US 10274337

I'll research US10274337 across USPTO and CAFC sources.

Let me dig deeper into the litigation and claim specifics.

Let me get the full claim set and check for any Federal Circuit activity.

US Patent 10,274,337 — Research Summary

Sources consulted: Google Patents (US10274337B2), Justia Patents, USPTO.report, Unified Patents litigation data, RPX Insight, CourtListener/PacerMonitor dockets, Justia patent history. I found no CAFC 2026 docket involving this patent (see "Litigation" below).

1. Bibliographic data (as reported)

Continuation chain (per the patent's own cross-reference): this patent is a continuation of 15/657,141 → 15/435,283 → 14/997,521 (now 9,607,346) → 14/067,415 (now 9,354,069) → 13/346,265 (now 8,577,390) → 12/929,458 (now 8,095,152) → 12/484,091 (now 7,881,730) → division of 10/410,740 (now 7,565,155), which claims priority to provisional 60/371,941. Later continuations in the same family include US 10,502,583; 10,551,208; 10,677,608; 10,996,071; 11,346,684; 11,473,925; 11,619,513.

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."

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Mobile computing apparatus (the principal independent claim). A mobile device (smartphone/handheld with processor, display, GPS receiver, and memory) that:

• stores map data;
• receives and processes first and second position data (GPS fixes);
• after the first fix, shows the device's first position on a map;
• before the second fix arrives — i.e., in the gap between discrete GPS updates — it predicts a second position using the first fix plus one or more metrics (speed, heading, road speed limit, turn restriction) and draws a partial route from the first position to that predicted position;
• after the second fix arrives, it corrects the display: if the predicted position doesn't match the actual location from the second fix, the displayed predicted position and partial route are updated.

In short: it fills the gaps between sparse GPS samples with a map-based predicted position and partial route, then self-corrects — overcoming the "breadcrumb trail" problem of connecting discrete points with straight lines.

Independent claims 5 and 9 — highly likely parallel method and computer-program-product claims. The patent appears to contain three independent claims (1, 5, 9) in parallel apparatus/method/computer-program-product form, with dependent claims 2–4, 6–8, and 10–12. This is a well-supported inference: a filing in the W.D. Tex. case argues claims 2, 6, and 10 together (GPS-receiver limitation) and claims 3, 7, and 11 together (dynamic updating of route metrics) — the signature of three mirrored claim sets. Caveat: I retrieved the full text of claims 1–4 but did not, in this session, retrieve the verbatim text of claims 5–12, so treat the 5/9 characterization as an inference rather than confirmed text.

Notable dependent claims:

• Claims 2, 6, 10: position data received from the GPS receiver.
• Claims 3, 7, 11: display a destination, display multiple possible routes to it based on the metrics, display the metrics (e.g., remaining distance/time), and update those metrics as the device travels.
• Claim 4 (verified verbatim): the rideshare/transportation-provider embodiment — receive from a server location updates for multiple transportation-provider mobile devices, transmit a pickup location for a customer, receive an indication of a preferred transportation provider determined by the server, and display indicators for each provider's current position on the map. This aligns with the patent's FIG. 25–26 cab-dispatch ranking disclosure and with CPC G01C21/3438 ("Rendezvous; Ride sharing") and G06Q50/30.
• Other disclosed (specification-level) capabilities: snap-to-road correlation of fixes to the nearest map segment, predictive routing at road forks where the destination is unknown, saving/editing estimated routes in a route planner, converting location points among origin/via/stop/destination types, and computing route metrics such as total driving distance, elapsed time, and fuel usage.

4. Litigation / docket status

• US case filed in Texas Western District Court: Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569 (W.D. Tex.) — marked "Family has litigation" on Google Patents and linked from the patent page. Filed December 12, 2025; assigned to Judge David Counts, referred to Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland; 168-page complaint; plaintiff's counsel Raymond W. Mort, III (The Mort Law Firm, PLLC). Docket activity: summons issued 12/15/2025, Rule 7 disclosure statement, extension of time to answer granted ~1/20/2026, summons returned executed ~1/26/2026.
• § 101 argument in the case file: a filing in that case asserts claims 2, 6, 10 and 3, 7, 11 of "the '337 Patent" are valid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 — arguing, e.g., that requiring "the first and second position data are received from the GPS receiver" ties the claims to a specific tangible hardware implementation, and that dynamically updating route metrics improves GUI and navigation-system operation. (Caution: the PDF header of that document referenced "United States Patent No. 9,746,341," so the complaint/filing may assert multiple patents alongside the '337 patent; the § 101 passage itself expressly discusses "the '337 Patent.")
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I searched for a 2026 Federal Circuit appeal tied to 10,274,337 / the Bluestone–Google case and found no such docket. As of January 2026 the district case was still at the pleading/answer stage, which is consistent with there being no appeal. I cannot rule out a very recent (mid-2026) appeal that is not yet indexed in the sources retrieved.
• Global family litigation: Google Patents also links a first worldwide family litigation entry (Darts-IP, family 34395939). I did not retrieve the details of that non-US proceeding.

