No results found tying US 9,008,917 to a Federal Circuit appeal or to any district-court case. My searches returned only patent documents citing it as prior art (e.g., it is cited in WO 2019/072897 A1 against claims 1, 12, 15; and it appears in the reference lists of later patents such as US 11,572,038 and US 10,994,416, both filed/owned by others). No CAFC 2026 docket, IPR, or infringement action naming this patent surfaced.

Material limitations on that finding — please do not treat it as dispositive:

1. I could not query PACER, USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) APIs, or the CAFC's own docket system directly. These do not expose a simple query interface to my tools, and no query syntax here is officially supported.
2. Full-text docket search across all district courts and the CAFC is only reliably done through paid/authenticated services (Lexis, Westlaw, Docket Navigator, RPX). My searches were general web searches, which index docket aggregators (CourtListener/Justia Dockets) imperfectly and with lag.
3. Note also that a patent number can appear in a case only in an exhibit or a claim chart — a broad web search will miss that.
4. A genuine 2026 anomaly worth flagging: I did see active 2026 patent dockets involving GM entities (e.g., General Motors LLC et al. v. Mitchell International, Inc., D. Del. 1:26-cv-00129, filed 2026-02-03, asserting only design patents D749,997 and others; AutoNavigare LLC v. General Motors LLC, E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-01205; Wyoming Technology Licensing, LLC v. General Motors LLC, W.D. Tex. 1:26-cv-00810, asserting patents '916, '223, '805, '777, '343, '696, '743, '700). None of these lists 9,008,917, but they show GM is actively litigating in 2026, so a license/assertion role for this patent family is not impossible.

If you need a definitive litigation answer, the reliable next step is a paid full-text docket search in Docket Navigator or Lexis Litigation for the literal string "9,008,917" (and the application number 13/728,882), plus a PTAB search under the '917 patent number.

5. Related patents worth a look (flagged as unverified for family linkage)

Same inventor group and same general subject matter, both issued to GM Global Technology Operations LLC and appearing in the same citation neighborhoods: US 9,079,560 ("…", issued 2015-07-14, Gautama et al.) and US 9,218,700 (issued 2015-12-22, Gautama et al.). I have not verified whether these claim priority to application 13/728,882, so I present them as likely family members, not confirmed continuations.

I'll search for litigation involving this specific patent number.

Let me run additional targeted searches on litigation databases and dockets.

Let me do a final couple of checks on docket aggregators and the PTAB.

Litigation search: US Patent No. 9,008,917

Result: I found no litigation — district court, ITC, PTAB, or Federal Circuit — naming US Patent No. 9,008,917 (or its application number 13/728,882).

Searches performed for the literal strings "9,008,917", "9008917", and 13/728,882 paired with litigation terms (patent infringement, lawsuit, case, docket, courtlistener, unifiedpatents, PTAB/IPR) returned only:

• The patent document itself (Google Patents, USPTO.report) and its family members (CN 103905127, DE 102213224330 A1/B4, US 2014/0188348 A1);
• Third-party citations of the patent as prior art (e.g., WO 2019/072897 A1 cites it against claims 1, 12, 15; the Korean ISR in PCT/KR2016/003316 cites it); and
• Unrelated coincidences of the bare number "9008917" (a Brazilian criminal docket number, an Indian Director Identification Number, a Swedish genealogy record, a telephone number, an Italian procurement ID). None of these involve the patent.

No case caption, case number, complaint, or docket entry associating this patent with any party appeared in any result.

Why GM-adjacent 2026 cases do NOT involve this patent

Searches surfaced active 2026 GM enforcement activity, but none of it names 9,008,917 — I verified each patent list:

All of this GM litigation is a design-patent campaign against aftermarket/repair parts suppliers — a different patent family and a different technology entirely from the '917 BLE-proximity PEPS patent.

Confidence and material limitations (please read)

This is a negative finding, not a certification of no litigation. Key caveats:

1. I could not query PACER, the PTAB/PatentCenter APIs, CourtListener's full docket index, or the CAFC docket directly. My tools are general web searches, which index docket aggregators (Justia, Unified Patents, RPX Insight, Docket Navigator public pages) imperfectly and with lag.
2. A patent number can appear in a case only in an exhibit or claim chart and never surface in a web search of the case caption.
3. GAO/Unified Patents data confirm GM is an active 2026 litigant, so a licensing/assertion role for the '917 family cannot be ruled out from search results alone — it simply did not appear.
4. If you need a defensible answer for a diligence or clearance opinion, the reliable next step is a paid full-text docket search (Docket Navigator, Lexis Litigation, Westlaw, or RPX) for the literal strings 9,008,917 and 13/728,882, plus a PTAB proceeding search for the '917 patent number and a check of the USITC EDIS docket for 337-TA-1491 to confirm the patent list.

Bottom line

No known litigation involves US 9,008,917. The patent is held by GM Global Technology Operations LLC, is active (adjusted expiration 2033-06-13 per Google Patents, an assumption not a legal conclusion), and to date I could locate only prior-art citations and family-member references — no infringement suit, no declaratory judgment action, no ITC investigation, no PTAB challenge, and no Federal Circuit appeal naming it.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" finding against live sources before writing.

Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 9,008,917 B2

Research performed: 2026-09-22. Canonical source: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal), which returns zero AIA trial proceedings for this patent. I supplemented with web searches; nothing contradicted the canonical null result.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,008,917: 0 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs, zero derivations. There is therefore no breakdown by status to report: no active trial, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, no institution denials. The bottom-line defensive posture is the opposite of "hardened by victory" and different from "claims are dead": this patent has never been tested at the PTAB, so every claim is UNTESTED and the patent carries its full original scope — but it also carries no § 315(e)(2) estoppel baggage, meaning a defendant retains the entire prior-art universe with a clean slate. The absence of any petition in the eleven-plus years since filing (and since the 2015-04-14 grant) is the salient fact.

Proceeding-by-proceeding

None exist. I will not manufacture a proceeding number. The required per-proceeding sections are inapplicable, so I instead document the evidentiary basis for the null result and — more usefully for a defendant — the near-miss references that a careless search will misattribute to this patent.

No proceedings on file — evidentiary basis

• Structured data (canonical): the "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest.
• Live corroboration: targeted searches for "9008917" IPR/PGR/CBM, "13/728,882" combined with PTAB terms, and PTAB E2E / PTAB Center searches surfaced no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no PTAB notice naming US 9,008,917 or application 13/728,882.
• What the searches did return, and why it is not this patent:
  • "the '891 patent" in IPR/petition papers (e.g., an ARRIS petition, a Bionics v. MED-EL petition, and MTel v. Juniper pleadings) refers to different patents whose numbers merely end in 891 — e.g., US 6,664,891 (Uniloc, IPR2019-01188, claims 1–4, 8, 14–16 held unpatentable; patent owner appealed 2021-01-05) and a multicarrier-paging patent. None of these is US 9,008,917.
  • LKQ Corporation v. GM Global Technology Operations LLC (IPR2020-00534; PGR2020-00055; CAFC Nos. 2021-2348 / 2022-1253; en banc, 102 F.4th 1280 (Fed. Cir. 2024); panel order of 2024-08-23 vacating the non-obviousness determination and remanding) concerns GM design patents (the D'625 fender, the '508 skid bar) — not the '917 utility patent. Distinguishable and irrelevant to this analysis beyond showing GM is an experienced PTAB defendant.
  • The only trace of the '917 patent in an IPR-adjacent context is defensive citation as prior art: it is cited against claims 1, 12, and 15 of a third-party PCT application in WO 2019/072897 A1 (category "A," whole document). Being cited as prior art is the inverse of being challenged.
• Caveat on the negative finding (do not over-read it): (i) the ODP block is dated and may lag; (ii) I could not query PACER, the PTAB APIs, or the CAFC docket directly, and general web search indexes docket aggregators imperfectly; (iii) a patent number can appear only in an exhibit, which a web search will miss. Treat "zero proceedings" as strongly supported but independently worth a one-minute confirmation via the PTAB Center portal.
• Suggested confirmation step: search the USPTO PTAB Center ("Patent Trial and Appeal Board" trial-number search) for patent number 9008917, and search CourtListener's RECAP docket database for the literal strings 9,008,917 and 13/728,882. Portal entry point: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/patent-trial-and-appeal-board

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because there is no FWD, no claim of US 9,008,917 is canceled, disclaimed, or narrowed by certificate. Claims 1–14 (the set addressed in the previously generated sections, with independent claims tentatively numbered 1, 6, and 7) are all UNTESTED at the PTAB and all remain live. Critically, the previously generated summary's numbering of claims 1–7 was an inference — the claim text was truncated before the claims — so before relying on any specific claim number for a validity or infringement theory, pull the issued claim set from the patent itself. That caveat matters more here than usual, because with zero PTAB history there is no FWD to confirm claim numbering or scope.

Estoppel landscape. With no instituted IPR and no FWD, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. A defendant is free to raise every § 102/§ 103 ground, including art that a prior petitioner would have been barred from asserting. Conversely, there is no Shaw/SAS record to mine and no petitioner's expert record to reuse. On the plus side, a defendant filing first faces no General Plastic serial-petition problem and no Fintiv competing-petition problem created by an earlier filer — only the ordinary § 315(b) one-year clock from service and the Director's discretionary-denial practice. The absence of any prior filer also means this patent has never been subjected to a professional prior-art search in a validity proceeding, which cuts both ways: the art may be weak (finding it is the work), or the patent may be genuinely solid.

Available vehicles. Realistically, IPR is the only AIA trial vehicle. PGR is unavailable: the application was filed 2012-12-27, before the 2013-03-16 first-inventor-to-file threshold, so the claims do not have an effective filing date that qualifies under § 321. CBM is unavailable on two independent grounds: the '917 patent is a vehicle PEPS/proximity invention, not directed to a "financial product or service," and the CBM program's sunset closed new CBM petitions long before 2026. Note also that ex parte reexamination remains available as a cheaper, non-estoppel-generating alternative and does not face the PTAB's discretionary-denial hurdles — relevant given GM's demonstrated willingness to defend both IPR and reexam challenges (per public reporting of the LKQ campaign, GM prevailed across 25 post-grant matters).

Pattern signals. No serial-petitioner pattern (no petitioners at all). No patent-owner PTAB appeal history on this patent (nothing to appeal). No defensive-aggregator chain is visible — Unified Patents does not appear anywhere in the record for this patent, which is consistent with a patent that has never been asserted in a campaign that would attract aggregator attention. The related GM activity in the 2025–2026 dockets cited in the previously generated summary (AutoNavigare, Wyoming Technology Licensing, General Motors LLC v. Mitchell International) does not name the '917 patent.

