US 10190903

I'll search for the specific patent number and any litigation-related information.

Let me check for litigation, PTAB proceedings, and verify the granted claim text.

US Patent 10,190,903 — Analyst Summary

1. Bibliographic record

Related family item (same inventor, same filing date): U.S. Design Patent D820,944, "Digital fishing net scale" (app. 29/606,714, filed 2017‑06‑07, issued 2018‑06‑19).

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"The present invention generally relates to digital fishing net scales to determine the weight of a catch in the fishing net and to automatically record the weight. The present invention also relates to a system and method of automatically determining and recording the weight of a catch and catch related data, and to a system and method of generating fishing hotspot information. In particular, the present invention relates to digital scales that are communicatively connected to a system comprising a data store for automatically storing the weight of each catch/fish, and optionally for automatically storing related data. Related data may include catch related data originating from the digital fishing net scale or hotspot related data originating from devices/data stores operably connected to the hotspot system; illustrative examples include location, time, date, lunar phase, air temperature, water temperature, water depth, water salinity, weather conditions, species of fish, fish activity, and/or comments of a user. Further the present invention provides a system for generating fishing hotspot information that includes a digital fishing net scale, and methods that generate fishing hotspot information by determining and correlating weight data, optional catch related data, and hotspot related data with their corresponding location data."

3. Independent claims in plain language

The patent has four independent claims: claims 1 (apparatus), 13 (method — weighing), 18 (method — hotspot generation), and 19 (system — hotspot generation). Claims 2–12 depend from claim 1; claims 14–17 depend from claim 13.

Claim 1 — Digital fishing net scale (apparatus).
The physical assembly is a hoop + mesh net (to hold a fish) + handle, with a digital scale carried in a housing on the handle. The hoop, handle and the joint between them must be strong/stiff enough to support the net loaded with a fish. The digital scale must contain non‑volatile memory storing executable code plus a processor, memory, a measuring component (e.g., load cell), a weighing module, a display, a data storage component, and a communication component. The components must be operably connected and configured to: (a) measure the weight of a fish in the net over an amount of time (i.e., a time‑based sampling window, not a single instantaneous reading); (b) produce a number value in a unit, from either the measurement(s) or an average of them; (c) show the number value and unit on the display; (d) store the number value/unit and optional catch-related (and, per third‑party claim listings, optional hotspot-related) data until upload; and (e) upload them via the communication component to an external data store.

Claim 13 — Computer-implemented method of determining weight in the described net-scale.
Recites the same hardware context as claim 1 (hoop, net, handle, digital scale in a housing on the handle, strength/rigidity of the connection, and the same set of scale components), then claims the corresponding automated steps: automatically measuring a number value for the weight of a fish in the net over an amount of time (yielding one or more weight measurements); automatically providing a number value/unit from the measurement(s) or an average; automatically showing it on the display; automatically storing it until upload; and automatically uploading it to an external data store via the communication component.

Claim 18 — Computer-implemented method for generating fishing hotspot information.
A data-aggregation claim rather than a hardware claim. Based on "a plurality of sources for hotspot related data," where the data comprises at minimum weight and location, and optionally time, date, lunar phase, air/water temperature, water depth, fish activity, number of fish caught, water salinity, weather conditions, species, and user comments — with the data determined at the time the weight of a catch is determined by the digital scale. The steps are: receiving weight data of a catch at a remote computing system; receiving location data for the caught fish at that remote system; and correlating data across a plurality of catches to generate fishing hotspot information.

Claim 19 — System for providing fishing hotspot information.
A system-level counterpart to claim 18. Data sources comprise weight and location (plus the same optional parameters). The system includes computer-executable code in non-volatile memory, a processor, memory, a display, a data storage component, a digital fishing net scale, and a communication component, plus one or more of a time piece, thermometer, sonar, conductivity sensor, weather module, image sensor, camera, microphone, and a data-store data source. The operably connected system components: receive weight data and location data of a catch at a remote computing system, and correlate data from a plurality of catches to generate fishing hotspot information.

Notable dependent-claim subject matter (for context): folding handle via connecting pin (cl. 2); outlier detection/removal then averaging (cl. 3); onboard/communicated sensors—GPS, time piece, thermometer, conductivity sensor, camera + object detection, microphone + voice recognition, weather module (cl. 4–9); automatic display adjustment (brightness/contrast/gamma/color) using time‑of‑day and weather, with lighting presets such as bright day, overcast, dawn, dusk, night, and connection to time piece/weather module/camera/image sensor (cl. 10–12).

4. Litigation / CAFC docket search

I searched for the precise number 10190903 and for combinations with "CAFC," "docket," and "litigation."

• No CAFC (or other federal court) docket entry, PTAB proceeding, or ITC action referencing this patent was found. I have no authoritative basis to report any litigation involving US 10,190,903.
• The litigation-flavored hits returned were false positives from an unrelated individual named Lebedev (Leonid Lebedev, New York Supreme Court actions Lebedev v. Blavatnik/Vekselberg and Magomedov v. Lebedev concerning Russian oil assets). These have nothing to do with the inventor Alexander Lebedev or this patent, and I did not treat them as relevant.
• A Google Patents classification entry showing "Current U.S. Class: Intelligence Comparison For Controlling (340/5.1)" appears to be a classification artifact rather than a substantive technical classification.
• Because full-text access to USPTO PatentCenter/Assignment records and the CAFC opinion databases was not directly available in this session, my litigation/assignment conclusion is a negative search result, not a certification. Treat it as "nothing found," with the caveat that a docket-level negative cannot be proven from web searching alone.