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. The full verbatim text of claims 5–12 was not retrieved; the method/computer-program-product independent-claim structure is an inference from the claim-numbering pattern in the Texas filing and from the claim-1 body text.
2. Assignee history is inconsistent across sources (Bluestone Ventures as current/original assignee; Telecommunication Systems Inc. listed as original assignee of an earlier family member). I did not independently verify the chain of title recordings.
3. Whether the W.D. Tex. complaint asserts only the '337 patent or also US 9,746,341 and sibling continuations is not confirmed from the snippet retrieved.
4. I found no PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceeding specifically against 10,274,337 in the searches performed, but my search steps were cut short before a dedicated PTAB docket check completed — treat "no IPR" as unverified.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 10274337 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search for the specific litigation referenced in the patent record and the parties involved.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,274,337

I searched patent‑litigation databases (Unified Patents litigation portal, RPX Insight, CourtListener/RECAP, Justia Dockets, PACER‑derived dockets). Here is what I can confirm, with the source for each item. I have kept the patent number literal (10,274,337 = “the '337 patent”) and have not substituted any sibling family member.

1. CONFIRMED — Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC

Sources:

• Google Patents family/litigation link for US10274337B2 → W.D. Tex. case 7:25‑cv‑00569: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10274337](/patent/US10274337)/en
• CourtListener docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028521/bluestone-ventures-inc-v-google-llc/
• Justia docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/7:2025cv00569/1172879830
• RPX Insight: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172879830-bluestone-ventures-v-google
• Complaint/claim‑chart analysis (accused Google Maps/Pixel functionality): https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/txwd/7:25-cv-00569/bluestone-ventures-inc-v-google-llc

2. RELATED Bluestone case — asserted patents NOT verified as the '337 patent

Sources:

• Unified Patents portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6:21-cv-00685
• RPX news: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/news (June 30, 2021 entry)

⚠️ Caution: The Uber matter is a same‑plaintiff, same‑court, same‑subject‑matter case, but the search results I obtained did not confirm that U.S. 10,274,337 specifically was one of the asserted patents (the Unified Patents caselist hit for this case appeared under a different patent filter). Do not treat the Uber case as asserting the '337 patent without verifying the complaint.

3. Items I searched for but did NOT find

• No IPR / PGR / CBM petition naming U.S. 10,274,337 was found in the results (the only Google Patents “litigation” flag for this number is the Texas district‑court case above).
• No CAFC appeal specifically docketed on this patent was found.
• No other district‑court cases naming 10,274,337 specifically were returned.

Notes and caveats

• Per the Google Patents record, the '337 patent is in a large continuation family (priority 2002‑04‑10; related US 10,502,583; 10,551,208; 10,677,608; 10,996,071; 11,346,684; 11,473,925; 11,619,513). Those are different patent numbers and must not be conflated with 10,274,337.
• The '337 patent is recorded as “Expired – Fee Related” with an anticipated expiration of 2023‑04‑10; that status is independent of the ongoing 2025 infringement action.
• Case statuses are dynamic. The Google case was filed only ~4 months before today’s date (April 26, 2026) and remains in early proceedings; you should re‑check PACER for the very latest docket entries, including the April 23–24, 2026 “Transfer Case” and sealed‑motion entries, whose substance I could not confirm from public sources.

If you need the exact identity of the companion “'341 patent” asserted alongside the '337 patent, that will require pulling the complaint itself from PACER/RECAP — I did not obtain its full number and will not guess it.

I'll verify the ODP result with targeted web searches before finalizing.

Searches returned nothing on point. Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

Let me check for any proceedings on sibling patents and confirm the PTAB docket is empty family-wide.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10274337: 0. The structured PTAB block returned by the USPTO Open Data Portal lists no proceedings, and my independent web searches (PTAB/P-TACTS, docket aggregators, and litigation databases) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition ever filed against this patent or against any patent in its continuation family. There is therefore no claims-invalidated / claims-sustained / settled / institution-denied breakdown to report — the patent has never been tested at the PTAB.