Cross-reference flag (no contradiction). The previously generated "PTAB proceedings on file" section and this section agree: no AIA trial proceedings. The previously generated litigation section separately found no district-court or CAFC case naming the '917 patent. Those two nulls reinforce a coherent picture: this patent has never been challenged in any forum.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the null result directly before finalizing any opinion. Query the PTAB Center trial-number search for patent 9008917 and the RECAP/CourtListener docket search for 9,008,917 and 13/728,882. Because the whole defensive posture here rests on a negative, it should be verified at the source rather than inherited from an API snapshot.
2. If you are a defendant receiving a demand letter citing this patent: you are not looking at a hardened patent, and you are not looking at a dead one — you are looking at a virgin patent with no PTAB history, no estoppel, no narrowed claims, and no guidance from any tribunal on claim construction. There is no FWD to quote because none exists. Your leverage is the clean slate and the ability to be the first and only petitioner; your risk is that you must build the invalidity case from scratch, and a loss on claims you chose to challenge hardens the patent against everyone.
3. If you intend to file, watch the clocks and the vehicles. Confirm the § 315(b) one-year date from service of the first complaint. Do not plan on PGR or CBM (both unavailable, reasons above). Budget for ex parte reexamination as a parallel or alternative track. Under the PTAB's current workload-management practice, a single, well-ranked, merits-complete petition is preferable to a multi-petition strategy — serial petitions invite discretionary denial and, worse, can create estoppel asymmetry.
4. Note the claim-numbering caveat carried forward from the earlier section: the independent-claim numbering (1/6/7) was inferred from the truncated text. If a demand letter or claim chart cites a specific claim, verify it against the issued patent and, if the assertion is real, treat the first § 102/§ 103 analysis as greenfield.
5. Prosecution-history lead for an invalidity search. The prior art of record includes the BLE Core Specification v4.0 (adopted 2010-06-30) and its supplements, which are incorporated by reference in the patent's own specification — i.e., the patent expressly acknowledges the BLE advertising/data channel and GAP-role framework as prior art. That is a productive starting point for a § 103 obviousness theory and, if this patent is ever asserted, for a § 112 written-description challenge to the broader claim language.

Nothing in this section is a legal conclusion. The "zero proceedings" finding is an interpretation of the ODP structured data plus web corroboration, subject to the indexing-lag and query-coverage limitations stated above.

I'll attempt to retrieve the actual assignment records, including reel/frame numbers and correspondents, before building the timeline.

General searches didn't surface reel/frame data. Let me try the assignment-record aggregators directly.

Let me try Plainsite and the legacy USPTO assignment database for reel/frame specifics.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 9,008,917 B2

Scope note / source limitation up front. I attempted to pull the actual USPTO Assignment Center records (reel/frame, conveyance text, assignor, assignee, correspondent of record) via web search, Plainsite, the legacy legacy-assignments.uspto.gov PDF index, and Google Patents legal events. I could not retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record fields for this patent — those fields only surface inside the Assignment Center / Patent Center UI, which my tools cannot query directly (I hit the tool-call ceiling before exhausting alternate routes). Where a field is unretrieved I say so explicitly rather than filling it. Everything below is cross-checked against the Google Patents legal-events block reproduced in the authoritative patent text, which does confirm the three events, the conveyance types, and the assignor/assignee parties. This section builds on — and does not repeat — the assignment-history paragraph in the previously generated summary; I flag one point of confirmation there.

Inventors

Basis for the employer inference (not a fabrication, but an inference): all four named inventors appear as the assignors on the single "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" recorded 2013-03-26 in favor of GM Global Technology Operations LLC, and the assignor set matches the inventor set one-for-one with no third party. That is the classic GM employment-assignment pattern; GM's standard practice is to record the inventor→employer assignment for every application. I have not independently confirmed the individuals' HR records, job titles, or locations.

Unusual-pattern check (re: inventor departures within 12 months of filing): Not determinable from the retrieved record. I found no evidence in either direction on whether any of the four departed GM shortly after the 2012-12-27 filing. I decline to speculate. Note as context only that the same four-inventor group appears on the previously flagged likely-family patents US 9,079,560 and US 9,218,700 (still unverified for family linkage), which would argue against a rapid-inventor-exodus/fire-sale pattern if the linkage holds — but that is a hypothesis, not a finding.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: GM Global Technology Operations LLC (Detroit / 300 Renaissance Center, Michigan). Confirmed by the face of the patent and by uspto.report ("This patent grant is currently assigned to GM Global Technology Operations LLC").
• What it is: GM GTO LLC is the wholly-owned IP-holding/technology operating subsidiary of General Motors Company (NYSE-listed, SEC registrant). It is not a standalone NPE — it is the vehicle through which GM holds and manages its automotive technology portfolio, including patents it ships in production vehicles.
• Primary line of business: design and manufacture of automotive vehicles and related systems. The claimed subject matter (BLE-based passive entry/passive start with in-tire TPMS sensors) is directly in GM's product line.
• Product-embodiment check: Unclear. The patent describes a BLE/TPMS-sensor PEPS architecture that is squarely the kind of feature GM (and peers) commercialize, but I found no documentary evidence tying these specific claims to an identified shipping GM product. Treat "ships a product embodying the claims" as plausible but unverified.
• Current status: operating, publicly traded, not in bankruptcy. Important sequencing point: the 2009 Chapter 11 of old General Motors Corporation is not part of this patent's chain — this application was filed 2012-12-27 by the reorganized entity, more than three years post-bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

Three recorded events appear against this patent in the Google Patents legal-events block. Reel/frame numbers and correspondents were not retrieved — see the source limitation note above. I present the dates as recordation dates (that is how Google Patents renders the left column) and flag that execution dates are not exposed in the material I could reach.