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. Claim 1 wording discrepancy. The authoritative patent text you supplied renders the storing step as "store the number value and its unit, and optional catch related data, at least until it is uploaded," and the uploading step as uploading the number value "and optional catch related data." Third-party claim databases (Justia, Patents‑Review) render claim 1 as "store the number value and its unit, optional catch related data, and optional hotspot related data…" and upload "the number value, optional related data, and optional hotspot related data." These are substantively different in scope (presence/absence of "hotspot related data"). I followed your instruction to treat the supplied full text as authoritative for the summary of the invention, but I flag that the granted claim text should be verified against the USPTO PatentCenter "Claims" view before relying on the exact wording.
2. Assignee. The face of the document lists the original assignee as "Individual." I found no corporate assignment (e.g., to a fishing-electronics company) in this session; an assignment-based search of the USPTO Assignment database was not completed.
3. Legal status. Google Patents shows "Expired – Fee Related" together with a "2037‑10‑13" adjusted-expiration entry. Those two entries are in some tension: the earlier date is consistent with lapse for non‑payment of a maintenance fee well before nominal expiry, while 2037‑10‑13 reflects the term as extended. I report both as listed and cannot reconcile them without the official maintenance‑fee record.
4. The specification references and incorporates by reference U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,934,318 and 9,360,553 (Reelsonar iBobber sonar). I have not verified those numbers' contents here. Note that the related hotspot‑generation disclosures also appear in the Reelsonar family (e.g., US 9,383,444, "System and method for finding fish using a sonar fishing float…"), which is relevant prior art context for claims 18–19.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 10,190,903. Let me run several targeted searches.

The initial searches returned nothing relevant. Let me run additional targeted queries to be thorough.

Litigation Search: US Patent 10,190,903

No litigation involving US Patent 10,190,903 was identified.

Search Conducted

I searched for the specific patent number 10,190,903 across multiple queries targeting litigation databases (Unified Patents litigation portal, PTAB/PTActs documents, court filings, and general patent-litigation coverage), including:

• US Patent 10190903 litigation
• "10190903" patent lawsuit defendant
• "10,190,903" patent infringement case
• "10190903" AND ("v." OR "Civil Action" OR "complaint") patent
• Alexander Lebedev patent 10190903 lawsuit
• US10190903B2 infringement litigation district court
• site:portal.unifiedpatents.com 10190903

Findings

• Hits containing the string "10190903" were false positives and unrelated to the patent. The only matches were:

  • A Brazilian corporate registry filing (JUCIS-RS) referencing a company registration number "10190903" (Guardian Segurança e Treinamento Ltda).
  • Statistical/aggregate patent-litigation reports in which "10,190,903" does not appear as a patent-in-suit. For example, one result elsewhere contained "10,129,590" and "10,176,848" — different patent numbers that the strict rule requires me to treat as distinct from the '903 patent, not as matches.

• No complaint, district court case, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), CAFC appeal, ITC action, or assignment/enforcement record was returned for US 10,190,903 in any of the searches.

Context on the Patent

For completeness (from the authoritative patent text, not from litigation records):

• Patent: US 10,190,903 B2 — "Digital fishing net scale configured for integration into a hotspot system"
• Inventor / Original & Current Assignee: Alexander Lebedev; listed assignee is Individual (i.e., no corporate assignee recorded)
• Application No.: US 15/616,040
• Priority/Filing Date: 2017-06-07
• Grant Date: 2019-01-29
• Legal Status: Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2037-10-13)

The individual-ownership and fee-related-lapse status are consistent with a patent that does not appear to have been asserted in litigation.

Important Caveats

The above reflects the search results available to me and should not be treated as a definitive negative. Specifically:

1. I could not directly query PACER, Docket Navigator, Unified Patents' full litigation caselist, or Lex Machina's case-level records — the searches returned no direct case lookups for this number. Absence from these search results is not proof of absence of litigation.
2. Verify directly in authoritative dockets before relying on this: PACER (pacer.uscourts.gov), the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), the USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records, and the PTAB (PTActs) for any IPR/PGR.
3. Per your instruction, I have not auto-corrected or substituted any patent number. US 10,190,903 is a specific, validly issued patent, and no similar-numbered patents (e.g., in the 10,1xx,xxx or 10,19x,xxx ranges) should be substituted for it.

Bottom line: On the evidence gathered, no litigation is known for US Patent 10,190,903. Treat this as "none found in the sources searched," and confirm via PACER/Unified Patents for a definitive record.

Proceedings overview

One proceeding on file — actually, zero. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block you supplied is the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list, and it returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 10,190,903. The patent is a single-inventor, individually-assigned utility patent (inventor Alexander Lebedev, original and current assignee "Individual"), filed 2017-06-07 as application 15/616,040, granted 2019-01-29, and now Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2037-10-13). The bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant is therefore not "hardened by surviving IPRs" — it is that no petitioner has ever challenged these claims at the PTAB, so there is no claim-level invalidation, no FWD, and no estoppel to exploit. Absence of AIA activity is a weak signal here only because the patent appears to be individually held and (per the fee-related lapse) not actively maintained — not because it was validated in adversarial proceedings.

Let me run the searches before finalizing, since I should not rely on the ODP negative alone.

PTAB proceedings — US 10,190,903

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The structured USPTO ODP block is canonical and returns none, and targeted web searching surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM involving US 10,190,903 (no IPR2025-xxxxx / PGRxxxx hits, no Unified Patents challenge, no Federal Circuit appeal). There is therefore nothing to describe at claim level — no canceled claims, no sustained claims, no FWD, no settlement, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel. Defensive posture: you cannot build an IPR-estoppel argument here, because no one has ever run an AIA trial against this patent. What you do have is a patent that is Expired – Fee Related and individually held, which materially changes the practical risk calculus (see below) — but that is a maintenance-fee and ownership fact, not a PTAB outcome.

Verification trail (all negative):

• USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents legal-status block: no trial-proceeding entries; status "Expired - Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2037-10-13. https://patents.google.com/patent/US10190903/en
• Web search for "10,190,903" IPR petition PTAB, US 10190903 PTAB inter partes review, and litigation/appeal queries returned no AIA trial or Federal Circuit proceeding.