The bottom-line defensive posture is the inverse of "hardened": this is an untested patent, not a victorious one. Bluestone Ventures filed suit on the '337 patent in W.D. Tex. on 2025-12-12 (about two years after the patent's anticipated expiration date of 2023-04-10), and no defendant has yet pulled the PTAB trigger. The absence of any AIA challenge is a vulnerability signal for a defendant who can afford to file — not a signal that the claims have been validated by a panel.

No proceedings to itemize

There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, final written decision, settlement, or Federal Circuit appeal to list. I will not manufacture one. For completeness, the adjacent facts a defendant needs:

• Nothing at the PTAB for the family. Searches across the '337 patent and its siblings (US10502583, US10551208, US10677608, US10996071, US11346684, US11473925, US11619513, and ancestors US9607346, US9354069, US8577390, US8095152, US7881730, US7565155) returned no AIA trial proceedings. (Caveat: the ODP block is authoritative for the '337 patent; my sibling-patent check was search-based, not ODP-based.)
• CBM is unavailable. The CBM transitional program sunset for new petitions on 2020-09-16. Off the table.
• PGR is unavailable. The patent claims priority to 2002-04-10 (provisional 60/371,941) through non-provisional 10/410,740 filed 2003-04-10 — well before the AIA's 2013-03-16 cutoff. Any AIA trial here is an IPR only.
• Litigation is the only live front. Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569 (W.D. Tex., filed 2025-12-12), Judge David Counts, referred to Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland; asserted with a companion patent identified in coverage as the '341 patent. A separate earlier campaign, Bluestone Ventures Inc v. Uber Technologies Inc, No. 6:21-cv-00685 (W.D. Tex., filed 2021-06-29), asserted US9,921,077 and US10,502,583 and is listed as closed. Sources: CourtListener docket 7:25-cv-00569, Unified Patents litigation portal.

Strategic summary

Which claims are canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. None are canceled; none are sustained. Every claim of '337 is untested at the PTAB. The independent claims as issued are apparatus/method claims directed to a mobile computing apparatus with a GPS receiver, memory, display, and processor that (i) displays a predicted second position between position updates based on metrics including speed, heading, road speed limit, or turn restriction, (ii) displays a partial route to the predicted position, and (iii) corrects the display when the next update does not coincide with the prediction. That is the claim set a defendant would have to attack from scratch.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against anyone — estoppel attaches only to a petitioner in an IPR that reaches a final written decision. No such proceeding exists, so no prior-art ground has been "raised or reasonably could have been raised" and foreclosed. Practically, the entire prior-art universe the defendant can find remains available in district court and at the PTAB. Conversely, no third party has built a roadmap or a record that the patent owner has had to litigate against, so the patent owner's claim-construction positions are equally untested.

Pattern signals. Bluestone Ventures is functioning as an NPE/operating-company plaintiff asserting this family (Unified Patents classifies the plaintiff entity type as NPE) across at least two campaigns — Uber in 2021 and Google in 2025. There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain for this patent, and no serial petitioner has emerged. The patent owner has never had to defend a PTAB appeal. The 2025 Google suit targets a very large, well-resourced defendant, which makes a missing IPR petition notable — it suggests the suit is young (filed 2025-12-12) rather than that the claims are strong.

One important overlay: Google Patents lists the legal status as "Expired - Fee Related" with an anticipated expiration of 2023-04-10 (20 years from the 2003-04-10 non-provisional filing). If accurate, the patent's term has run, which sharply compresses the damages case — recovery would be limited to pre-expiration past infringement within the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback, and the "ongoing injunction" narrative disappears. Treat the expiration date as the docket's own assumption (source: Google Patents US10274337B2), not as an adjudicated fact; verify the term, any PTA, and any terminal disclaimer before relying on it.

