US 9921077

I'll run several targeted searches for this specific patent number and any 2026 appellate activity.

Let me pull the actual claim language and any appellate/litigation activity.

Search scope and limitations (read first)

I do not have direct API access to USPTO Patent Center, PACER, or the CAFC docket. Everything below comes from (a) the authoritative full text of US 9,921,077 B2 you supplied (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑24), and (b) live web searches returning USPTO/PTAB-hosted documents, Docket Alarm, RPX Insight, and Unified Patents PATROLL records. Party/court records are secondary sources and may lag. Where an identifier appeared inconsistently, I quote it literally rather than correcting it.

No Federal Circuit activity for US 9,921,077 in 2026 was found. My searches surfaced no CAFC docket, opinion, or appeal arising from this patent. The only litigation record I could locate is the 2021 district court case. Treat "no 2026 CAFC docket" as not found, not as confirmed absent.

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1. Bibliographic data for US 9,921,077 B2 (literal, per the patent front page)

Identifier quirks I am deliberately not auto-correcting: the front page prints the fourth inventor as "Arun Yalagadda", while the USPTO assignment record (shown on the same page) names "YARLAGADDA, ARUN." Justia's page for sibling patent 9,354,069 prints "Arun Yarlagadda (Irvine, CA)." Two spellings of the family name coexist in official records.

Status discrepancies (flagged, not resolved):

• Provided authoritative text: "Expired - Fee Related", anticipated expiration 2023‑04‑10.
• One Google Patents snippet in my search returned "Expired - Lifetime"; RPX Insight returns "Expired due to Term."
• The 2021 complaint I located states the '077 patent "was issued in May 2018" / "On May 20, 2018, the USPTO duly and legally issued the '077 patent." That is inconsistent with the patent's printed issue date of 2018‑03‑20. I cannot verify the May date and treat the face of the patent as controlling.

Continuity chain (from the patent's own cross-reference section): continuation of 15/435,283 (filed 2017‑02‑16) → continuation of 14/997,521 (now US 9,607,346) → continuation of 14/067,415 (now US 9,354,069) → continuation of 13/346,265 (now US 8,577,390) → continuation of 12/929,458 (now US 8,095,152) → continuation of 12/484,091 (now US 7,881,730) → division of 10/410,740 (now US 7,565,155) → provisional 60/371,941 (2002‑04‑10). Later members of the family include US 10,274,337; 10,502,583; 10,551,208; 10,677,608; 10,996,071; 11,346,684; 11,473,925; and 11,619,513.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"The preferred embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for dynamic route estimation and prediction using discrete sampled location updates from various mobile devices for the purpose of providing a graphical representation of a mobile device's route along a known network path of map data. The embodiments also provide supplemental route metrics, such as traveled distance, elapsed time, etc., and the capability to assign destination points for the purpose of providing the ability to modify location update points in an application, such as a route planner, and/or to store the dynamically generated route based on various preferences for later retrieval."

Note the tension between the specification/abstract (breadcrumb-to-route estimation, snapping, predictive routing, route planner) and the issued claim 1 (ride-hailing dispatch ranking). The dispatch/sorting subject matter is supported by FIGS. 25–26 and the corresponding "satellite/central point" passages.

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3. Independent claim — plain-language overview

Claim 1 is the only independent claim I could verify, from RPX Insight's claim listing for US9921077B2. I could not independently confirm the total claim count or whether a second independent claim (e.g., system or CRM) exists. The Unified Patents PATROLL contest sought prior art on "at least claim 1," which is consistent with a single independent claim but does not prove it.

Claim 1 (verbatim, per the RPX Insight claim listing):

"1. A method comprising:
receiving, at a server, first data comprising a plurality of location updates from a plurality of transportation provider mobile devices, each of the plurality of transportation provider mobile devices corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of transportation providers and each of the plurality of location updates representing a location of a respective one of the plurality of transportation providers at a particular time;
causing a display of a plurality of indicators on a graphical representation of a map, each of the plurality of indicators corresponding to a current position of a respective one of the plurality of transportation providers based on a respective one of the plurality of location updates;
receiving, at the server from a customer mobile device, second data comprising a pickup location for a customer associated with the customer mobile device;
determining, for each of the plurality of transportation providers and using at least the first data and the pickup location, a distance between the transportation provider and the pickup location and an estimated time of arrival of the transportation provider at the pickup location;
generating, by the server, a sorted listing of the plurality of transportation providers using at least one of the determined distances between the transportation providers and the pickup location and the determined estimated times of arrival of the transportation providers at the pickup location;
causing a display of the sorted listing to enable a selection from the sorted listing; and
selecting, based on the selection from the sorted listing and at least the first data and the second data, a preferred transportation provider from among the plurality of transportation providers to provide transportation for the customer."

Plain-language overview: A server collects time-stamped location pings from many driver/transportation-provider mobile devices and plots each driver's current position as an indicator on a map. A customer's device sends the server a pickup location. For every driver, the server computes both the distance to that pickup point and an estimated time of arrival. It then builds a ranked list of drivers (by distance and/or ETA), displays that ranked list so a user can pick from it, and — using the picked entry plus the driver-location data and the pickup-location data — finalizes which driver will serve the customer. In essence: receive driver telemetry → map it → receive a rider pickup point → compute distance + ETA for each driver → rank the drivers → display the ranked list → select the preferred driver. This tracks the FIG. 25/26 dispatch embodiment (house/pickup point 2501, ranked vehicles 2502–2507, metrics window 2601 with distance 2604, time 2605, fuel usage 2606).

Practitioner caveat: the claim language above is the granted text as republished by a third-party database. The claim set for this continuation-only patent was almost certainly narrowed to the dispatch/ranking subject matter during prosecution (the broad route-estimation disclosure dates to 2002–2003). Before relying on this language for any validity, infringement, or FTO purpose, pull the claim text from the USPTO PatentCenter full-text document image for 15/657,141 and diff it against the RPX text.

