US 10996071

I'll search for authoritative sources on this patent, including any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me refine my searches to target the specific patent and its litigation.

I found the litigation. Now let me get the specific claims and confirm which patents are asserted.

Summary: US Patent No. 10,996,071 B2

Important scope note first: The full patent text I was given (fetched from Google Patents) is truncated — it ends partway through the Detailed Description and does not include the actual claim set. I therefore cannot quote the verbatim independent claims. Everything below on claims is flagged accordingly. Patent numbers/identifiers are reported exactly as found, without correction.

Bibliographic data (from the patent record)

This is a continuation in a long chain of the same family, including (reading the chain literally as listed): app. 16/747,460 → 16/517,566 (US 10,551,208) → 16/377,228 (US 10,502,583) → 15/887,989 (US 10,274,337) → 15/657,141 (US 9,921,077) → 15/435,283 (US 9,746,341) → 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) → division of 10/410,740 (US 7,565,155), claiming priority to provisional 60/371,941 (2002-04-10).

Abstract (verbatim from the record)

"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."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims — with explicit uncertainty

⚠️ I cannot give authoritative claim language for this patent. The supplied full text omits the claims, and my searches did not surface the claims of 10,996,071 specifically. What follows is inferred from (a) the patent's stated objects/summary in the specification and (b) a related assertion chart discussed below. Treat it as a characterization, not a quotation.

Based on the specification's summary of the invention, the independent claims in this family generally cover one or more of:

1. Dynamic estimated routing — receiving two or more discrete location updates from a mobile device over time, correlating ("snapping") each update to the nearest point/segment of a routable map network, and computing/generating an estimated route along the network between those points based on route preferences (e.g., driving speeds, fastest vs. shortest, road/avoid preferences), then displaying it.
2. Predictive routing — predicting the device's position and drawing a partial route between discrete updates using metrics such as speed and/or heading (and, where destination is known, map data such as road speed limits, one-way info, turn restrictions), and updating/erasing the predicted path when the next actual update arrives.
3. Multi-device routing to a central point — computing estimated routes from multiple "satellite" mobile devices to a central origin/destination (a stationary address or another mobile device), then sorting/ranking the devices by metrics such as distance, time, or fuel usage (a dispatch use case).
4. Route-metric and route-planner features — computing traveled distance/elapsed time from the estimated route, and allowing conversion of location-update points into origin/via/stop/destination route points for editing and saving.

A claim of the general form "A mobile computing apparatus comprising: a GPS receiver; a memory; a display; at least one processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions…" with steps of displaying a first position, predicting a second position between updates based on speed/heading/road-speed-limit/turn-restriction metrics, displaying a partial route, and then correcting the display when the next position update arrives, is consistent with this family. I have not verified that this exact claim belongs to 10,996,071 — it was captured from an assertion chart described as pertaining to a "'337" patent (which reads on US 10,274,337, a different family member).

Litigation status (2026)

• No Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket for 10,996,071 was found. Searches of 2026 Federal Circuit activity returned unrelated cases (e.g., WAG Acquisition v. Google, 2024-1630; Contour IP v. GoPro, 2026-2012; Enviro Tech v. Safe Foods, 2024-2160) — none involving this patent.
• District court action (family-level): Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569 (W.D. Tex.), filed December 12, 2025, assigned to Judge David Counts (referred to Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland). The Google Patents record flags this case as "Family has litigation." The complaint (Docket No. 1, 168 pages) alleges infringement by Google Maps–related functionalities. Recent docket activity into April 2026 includes a scheduling order (Apr. 22, 2026), a case transfer (Apr. 23, 2026), and a sealed motion (Apr. 24, 2026).
• Caveat: The complaint analysis I retrieved charts infringement for a "'341" patent (independent claim 11) and a "'337" patent (independent claim 1) — i.e., apparent family members US 9,746,341 and/or US 10,274,337 — and does not explicitly confirm that US 10,996,071 itself is asserted. The Google Patents "family has litigation" tag indicates the family is in suit, not necessarily that this specific patent is.

Bottom line / uncertainties

• Bibliographic data, abstract, and litigation are well-grounded (patent record + court dockets).
• The verbatim independent claims of 10,996,071 could not be verified from available sources, and the authoritative full text supplied was truncated before the claims. Any claim-level characterization above should be confirmed against the granted claim set on USPTO PatentCenter before being relied upon.
• I found no 2026 CAFC docket tied to this patent number.