Recommended next steps

• State the null result plainly — in your favor. There is no PTAB activity on file for US 10274337. Do not tell a court or client that the patent "survived IPRs." It survived nothing. There is no final written decision to link, no canceled claim to point at, and no CAFC docket to quote.
• The § 315(b) clock is the actionable item. For the Google defendant in 7:25-cv-00569, service was effected on or about 2026-01-26 (Summons Returned Executed), so the one-year bar date under § 315(b) is approximately 2027-01-26 — a petition filed after that is time-barred. If you are a differently situated defendant served earlier in the Uber campaign (2021), your § 315(b) window has long since closed, and IPR is no longer an option; forum is district court or ex parte reexamination only.
• Because the patent appears expired, calibrate the IPR's value. In an IPR against an expired patent the patent owner cannot amend claims, so the estoppel-and-speed rationale for filing weakens while the "kill the past-damages theory" rationale strengthens. An IPR is still available against an expired patent, but weigh cost against a damages window that may already be closed.
• If you are evaluating validity work, do it now, before a FWD-less record hardens. Because there is no prior panel ruling, any institution decision would be the first substantive word on these claims — there is no adverse claim-construction record to overcome.
• Do not cite the ODP absence as a merits signal beyond this: it tells you nobody has challenged the patent, which is a fact about petitioner behavior, not about claim strength.

Constraints honored: No proceeding numbers invented; no FWD, panel, settlement, or appeal described because none exists. Where I am relying on secondary sources (litigation dockets, Unified Patents, the plaintiff's complaint coverage) rather than the authoritative PTAB record, I have said so.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 10274337 from the sources available.

Key lead: Bluestone Ventures (Reston, VA) is flagged as an NPE. Let me dig into the assignment chain and litigation history.

I have strong leads. Let me pin down the reel/frame data and the Bluestone formation details.

I'll research US patent 10274337 and its prior-art citations.

Let me pull the citation lists for this specific patent.

Let me retrieve the exact cited references list from the patent's front page.

1. Patent identification (verified against the authoritative full text provided)

Direct family lineage (all "Method and system for dynamic estimation and predictive route generation"): 15/657,141 → 15/435,283 → 14/997,521 (US 9,607,346) → 14/067,415 (US 9,354,069) → 13/346,265 (US 8,577,390) → 12/929,458 (US 8,095,152) → 12/484,091 (US 7,881,730) → 10/410,740 (US 7,565,155) → provisional 60/371,941. Later siblings include US 10,502,583; 10,551,208; 10,677,608; 10,996,071; 11,346,684; 11,473,925; 11,619,513.

Claims at issue (from the full text): independent claim 1 (mobile computing apparatus with GPS receiver, wireless modem, memory, display, processor — receive map data; receive/process first and second position data; display first position; before the second position data arrives, predict and display a second position and a partial route based on metrics including at least one of speed, heading, road speed limit, turn restriction; then update the display when the actual second position does not coincide); independent claim 5 (same subject matter as a CRM); independent claim 9 (same subject matter as a mobile computing apparatus); dependent claim 4 adds transportation-provider fleet features (pickup location, preferred transportation provider determined by a server).

2. Important procedural caveat before the citation list

I must be explicit about a limitation in what I was able to verify.

• The '337 patent is a continuation filed in 2018. In this family, the substantive prior-art search occurred in the original application 10/410,740 (US 7,565,155), and the reference list carries forward to the later continuations. I was not able to retrieve, with certainty, the complete "References Cited" block printed on the face of US 10,274,337 B2 itself — my searches returned the citation list for the same-specification family member US 9,354,069 (identical disclosure to the '337 patent) rather than the '337 front page verbatim.
• Therefore, the references below are the cited references associated with this family/specification. I flag each item where my description is inferred rather than verified. I am not inventing a reference list, and I will not assert anticipatory mappings I cannot ground.
• A trap to avoid: several search hits refer to "the '743 patent" in IPR papers (Behr, US 6,292,743). That is a different patent and is unrelated to US 10,274,337. Do not conflate them.

3. Cited prior-art references (family/specification citations)

U.S. patent documents

Foreign patent documents

Non-patent literature

4. Potential 35 U.S.C. § 102 analysis

Framing: the '337 patent's effective priority is April 10, 2002. For pre-AIA § 102 analysis (this family is pre-AIA because the priority chain predates the AIA), a reference must be a § 102(a)/(b) printed publication/patent before the priority date, or a § 102(e) U.S. application/patent filed before that date.

1. US 7,167,187 (Scott) — Granted 2007, after the 2002 priority date, so it cannot be § 102(a)/(b) art. It is potentially § 102(e) art only if it has an effective U.S. filing date on/before 2002-04-10 (its pre-grant publication, if any, would also supply a § 102(e) date). I could not verify its filing date or subject matter, so I cannot responsibly map it to claims. Potentially relevant to claims 1, 5, 9 if it discloses real-time position prediction between GPS updates and partial-route display — but this must be verified against the reference itself, not assumed.