There are no per-proceeding sections to write because no proceeding exists. For completeness, here is the closest adjacent signal, which is not a PTAB matter:

(No proceeding number — outside PTAB jurisdiction) Tomelleri v. Lebedev / ReelSonar

• Type: Not an AIA trial. This is a Copyright Claims Board (CCB) proceeding (docket document hosted at dockets.ccb.gov) involving fish-illustration artwork allegedly used in a ReelSonar app; it concerns the inventor's former company, not US 10,190,903.
• Relevance to a patent defendant: None for invalidity/estoppel. It is a useful ownership datapoint only — inventor Alexander Lebedev states he was "founder and former operator of ReelSonar, Inc.," that "ReelSonar has since ceased operations and has been voluntarily dissolved," and that the associated app is discontinued (witness statement dated 2026-06-24). That corroborates the "individual assignee / dormant-entity" profile shown in the ODP data. Source: https://dockets.ccb.gov/document/download/19978

Strategic summary

Claim status: every claim of US 10,190,903 is UNTESTED at the PTAB — no claim is canceled, none is confirmed, none has been narrowed by certificate. The patent issued with the claims as granted from application 15/616,040 and has never been through an institution decision. That means if you are a defendant, you face the full, un-narrowed claim set, and there is no FWD you can cite to argue any claim is dead. Any demand letter citing these claims cannot be blunted with a PTAB outcome, because none exists.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is not triggered by anyone, since no IPR/PGR reached final written decision. Practically, this cuts in the defendant's favor: all § 102/§ 103 printed-publication grounds remain fully available to you in district court, subject only to the ordinary IPR-filing window and § 315(b) one-year bar if you want to file your own petition. The prior art already cited on the family (see the related design patent D820944, which lists Bond US 8,431,838 "Fishing net with integral weight scale," Abel US 6,615,532, Campbell US 6,094,996, Whitehurst US 4,631,851, and Robbins US 3,223,189) is a reasonable starting bench for a § 103 challenge. Source: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/D820944.html

Pattern signals: the classic "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" heuristic does not apply cleanly here. There is no assertion campaign on record, no serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents trace), and the patent is marked Expired – Fee Related with the patent owner's operating company dissolved. The dominant risk factor is therefore not PTAB exposure but the patent's maintenance status and standing — an expired patent can still support past-damages claims for the covered period, but the owner's dissolved-entity posture and the absence of any enforcement history make aggressive assertion less likely. Note the two family members share the 2017-06-07 filing date (US 10,190,903 and design D820944), so watch for any continuation/divisional in the same chain that could be asserted even if the '903 is lapsed.

Recommended next steps

• No PTAB activity exists. State plainly: there is no FWD, no institution decision, and no CAFC appeal for US 10,190,903 — verified against the ODP structured block and web search as of 2026-09-29.
• Confirm live status before relying on it. Re-pull USPTO PatentCenter to verify the "Expired – Fee Related" status and whether a petition to revive has been filed; fee-related lapse is revivable under 35 U.S.C. § 41(c) / 37 C.F.R. § 1.137, so do not assume the patent is permanently unenforceable without a fresh check.
• If you are a defendant and want a PTAB route: you are free to file an IPR (printed publications, § 102/§ 103 only). No § 315(b) time bar has run absent prior service in a district-court action on this patent (none found); the § 315(b) one-year clock starts only on service of a complaint alleging infringement.
• If you are evaluating a demand letter: the absence of PTAB history means you cannot cite a claim-invalidating decision. Build your defense on the prior art above, on the expired/lapsed-maintenance and dissolved-owner facts, and on § 285 if assertion is pursued against an expired patent by a non-operating entity.
• If no assertion materializes: the absence of IPRs is itself consistent with a dormant, individually held patent — treat ongoing enforcement risk as low, but re-check ownership (USPTO Assignment) for any transfer to an aggregator, which would change the picture.

Consistency note: the "PTAB proceedings on file" block and web search agree — nothing institutional has ever happened to this patent at the PTAB. Do not let a treatise-style template manufacture proceedings that do not exist; I have not listed any.

I'll research the assignment record for US Patent 10,190,903. Let me run targeted searches on the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources.

I found important context: Alexander Lebedev is the founder of ReelSonar, Inc. Let me dig deeper into the assignment chain and ReelSonar entity.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis: US Patent 10,190,903

Cross-reference note / contradiction flag: The previously generated litigation summary concluded "no litigation identified." My research surfaced one government docket matter involving the inventor, but it is a Copyright Claims Board (CCB) proceeding about NetFish app imagery, not patent litigation — it does not change the patent-litigation conclusion, but it is directly relevant to entity status and is flagged below. It also surfaced a material fact the litigation summary did not capture: the inventor's operating company, ReelSonar, Inc., "has since ceased operations and has been voluntarily dissolved" (witness statement of Alexander Lebedev, CCB docket, dated 2026-06-24, https://dockets.ccb.gov/document/download/19978).

Sourcing caveat up front: I was not able to directly query the USPTO Assignment Center UI (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) in this session. The ownership facts below are drawn from the Google Patents legal-events panel (which mirrors recorded-assignment data) and from corroborating public records. Verify the reel/frame entries directly at the Assignment Center before relying on this for legal purposes.

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Inventors

• Lebedev is a serial Seattle entrepreneur; also founder of Mirabilis Medica and JeNu Biosciences, with a background in medical ultrasound (BusinessWire launch release; Gust company profile). He is described as "named on six patents."
• Unusual pattern — flag: The patent lists the assignee as "Individual," not ReelSonar, Inc. This is notable because Lebedev's sibling fishing-technology patents were held by the operating company — e.g., US 9,383,444 ("System and method for finding fish using a sonar fishing float…") and US 10,712,436 ("Wireless fish finder sensor holder," inventors Lebedev & Kaseburg) are both catalogued under ReelSonar, Inc. (onscope IP-owner page for ReelSonar). So the '903 patent is the outlier: the inventor kept it personally rather than in the company. There is no evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months — the relevant "change" is that the patent never entered the company at all.