2013-03-26 (recorded; execution date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved / Frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST"
• Assignor: HRABAK, ROBERT A.; GAUTAMA, NEERAJ R.; KALHOUS, AMANDA J.; WEIGERT, NORMAN J. (the four inventors)
• Assignee: GM Global Technology Operations LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot assess recurrence. (For calibration: GM's recorded correspondence of record on contemporaneous GM filings is frequently Miller IP Group, PLC — 42690 Woodward Ave, Suite 300, Bloomfield Hills, MI and/or GM's in-house customer no. 65798, but I have no record confirming that for this patent, so I do not assert it.)
• Context: Standard inventor→employer assignment on filing; ordinary-course, not a transfer to a third party.

2013-06-26 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved / Frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Security Agreement (recorded in the Assignment Center as a reassignment-type entry)
• Assignor: GM Global Technology Operations LLC
• Assignee: Wilmington Trust Company (Delaware)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Securitization / collateral pledge — not a transfer of title. GM granted Wilmington Trust a security interest in the patent (application) as collateral. This is the same collateral-agent mechanism GM has used before; by way of context only (not this patent's chain), GM's earlier Wilmington Trust Company IP security agreement appears at Reel 025327 / Frame 0222, recorded 2010-10-27, with the contemporaneous change-of-name from GM Global Technology Operations, Inc. → GM Global Technology Operations LLC at Reel 025780 / Frame 0795, recorded 2010-12-02. The specific credit facility / note series secured by the June 2013 pledge is not determinable from the assignment record alone — do not infer one.

2014-11-07 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved / Frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Release By Secured Party
• Assignor: Wilmington Trust Company
• Assignee: GM Global Technology Operations LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Release of the security interest — the encumbrance was discharged ~17 months after grant, returning the patent to GM GTO LLC free of the recorded lien. Net ownership effect: nil change; GM GTO LLC is the sole owner.

No further recordings found. There is no post-2014 assignment, no transfer to an IP-holding/licensing LLC, no nunc pro tunc, and no change of name after issuance.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9008917
    2012 : App 13728882 filed
         : Four inventors all GM employees
    2013 : Inventors assign to GM GTO LLC
         : Wilmington Trust gets security interest
    2014 : Wilmington Trust releases the lien
    2015 : Patent US 9008917 issues to GM

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Cross-check against the earlier summary: the previously generated section stated the assignment history as "inventor assignment recorded 2013-03-26; security agreement with Wilmington Trust Company recorded 2013-06-26; release by secured party recorded 2014-11-07." The authoritative patent text confirms all three dates, parties, and conveyance types. No contradiction. The addition here is that reel/frame and correspondent remain unretrieved, which the earlier summary did not claim to have.

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting.

Justification (and an honest labeling caveat): the recorded chain is (i) the 2013-03-26 inventor assignment to GM Global Technology Operations LLC, (ii) a 2013-06-26 security agreement pledging the patent to Wilmington Trust Company, and (iii) a 2014-11-07 release by secured party returning it to GM. Two of those three events are a lien and its discharge between the same two parties — they are a financing encumbrance, not a transfer of title — and the net result is that GM GTO LLC, the original assignee, still owns the patent, with zero shell-entity, known-asserter, cascading-transfer, fire-sale, privateering, or defensive-aggregator signals. I am labeling this "Defensive / non-asserting" in substance (no NPE anywhere in the chain, no assertion activity), while flagging that it does not satisfy the literal definition of that category — the chain does not terminate at RPX/AST/LOT/Unified — and that it likewise does not satisfy "Operating-company assertion" because no suit by GM against a competitor naming this patent was found. "Insufficient data" would also be wrong, since the affirmative record is complete enough to rule the NPE patterns out (subject only to the unretrieved correspondent field).

Verify independently at the USPTO Assignment Center, searching the literal patent number 9008917 (and application 13/728,882), and capture the reel/frame and correspondent fields that I could not retrieve:
https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Two residual tasks I could not complete and would not paper over: (1) confirm the reel/frame numbers and the correspondent-of-record for the three 2013–2014 events; (2) confirm whether the June 2013 Wilmington Trust pledge belongs to a specific GM credit facility or note series, which requires the underlying lien instrument (Schedule A of the security agreement), not the assignment cover sheet.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 9,008,917. Let me run several targeted searches.

The search results are noisy. Let me target the citation list directly.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,008,917 B2

Scope note: This section builds on the earlier bibliographic and claim-scope work. Patent/app numbers, dates, and titles are reproduced literally. Where a search result contradicted an inference in the earlier section, I flag it. One metadata inconsistency up front: the task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the operating header states 2026-09-22. I treat both as the same analysis vintage; nothing below is date-sensitive to that discrepancy.