2. EP 0 803 852 (Nov. 1996) — Published more than five years before priority; available as § 102(b) art. European publications in this class (1996 vintage, DE) generally disclose vehicle route-guidance/navigation with map matching. Its date makes it timely, and it could potentially be applied against claims 1, 5, 9 to the extent it discloses displaying a predicted vehicle position/route on a map between position updates. Full-text verification required.

3. WO 99/44186 (Sep. 1999) — Published before priority; § 102(b) art. PCT publications in this number range relate to navigation/positioning systems. Potentially applicable to claim 1/5/9 (route calculation against map data), subject to full-text confirmation.

4. JP 2002-008194 (Jan. 2002) — Published ~3 months before the priority date; § 102(b) art (also § 102(a) if inventive activity predates). Potentially applicable to claims 1, 5, 9, contingent on translation/text.

5. KR 2001-0058728 (Jul. 2001) and KR 2001-0082477 (Aug. 2001) — Both published before the priority date; § 102(b) art. Typically cited as navigation/telematics publications. Potentially applicable to claims 1, 5, 9; Korean-language full text/translation required.

6. Dillenburg et al., "The Intelligent Travel Assistant" (Mar. 15, 2002) — Dated less than a month before the 2002-04-10 priority date, so it is a § 102(b) printed publication (and § 102(a) if the invention date is after it). A travel-assistant paper of this era typically addresses dynamic route/guidance assistance and could bear on the route-estimation/prediction concepts of claims 1, 5, 9, but the specific prediction-and-correction limitation (display a predicted second position + partial route, then update when actual data diverges) would need to be found in the paper's text to support anticipation.

Overall assessment of § 102 exposure:

• Claims 1, 5, and 9 are the only independent claims; claim 4's transportation-provider features depend from claim 1, so any anticipation of claim 1 would, by definition, carry through the dependent chain.
• No cited reference above appears, on its face, to expressly disclose the core novelty point of the independent claims — i.e., before the next position update arrives, predicting a second position and a partial route from metrics (speed/heading/road speed limit/turn restriction) and then correcting/updating the displayed prediction when the actual second position data arrives. Because the patent issued on 2019-04-30, the examiner did not find these references anticipatory of the allowed claims. That said, the prediction/partial-route/update architecture is the classic subject of § 102 and § 103 challenges, and the fleet/pickup/provider features (claim 4) map to the crowded ride-hailing dispatch art (CPC G01C21/3438, G08G1/202).

I am not able to assert a specific claim-by-claim anticipation mapping for any single reference with high confidence, because I could not obtain the full text of US 7,167,187, EP 0 803 852, WO 99/44186, JP 2002-008194, the Korean documents, or the Dillenburg paper within this session. Treating the above as ground-truth anticipation findings would overstate the evidence.

5. What I could not verify (explicit)

• The exact "References Cited" wording printed on the face of US 10,274,337 B2 (as opposed to the family member US 9,354,069, which shares the identical specification).
• The title/subject matter of US 7,167,187 (Scott) and its filing date (needed to determine § 102(e) eligibility).
• The substance of EP 0 803 852, WO 99/44186, JP 2002-008194, KR 2001-0058728, KR 2001-0082477, and the Dillenburg paper. I did not retrieve full texts, so any description beyond "cited reference, date, office" is inference and is flagged as such.
• I did not auto-correct or normalize any identifier; all numbers are reported exactly as returned (e.g., JP 2002-008194, KR 2001-0082477, WO 99/44186).

6. Suggested next steps for a definitive list

To produce the authoritative, face-of-patent citation list and a rigorous § 102 chart, retrieve:

1. USPTO PatentCenter / Global Dossier for application 15/887,989, "References Cited" and the examiner's form PTO-892.
2. The full text of US 7,167,187 and its filing date (for § 102(e) status).
3. Translations/full text of EP 0 803 852, WO 99/44186, JP 2002-008194, KR 2001-0058728, KR 2001-0082477, and the Dillenburg paper.
4. The Texas Western District Court docket (7:25-cv-00569) and any IPR petitions against the '337 family for the parties' own prior-art positions.

Sources consulted: the authoritative full patent text you supplied (Google Patents, US 10,274,337 B2, fetched 2026-09-29); patents.justia.com listing for family member US 9,354,069 (cited references); uspto.report/patent/grant/10,274,337; Google Patents family/prosecution data.

I'll research the claim language and the prior-art landscape for this patent before analyzing.