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Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Individual (Alexander Lebedev, personally). Both the "Original Assignee" and "Current Assignee" fields on Google Patents read "Individual."
• The commercial embodiment of the claims was a ReelSonar product, not an individually marketed one: the iBobber sonar ecosystem, its associated app, and ReelSonar's "fishing scales, tackles… and other products" (Craft.co profile). Lebedev's own witness statement describes ReelSonar as "a fishing technology company focused on sonar hardware, predictive fishing analytics, connected fishing tools, and environmental fishing data systems," with the iBobber as its "principal product ecosystem."
• ReelSonar, Inc. — primary line of business: consumer fishing electronics (castable Bluetooth sonar fish finder, fishing scales, accessories). Private, founded 2012, HQ Seattle, WA.
• Current status: DISSOLVED / non-operating. Per the inventor's 2026 CCB witness statement: "ReelSonar has since ceased operations and has been voluntarily dissolved." (Third-party trackers such as Craft.co still list it "Active," but that is stale — the founder's sworn statement supersedes it.)

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Assignment timeline

No post-issuance assignment was located for US 10,190,903.

• The Google Patents legal-events panel contains no Assignment or Security Agreement entries. Its only recorded events are prosecution/administrative:
  • 2017-06-07 — Application filed (US 15/616,040); priority date.
  • 2018-12-13 — Publication of US20180356278A1.
  • 2019-01-29 — Patent granted (US 10,190,903 B2).
  • 2037-10-13 — Adjusted expiration (maintenance-fee lapse / "Expired – Fee Related").
  • Status: Expired – Fee Related.
• Because there are no recorded assignments, there is no reel/frame, no assignor/assignee pair, and no correspondent of record to report. The patent appears to have remained in the inventor's individual name from filing through lapse.
• Per the task rules: this is itself the finding. Where the Assignment Center has no records, it normally indicates the original (here, individual) owner still holds the patent — which is consistent with the "Individual" current-assignee listing.

⚠️ Honest limitation: I could not open the Assignment Center record directly. If a single "assignment of record" exists that predates grant (e.g., an inventor-to-individual correction), it would not appear in the mirrored legal-events feed. Confirm at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "10190903"). I am not going to invent a reel/frame number that I did not observe.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10190903
    2012 : ReelSonar founded by Lebedev
    2017 : Application filed by Lebedev as individual
    2018 : Application published
    2019 : Patent granted to individual
    2037 : Adjusted expiration
         : Status expired fee related

(No assignment/transfer events exist to plot; the absence of any hand-off link is the point.)

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Because there are no recorded transfers, most NPE signals cannot be triggered. I mark each with the evidence basis.

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment to any LLC (no "IP/Holdings/Licensing/Ventures" entity appears). Recorded owner is the natural person Alexander Lebedev, Seattle WA (individual address, not a registered-agent service). No reel/frame exists to cite.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither the current owner (Lebedev, individual) nor any predecessor matches the Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Pendrell / etc. lists. No Unified Patents or RPX asserter listing surfaced for this patent or owner.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not applicable / no data. With zero recorded assignments there is no correspondent of record to test for recurrence. Cannot be scored.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No consecutive assignments; no chained LLCs; no shared correspondent address (none exists). Filing 2017-06-07 → grant 2019-01-29 shows a single, stable owner.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignment of any date, so no transfer can sit within 6 months of a suit. No infringement suit naming this patent was found (consistent with the prior litigation section), so there is no litigation to have preceded.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. ReelSonar is described as voluntarily dissolved (founder's sworn statement), not bankrupt; and in any event its IP was not the assignee here. No Chapter 7/11 sale of this patent appears.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company → NPE transfer exists. If anything, the inverse of privateering is visible: the inventor never moved the asset into his own operating company, and no third party ever asserted it.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX / AST / LOT / Unified / OIN. It terminates in the individual inventor's name, lapsing for non-payment (adjusted expiration 2037-10-13; "Expired – Fee Related").

Related context (not an NPE signal, but entity-relevant): Lebedev appears as a witness in a CCB (Copyright Claims Board) matter concerning the NetFish app and fish illustrations (https://dockets.ccb.gov/document/download/19978). This concerns copyright in app artwork — not assertion of the '903 patent — and ReelSonar stated it "did not sell, license, or independently monetize the fish illustrations." It corroborates that ReelSonar is defunct but is not patent-enforcement activity.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — and, on the evidence, a non-asserting individual-owned patent rather than an NPE chain.

Justification: Google Patents shows no recorded post-issuance assignments and lists the assignee as "Individual" in both the original and current fields; the only ownership-relevant events are filing 2017-06-07, grant 2019-01-29, and fee-related lapse with adjusted expiration 2037-10-13. There is therefore no shell-entity transfer, no known asserter, no cascading transfer, and no pre-litigation transfer to cite — the NPE signals are structurally unavailable because the asset never changed hands. The context that most resembles an "asset-orphaning" pattern is that the inventor's operating company (ReelSonar, Inc.), which commercialized the claimed device via the iBobber ecosystem, voluntarily dissolved — yet the patent itself was held personally by Lebedev and simply lapsed for non-payment, with no litigation ever filed.

Verify directly: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 10190903); USPTO Patent Center for maintenance-fee history; and confirm ReelSonar's dissolution via Washington Secretary of State corporate records.

I'll research the prior art citations for US Patent 10,190,903. Let me run targeted searches.

The initial searches returned unrelated results. Let me target the patent's actual citation record more precisely.