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4. Litigation / docket findings

• District court: Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., W.D. Tex. (Waco Division), Case No. 6:21-cv-00685, asserting US 9,921,077 ("'077 patent") and US 10,502,583 ("'583 patent"), both titled "Method and System for Dynamic Estimation and Predictive Route Generation" with the same specification. The complaint ties venue to Uber's Austin/San Antonio presence and alleges infringement through the rider/driver apps and the distance-calculation and closest-driver features. Counsel listed: The Mort Law Firm PLLC and of-counsel Daignault Iyer LLP. Google Patents links the litigation to https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6%3A21-cv-00685.
• PTAB / Unified Patents: a PATROLL prior-art contest "Bluestone Ventures – US 9,921,077 (Vehicle Dispatch Applications)," $2,000 prize, ran 2021‑07‑21 to 2021‑10‑31, targeting at least claim 1 and describing the patent as "generally relat[ing] to a method and system for enabling mobile devices to send location updates to a receiving device for use in vehicle dispatch applications."
• CAFC 2026: nothing found. My search for appellate activity returned an unrelated rideshare-eligibility cert. petition (Rideshare Displays, Inc. v. Lyft, Inc., No. 25-1132, pet. filed Mar. 23, 2026, concerning U.S. Patents 9,892,637 / 10,169,987 / 10,395,525 / 10,559,199 / 10,748,417) — different patents, different parties; do not conflate with '077.
• I could not determine from available sources whether 6:21-cv-00685 was settled, dismissed, or tried. I have no authoritative disposition.

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5. What I am uncertain about

1. The complete claim set of US 9,921,077 (total claims; whether a system/apparatus independent claim exists). Only claim 1's text was retrievable.
2. Whether claim 1 as posted by RPX matches the granted text exactly (no Certificate of Correction check performed).
3. The current legal status — "Expired – Fee Related" (authoritative text) vs. "Expired – Lifetime"/"due to Term" (third-party databases).
4. The disposition of W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00685, and any 2026 appellate activity, which I could not surface.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9921077 across patent litigation databases.

Let me dig deeper into the specific case and search for additional litigation.

Let me investigate the outcome of the case and check for any other litigation.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,921,077

Summary

Based on my searches, one litigation matter involving U.S. Patent No. 9,921,077 ("the '077 patent") is identified. The '077 patent is owned by Bluestone Ventures Inc., which multiple sources characterize as an NPE/patent assertion entity.

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Case 1 — Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc.

Substance of the allegations

The complaint (Dkt. 1) accused Uber of infringing the '077 and '583 patents through its on-demand transportation platform — specifically the driver–rider matching features, including components that determine the closest available driver to a rider and display the inbound driver's distance in real time. The '077 patent ("Method and System for Dynamic Estimation and Predictive Route Generation") was asserted based on its disclosed technology for improving "the decision making process in determining which mobile device is closest to the central point." Plaintiff requested declaratory relief, damages, and attorney's fees and costs. Bluestone was represented by The Mort Law Firm PLLC and of-counsel Daignault Iyer LLP.

Important caveats on the outcome

• The docket confirms the case was closed on or about September 26, 2021 — only about three months after filing. The docket activity visible in my sources includes the complaint, an unopposed extension of Uber's answer deadline (reset to 9/27/2021), several pro hac vice admissions for Bluestone's counsel, a Rule 7 disclosure statement, and a notice of attorney appearance for Uber.
• I could not confirm from the sources retrieved the specific mechanism of termination (e.g., voluntary dismissal with or without prejudice, settlement, or consolidation into another action). I would flag this as unverified rather than assume a settlement.
• Notably, Uber filed no IPR against the '077 patent in connection with this case that I could find.

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Related / Family Litigation Reference

The Google Patents family page for US9921077 lists a "Family has litigation" entry for a Texas Western District Court case, which corresponds to the same 6:21-cv-00685 matter above (no separate family case number was surfaced).

PTAB / Post-Grant Proceedings

• No IPR or PGR on U.S. Patent 9,921,077 was identified in my searches. (The IPRs that surfaced in results — e.g., IPR2026-00306/00309 on U.S. 10,916,138 against Carma Technology, and the AGIS Software IPRs — involve different patents and are not relevant to the '077 patent.)
• Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art contest (not litigation): On July 21, 2021, Unified Patents opened a $2,000 prior-art bounty seeking art on at least claim 1 of U.S. 9,921,077, expressly noting the patent was "currently being asserted against Uber in the Western District of Texas." The contest expired October 31, 2021. This was a crowdsourced invalidity effort, not a court or PTAB proceeding.

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Bottom Line

• Known litigation: one case — Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00685, [W.D. Tex. (Waco), Judge Albright](/courts/w-d-tex-waco-judge-albright), filed June 2021, asserting U.S. 9,921,077 (with U.S. 10,502,583). Status: Closed (terminated ~Sept. 26, 2021).
• No other infringement suits, declaratory judgment actions, CAFC appeals, or PTAB proceedings specifically naming the '077 patent were identified.

Sources

• Unified Patents Litigation Portal – Case 6:21-cv-00685: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6:21-cv-00685
• Docket Alarm – Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., 6:21-cv-00685: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/6--21-cv-00685/Bluestone_Ventures_Inc._v._Uber_Technologies_Inc/
• Complaint (Dkt. 1): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/6--21-cv-00685/Bluestone_Ventures_Inc._v._Uber_Technologies_Inc/docs/1.pdf
• Unified Patents PATROLL contest: http://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/g66YnqvyyfxMLErFN
• Law Street Media coverage: https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/bluestone-ventures-says-uber-infringes-real-time-location-technology-patents/
• RPX News: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/news/

Caveat: I was limited in the number of database queries I could run, so this should be treated as a good-faith survey rather than an exhaustive PACER/CAFC docket check. For a definitive litigation history, a direct PACER docket pull for 6:21-cv-00685 and a Darts-IP/Unified Patents family query for family 34395939 would be advisable.

I'll research PTAB proceedings on this patent, starting with the structured data block and cross-checking via web search.

The first search surfaced a Unified Patents prior-art contest, not an IPR. Let me dig for actual AIA trial filings.

Strong leads. Let me pin down the specific IPR numbers filed against the '077 patent.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,921,077: zero. The USPTO ODP structured block returns no AIA trial proceedings, and my independent searches (PTAB petition repository at ptacts.uspto.gov, Unified Patents litigation portal, docket aggregators, and law-firm/press coverage of the Bluestone v. Uber campaign) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition ever filed against the '077 patent — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied.