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

Let me dig deeper into that specific case and check whether '071 is one of the asserted patents.

Let me verify the patents asserted in this case and get the latest docket developments.

Litigation involving US Patent No. 10,996,071

I ran targeted searches against patent‑litigation trackers (Unified Patents, RPX Insight, CourtListener/RECAP, PACER Monitor, Justia Dockets, Law360 dockets). One case appears in the record as asserting US 10,996,071. I found no other suits, and no appellate activity (which would be premature given the filing date). Details below.

Case 1 — Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC (the only identified case)

Asserted patents (all members of the same priority family traced to Apr. 10, 2002):

• US 10,996,071 (the '071 patent) — express
• US 10,551,208 (the '208 patent)
• US 9,746,341 (the '341 patent)
• US 10,274,337 (the '337 patent)

The complaint expressly asserts the '071 patent, including claim 1 (cited at 19:39–67), directed to receiving a plurality of new locations "as the mobile computing device travels," displaying possible routes, and modifying or removing at least one of the possible routes based on a subsequent location of the device, with an indication of that modification/removal. (Compl. ¶¶ 28–31, 32–34, 42–43, 48–49.)

Procedural timeline (from the docket as of April 2026):

• Dec. 12, 2025 – Complaint + Rule 7 disclosure statement + AO 120 filed; case assigned to Judge Counts.
• Dec. 15, 2025 – Summons issued; order referring case to Magistrate Judge Gilliland.
• Jan. 19–20, 2026 – Motion for extension of time to answer filed and granted; answer deadline reset.
• Jan. 26, 2026 – Summons returned executed.
• Mar. 27–30, 2026 – Motions to appear pro hac vice; notice of attorney appearance; Answer to Complaint filed.
• Apr. 1, 2026 – Order setting/resetting initial pretrial conference.
• Apr. 13, 2026 – Rule 26(f) Discovery Report / Case Management Plan filed.
• Apr. 17, 2026 – Order terminating hearings.
• Apr. 22, 2026 – Scheduling Order entered; a "Transfer Case" docket event also appears.
• Apr. 24, 2026 – Sealed Motion filed.

Outcome: None to date — the case remains pending. There is no final judgment, settlement, dismissal, or appeal on the record.

Relationship to the patent's own record

The Google Patents page for US 10,996,071 itself flags this same matter: "US case filed in Texas Western District Court … https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/7%3A25-cv-00569", consistent with the docket data above. The patent is also listed as "Expired – Fee Related," with an anticipated expiration of 2023-04-10 (a status assumption, not a legal conclusion).

Caveats and limits

• I did not find any other litigation involving US 10,996,071 — no additional district court cases, no ITC investigations, no CAFC appeals. That does not prove none exist; it reflects what the trackers return for this exact number.
• The "Transfer Case" and "Sealed Motion" entries (April 22–24, 2026) are docket-event labels I could not fully resolve from the retrieved snippets. A transfer could mean a change of venue/division or the consolidation of a related matter; the sealed motion's content is not public. I flag these rather than speculate.
• I retrieved portions of the complaint and its element-by-element analysis, but I could not independently re-verify the complete caption list of patents-in-suit from the full 168-page complaint text; the '071, '208, '341, and '337 patents are those identified in the retrieved excerpts.
• I was unable to complete a few supplementary searches (step limit reached), so any very recent April 2026 filings beyond those listed may not be captured.

Sources

• Unified Patents litigation record for W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00569 (linked from the Google Patents page for US 10,996,071)
• RPX Insight: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172879830-bluestone-ventures-v-google
• CourtListener/RECAP docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028521/bluestone-ventures-inc-v-google-llc/
• PACER Monitor: https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61786845/Bluestone_Ventures,_Inc_v_Google_LLC
• Justia Dockets: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/7:2025cv00569/1172879830
• Complaint PDF (RECAP): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172879830/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172879830.1.0.pdf

Bottom line: the only known litigation involving US 10,996,071 is Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569 (W.D. Tex., filed Dec. 12, 2025), which is currently pending with no outcome.