I hit the tool-step limit while researching, so the following is based on the results I was able to retrieve plus the authoritative patent text supplied in the prompt. I flag confidence levels explicitly and do not auto-correct or substitute any patent number.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 10,190,903 B2

0. Framing and legal standard

• US 10,190,903 B2 ("Digital fishing net scale configured for integration into a hotspot system"), App. No. 15/616,040, inventor Alexander Lebedev, filed/granted 2017-06-07 / 2019-01-29, assignee Individual (consistent with the earlier Litigation section — no corporate assignee).
• The application was filed 2017-06-07 with no earlier priority claim shown (the earlier Litigation section confirms this). It is therefore a post-AIA patent, and the governing novelty statute is 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2), with a critical date of 2017-06-07.
• Important: any reference that published after 2017-06-07 can only qualify as prior art under § 102(a)(2) (i.e., if it was "effectively filed" before 2017-06-07). This matters for one of the cited references below (see § 1.3).

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1. U.S. patent documents listed on the face of the '903 patent ("Referenced Cited")

The Justia record for this patent lists a "Referenced Cited → U.S. Patent Documents" set. From the retrieved page (https://patents.justia.com/patent/10190903), the entries shown are:

What I could not confirm within my search budget: the full titles, abstracts, and claimed subject matter of these three publications. The snippet only returned the numbers/dates/inventor surnames. I will not fabricate their contents. Below I give the identifier exactly as listed and explain what each reference would have to disclose to be relevant, then map claims.

1.1 US 2015/0317502 A1 — Castaneda (pub. Nov. 5, 2015)

• Status vs. '903: Published ~19 months before the 2017-06-07 critical date → prior art under § 102(a)(1) (printed publication), assuming the publication date is correct.
• Field inference: The Castaneda family appears to concern wireless/networked fishing data systems (this is the family the same inventor's later publication 2017/0347634 shares). If it discloses a portable fishing data device that logs catch data (weight and/or location) and wirelessly uploads it to a remote database, it is a candidate § 102 reference for the data-capture/upload and hotspot-correlation aspects of the '903 claims.
• Potentially anticipates: Claims directed to determining/uploading catch-related data and to the remote correlation step — e.g., claim 4 (catch-related data incl. location/time upload), claim 5 (GPS/location), claim 6 (time/date/lunar), claim 13 (method steps of store/upload), and the hotspot method/system claims 16–17 — to the extent the reference discloses receiving weight + location at a remote system and correlating across a plurality of catches. This must be verified against the reference's actual disclosure; I could not confirm it.

1.2 US 2016/0278360 A1 — Battah (pub. Sep. 29, 2016)

• Status vs. '903: Published ~8.5 months before the critical date → prior art under § 102(a)(1), assuming the date is correct.
• Field inference: Positioned by the examiner in the same citation cluster as the Castaneda fishing-data references; likely a fishing-related measuring/data device. Without the abstract I cannot state its disclosure.
• Potentially anticipates: Depending on disclosure, candidates are the weighing/measurement + display/value-output features of claim 1 and claim 13, and possibly claim 3 (multi-reading/averaging) if it discloses repeated weight sampling. Unverified.

1.3 US 2017/0347634 A1 — Castaneda (pub. Dec. 7, 2017)

• Status vs. '903 — this one is legally delicate. Its publication date (Dec. 7, 2017) is AFTER the '903 critical date (June 7, 2017). Therefore it is NOT available under § 102(a)(1). It can only be prior art under § 102(a)(2) ("effectively filed" before 2017-06-07 — i.e., its earliest U.S. filing/priority date must predate the '903 filing date).
• Because the examiner placed it on the '903 face, the working assumption is that it was effectively filed before 2017-06-07 and was cited as a § 102(a)(2) reference (or was identified as the applicant's own related disclosure). I could not verify its filing/priority date in this session — this is the single most important item to confirm.
• Potentially anticipates: If it is a § 102(a)(2) reference disclosing a networked fishing-data/hotspot system, it overlaps with claims 4–6, 13, and 16–17. Note it cannot be used for subject matter not supported by its earlier (pre-critical-date) disclosure.

Caveat on completeness: Search snippets can truncate a "Referenced Cited" table. It is possible the '903 patent face lists additional U.S. documents, foreign documents, or non-patent literature not captured here. Verify against the printed front page (Item 56) of US 10,190,903 B2 and the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov, App. 15/616,040).

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2. References incorporated by reference in the '903 specification

The '903 specification repeatedly identifies a preferred sonar device (the "iBobber™") and expressly incorporates two U.S. patents. These are not "cited against" the patent (they are not Item-56 references), but they are the most concretely grounded prior-art/related documents I can pull from the authoritative patent text:

Note on family context (found in search): The search also surfaced US 9,383,444 B2 — "System and method for finding fish using a sonar fishing float wirelessly coupled to a remote computing device," inventor Alexander Lebedev. This is a same-inventor sibling patent in the same wireless-fishing-data family as the '903 patent and is closely allied to the two incorporated patents. Treat it as family/background art rather than third-party prior art.

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3. Companion / same-family references (context, not third-party prior art)

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4. Field prior art (relevant background — NOT on the '903 face)

These were surfaced as citations of the design companion (USD 820,944) and of the related Bond patent, not as Item-56 references of the '903 patent. I list them because they establish the state of the mechanical art and are the kind of references an invalidity analysis should consider — but per the strict rule I do not represent them as "cited references of 10,190,903":

These are strong § 102/§ 103 candidates for the mechanical claims (notably claim 2 — foldable connecting-pin handle) and for the pre-existing combination of net + scale, but they are analog, not digital/wireless, so they would not alone anticipate the digital claims.

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5. Claim-by-claim potential-anticipation summary

Overall read: The cited Castaneda/Battah publications appear positioned against the digital data-capture-and-upload / hotspot-correlation claims (1, 4–6, 13, 16–17), while the mechanical and sensor-fusion dependent claims (2, 3, 7–12) are more likely § 103 rather than pure § 102 targets. The heaviest § 102 exposure is on the weight + location → remote correlation hotspot claims, given the Castaneda family and the incorporated Lebedev sonar patents.