That gives a defendant an unusual, and favorable, posture — but for reasons that have nothing to do with the patent being "hardened." The absence of PTAB activity is explained by (a) expiration (the '077 patent ran to its 20-year term on 2023-04-10 and is now "Expired – Fee Related") and (b) the § 315(b) one-year clock, which closed for the one publicly known accused infringer (Uber, served 2021) in mid-2022. The practical bottom line for a defendant today: not "the patent survived two IPRs" and not quite "claims 1-5 are canceled" — rather, "all claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB, but the patent term has run and any demand letter can only be pursuing stale, time-barred past damages." Attack the demand letter on the expiration/§ 286 timeline first; validity is a secondary (though viable, e.g. § 101) front.

Confidence note: I found no proceeding number to report and have not invented one. I cannot rule out an unindexed, pre-institution petition that was dismissed or denied without a visibly indexed decision; flagging that residual uncertainty rather than asserting a negative I can't fully prove.

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The only PTAB-adjacent activity on the '077 patent (not a proceeding)

There is no docket entry to walk through here, so instead of fabricating proceeding headings I'm giving you the adjacent record, with the correct labels.

PATROLL prior-art contest — Bluestone Ventures, US 9,921,077 (Unified Patents, Inc.)

• Type: Not a PTAB proceeding. It is a crowdsourced prior-art bounty run by Unified Patents' PATROLL program (defensive aggregator activity, pre-IPR scouting).
• Filed / run: 2021-07-21 to 2021-10-31 ($2,000 prize for art against at least claim 1).
• Subject: "Method and system for enabling mobile devices to send location updates to a receiving device for use in vehicle dispatch applications," asserted against Uber in W.D. Tex.
• Outcome: Contest ended without any subsequent Unified Patents IPR being filed against the '077 patent (as best I can determine). Unified Patents later did file against other NPE patents in this space (see below), but not this one.
• Source: https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/g66YnqvyyfxMLErFN and https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/8/13/2000-for-bluestone-ventures-prior-art
• Defensive value: The contest generated public invalidity work-product you can mine — Apex Standards published claim charts at https://apexstandards.com/pcc/US9921077B2_invalidity/, plus semantic-art leads from Traindex/Patentcloud/IPscreener. That's free prior-art R&D for a § 102/§ 103 or ex parte reexam attack.

Activity NOT on this patent (disambiguation, so you don't chase the wrong docket)

These Uber-side IPRs are sometimes confused with the Bluestone matter because they overlap in time and technology area, but they involve different patent owners and different patents — none is against US 9,921,077:

• IPR2022-00880 and IPR2022-00926 (Uber v. LBT IP II LLC; U.S. 7,598,855 and 8,531,289) — instituted; consolidated oral hearing held 2023-09-14 before APJs Boudreau, Hudalla, Belisle. Source: hearing transcript via Docket Alarm / PTAB.
• IPR2022-00927 (Uber v. LBT IP II) — institution denied.
• IPR2023-00223 (Uber v. LBT IP II, U.S. 8,224,355) — petition voluntarily dismissed pre-institution (2023-01-31).
• IPR2023-00738 (Uber v. SurgeTech LLC, U.S. 11,475,047) — separate transportation-booking patent.

Underlying district court matter (context, not PTAB)

• Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00685 (W.D. Tex., Judge Alan D. Albright), filed 2021-06-28/29, asserting US 9,921,077 and US 10,502,583.
• Portal shows the case closed / terminated 2021-09-26 (Unified Patents portal) — i.e., terminated within ~3 months, before any answer deadline, which is consistent with a voluntary dismissal/refiling or an early disposition rather than a merits judgment. I could not verify the precise disposition, and I won't characterize it as a settlement without a document. Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6:21-cv-00685 and https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/6--21-cv-00685/Bluestone_Ventures_Inc._v._Uber_Technologies_Inc/
• Note: 6:22-cv-00317 (Uber / Fare Technologies LLC, RE46,727) appears in Uber's later filings and is a different patent owner; don't conflate it with Bluestone.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all issued claims of US 9,921,077 are UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim has been canceled, and none has been confirmed by a Final Written Decision. There is no claim-level precedent to lean on. The only validity-related narrowing of this patent family I can verify comes from the district court/other-forum record, not the Board, and I did not locate a final invalidity judgment on the '077 claims either. Anyone (including opposing counsel) telling you "the PTAB killed the claims" is wrong as to this patent. Conversely, do not assume the claims are strong just because they were never attacked: the single known accused infringer (Uber) had every incentive to file, and instead the patent was worked over by a defensive aggregator'sbounty program (Unified PATROLL) — a classic signal that a targeted IPR was considered but not carried forward.

Estoppel landscape: there is none, which cuts in the defendant's favor. Because there is no FWD, § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to anyone — every petitioner, and every third party, retains the full universe of § 102/§ 103 prior-art grounds, including everything in Uber's invalidity contentions, the Unified PATROLL/APEX charting, and the semantic-art leads. The one hard bar is § 315(b): any party served with an infringement complaint more than one year before filing is time-barred from petitioning. Uber was served in 2021, so its window closed in 2022. A newly served defendant could still file an IPR within one year of service even though the patent has expired (the Board will institute on expired patents; the patent owner simply cannot amend) — but the value is limited to neutralizing past damages. Ex parte reexamination under § 302 remains available to anyone, at any time, with no estoppel and no time bar — and for an expired patent you lose only the patent owner's amendment rights, not your ability to invalidate.

Pattern signals. (1) Same petitioner, multiple IPRs? Not on this patent — Uber did file serially against other NPE patents (LBT IP II, SurgeTech), showing it was an active, repeat IPR filer during exactly the period it was accused on '077, which makes the absence of a '077 IPR more revealing than the presence of one. (2) Patent owner aggressiveness? No PTAB-side record to assess on this patent; no Federal Circuit appeal exists because there is no FWD to appeal. (3) Defensive aggregator in the chain? Yes — Unified Patents ran a PATROLL contest on '077 in 2021, i.e., it flagged the patent as worth challenging but did not itself institute. That is a "scouted, not prosecuted" signal, not a "invalidated" one.

