Invalidity dossier
US 9981673
Added 10/23/2026, 12:01:12 AM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US 9981673 B2
Title: System and Method for Monitoring Railcar Performance
Patent number: US 9981673 B2 (application US 15/158,018)
Assignee: Amsted Rail Co Inc (original assignee; assignment to AMSTED RAIL COMPANY, INC. recorded 2017-05-31)
Inventors: Andrew H. Martin, William D. LeFebvre, Brent M. Wilson
Key dates: Priority date 2010-08-23 (claimed from US 12/861,713); application filed 2016-05-18; application published as US 20170050651A1 on 2017-02-23; patent granted/publication 2018-05-29; anticipated expiration 2030-08-23.
Purpose: According to the supplied text, the invention "relates to a real-time monitoring and analysis system for railcars, and, more particularly, to a system that gathers data regarding various operating parameters and conditions from remote sensors and applies heuristics to analyze the data to detect and/or predict operational failures." The stated objective is "providing means for monitoring the output from a variety of sensors attached to a railcar and determining the behavior and condition of the railcar and its various components based on an analysis of this data," thereby giving operators and owners "regular assurance of proper performance and condition as well as necessary warnings of impending or actual failure."
Plain-language scope (from the text): The patent describes collecting sensor data from railcars and applying rule-based analysis ("heuristics") to spot failures or trends. The background expressly addresses shortcomings in then-current systems: the inability to apply heuristics to data from more than one sensor, to detect deviations from nominal operating parameters, to apply heuristics "at multiple levels, for example, at the individual sensor level, at the railcar level, and at the train level," and to let sensors reliably communicate data to a central facility over a wireless infrastructure "that has multiple redundancies and which allows communication of data between individual sensors." The text also notes "Specific uses for monitoring temperatures on a railcar." Classification data is consistent with railcar monitoring (e.g., B61K9/04 overheating axle-bearing detectors and B60T17/228 brake-system monitoring for railway vehicles).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9981673/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It provides no actual claim language, so the enforceable scope cannot be determined. It gives no summary of the specification's embodiments, no drawing descriptions, and no indication of preferred components (sensor types, communications protocols, or analysis algorithms). It does not establish what the claims cover or how they differ from the patent's own background discussion.
I did not research litigation, ownership transfers, validity, or prior art, per instruction.
Generated 10/23/2026, 12:10:49 AM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.