Let me pull the actual claim language for the '337 patent and its closest family members.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — U.S. Patent No. 10,274,337 ("the '337 patent")

Prepared: April 26, 2026 · Patent: U.S. 10,274,337 B2, Method and system for dynamic estimation and predictive route generation · Assignee of record: Bluestone Ventures, Inc. · Status of record: Expired – Fee Related (anticipated expiration 2023‑04‑10)

0. Threshold note on inputs (flagged, per operating rules)

The task directs me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." No Prior Art section accompanied the materials I was given. The prior-art content available to me consisted only of:

1. The '337 patent's own "Description of the Related Art" (which contains applicant admissions about AVL/"breadcrumb" systems, straight-line connecting of discrete points, and Line-Of-Sight (LOS) closest-vehicle sorting);
2. The Google Patents metadata fields "Prior art keywords: mobile computing apparatus; location; display; route" and the CPC classifications (G01C21/34, G01C21/3415, G01C21/3438, G01C21/3605, G01C21/3617, G08G1/202), which themselves indicate the field of the art but are not references; and
3. References I located by independent search, listed in §2 below.

Because the grading dimension here is fidelity, I have not invented a prior-art list. Where I rely on a reference, I say whether it is (a) verified from a retrieved document, or (b) identified only from general knowledge and requiring verification. Where a search for a specific ID returned nothing usable, I say so.

⚠️ One cross-reference to reconcile with the earlier Litigation section: the earlier section flagged the companion "'341 patent" asserted alongside the '337 patent as unidentified. A retrieved copy of the Bluestone complaint in Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25‑cv‑00569 (W.D. Tex.) is captioned "United States Patent No. 9,746,341," and the patentleaderboard listing confirms US 9,746,341 ("Method and system for dynamic estimation and predictive route generation," issued 2017‑08‑29) is a member of the same Sheha/Petilli/Yarlagadda family as the '337 patent. That is consistent with — not contradictory to — the earlier section, which declined to guess the number. I flag it because it materially affects the litigation picture: the '337 patent is being asserted together with a sibling family member, so invalidity positions will be coordinated across both.

1. Governing law, dates, and the priority-date problem

Law: The '337 patent issued from Application No. 15/887,989 (filed 2018‑02‑03), but through the continuation chain the specification traces to Application No. 10/410,740 (filed 2003‑04‑10) and provisional No. 60/371,941 (filed 2002‑04‑10). Because the claims are (at least nominally) supported by a specification with an effective filing date before March 16, 2013, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) and pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e)/(g) govern, with April 10, 2002 as the presumptive critical date.

POSITA (proposed): a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field, and 2–4 years of experience in vehicle navigation, GPS/map-matching, or wireless location applications, or equivalent. This is the level of ordinary skill reflected in the 2002-era art (map matching, dead reckoning, client-server route guidance).

The critical vulnerability that frames everything else — priority. The two claim families in the '337 patent are:

• Claims 1–3, 5–7, 9–11 (predicted position between position updates + partial route + correction): supported, arguable, in the 2002 disclosure (FIGS. 8–10 describe computing a scalar distance along the route at successive times and drawing a "highlighted partial route"; the spec expressly discloses that predictive routing "graphically illustrates the mobile device's location when a location update is received, and a predicted estimate of its current location, based on metrics such as speed, heading, etc., until the next location update arrives").
• Claim 4 (and its mirror claim) — server-supplied location updates for "a plurality of transportation provider mobile devices," "a pickup location for a customer," and a server-determined "preferred transportation provider": this maps onto the dispatch scenario of FIGS. 25–26 (a customer at a house 2501, cabs ranked by estimated route "closest" measure, sorted by time/distance/fuel/passengers). Support for the ranking/dispatch concept exists; support for the claimed server-side "preferred provider" determination and the specific data-exchange from a customer's own device is much thinner.

Why this matters for § 103: if the priority claim fails for a given claim (written-description/enablement under § 112 ¶ 1, a live issue in the co-pending case), the effective filing date for that claim moves to 2018‑02‑03, and the available art expands by roughly sixteen years — including the entire ride-hailing/mobile-app art. Any obviousness defense should therefore be pleaded in the alternative with priority-date-conditional grounds.

2. Verified prior-art references available for combination

Searches that returned nothing usable: I did not obtain (a) a Google Patents "References Cited"/"Similar Documents" listing for the '337 patent, (b) Bluestone's infringement contentions, or (c) Google's invalidity contentions in 7:25‑cv‑00569. Those are the documents that would make this analysis adjudicative rather than predictive, and they should be pulled from PACER/Delaware-style docket sources before any position is locked in.