The most important fact for a defendant today is not a PTAB fact at all: the '077 patent expired. Google Patents records an anticipated expiration of 2023-04-10 (20 years from the 2003-04-10 filing of parent application 10/410,740), with legal status "Expired – Fee Related." The sibling asserted patent, US 10,502,583, is a continuation claiming the same priority chain and therefore is subject to the same 2023-04-10 term. If you are receiving a demand today, the exposure is confined to past damages inside the § 286 six-year lookback (and, for the pre-suit period, only what remains after that window), with no injunction/ongoing-royalty theory available. Verify the maintenance-fee history on USPTO Patent Center — the "Expired – Fee Related" label can indicate lapse for non-payment of a maintenance fee, which would end enforceability earlier than 2023-04-10 and further shrink any damages period; I did not independently confirm the fee-payment dates.

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Recommended next steps

• No PTAB proceedings exist to link to. The absence itself is the analysis: there is no FWD to cite and no cancellation to invoke. Do not represent to a court or adversary that claims of the '077 patent were invalidated — they were not.
• Lead with expiration and the § 286 timeline. Confirm the term expiration (2023-04-10) and the maintenance-fee record on Patent Center, then map any asserted damages period against § 286. For pre-suit conduct, also assess laches/notice and the fact that the patent was only in force ~5 years (grant 2018-03-20 to expiry 2023-04-10).
• Available invalidity lanes (no estoppel, no bar):
  • District court § 102/§ 103 — you may use anything, including the art Uber raised; there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to worry about.
  • § 101 (Alice) — this is a route-estimation/vehicle-dispatch software patent directed to long-standing location-and-dispatch concepts; on its face it is a strong § 101 candidate.
  • Ex parte reexamination (§ 302) — no time bar, no estoppel, usable even now; leverage the PATROLL/Apex Standards charting and the Traindex/Patentcloud semantic hits as a starting set (the contest expressly excluded art already cited during prosecution, so the returned art should present a fresh combination).
• If you are newly accused and want PTAB relief: an IPR is still legally available within one year of service, even on an expired patent, but weigh it against the near-certainty that only past damages are at stake. A district court motion attacking the expired-damages theory is likely the cheaper first move.
• Monitoring: confirm no recently filed, not-yet-indexed petition by checking PTAB E2E / PTAB API (https://ptacts.uspto.gov and the PTAB decisions/API at https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api/) and CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) before relying on the "zero proceedings" conclusion in any filing.

Sources cited: US 9,921,077 record — https://patents.google.com/patent/US9921077/en; Unified Patents PATROLL contest — https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/g66YnqvyyfxMLErFN; W.D. Tex. case 6:21-cv-00685 — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6:21-cv-00685; LBT IP II consolidated oral hearing transcript (IPR2022-00880 / IPR2022-00926) — PTAB record via Docket Alarm.

I'll research this patent's ownership chain across the sources you specified. Let me start with parallel searches.

Strong initial signals. Let me dig deeper into the corporate chain, the litigation pattern, and the correspondent attorneys.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 9921077 B2

Scope note / source limitation: I could access the Google Patents legal-events layer (which mirrors USPTO assignment-reel citations) and third-party NPE databases (Unified Patents, RPX), but I could not directly retrieve the USPTO Patent Assignment Center hit-list for this patent during this session. Accordingly, I can report reel/frame numbers only where they surfaced in indexed legal-event data (for the family/parent), and I flag below every point where the record is incomplete rather than filling gaps by inference. Verify all entries at the Assignment Center search page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (public search UI: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

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Inventors

Pattern note (present, mild): All four inventors assigned their rights to NIM in a single instrument executed 2003-10-31 to 2003-11-30 (reel 022823/0286) — i.e., a standard employment/joinder assignment, not a departure event. The relevant post-filing pattern is corporate, not individual: NIM was acquired by TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS) in 2010, and Michael Sheha remained as NIM CTO until 2013 (≈3 years post-acquisition, so not the "<12-month inventor exodus" tell). Angie Sheha and Petilli are repeat co-inventors across the NIM family.

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Original assignee

Two different factual answers depending on which "original" is meant — both matter here:

• Family origin (priority application, filed 2003-04-10): Networks In Motion, Inc. — an operating company. NIM was a genuine Location-Based Services vendor that shipped products embodying the technology: it powered Verizon VZNavigator, AAA Mobile, TELUS Navigator, and YellowPages.com Mobile, growing to 300+ employees with VC backing from Mission Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures. Status: acquired — by TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS) in 2010 (a "Best Exit" award, per founder bio). TCS was in turn acquired by Comtech Telecommunications Corp. in 2016.
• The face of the '077 patent: Google Patents lists Bluestone Ventures, Inc. as both "original assignee" and "current assignee" (the '077 is a 2017 continuation filed in Bluestone's name). Bluestone is not an operating company: RPX describes it as "a Virginia plaintiff describing itself as a 'patent licensing and enforcement company,'" and Unified Patents classifies it as NPE (Patent Assertion Entity).

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Assignment timeline

The chain has two segments: (A) the family-level chain recorded against the early NIM patents (reel citations surfaced via Google Patents legal events for US 7,881,730, the parent of this family), and (B) the '077-application-level event. Reel/frame for segment B is not retrieved — flagging that gap explicitly.

A. Family-level chain (records cited against the NIM parent, US 7,881,730)

• 2003-10-31 / 2003-11-30 (executed) / recorded on reel cited 2009 — Reel 022823/0286

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Michael A. Sheha; Angie Sheha; Steven Petilli; and others
  • Assignee: Networks In Motion, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (Assignment Center not reachable this session)
  • Context: original employment/joinder assignment of the priority invention to the operating company.

• ≈2009-12-15 — Reel 024516/0246

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Networks In Motion, Inc.
  • Assignee: Networks In Motion, Inc. (re-named/re-domiciled entity — exact successor name not confirmed in the retrieved text)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal corporate change of name; no change in beneficial ownership.

• 2016-02-23 — Reel 037994/0113

  • Conveyance: Assignment / merger-related (indexed with owner TeleCommunication Systems, Inc., Maryland and assignor Networks In Motion, Inc., Wisconsin)
  • Assignor: Networks In Motion, Inc. (Wisconsin)
  • Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (Maryland)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: post-acquisition corporate consolidation of the NIM entity into TCS (TCS itself was acquired by Comtech in 2016). Flagged as unresolved — I cannot confirm from the retrieved text whether this instrument is the TCS consolidation or a later Comtech-era re-record.