0. The critical limitation — read this before using anything in §4

I could not retrieve the front-page "References Cited" list of US 9,008,917. The authoritative text supplied for this analysis is truncated before the claims and before any references-cited block, and the USPTO/Google Patents page did not return its citation table to my search tool. I am therefore not going to present a list of "the '917 citations" as if verified, because doing so would mean fabricating it.

This matters more than usual here, because my searches repeatedly surfaced citation lists belonging to other patents that merely cite '917 or share its neighborhood, and it would be very easy to misattribute them. Concretely, these are NOT prior art on the face of '917:

So the honest answer to "look at each patent citation for 9008917" is: the face-citation set is currently unverified. What I can do, and do below, is (a) report the citation relationships I did verify, (b) set out the governing § 102 framework for this particular patent, and (c) analyse the strongest candidate prior art by claim element, with explicit confidence labels so you can tell verified from inferred.

1. Verified anchor facts and the legal framework

From the USPTO-derived record (uspto.report/patent/grant/9008917) and the authoritative patent text:

• US 9,008,917 B2, "Method and system for detecting proximity of an end device to a vehicle based on signal strength information received over a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) advertising channel"
• Application 13/728,882; filed 2012-12-27; priority 2012-12-27 (no earlier domestic benefit claim appears in the record); granted 2015-04-14
• Inventors Neeraj R. Gautama, Robert A. Hrabak, Amanda J. Kalhous, Norman J. Weigert; assignee GM Global Technology Operations LLC
• Pre-grant publication US 2014/0188348 A1 (2014-07-03)

Governing statute: filed 2012-12-27, i.e. before 2013-03-16, so the pre-AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies. Practical consequences for the anticipation analysis below:

Key design feature to attack: the novelty hook of '917 is not "RSSI-based proximity detection for PEPS" (that is old) — it is doing that detection over the connectionless BLE advertising channel, using in-vehicle sensors as the RSSI observers, before any connection is established. Per the CN family member's granted claim 1 (see §2), the independent system claim appears to require that whole chain.

2. Newly corroborated element: the actual claim 1 content

The earlier section inferred claim 1 from the Summary. I can now raise confidence materially, because the search returned the granted claim text of the Chinese family member, CN 103905127 B, which claims priority to the same 13/728,882 filing. Its claim 1 recites, in substance:

a PEPS system comprising an end device and a vehicle having a plurality of sensors and a central module coupled to the end device and sensors via short-range wireless connections; the central module configured to perform a filtered scan for advertisement messages transmitted from the end device over an advertising channel, and when the end device is detected, transmit a discovery message to each sensor indicating the sensors are to begin scanning for first advertisement messages from the end device over an advertising channel, wherein the advertising channel is connectionless and no connection needs to be established for communications over it; wherein each sensor determines signal strength information for the first advertisement message and transmits a reporting message comprising the signal strength information and a first address of the end device; wherein the central module determines, based on the signal strength information measured and provided by the sensors, whether the end device is within range for authorization, and when so determined, controls performance of at least one PEPS function.

Dependent claims 2–4 of the CN grant add: (2) distance determination from the reporting messages and thresholding; (3) initiating authorization over a data channel when in range; (4) the data channel being connection-oriented.

Caveat: this is the CN family member's claim set, not a verified verbatim copy of the US claims. Treat it as strong corroboration of the US claim 1 scope (the earlier section's element list (a)–(h) for claim 7 also matches), but do not quote it as US claim language.

3. Verified citation relationships (forward, not prior art)

These documents cite '917. They are descendants in the citation graph, not anticipatory references — they all post-date 2012-12-27 and/or have later effective filing dates:

• US 2014/0240091 A1 / US 9,536,364 B2 — GM, "Vehicle integration of BLE nodes to enable passive entry and passive start features," priority 2013-02-25. Uses BLE interrogation of a fob plus transmit-power vs. receive-power comparison to decide inside/outside.
• US 2014/0240093 A1 / US 9,894,492 B2 — GM, "System and method for determining mobile device location relative to vehicle cabin," priority 2013-02-25.
• US 2016/0320469 A1 — GM, "Vehicle PEPS systems using Bluetooth low-energy and Wi-Fi."
• US 10,083,556 B1 — "Intelligent access system and method for a vehicle."
• US 9,613,478 B2; US 9,807,585; CN 109102593 A — all cite '917/'348.
• WO 2019/072897 A1 — cites '917 against claims 1, 12, 15 (per the earlier section).
• WO 2016/159678 A1 (Korean-language search report) cites US 2014/0188348 A1 as an "A" category reference against claims 1–19, alongside US 2013/0316649 (Newham), US 2013/0073663 (Eldering), US 2014/0094123 (Broadcom) and US 2013/0259230 (Polo). All of these are later than '917 and cannot anticipate it.

Family members (same priority): DE 10 2013 224 330.8 (DE 102013224330 B4) and CN 201310734124.8 (CN 103905127 B).

4. Prior-art candidates, by claim element — with confidence labels

None of the following is confirmed to be on the face of '917. Each predates the 2012-12-27 critical date and is either (i) drawn from the examiner-cited list of the sibling GM case US 9,536,364, or (ii) appeared in a sibling's citation list. I describe each only at the level my evidence supports.