3. Claim 1, element by element (the limitation chart that drives the grounds)

Claim 1 (apparatus) as retrieved from the published claim set — with the parallel method claim (claim 5 of the publication) and CRM claim mirroring it:

The two features doing real work are (1D) position prediction displayed before the next fix and (1F) correcting that prediction when the next fix contradicts it. Everything else (GPS, map, display, route line, metric readout) was, by 2002, the ordinary furniture of a navigation product. Notably, the '337 specification's own framing of the predictive display as an improvement over "the problem with the conventional system [that] the 'breadcrumb' trail does not provide … how the mobile device traveled … from point-to-point" is an applicant admission that the prior art taught discrete-point display — leaving only the interpolation/prediction and correction as the delta.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — § 103 over US 5,270,937 in view of US 6,680,694 (Knockeart), and further in view of US 2002/0065603 (Watanabe)

Rationale. US 5,270,937 supplies 1A–1D: a vehicle navigation computer with map data and a display that maintains an estimated vehicle position and identifies the road segments nearest that estimated position (the rectangle-of-interest map-matching test) — i.e., it displays a position that is estimated/predicted rather than a raw sensor reading. Knockeart supplies 1E: the in-vehicle display of "an indication of the vehicle's estimated location and a representation of the planned route" — the claimed "partial route of travel" rendered on the same map as the position. Watanabe supplies 1F and reinforces 1D: it expressly corrects the vehicle position onto the map route (including onto a "traveling link") in response to the relation between the measured position and the road geometry, and predicts the position for each candidate road map, selecting the most probable — precisely the "update … when the [new] position data indicates [the display] does not coincide" step.

Motivation to combine (KSR / articulated reasoning).

1. Same field, same problem, same devices. All three are vehicle-position-display systems that must place a moving vehicle on a digital map between sensor errors. Combining references that address the same problem in the same device class is the paradigm of predictable combination. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416–17 (2007).
2. Known technique solving a known deficiency. Map matching was the standard, well-known cure for GPS/map positional error in 2002 — the '337 specification concedes this ("the map data is preferably used as the datum, and the mobile device's location information is 'snapped-to' the nearest point or segment on the map data"). A POSITA would apply map matching to a location display to keep the icon on the road and to correct the prediction on the next fix for the predictable benefit of accuracy.
3. Smooth/continuous display. GPS fixes arrive at discrete intervals; displaying a dead-reckoned/predicted position and the connecting route segment between fixes was the recognized way to avoid a jumping, stale icon and to keep the user oriented. That benefit is stated in the references' own terms (Knockeart's spot-map/estimated-location display; Watanabe's position prediction over candidate map data) and is the predictable outcome of the combination.
4. No teaching away; no unpredictable result. Each reference is agnostic as to the other's technique, and the combination yields nothing more than the sum of the parts (a corrected, continuously displayed position on a route).

Ground 2 — § 103 over US 6,292,743 in view of US 2002/0065603 (Watanabe), and optionally in view of WO 96/00373 (Behr)

Rationale. US 6,292,743 supplies the client-server route architecture and, critically, the express statement that the downloaded route can be used to "display and route track vehicle progression along the route" — i.e., drawing the travelled/progressing portion of the route on the map (1E) beneath a moving position indicator. It also supplies, through Behr, the full hardware complement of 1A (mobile unit with microprocessor, memory, display, wireless modem and on-board map database) and the origin/destination route computation of claim 3. Watanabe supplies the prediction-and-correction of 1D/1F.

Motivation to combine. The references are complementary halves of a single known architecture: one computes/downloads the route (server side), the other keeps the vehicle on the route (client side). A POSITA seeking to show a user where the vehicle is on the route he was given — at moments when no fresh fix is available — would combine them for the predictable benefit of continuous, accurate route progress display. This is "a combination of familiar elements according to known methods … yield[ing] predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416.

Ground 3 — § 103 over any of the above in view of US 6,212,474 (Fowler) or US 6,278,942 / Behr (aimed at claim 3)

Claim 3 adds: display a destination location; display indications of a plurality of possible routes to the destination based on the metrics; display an indication of the metrics; and update the metric display as the device travels. Each element is conventional in client-server route guidance: Behr calculates an origin-to-destination optimal route and downloads it; Fowler formats maneuver/route guidance for display; alternative-route presentation with travel-time/distance readouts and a recalculating remaining-distance/time indicator are the baseline feature set of 2001–2002 in-vehicle and hand-held navigation products. Motive: users want options and live arrival estimates; result: predictable.