B. The '077 application itself

• 2017-07-22 — Assigned to BLUESTONE VENTURES INC. (per Google Patents legal events; reel/frame not retrieved)
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Michael Sheha; Angie Sheha; Stephen Petilli; Arun Yarlagadda (the four named inventors)
  • Assignee: Bluestone Ventures, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — this is exactly the field you asked me to prioritize, and I could not obtain it from the sources reachable this session. Do not treat this as "no correspondent"; treat it as an open verification item.
  • Context: transfer of the continuation family to a licensing-and-enforcement vehicle. Note the assignors are the inventors, not TCS/Comtech — meaning there is at least one unretrieved intervening instrument (TCS/Comtech → inventors, or TCS/Comtech → Bluestone) that explains how rights left the operating chain and returned to the inventors. That instrument is the single most important missing link; pull it first.

Related 2017 filing (same day): US 15/657,141 was filed 2017-07-22, the same date as the Bluestone recording — consistent with a purpose-built continuation/assignment bundle.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9921077
    2000 : Networks In Motion founded
    2003 : Inventors assign to Networks In Motion
         : Priority application filed
    2009 : Corporate change of name
    2010 : TeleCommunication Systems acquires NIM
    2016 : Comtech acquires TeleCommunication Systems
    2017 : Continuation filed and assigned to Bluestone Ventures
    2021 : Bluestone sues Uber in W D Texas
    2023 : Patent term expires

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The family moved to Bluestone Ventures, Inc. (2017-07-22 recording), an entity that does not ship products and that RPX quotes self-describing as a "patent licensing and enforcement company" (RPX, 2021-06-30). The "Ventures" suffix, Virginia formation, and pure licensing/enforcement posture match the enumerated tells. Caveat on the "shell" label: the 2017 assignors were the inventors themselves, so Bluestone reads as an inventor-affiliated enforcement vehicle, not an unrelated bulk-buyer shell. It is still a licensing-only NPE, but the "unrelated anonymous LLC" characterization would be over-claiming without the missing intervening assignment.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (moderate).
Bluestone Ventures, Inc. is not on the classic list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, etc.), but it is affirmatively classified by Unified Patents as "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)" in Bluestone Ventures Inc v. Uber Technologies Inc, 6:21-cv-00685 (W.D. Tex., filed 2021-06-28/29, before Judge Albright, terminated 2021-09-26). RPX independently logged Bluestone as a resuming patent litigant. It has also asserted against Google LLC (W.D. Tex., Dec. 12, 2025, per Law360 docket listings). Repeat-plaintiff behavior: present.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNRESOLVED from assignment records; PRESENT on the litigation side.
I could not retrieve the assignment-record correspondent (the attorney who filed the 2017 recording) — the field you flagged as most diagnostic. What is documented is recurring litigation counsel on multiple Bluestone suits: Raymond W. Mort III (Mort Law Firm, Waco TX) filed the complaint and the pro hac vice motions, and pro hac vice was granted to Ronald M. Daignault, Chandran B. Iyer, and Jason S. Charkow — the Daignault/Iyer group is a well-known patent-assertion practice. This is a litigation recurrence signal, not an assignment-correspondent recurrence, and I am labeling it accordingly rather than conflating the two.

4. Cascading transfers — WEAK / UNCLEAR.
The family shows serial corporate hand-offs (NIM → name change → TCS → Comtech era) and a 2017 move to Bluestone, but these span 2003–2017, not a sub-24-month cascade, and the intermediate NIM→TCS→Comtech steps are ordinary M&A consolidation. No evidence retrieved of closely spaced chained LLCs sharing a correspondent address. Not scored as a strong finding.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (with a caveat).
The Bluestone recording (2017-07-22) precedes the first Uber assertion (2021-06-28) by ~4 years — well outside the 6-month window. However, the 2017 continuation/assignment bundle was clearly assembled years in advance of a coordinated 2021 assertion campaign; that is planning, not a last-minute pre-suit transfer. Scored not present on the literal signal.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
The operating-chain exits were acquisitions (NIM→TCS 2010; TCS→Comtech 2016), not Chapter 7/11 proceedings. No bankruptcy docket surfaced.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The origin is an operating company (NIM), and the family later lands at an enforcement entity — the shape is privateering-like. But there is no evidence Comtech is directing or benefiting from Bluestone's suits; Bluestone's ties appear to run to the inventors (Sheha), not to Comtech. Do not assert privateering without the missing intervening assignment and any Comtech→Bluestone purchase/back-license terms.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
Chain terminates at an active plaintiff, not at RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN. The patent is not neutralized. (Also note the legal status is "Expired – Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2023-04-10, which explains the absence of post-2023 assertions.)

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Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals are documented: (a) the family was moved to Bluestone Ventures, Inc. on 2017-07-22, an entity with no products that self-describes as a "patent licensing and enforcement company" (RPX, 2021-06-30), and (b) Bluestone is classified by Unified Patents as an NPE/Patent Assertion Entity and has repeatedly asserted this family — Bluestone v. Uber, 6:21-cv-00685 (W.D. Tex., filed 2021-06-28, terminated 2021-09-26), and Bluestone v. Google (W.D. Tex., 2025). I stop short of asserting "unrelated shell" or "privateering," because the 2017 assignors were the named inventors and the instrument that moved rights out of the TCS/Comtech chain back to the inventors is not in the retrieved record — recover that instrument, plus the Assignment Center correspondent for the 2017 recording, before treating the shell/privateering labels as proven.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 9921077, then re-run on the parent 7,881,730 to reconcile the reels cited above.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 9,921,077, focusing on the references cited on the face of the patent and in the prosecution history.

Let me pull the actual cited references from the patent's face and prosecution history.

Let me retrieve the full prior-art report and the patent's own citation list.

I've hit my research-step limit, so below is my best analysis grounded strictly in what I retrieved. I want to be transparent up front about two constraints.

Patent identity confirmation (literal)

Note on identifiers: Search results surfaced several near-miss matches I am not treating as the patent — e.g., WO9921077 (PCT/US1999/021077, "bee venom protein," and separately Gateway 2000's WO 99/21077). These are different documents that merely share a number string. I have excluded them.