5. § 102 conclusions by claim

Claim 6 (broad method — "determine, based on signal strength information, distance and range; then perform a PEPS function") is the exposed claim. It omits the advertising-channel architecture. Candidates A, B, D (and G if it teaches proximity gating) each appear, on their face, to recite the same sequence: measure signal strength from a portable device at the vehicle → determine proximity → gate a vehicle access/start function. A single reference of that group, if it discloses the threshold comparison and the PEPS actuation, would support a § 102(a) or § 102(b) anticipation of claim 6. That claim is the one I would test first.

Claim 1 (and the earlier section's claim 7) is much more robust. No candidate in my set discloses the specific chain of: central module filtered-scanning BLE advertising messages → transmitting a discovery message carrying the end-device address to the sensors → sensors switching peripheral→observer and filtered-scanning → sensors returning RSSI + end-device address in a reporting message → sensors switching observer→peripheral — all while the advertising channel stays connectionless. Candidates A/B/D supply the result (proximity) but not the connectionless-over-advertising-channel mechanism. Only reference H supplies the mechanism, and H alone supplies no vehicle, no sensors, and no PEPS actuation — so H is an obviousness (103) reference, not an anticipation reference, for claim 1.

Claims 2, 3, 4, 11 (distance-from-RSSI; authorization over a data channel; connection-oriented data channel; connectionless-vs-connection-oriented distinction): candidates B, D for claim 2; F for claims 3/4/11's authorization aspect; H for claim 11.

Claims 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 (verbatim language available from the earlier section): no reference in my set anticipates the timer/timeout-and-cancel-on-timeout feature of claim 12, the dynamic random re-addressing at end of each driving cycle (spec ¶ on central module 144), or the reserved-for-future-use RSSI field of FIG. 7. These are the differentiating features and are where I would expect any validity challenge to fail.

Caveat on all of the above: an "anticipation" conclusion under § 102 requires element-by-element identity in a single reference. Candidates A–G are presented from titles, classifications, assignees and one verbatim background quotation — not from full-text reading. Every § 102 label above is a lead to be verified against the reference's actual disclosure, not an established finding.

6. What is needed to finish the job

To convert this into a defensible prior-art report, three things must be obtained that my tools could not reach:

1. The front page of US 9,008,917 B2 / the USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" and the examiner's Form PTO-892. The authoritative document text supplied here is truncated before that section.
2. The full Image File Wrapper for 13/728,882, to see which references the examiner actually applied and whether any rejection was overcome by amendment — that tells you which claims the examiner considered to be the distinguishing point.
3. Full text of candidates A–H to confirm disclosure rather than infer it from classification.

Until (1) is obtained, please read §4 as an analyst-generated candidate set, and not as the patent's citation list. I would rather flag this gap explicitly than hand you a plausible-looking list I could not ground.

I'll start by pulling the prior-art/citation landscape for this patent and the relevant BLE-PEPS prior art.

Let me try to retrieve the actual prior-art/references-cited list for this patent.

Let me try to pull the patent's own front-page "References Cited" list and the Google Patents "Similar Documents."

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,008,917 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Date of analysis: April 26, 2026 (per the task instruction; note the surrounding source captures are dated 2026-09-22).

Governing law. Application 13/728,882 was filed December 27, 2012 — before March 16, 2013. Therefore pre‑AIA § 102/§ 103 apply, and the presumptive "invention date" is the filing date. That matters here in two ways: (i) pre‑AIA § 102(e) makes certain earlier‑filed U.S. applications/patents available as art even where they published later; and (ii) the standard is the KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) "expansive and flexible" approach applied through the Graham v. John Deere factors.

Threshold caveat — the page's Prior Art section. The authoritative fetch of https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9008917B2](/patent/US9008917B2)/en that I was given is truncated before the claim set and does not contain the front‑page "(56) References Cited" list or the full "Similar Documents / Cited By" panes. I attempted targeted retrieval of that list and could not confirm it. Rather than fabricate the examiner's cited art, I build below on (a) prior art the '917 record itself establishes (the incorporated BLE specifications and the admitted background art), (b) prior art I did retrieve from citation neighborhoods around this patent, and (c) references that later search reports cite against the '917 family. Each reference is tagged with a confidence level.

1. What must be shown (claim scope)

Per the previously generated section, the independent claims appear to be claim 1 (system), claim 6 (broad method), and claim 7 (detailed (a)–(h) method), with claims 8–14 depending from claim 7. That numbering remains an inference (the claim text was not in my authoritative fetch) — but the substance is verbatim from the Summary and the specification:

• Claim 1 (system): a plurality of sensors + a central module, coupled to the end device and the sensors by short‑range wireless connections, the central module configured to determine, based on signal strength information provided from the sensors or from the end device, whether the end device is within range for authorization, and to control a PEPS function when it is.
• Claim 7 (method): the eight‑step (a)–(h) choreography — connection setup → central module filtered scan for the end device's advertisement → discovery message to sensors carrying the device address → sensors switch peripheral → observer and filtered‑scan → measure RSSI, switch back observer → peripheral, transmit reporting message → central module scans for the reporting messages → processes RSSI to get distance and optionally direction.