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6. Explicit caveats / required verification

1. Only three U.S. patent documents were captured as "Referenced Cited" for 10,190,903; I could not retrieve their titles, abstracts, or claims, so the descriptions in § 1 are inferences, not confirmed disclosures. Do not treat them as verbatim.
2. US 2017/0347634 A1's prior-art status is date-sensitive — its Dec. 7, 2017 publication post-dates the '903 critical date (2017-06-07). Confirm its effective filing date before relying on it (§ 102(a)(2) only).
3. The listing may be truncated by the snippet; confirm the complete Item-56 list on the printed patent face and in the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper (App. 15/616,040).
4. I did not auto-correct any patent number. US 10,190,903 / 15/616,040 is treated literally; similarly-numbered patents (e.g., the 10,1xx,xxx family, or the design USD 820,944) are treated as distinct documents.
5. Minor inconsistency to flag between sections: the earlier "Litigation summary" and the supplied patent text use 2026-09-24 as the fetch date, while this task's header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026" (and the system prompt gives 2026-09-29). None of these affect the substantive analysis, but they should be reconciled for record-keeping. The earlier section's finding — no litigation found for US 10,190,903 — is consistent with the reference/citation record I examined (individual ownership, fee-related lapse), and I found nothing to contradict it.

Recommended next step: pull the full front page of US 10,190,903 B2 (Item 56) and the prosecution-history "References Cited"/"Examiner's search" from Patent Center to confirm the three references' titles and to check for any foreign/NPL citations my snippet search may have missed.

I'll research the prior art cited on the patent's page and the relevant technical field before building the obviousness analysis.

Let me pull the citation lists (both directions) and the key prior-art references for the hotspot-generation claims.

Let me get the Google Patents citation lists and search for prior art on the hotspot/logging features.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,190,903 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Scope, sources, and stated limits

Patent analyzed: US 10,190,903 B2, "Digital fishing net scale configured for integration into a hotspot system," app. 15/616,040, filed/priority 2017‑06‑07, granted 2019‑01‑29, inventor Alexander Lebedev, assignee "Individual." Post‑AIA patent → AIA §§ 102/103 apply; prior art must predate 2017‑06‑07.

Sources used. Per the task instruction I used the prior-art material surfaced for this page plus the reference set the '903 specification itself identifies. My searches returned the following usable art (all verified by the searches below, with URLs):

Limits I must state plainly:

• I was not able to retrieve the front‑page "References Cited" list of US 10,190,903 itself (the examiner's cited art). My two attempts to pull the Google Patents Citations/Cited By lists returned tangential results. So the combinations below are constructed by me from independently found art plus the art the '903 specification itself names — not copied from the examiner's record.
• My search budget was exhausted mid‑task; I could not verify, in‑session, the precise publication dates or claim text of every secondary reference (notably commercial Bluetooth fishing scales and fishing‑log apps such as those marketed by Rapala/Berkley and the Fishbrain‑type crowd‑sourced logbooks). Where I rely on such commercial practice I flag it as unverified in this session and offer it only as supporting context, not as a primary ground.
• Nothing here is a validity opinion or freedom‑to‑operate opinion; it is a technical obviousness screen.

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1. Governing standard and level of ordinary skill

Under Graham v. John Deere and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the inquiry is: scope/content of the prior art, differences from the claims, PHOSITA level, and secondary considerations. KSR adds that a combination is obvious where (a) elements are known and combined according to known methods to yield predictable results; (b) a known technique is simply substituted for another to obtain a predictable result; (c) a known technique is used to improve a similar device "in the same way"; or (d) the combination is "obvious to try."

PHOSITA: a person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical or electrical engineering (or equivalent fishing‑tackle design experience), plus roughly 2–3 years of experience designing consumer fishing accessories and small electronic weighing devices. This is a mature, low‑technology consumer‑goods field: the components recited (load cells, microcontrollers, LCD/LED displays, GPS modules, Bluetooth radios) are commodity parts with well‑understood integration practices, and the '903 specification itself repeatedly says so (e.g., "Time pieces and their components are well known in the art," "GPS devices and components are well known," "Communication components… are well known").

Two admissions in the patent that do real work here:

1. The Background concedes: "Fishing net scales having a spring scale attached to the hoop and/or handle of a fishing net are known." That concedes the entire mechanical architecture of claim 1 (hoop + net + handle + scale on the handle) as prior art.
2. The specification concedes that the outlier‑removal statistics recited in dependent claims are conventional: it lists "Chauvenet's criterion, Grubbs' test for outliers, Dixon's Q test, ASTM E178 Standard Practice for Dealing With Outlying Observations, Mahalanobis distance and leverage" as available known methods, and describes the Q1/Q3/IQR 1.5‑IQR rule (the textbook Tukey fence) as the device's implementation. A claim element the specification characterizes as an off‑the‑shelf known technique cannot supply patentability.

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2. The critical observation: the hotspot disclosure is the Reelsonar disclosure

The '903 specification's description of the hotspot system — "reasoning engine," "determine available points of fishing data," "create an independent variable from each available point of fishing data," "generate an initial base model," "compare… real‑time fishing data… to those of the initial base model," "generate hotspot information," "logged in the data store for future reference" — is near‑verbatim the language of Reelsonar US 2014/0022864 A1, whose claim 19 reads:

"A method for generating hotspot information, the method comprising the steps of: determining available fishing data points; creating an independent variable for each available fishing data point; generating an initial base model based at least in part upon said independent variables; applying a reasoning engine to processed sonar data…; and generating said hotspot information, wherein said hotspot information identifies predicted fishing trends," with claim 20 "logging said hotspot information in a data store."

And the '903 specification itself incorporates US 8,934,318 and US 9,360,553 by reference and names the iBobber sonar as the preferred data source for the hotspot system. That is fatal‑adjacent for claims 18–19, because it means the applicant's own specification identifies the prior art source of the data‑aggregation framework and then merely extends the data set from sonar data to catch‑weight data.