Two important caveats (please read)

1. I could not retrieve the verbatim "References Cited" list printed on the face of US 9,921,077. Google Patents' rendering of this continuation did not expose the citation section in the fetched content. Continuations often add few/no new face citations, so the operative art of record largely lives in the parent's file history — US 7,565,155 (app. 10/410,740, filed 2003-04-10), from which this patent descends.
2. I could not retrieve the verbatim issued claim language in this session (the full text you supplied ends mid-specification, before the claims). The claim mapping below is therefore provisional, based on the specification's FIG. 25–26 dispatch embodiment and the published characterization of claim 1 (Unified Patents: the '077 patent "relates to… enabling mobile devices to send location updates to a receiving device for use in vehicle dispatch applications"). Any §102 mapping must be verified element-by-element against the actual issued claims.

Most relevant prior art (best-available ranked leads)

The strongest ranked source I found is the Limestone validity report prepared specifically for US 9,921,077 under Unified Patents' PATROLL contest no. g66YnqvyyfxMLErFN (contest opened 2021-07-21; noted the patent was "currently being asserted against Uber in the Western District of Texas"). The candidates below are from that report's ranked preview. Note the contest's own rule — "PRIOR ART THAT HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY CITED DURING PROSECUTION WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED" — meaning these are non-of-record leads, not the examiner's cited art.

Analytical take

• Strongest standalone (§102) candidates: US 6,356,838 (dispatch + efficient route) and US 5,636,122 (vehicle tracking + computer-aided dispatch) most closely map onto the FIG. 25–26 "closest vehicle to pickup location" embodiment that Uber was accused of infringing. US 6,606,557 is the most on-point conceptually (dispatch response-time via estimating arrival), but its 2003 publication is post-priority, so it is only available under pre-AIA §102(e) as a U.S. filing, not §102(a)/(b).
• §102(e) timing note: Because the effective priority date is 2002-04-10, only references published or filed before that date qualify under §102(a)/(b); later-published U.S. applications/patents (e.g., EP 1 481 221, US 6,606,557, US 7,085,775) require §102(e) analysis.
• Caveat on "anticipation": none of these references was cited by the examiner of record (per the contest rule), and I have not performed a full element-by-element limitation chart against the issued claims. Treat the §102 column as hypotheses to test, not conclusions.

What I could not verify

• The exact face citations of US 9,921,077 and of parent US 7,565,155 (USPTO PatentCenter/PatFT text).
• The verbatim claim set, and therefore precise §102 mapping.
• Whether any of the ranked references were already of record in the family (which would drop them from a validity challenge).

For a definitive answer, a direct USPTO PatentCenter pull of application 15/657,141 and its parent 10/410,740 is needed to get the authoritative "References Cited" and claim text.

Sources

• US 9,921,077 B2 (Google Patents): https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9921077B2](/patent/US9921077B2)
• US 7,565,155 B2 (parent, Google Patents): https://patents.google.com/patent/US7565155
• Unified Patents PATROLL contest (Bluestone Ventures – US 9,921,077): http://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/g66YnqvyyfxMLErFN
• Limestone validity report for US 9,921,077: http://s3.amazonaws.com/report.limestoneip.com/_uL7qYQyw5N6q2rUx5Ejql.basic.html
• Apex Standards invalidity chart set: https://apexstandards.com/pcc/US9921077B2_invalidity/

If you can supply the issued claim text (or authorize a PatentCenter/PatFT pull), I can convert the ranked list above into a proper limitation-by-limitation §102 chart.

I'll start by checking whether the source page actually contains a "Prior Art" section, then pull the cited references for US 9,921,077 and the PATROLL contest art.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,921,077 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Read-me-first: what the supplied page does and does not contain as "prior art"

I want to be precise here, because it affects how the rest of this analysis is grounded.

• The authoritative full text you supplied contains no enumerated "Prior Art" citation section (no "References Cited" list, no examiner-cited art). What it does contain is (a) the Google Patents "Prior art keywords" field — location; transportation; route; pickup location; mobile device — which reflects the examiner's field of search, and (b) the "Definitions" panel, which lists the eight family/priority documents incorporated by reference (10/410,740 → 7,565,155; 12/484,091 → 7,881,730; 12/929,458 → 8,095,152; 13/346,265 → 8,577,390; 14/067,415 → 9,354,069; 14/997,521 → 9,607,346; 15/435,283; and provisional 60/371,941). Family members are not prior art to one another, so (b) is not usable art.
• The usable prior-art leads below come from the PATROLL contest record and the Limestone validity report that the contest page links to, which I retrieved by search. The PATROLL page expressly states the operative rule: "PRIOR ART THAT HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY CITED DURING PROSECUTION WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED" — i.e., Unified Patents' position was that the best art against claim 1 is art the examiner never saw. (PATROLL contest; Unified Patents announcement)
• I could not retrieve the Apex Standards claim charts (apexstandards.com/pcc/US9921077B2_invalidity/), the Amplified list, or the Traindex list — search output truncated them. I also could not retrieve the PATROLL "Known References" enumeration beyond the Limestone preview table. The specific references Apex charted are unknown to me. Do not treat the grounds below as the PATROLL/Apex grounds; they are my own analysis.

Cite the two previously generated sections where they matter: the litigation section established that the only asserted claims in Bluestone v. Uber were those of the '077 and '583 patents and that the case closed 2021‑09‑26; the summary section established that claim 1's granted text (per RPX Insight) is a ride‑hailing/dispatch ranking claim. That claim framing drives everything below.

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1. Threshold issues that dominate any § 103 analysis

1.1 Effective filing date — this is the whole ballgame

The '077 patent is a continuation of a chain running back to 10/410,740, filed 2003‑04‑10, which claims provisional 60/371,941 (2002‑04‑10). The face of the patent states priority date 2002‑04‑10 and notes that this is "an assumption and is not a legal conclusion."

Two consequences:

1. If 2002‑04‑10 holds (pre‑AIA regime): prior art must predate 2002‑04‑10, and pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e) govern. Every reference in § 3 below qualifies.
2. If the 2002/2003 priority claim fails for claim 1 — which is a live question, see § 1.2 — then the effective filing date is the actual filing date of 15/657,141, 2017‑07‑22, and the AIA § 102/§ 103 regime applies. Under that regime the entire smartphone ride‑hailing corpus (2010–2017) becomes § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art, and claim 1 becomes very close to per se obvious.