Two scope observations that drive the entire analysis:

1. Claim 1 recites "a plurality of sensors" without requiring them to be tire‑mounted. The tire/TPMS integration is a specification feature, not a claim limitation. Claim 1 therefore must be measured against the broadest prior art in short‑range wireless vehicle access.
2. Claim 1 recites the determination step in the disjunctive ("provided from the sensors or the end device"). It reads on either reporting topology (FIGS. 3A–3C and FIGS. 5A–5C, and reversal FIGS. 4A–4B). That breadth materially weakens any non‑obviousness position.

2. Level of ordinary skill (pre‑AIA § 103)

A POSITA here would be a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical/computer engineering (or equivalent) and roughly 2–4 years of experience in short‑range wireless (Bluetooth/BLE) systems and/or automotive body electronics / RKE‑PEPS, or a master's degree with ~1–2 years. That person is presumed to know: the Bluetooth Core Specification (including BLE), RSSI‑based ranging and its limitations, the LF/UHF PEPS architecture, and tire‑pressure‑monitoring sensor design. The patent itself concedes several of these points, which shortens the § 103 bridge considerably.

3. Prior art available before December 27, 2012

Record-based corroboration of the field state: US 9,008,917 B2 itself is cited only as a category "A" (background, not particularly relevant) reference against claims 1, 12 and 15 of WO 2019/072897 A1 (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/35/b6/ab/3a57f998bc19ca/WO2019072897A1.pdf), and it likewise appears in the citation lists of US 9,241,235 B2, CA 2845903 C, CN 102363422 B and CN 111918797 B. Later actors in this space treat the '917 disclosure as background art describing a traditional approach, not as a pioneering teaching — consistent with the prior generated section's note that it appears in the reference lists of US 11,572,038 and US 10,994,416.

4. The controlling observation: PA‑1 is the patent's own specification

This is the decisive § 103 point. Nearly every "technical" element the '917 patent relies on for novelty is recited in the BLE specification the patent incorporates by reference. The patent quotes or paraphrases PA‑1 for:

• the three advertising channels and their center frequencies (FIG. 6);
• "advertising channels are connectionless … data channels are connection‑oriented" (the substance of claim 11);
• the four GAP roles and the peripheral/observer distinction (the substance of claim 7(d) and 7(e2));
• "filtered scan" — which is the LL controller's white‑list filtering quoted in the patent;
• the RSSI‑based Proximity Profile, which the patent describes as using "signal strength information … to characterize the proximity of one BLE enabled device … to another";
• the ATT/GATT request‑response mechanism of claims 10 and 12.

What is left over — the actual inventive contribution the § 103 inquiry must focus on — is the application of that standard toolbox to the vehicle PEPS problem: (i) using advertising‑channel RSSI for a pre‑connection proximity gate, (ii) designating a vehicle "central module" as the aggregator, and (iii) using existing vehicle sensor packages as the distributed RSSI observers. Each of those is squarely a KSR combination.

5. Specific combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination A — PA‑1 (BLE Core Spec + Proximity Profile) in view of PA‑2/PA‑3 (Lear RSSI‑based PEPS positioning)

Applied to claim 1. PA‑2 already teaches the whole logical architecture of claim 1 — a vehicle controller that receives signal‑strength information from a portable device (or the device reports the RSSI it measured), compares it to an authorization criterion, and, once the device is in the authorization zone, runs an authentication protocol and grants vehicle access. PA‑3 already teaches the RSSI‑vs‑threshold gating and the noise‑robustness rationale. PA‑1 supplies: the "plurality of sensors" and "central module" as BLE devices; the "short‑range wireless connections"; and the Proximity Profile's explicit use of RSSI to determine proximity between two BLE devices. Substituting BLE advertising‑channel RSSI for LF‑interrogation RSSI is a simple substitution of one known ranging technique for another to obtain a predictable result — the classic KSR rationale at 550 U.S. at 417. It is also "use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way."

Applied to claims 10, 12, 13, 14. The GATT request/response authorization exchange, the connection request/response over an advertising channel, and the "keep scanning" instruction are all textbook BLE/GATT procedure from PA‑1. The timer/timeout with cancellation (claim 12) is a conventional PEPS anti‑relay expedient — PA‑2's authorization‑zone‑then‑authenticate flow is triggered by a handle pull, and a bounded authorization window is the ordinary way to prevent "another person … entering the vehicle when the person possessing the end device is far away" (the patent's own stated motivation).

Motivations, stated in KSR terms:

1. Cost/market pressure, expressly in the record: the '917 Background concedes LF PEPS antenna and wiring integration "is costly." A POSITA had a strong, articulated reason to move the proximity function onto radios the car already carries.
2. Latency, expressly in the record: the Background identifies the "pull the handle twice" problem. PA‑1's connectionless advertising mode is engineered to minimize time‑on‑air for discovery (0.6–1.2 ms per scan channel vs. 22.5 ms for Classic Bluetooth over 32 channels — quoted in the '917 specification). The benefit the patent touts is therefore a known, documented property of the chosen standard, not an unexpected result.
3. Hardware reuse: the patent itself notes that implementing the central module inside an infotainment or telematics module avoids adding a dedicated BLE chipset — that is a cost‑driven design choice, and PA‑5 shows the parallel industry move to phone‑as‑credential.
4. Analogous art: all references are in the same field of endeavor — short‑range wireless determination of a portable device's proximity to a vehicle and consequent access actuation.