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3. Primary obviousness grounds

Ground 1 — Claim 1 (and claims 13–17): Bond + JP 2003‑116409 (or US 8,093,515) + routine digital‑logging practice

Bond teaches every structural element of claim 1: a fishing net with a net basket, a handle, "weight scale components… incorporated at a distal end of the fishing net handle opposite the end incorporating the net basket," grip on the fixed portion of the handle, and a weight readout — and Bond expressly discloses the digital substitution: "Alternate to the tension spring embodiment, a solid state digital scale could be incorporated into the handle in the same position near the movable end component of the handle," with "digital display 62" (Fig. 5, "components appropriate for implementation of a digital weight scale device"). Bond also teaches the rigidity/durability concern that corresponds to claim 1's "sufficient strength and rigidity" limitation, emphasizing that its arrangement "does not sacrifice the durability of the handle."

JP 2003‑116409 teaches the load‑cell implementation in a hand net: a load cell (32) between the frame and grip, a signal‑processing unit (33) inside the handle that digitizes the load‑cell signal, and a display unit (35) showing the numeric weight — expressly so that "the weighing result is displayed on the display unit merely by scooping up the live fish," i.e., weighing the fish in the net, without transferring it. US 8,093,515 is a US‑law analogue: load cell + "processor in communication with the load cell to analyse the signals" + "digital display in communication with the processor for displaying the weight," mounted to one or both of the handle and the frame.

Motivation to combine. Bond's own stated objectives supply it: it is "a problem in the existing art to easily measure the weight and length of a fish… without taking many additional steps," and additional handling "damages the health of the fish." JP 2003‑116409 and US 8,093,515 solve precisely that problem with the same architecture (net + handle + digital readout) in the same field. Substituting a load cell + processor + digital display for a spring scale in a handle is the paradigm KSR case: known technique, predictable result, same field, "improvement of a similar device in the same way." Nothing in claim 1 requires anything more exotic than a commodity load cell, microcontroller, LCD and radio.

"Over an amount of time" / "average thereof." This limitation is met by Stiner, which samples load‑cell output repeatedly and computes an average tension (and peak force) before deriving and displaying the fish weight, precisely to smooth a noisy, movement‑perturbed measurement. US 5,753,792 is directly on point as well: it teaches weighing fish on a load cell while accounting for "predictable and/or unpredictable static and/or dynamic motion conditions," using a stored program in the weighing device. A PHOSITA integrating a digital scale into a hand‑held net (a device inherently subject to wave motion, one‑handed holding, and a thrashing fish) would sample over a window and average, because that is the standard, known remedy for dynamic weighing error — and the '903 specification concedes it ("1, 2, 3 or 4 measurements per second over a particular amount of time").

"Store… at least until it is uploaded" + "upload… via the communication component to an external data store." This is the only element not squarely in the handheld‑net art, and it is supplied by the Reelsonar family: a fishing device that wirelessly transmits its data (Bluetooth) to a smartphone/remote computing system and a data store that logs information. The '903 specification itself treats this as conventional, naming "a Bluetooth® chip with radio and software" as an off‑the‑shelf integration. Combining a Bluetooth‑enabled digital fish scale with a smartphone‑based fishing log is, by 2017, ordinary consumer‑product practice — and the motivation is the very purpose the '903 patent states (automatically recording the weight, eliminating "several operational steps").

Result: claim 1 would have been obvious. Claims 13–17, which recite the same elements as automated method steps, rise and fall with claim 1 (see §4).

Ground 2 — Claim 3: outlier detection and averaging

Claim 3's outlier‑determination → removal → averaging sequence is taught in substance by Stiner (averaging sampled force values, discarding anomalous peaks via threshold/peak‑logic) and US 5,753,792 (motion‑corrupted readings rejected/corrected), and the statistical technique itself is conceded prior art by the specification, which names the 1.5‑IQR/Tukey rule and, expressly, Grubbs' test, Dixon's Q test, Chauvenet's criterion, ASTM E178, and Mahalanobis distance. Applying a named, admitted, textbook outlier filter to a stream of load‑cell samples is not an inventive act; it is "the customary way" of doing the thing. Obvious.

Ground 3 — Claim 2: foldable handle on a connecting pin

Folding, pivot‑pinned landing‑net handles were long‑established tackle art by 2017 (and the '903 figures themselves show the conventional hoop loop + connecting pin arrangement). The '903 specification concedes the pin "may preferably at the same time serve as a pivot joint to allow the handle to be fully folded for storage," and stresses the joint must be strong enough to carry the load — a design constraint, not an invention. Any of Mengo/Keinert‑era net art combined with a conventional folding‑handle net supplies this. Obvious.

Ground 4 — Claims 4–9: on‑board GPS, time piece, thermometer, conductivity sensor, camera + object detection, microphone + voice recognition, weather module

This is a KSR "predictable combination of known elements." The Reelsonar art already teaches a fishing device carrying a thermometer and a conductivity sensor (US 2014/0022864 A1, claims 6 and 8), a storage device (claim 2), and low‑energy Bluetooth wireless links to a remote computing device (claims 10–11). Adding a GPS receiver, an electronic time piece (the '903 spec's own text concedes time pieces "are well known"), a weather module (i.e., an external weather database/API), a microphone with voice recognition, and a camera with object detection to a battery‑powered consumer device is routine integration of commodity modules — each conceded as such in the '903 specification ("Image sensors/cameras and object detection modules are well known in the art"). The motivation is stated in the '903 patent itself: automatically appending "catch related data" (location, time, date, lunar phase, temperatures, salinity, species, comments, weather) to each weight record so the hotspot system has meaningful inputs, and the Reelsonar art already frames fishing data points as independent variables for hotspot generation. Obvious.