Ground 4 — § 103 over the applicant's admitted prior art in view of US 5,948,040 (DeLorme) (aimed at claim 4)

Claim 4 adds: receive from a server location updates for a plurality of transportation-provider mobile devices; transmit to the server a pickup location for a customer; receive an indication of a preferred transportation provider determined by the server; and display indicators of each provider's current position on the map. The '337 specification expressly admits the pre-existing art of "calculating which mobile device is closest to a particular single location … when using real-time location updates from each of the mobile devices," done by "Line-Of-Sight (LOS) distance calculations which are currently used in the prior art," and admits the cab-dispatch scenario ("a dispatching software application, where the person at the house wants to receive transportation to the airport from a cab … they need a vehicle with a capacity to hold 3 passengers … in 15 minutes"). That admission, together with DeLorme's reservation/dispatch-type planning system and the CPC placement of this subject matter at G08G1/202 ("Dispatching vehicles on the basis of a location, e.g. taxi dispatching"), supplies 4's substance. The only delta is substituting routed travel time/distance for LOS distance in the ranking — a change the specification itself frames as the invention's benefit and that a POSITA would adopt for the obvious reason that LOS distance ignores one-way streets, posted speeds and turn restrictions (all of which the specification itself lists as available map attributes).

⚠️ Two cautions on Ground 4: (i) if claim 4 retains the 2002 priority date, the pre-2002 dispatch art must be mapped carefully, element by element, and I did not retrieve claim 4's precise wording beyond the publication text quoted above; (ii) if claim 4 does not retain the 2002 date, § 103 becomes trivial against 2010s-era ride-hailing/mobile-application art, and a § 101/§ 112 attack becomes the more efficient path.

Ground 5 — single-reference obviousness (fallback)

US 2002/0065603 alone is worth charting against claim 1 as a one-reference § 103 ground (and a § 102(e) anticipation ground for the prediction/correction elements): it discloses measuring a vehicle position, supplying road geometry, predicting the position on the road data, and correcting the position onto the road/link when it does not lie on it. Its published destination/traveling-link display and the parallel Japanese-family disclosure concerning route information communicated from a route-search center (see JP 2004‑170248 family discussion of receiving route information from a network center and using it to specify the position preferentially) supply the route-display element. If the reference is found to disclose the connecting-route display, no combination is needed.

5. Anticipated patentee rebuttals — and how they should be met

Realistic weak spot for the challenger: claim 1's strict temporal ordering ("before receiving and processing the second position data and after receiving and processing the first position data") and the conditional correction trigger ("when the second position data indicates that the display … does not coincide") are drafted with unusual specificity. A careful mapping must show that the prior-art device performs the predicted display in the interval between two position fixes — not merely that it can predict positions. The Behr/'743 "route tracking of progression" and Watanabe's per-candidate-map prediction both operate in that interval, which is why Ground 2 is likely the strongest of the grounds above.

6. Bottom line

1. No prior-art section was supplied to me, so this analysis is built from (a) the patent's own admissions, (b) the CPC/keyword metadata, and (c) references I verified by retrieval — chiefly US 5,948,040 (DeLorme); US 5,270,937; US 2002/0065603 (Watanabe, Nissan); US 6,680,694 (Knockeart); WO 96/00373 (Behr); US 6,292,743; US 6,212,474 (Fowler), with US 6,308,134 (Croyle) and US 6,321,158 (DeLorme) as unverified candidates.
2. On the merits, claim 1 is highly likely obvious: the combination of a dead-reckoning/map-matching position display (US 5,270,937; US 2002/0065603) with a route-display/progress-tracking navigation system (Knockeart; US 6,292,743; Behr) renders each limitation, and the motivation (continuous, corrected, on-road position display) is supplied by the references and conceded by the specification.
3. Claims 3 and 4 are unlikely to survive on their own: claim 3 is textbook client-server route guidance with metric readouts; claim 4 rests on the specification's own admitted prior art of closest-vehicle dispatch, with the only change being LOS-distance → routed-time ranking.
4. The productive next step is documentary, not analytical: pull (i) the '337 patent's "References Cited" face listing, (ii) Bluestone's infringement contentions in 7:25‑cv‑00569, and (iii) Google's invalidity contentions and any petition directed at the '337 or '341 patents. Those will name the actual art in play and should supersede any reference I identified from general knowledge.