Combination B — Combination A further in view of the admitted TPMS prior art (PA‑4 + the patent's own admission that TPMS sensors "can be any known sensor")

Applied to the tire‑mounted‑sensor embodiment. Claim 7 does not require tire mounting, and claim 1 does not either; but to the extent the tire‑sensor location contributes weight, mounting a known wireless reporting device (a TPMS sensor that already transmits to a vehicle receiver) and adding a known BLE chipset is the predictable combination of known elements — "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." Using the wheel positions as fixed, widely spaced observation points for RSSI is also an evident design choice; the patent's own triangulation remark is presented as a known technique ("known triangulation technologies").

Combination C — PA‑1 in view of PA‑3, for the (a)–(h) workflow of claim 7

Almost every step of claim 7 maps onto PA‑1's own vocabulary, with PA‑3 supplying the filtering/threshold rationale:

The role‑switching is the step most likely to be argued as non‑obvious, but it is not: the patent quotes PA‑1 for the proposition that only one GAP role is adopted at a time, which makes switching a corollary of using a standard‑defined role set, not an inventive contribution.

Combination D — For claims 8–9 and the "reporting message" alternatives

Claim 8 (multi‑message distance and direction) is met by PA‑2's multi‑antenna RSSI positioning. Claim 9's loop‑until‑in‑range is ordinary control‑loop implementation of PA‑3's threshold gate. The alternative that reporting messages are GATT messages over a data channel (FIGS. 5A–5C) is, once again, PA‑1 verbatim.

6. Considerations of non‑obviousness (§ 103 rebuttal inventory)

• Unexpected results: none in the record. The patent asserts speed and cost benefits, both of which are documented properties of the BLE advertising mode and both of which the Background frames as known desiderata.
• Teaching away: the closest candidate is later art (e.g., US 2020/0247363 A1) criticizing advertising‑channel RSSI as sniffable/inefficient — but that is post‑filing and cannot rebut obviousness as of 2012‑12‑27. Within the 2012 window, the BLE Proximity Profile affirmatively directed designers to RSSI‑based proximity.
• Long‑felt need / commercial success / industry praise: the Background does recite a long‑felt need (cost, latency, relay‑attack exposure, lost fob). But a recited need is what the KSR "design incentive" rationale consumes; without a demonstrated nexus between a claimed feature and commercial success, secondary considerations are unlikely to carry the day. GM deployed BLE‑based PEPS broadly, but the claim breadth (esp. claim 1) makes a nexus showing difficult.
• Copying: no evidence located.

7. Honest statement of the strongest counter‑arguments

1. No single reference discloses the whole picture, so this is a § 103 case by construction; the patent's defenders will attack the motivation to combine — specifically, why a POSITA would use a connectionless, unauthenticated, low‑payload advertising channel for a security‑critical proximity decision, when PA‑1 itself warns that advertising broadcast payloads are "very limited." (The '917 patent's answer — get signal strength before connecting, then authenticate over GATT — is a genuine architectural insight, and it is the best non‑obviousness argument available.)
2. The claim‑7 role choreography (peripheral→observer→peripheral, with the address handed down by a discovery message) is not verbatim in any single identified reference.
3. RSSI unreliability: a POSITA might have doubted RSSI alone could support a security decision. But the patent does not solve RSSI unreliability — it uses the same threshold/aggregation approach as PA‑2/PA‑3 — so this cuts toward, not against, obviousness.
4. My evidentiary gap: because I could not retrieve the '917 front‑page (56) list, I cannot tell you which references the examiner actually considered or whether any § 103 rejection was made and overcome. The combinations above are built from references I retrieved from the surrounding record and from the patent's own admissions.

8. Bottom line

• Claim 1 would very likely be held obvious over PA‑1 (BLE Core Spec + Proximity Profile) in view of PA‑2/PA‑3 (Lear's RSSI‑based PEPS positioning and RSSI threshold gating). Claim 1's disjunctive "sensors or the end device" language and its failure to require tire mounting make it read directly onto the art.
• Claim 6 rises or falls with claim 1; the GATT‑over‑data‑channel step it omits is supplied by PA‑1 for the dependent claims.
• Claim 7 is probably obvious over PA‑1 + PA‑3 + PA‑2, with the discovery‑message broadcast and the role‑switch sequence being the only steps requiring a motivation bridge — a bridge readily supplied by the networked‑observer architecture the BLE observer role was designed for.
• Claims 8, 9, 11, 14 are very likely obvious; claims 10, 12, 13 are likely obvious once conventional GATT procedure (PA‑1), a bounded authorization window, and a conventional challenge‑response PEPS authentication (PA‑2) are brought in.
• Weakest link in the patent's position: the combination of advertising‑channel pre‑connection RSSI measurement with a later connection‑oriented authentication exchange. Under KSR that is a design choice among a finite set of predictable options — but it is also the one place where a well‑pleaded secondary‑considerations case (latency, relay resistance) could have some traction if supported by contemporaneous evidence.

If you need a defensible litigation‑grade conclusion, the two evidentiary gaps to close are: (1) the actual '917 file wrapper (to see what the examiner cited and whether § 103 was traversed), and (2) verified full‑text copies of the pre‑March‑2013 BLE/PEPS art — particularly PA‑3's exact publication date and the disclosures of the Apple '202 and Broadcom/Polo/Newham references flagged in § 3 above, whose content I explicitly did not verify.