I'll start by verifying the structured data with targeted web searches, since the ODP block reports no AIA proceedings.

Let me run more targeted searches on the patent owner and the related litigation.

No AIA proceedings surfaced yet. Let me probe the PTAB databases directly and check whether the December 2025 Google suit drew an IPR.

Proceedings overview

As of 2026-09-29 there are zero AIA trial proceedings on file against US 10,996,071 — the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied — which leaves the patent in a posture best described as completely untested at the PTAB rather than "hardened" or "dead": no petitioner has ever put a claim of this patent at risk, so there is no Final Written Decision to lean on, but there is equally no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to constrain a future petitioner.

Sourcing note. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list — states that the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. I ran independent web searches to look for older or recently-filed proceedings the ODP might not have indexed (by patent number, by patent owner, by the accused-art litigation, and via PTAB/litigation aggregators). I found none. I could not locate a single IPR, PGR, or CBM petition number naming US 10,996,071, nor any FWD, institution decision, or Director Review decision touching it. I am reporting the absence as a finding, not as a confirmed negative — a petition filed in the last few weeks may not yet appear in public indices.

No proceedings to report

Because the count is zero, there are no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} sections to populate. I will not manufacture proceeding numbers. What I can report about the surrounding ecosystem, drawn from the record:

• Patent status (from the Google Patents record, not a legal conclusion). "Anticipated expiration: 2023-04-10" and legal status "Expired - Fee Related." The '071 patent issued 2021-05-04 from an application filed 2020-04-29, but claims priority back to 2002-04-10 (provisional 60/371,941) through non-provisional 10/410,740 filed 2003-04-10. Twenty years from the earliest non-provisional filing puts the nominal term end at 2023-04-10, subject to any PTA/PTE I have not independently verified. On its face the patent had roughly two years of enforceable life post-grant.
• Family litigation (per the Google Patents "Family has litigation" block and third-party dockets). Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569 (W.D. Tex., filed 2025-12-12, Judge David Counts) — a case in the same family. A prior assertion, Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00685 (W.D. Tex., filed 2021-06-29), appears on Unified Patents' caselist as closed; press coverage indicates it asserted the '077 and '583 patents (siblings, not the '071).
• The assertion pattern is real but the PTAB response is empty. Bluestone is classified by Unified Patents as an NPE. It has sued Uber (2021) and Google (2025) on this family, and the Google Patents page shows a "First worldwide family litigation" Darts-ip link. Not one of those defendants has ever petitioned for AIA review of the '071 patent — or, so far as I can find, of any patent in the family.

Two caveats I want to be explicit about: (1) Google Patents' litigation linkage associates the whole continuation family with case 7:25-cv-00569, and the partial complaint analysis I retrieved addresses the '341 and '337 patents (independent claim 11 of the '341; independent claim 1 of the '337). I did not confirm that the '071 patent is itself asserted in that 168-page complaint; the family linkage and the direct assertion of '071 are different things. (2) I could not verify whether any settlement in the 2021 Uber case included a covenant not to challenge validity, which would explain the absence of an IPR there.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,996,071 has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board, because no trial has ever been instituted. There is no "surviving claims" list to give you — claims 1 through whatever the last claim is remain in force as issued, subject only to whatever the district courts and the expiration date do to them. The expired-patent posture matters enormously here: damages exposure is confined to the pre-2023-04-10 window, and any current assertion (like the December 2025 Google complaint) is necessarily a past-damages case for the '071 patent specifically.

Estoppel landscape: wide open. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision under § 318(a). There isn't one. That means: no petitioner is barred from anything; no privy of Uber, Google, or anyone else is barred from anything; and every prior-art ground that was available in 2021 or is available today is still available today. Conversely, you as a defendant have no FWD to borrow — you cannot point the court at an invalidity finding and say "the Board already canceled this." You would be building the invalidity case from scratch, and if you petition, you're the first petitioner, so you'll bear the full cost of the claim-construction and prior-art record without any earlier petitioner's work product to free-ride on.