I flag this as a contradiction to resolve rather than a settled point: the patent's own summary of the invention describes "route preferences," "snapping," "predictive routing," and a route planner, whereas the claim-1 subject matter is transportation-provider dispatch ranking. The specification does support dispatch generally (FIGS. 25–26; "pick‑up location" 2501; the "satellite/central point" passage), but the claim uses terminology — "transportation provider mobile devices," "customer mobile device," "pickup location" — that does not appear verbatim in the specification text I was given (which uses "mobile devices," "pick‑up location," "customer's location," "dispatch software application," "cab," "passengers"). Whether that is a written-description failure or merely different labelling of the same disclosed subject matter cannot be resolved without the prosecution history and the as-filed 2002/2003 papers. Practitioners should plead the priority defect in the alternative; it is the highest-leverage attack available.

1.2 Claim construction points that affect every ground

From the claim-1 text as previously quoted:

• "distance between the transportation provider and the pickup location" — is this straight-line (LOS) distance or route/network distance? The patent's own specification supplies the answer's context, and it is devastating, see § 1.3.
• "estimated time of arrival" — the claim requires both distance and ETA to be determined, but the sorting step uses "at least one of" the two. The claim therefore reaches a distance-only ranking.
• "causing a display … to enable a selection from the sorted listing" and "selecting … based on the selection" — if these are construed to cover automatic machine selection rather than a human tap, the claim reads even more directly on classical computer-aided dispatch (CAD), where the dispatcher's console lists candidate vehicles and the system assigns one.
• IPR-style note: the "sorted listing" and "selection" limitations are the only meaningful candidates for a non-obviousness argument. Everything else is avionics-era AVL/CAD. See § 5.

1.3 The patent's own admission of the prior art

The specification states that route-based ranking "significantly improv[es] the sorting calculation and decision process when compared to Line‑Of‑Sight (LOS) distance calculations which are currently used in the prior art."

This is a binding admission that: (i) ranking a plurality of candidate vehicles against a destination by "closest" was known; and (ii) the patent's asserted delta is only the substitution of route distance/travel time for straight-line distance. As § 4 shows, that exact substitution is the express teaching of the primary reference. An admission of this kind converts the § 103 inquiry from "did anyone think of ranking vehicles?" (yes, conceded) to "would it have been obvious to rank by route/travel time instead of LOS distance?" — a question the prior art answers in the affirmative, in the same words.

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2. Claim 1 as issued, decomposed

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3. Candidate prior art (as surfaced in the PATROLL-linked Limestone validity report)

The Limestone Report: US‑9921077‑B2 preview returned these references (title / assignee / priority as published in the report) — each rated "●●●●● / Great" search efficiency:

⚠ Caveat on EP 1 481 221 A2 (and any Networks In Motion document): Networks In Motion was founded by inventor Michael Sheha, who is a named inventor on the '077 patent. If EP 1 481 221 A2 names Sheha (or otherwise shares inventorship), it is not "by another" under pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(e) and must not be relied on as prior art absent a § 103(c)/common-ownership analysis. I did not verify its inventorship and cannot resolve this. Verify inventorship before citing it. The Limestone report is an automated tool; it does not perform inventorship screening.

Also note: I verified the substantive content of US 6,606,557 from the retrieved Google Patents text; the other references are described from their titles/metadata plus my background knowledge and should be pulled and read directly before any filing. Confidence is marked per reference in § 4.

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4. Primary ground: US 6,606,557 alone or in view of US 5,636,122 / US 5,758,313 and EP 0 808 492 A1

US 6,606,557 (Motorola, "Method for improving dispatch response time") — verified text from the retrieved record:

• Limitation A: "determining a geographical location of each dispatch resource of a plurality of dispatch resources."
• Limitation B: "a user interface that displays a map of the local area and the destination requested or assigned."
• Limitations D/E — and the patent's own admitted point of novelty: "One method for improving dispatch time is to choose the closest dispatch assignment from a plurality of dispatch resources, to the service destination. This may be the simplest approach however this does not take into account several factors. Highway congestion and the location of the dispatch resources can have a significant effect on the travel time… For example a dispatch resource may be located on slow moving back roads which will hinder response time… as opposed to a dispatch resource which may be further away but nonetheless, located on a fast moving highway and have a much quicker response time. Therefore an improved method for dispatching is required."
• It further discloses computing travel time along a route accounting for congestion, construction, events, "bad parts of town," toll-avoidance preferences — i.e., route-based distance/time ranking over a road network, which is exactly the improvement the '077 specification asserts over "LOS distance calculations … currently used in the prior art."
• Status as art: filed 2001‑12‑07 → pre‑AIA § 102(e) art as of its filing date against a 2002‑04‑10 application; trivially § 102(a)(1) art if the AIA regime applies.

US 5,636,122 and US 5,758,313 (Mobile Information Systems) supply the architecture the claim recites: a fleet of mobile units each carrying a GPS receiver and a wireless transmitter that send discrete, time-stamped location updates over a wireless network to a central dispatch computer, which displays the vehicles' locations on a map and performs computer-aided dispatch. These are § 102(b) art (granted 1997 and 1998, well over a year before 2002‑04‑10). Confidence: high on general content; verify the specific passages.

EP 0 808 492 A1 (HighwayMaster) supplies explicit ETA determination from a vehicle's current position along a network — the ETA limb of limitation D and the second alternative metric in limitation E. § 102(b) art (published 1997‑11‑26).

Mapping table (Ground 1)

Motivation to combine (Ground 1)

The Motorola reference states the motivation in its own text: choosing the "closest" resource is insufficient because travel time depends on the road network, so an improved dispatch method is required. Combining it with the AVL/CAD telemetry-and-map architecture of 5,636,122/5,758,313 and the ETA computation of EP 0 808 492 A1:

• is a combination of references in the same field of endeavor (vehicle location, dispatch, and route guidance);
• addresses the same problem the '077 patent addresses (which of several vehicles should be sent, and how long will it take);
• produces only predictable, expected results — a ranked list of vehicles is the natural output of a metric computation over a plurality, and displaying it to a dispatcher is the raison d'être of a CAD console;
• involves known techniques combined in a known way, i.e., the KSR fact pattern (pervasive market/design incentive, predictable variation, and the patent's own admission that the improvement is a substitution of route-based metrics for LOS distance).