Ground 5 — Claims 10–12: automatic display adjustment

Automatic display adjustment from detected ambient/time conditions is pervasive consumer‑electronics art (ambient‑light‑sensing auto‑brightness on phones, e‑readers, automotive displays; time‑based day/night themes) — and again the '903 Background supplies the motivation by stating the problem: readings "may be exacerbated by suboptimal visual conditions due to poor lighting and/or weather, e.g. early or late in the day, when it is raining, or at night." Where a reference identifies the problem, using a known solution from the general electronics art is obvious (KSR: "familiar elements according to known methods"; also In re ICON Health & Fitness on combining art from a different field to address a known problem). The preset list ("bright day, overcast day, dawn, dusk, night") is mere selection of a known parameter set. Obvious.

Ground 6 — Claims 18 and 19: hotspot generation (the weakest claims)

Claim 18 requires only: (i) receiving weight data of a catch at a remote computing system; (ii) receiving location data for the caught fish; (iii) correlating data across a plurality of catches to generate fishing hotspot information. Claim 19 is the system counterpart.

• Reelsonar (US 2014/0022864 A1; US 9,383,444 B2) teaches the entire architecture: a fishing data‑collection device wirelessly transmitting data to a remote computing device/remote computing system (claims 16–18), and a "reasoning engine" that assigns independent variables, builds a "base model," compares real‑time data against it, and generates and logs "hotspot information… predicted fishing trends" (claims 19–20). Its device carries a conductivity sensor, thermometer and storage. The '903 specification copies this framework and expressly incorporates the Reelsonar iBobber patents.
• What Reelsonar lacks is weight as the data point rather than sonar return. That gap is filled by the digital net scale of Grounds 1–2 (Bond + load cell landing nets + Reelsonar‑style wireless logging), which is exactly what the '903 specification contemplates: "a large number of data points from multiple data sources, in particular number of weighed catches or sonar‑detected fish activity and related data."

Motivation to combine is essentially self‑evident and is stated in the art and in the patent: anglers have always wanted to know where the fish are, and the Reelsonar system already exists to answer that from one data stream (sonar); extending the same aggregation to the other handed data stream (caught fish weight, with location) is "obvious to try" and a use of a known technique (crowd‑sourced data aggregation for prediction) in the same field. The '903 specification itself presents the invention as integrating an existing hotspot system with an existing concept of a digital scale — "a system and method that utilizes a digital fishing net scale as an integrated part of the system for generating fishing hotspot information."

Additional supporting context (unverified in‑session, flagged): commercial practice by 2017 included Bluetooth digital fish scales that log catches to smartphone apps and app‑based crowd‑sourced fishing logs/hotspot maps. If verified with dated evidence, these would independently render claims 18–19, and much of claim 1's upload limitation, obvious as commercial prior art. I could not confirm dates in this session and do not rely on them as a primary ground.

Ground 7 — Claims 13–17 (method): same as Grounds 1–5

Claim 13 is claim 1's hardware plus the corresponding "automatically" steps; claims 14–17 are the method analogues of claims 3–5 and 10–11. They add no element not addressed above. Obvious for the same reasons.

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4. Claim‑by‑claim summary

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5. Anticipated rebuttal arguments and responses

"The references are non‑analogous." No. Bond, JP 2003‑116409, US 8,093,515, Mengo and Keinert are all fishing‑net scales; Reelsonar is fishing data aggregation. All are from the same field or the field of the problem. (In re Bigio; KSR.)

"The combination changes the principle of operation of Bond's spring scale." Bond itself expressly contemplates "a solid state digital scale… incorporated into the handle in the same position," so the substitution is not only contemplated but taught; and the change is a predictable substitution of one known weighing element for another.

"The 'upload to an external data store' element is missing from the scale art." Correct as to the net‑scale references standing alone — that is why Ground 1 pairs them with the Reelsonar wireless‑to‑remote‑system/data‑store disclosure, which the '903 specification itself incorporates for exactly this purpose.

"No motivation to add GPS/camera/microphone to a net." The motivation is the patent's own stated purpose (correlating weight with catch conditions to generate hotspots) and is supplied by Reelsonar's data‑point framework. Where the problem is known and the solution is a known module, the combination is obvious.

"Unexpected results / secondary considerations." I found no evidence in the available material of commercial success with a nexus, licensing, copying, industry praise, or long‑felt but unmet need. The '903 record shows fee‑related expiration by 2037‑10‑13 with a listed "Expired – Fee Related" status per the earlier section, and the prior litigation section found no assertion of the patent in any court or PTAB proceeding — i.e., no objective indicia evidence surfaced. If an owner later proffers secondary considerations, the nexus to the claimed combination (as opposed to the ornamental design of D820,944 or the commercial product) would need to be established.

One claim‑text caution carried forward (not a validity argument): the earlier sections flag that third‑party databases render claim 1 as storing/uploading "optional catch related data, and optional hotspot related data," while the supplied authoritative text omits "hotspot related data." That discrepancy does not change this analysis (both versions are met by the same combination), but it should be resolved against the USPTO PatentCenter claim view before any precise mapping is relied upon.

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6. Bottom line

On the prior art available to me, claims 1–17 appear obvious over Bond in view of JP 2003‑116409 or US 8,093,515, further in view of Stiner and/or US 5,753,792, and further in view of the Reelsonar wireless‑data‑store teachings — with the folding‑handle, outlier‑removal, sensor and display‑adjustment dependent claims obvious over well‑known art the specification itself concedes. Claims 18 and 19 appear the most vulnerable: their hotspot‑generation framework is substantially the Reelsonar disclosure, which the '903 specification incorporates by reference and then extends from sonar data to catch‑weight data.

Caveats to carry forward: (i) I did not obtain the front‑page examiner‑cited references for US 10,190,903, so these are analyst‑constructed grounds, not the prosecution record; (ii) the precise content/dates of secondary references (notably the commercial Bluetooth‑scale and fishing‑log‑app art) were not verified in this session and should not be cited without confirmation; and (iii) this is a technical screen, not a legal opinion on validity or infringement.