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5. Ground 2: add US 6,356,838 B1 (SC Innovations) for the customer-initiated request

US 6,356,838 B1, "System and method for determining an efficient transportation route," granted 2002‑03‑12 (priority 2000‑07‑25) — § 102(a)/(e) art (granted within the year before 2002‑04‑10; usable as of its 2000 priority date if the pre-AIA regime applies). Confidence: medium — I did not retrieve the text; verify.

On its face and from its title/field, this reference is directed to a user requesting transportation to a specified point and the system computing an efficient route and dispatching a vehicle for that user — supplying the claim-1 limitations that Ground 1 handles least comfortably:

• C: the request originates from a remote/user device and identifies a pickup location;
• F/E: the system presents candidate transportation options/vehicles to the requester for selection;
• G: the system assigns/selects the vehicle to serve the requester.

Motivation: SC Innovations is in the identical field (on-demand vehicle dispatch and route determination); combining its user-initiated request-and-select front end with Motorola's dispatch-response-time ranking back end is the obvious union of the two halves of a single, well-understood business process — a customer asks for a ride, and the operator picks the vehicle that will arrive soonest. There is no teaching away, no change in principle of operation, and nothing more than the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" (KSR).

If EP 1 384 218 B1 ("Transportation information system using a communication network," priority 2000‑08‑10) is verified as disclosing a networked transportation information/dispatch system serving remote requests, it can substitute for or supplement 6,356,838 on limitations C and F.

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6. Ground 3: the "sorted listing displayed for selection" limitation specifically

This is the only limitation family with plausible non-obviousness traction, so it deserves a dedicated ground. Candidate art:

1. US 7,085,775 B2 — "Database method and system for conducting integrated dispatching" (priority 1997‑04‑…, truncated in the report). An integrated dispatching database system would naturally store candidate resources, compute a metric per resource, and present an ordered candidate list to a dispatcher. Confidence: low-medium — verify the truncated date and content.
2. EP 1 271 103 B1 (Pioneer) — server-side navigation with destination prediction, which supports the notion of server-side computation and ordering of candidate destinations/routes for presentation.
3. EP 0 808 492 A1 — ordering by ETA, i.e., a sorted listing keyed on arrival time.

Motivation/legal rationale: Ordering a set of computed values is the elementary function of any tabular or list UI; KSR expressly sanctions "the mere application of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results." Moreover, under the claim's own disjunctive "at least one of the determined distances … and the determined estimated times of arrival," the sorting limitation is met by a distance-only list — which is the very LOS/"closest vehicle" ranking the specification admits was already "used in the prior art." A claim limitation that reads on admitted prior art cannot supply non-obviousness.

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7. Dependent claims

I could not verify the dependent claim set (only claim 1's text was retrievable — see the prior summary section's uncertainty #1). However, Google Patents' indexed claim terms for US 9,921,077 B2 include "fuel usage" ("… fuel usage … claims description 10"), which corresponds to the FIG. 26 metric 2606 ("fuel usage 0.6/0.5 gallons") and the "satellite/central point" ranking passage. If a dependent claim recites ranking additionally by fuel consumption or cost:

• US 6,606,557 already computes route/travel-time metrics and expressly contemplates route-preference factors (tolls, "bad parts of town," road type), and the '077 specification itself lists fuel usage as one of the "ordering calculation metrics."
• Ranking by an additional, explicitly enumerated cost metric is a predictable design choice among a finite set of known metrics — classic KSR obviousness, and independently obvious over the specification's own listing.

Any dependent claim reciting specific route preferences (driving speeds, fastest vs. shortest, avoid highways/toll roads) is met or rendered obvious by the route-guidance references in § 3 (EP 1 128 163 B1; EP 1 271 103 B1) combined with the dispatch references.

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8. Where the patent might survive (and why I rate those arguments weak)

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9. Confidence, gaps, and next steps

High confidence: claim 1's substance is a classic CAD/dispatch workflow; that US 6,606,557 identifies and solves the same problem in the same words the '077 specification uses to describe the prior art; that the "sorted listing" limitation is the weakest link in the claim.

Medium confidence: the precise content of US 6,356,838, US 5,636,122, US 5,758,313, US 7,085,775, and the EP references — I did not retrieve their texts; I describe them from titles/metadata plus background knowledge.

Explicitly unresolved (do not treat as verified):

1. Whether the PATROLL/Apex claim charts used any of the references in § 3 — I could not retrieve them. The contest's stated rule (exclude prosecution-cited art) means the winning art, if any, is likely a reference I have not listed.
2. The priority-date/written-description question in § 1.1 — the single most consequential issue, because a broken priority chain both (a) triggers AIA § 102 and (b) opens 2003–2017 art (including the defendants' own product literature and the ride-hailing patent corpus).
3. Inventorship of EP 1 481 221 A2 relative to Michael Sheha — if shared, it is not prior art.
4. The full claim set, and whether RPX's claim-1 text matches the granted text (no Certificate of Correction / PatentCenter diff performed).

Recommended next steps: (i) pull the PatentCenter full-text image for 15/657,141 and diff claim 1 against the RPX text; (ii) pull the apexstandards.com/pcc/US9921077B2_invalidity/ charts and the full Limestone report (s3.amazonaws.com/report.limestoneip.com/n-bvIvSsJ9r5M1XBrABaSi.full.html); (iii) chart US 6,606,557 against claim 1 element-by-element from its actual columns; (iv) verify inventorship on every Networks In Motion/Sheha-family document before citing it.

Sources

• US 9,921,077 B2 full text (supplied): https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9921077B2](/patent/US9921077B2)/en
• PATROLL contest: http://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/g66YnqvyyfxMLErFN
• Unified Patents announcement: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/8/13/2000-for-bluestone-ventures-prior-art
• Limestone validity report preview: http://s3.amazonaws.com/report.limestoneip.com/_uL7qYQyw5N6q2rUx5Ejql.basic.html
• US 6,606,557 B2: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6606557
• Complaint, Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 6:21‑cv‑00685 (W.D. Tex.): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/6--21-cv-00685/Bluestone_Ventures_Inc._v._Uber_Technologies_Inc/docs/1.pdf