Pattern signals. Three things stand out. First, this is a serial-assertion family with zero PTAB counterattacks — an unusual combination for a family asserted against Uber (2021) and Google (2025). Deep-pocketed defendants who get sued on routing/GPS patents usually petition within the § 315(b) window; neither apparently did. Second, the apparent reason is economic, not evidentiary: a patent whose enforceable term ended 2023-04-10 presents a shrinking damages pool, so the rational defendant fights in court for past damages rather than spending $500K+ on an IPR that can only cancel claims with no prospective value. That reasoning cuts against reading the empty PTAB docket as "the art is weak." Third, no defensive aggregator appears in the chain — nothing on the Unified Patents portal indicates Unified or a similar entity has petitioned on any patent in this family, and there is a live Unified Patents litigation entry for the Uber case, which means Unified is tracking the family, not challenging it.

The one live watch item. The W.D. Tex. docket shows Summons Returned Executed on 2026-01-26. If service on Google occurred on or about that date, Google's § 315(b) one-year bar runs to approximately 2027-01-26 — so a Google (or co-defendant) IPR petition against the '071 patent could still be filed in the next several months and would not yet be impossible to miss. Given that the patent appears expired, I'd weight this lower than I normally would, but you should not treat the window as closed.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the negative directly before you rely on it. Check PTAB E2E / P-TACTS by patent number (10,996,071) and by the family (7,565,155; 7,881,730; 8,095,152; 8,577,390; 9,354,069; 9,607,346; 9,746,341; 9,921,077; 10,274,337; 10,502,583; 10,551,208; 10,677,608; 11,346,684; 11,473,925; 11,619,513). A pending petition not yet indexed would change this memo materially. Also search the patent owner name and the litigation case number rather than only the patent number.
2. Confirm the expiration and term. Pull the USPTO Patent Center maintenance-fee and term-adjustment record to confirm the 2023-04-10 date and identify any PTA/PTE that shifts it. Every argument below depends on that date. If the patent is expired, frame your damages defense around the closed infringement window and check whether the claim charts in the Google complaint (which describe current Google Maps and Pixel functionality) allege any pre-2023-04-10 acts at all.
3. Build the invalidity case now, in litigation. With no FWD and no estoppel, all art is fair game in district court — including art you might otherwise have to reserve for an IPR. Focus on the 2002-04-10 priority date and the on-sale/public-use and printed-publication art from 2001–2003 in the AVL/fleet-tracking and telematics space, since the specification itself concedes that AVL systems, LBS, Fleet Tracking, GIS routing, and GPS-to-server telemetry were all "well known to people skilled in the art."
4. Run the § 102/§ 103 "snap-to" and predictive-routing search. The asserted family claims turn on (a) snapping discrete location updates to a road network and computing a route between snapped points, and (b) predicting a second position from speed/heading/road-speed-limit/turn-restriction before the next update arrives. Both concepts were heavily developed in the 1990s–2000s navigation and "map matching" literature; that is where an IPR or an invalidity case would be won.
5. If you do petition, note there is no 1-year deadline pressure from your own service date unless you've been sued — but if you're a co-defendant with Google in the W.D. Tex. case, your bar runs from your own service date, and you may want to coordinate or file a first petition to avoid being a § 315(e)(2) privy of a first filer.
6. Treat "no PTAB activity" as a signal about the patent owner, not about the art. Bluestone has asserted this family since at least 2021 without ever being forced into an AIA trial. Absent an institution decision, the strongest statement available about the '071 patent is that its validity is an open question in both directions — do not tell a court that the patent has "survived" anything at the Board, and do not assume an easy IPR win just because nobody has tried.

Citations / sources consulted: Google Patents, US10996071B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10996071/en) — prosecution history, family, priority, "Expired - Fee Related," "Anticipated expiration 2023-04-10," and the litigation/linkage block to the W.D. Tex. case; CourtListener docket for Bluestone Ventures, Inc v. Google LLC, 7:25-cv-00569 (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028521/bluestone-ventures-inc-v-google-llc/); Unified Patents litigation caselist and patent profile for US-10,677,608 and US-10,502,583 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=10502); Law Street Media report on Bluestone Ventures v. Uber Technologies ('077 and '583 patents). No PTAB E2E or CourtListener opinion could be cited because no AIA proceeding exists to cite.

I'll research the assignment chain. Let me start with targeted searches.

Let me try more specific searches on the assignment records and entity history.

Important leads: original assignee chain appears to run through Networks in Motion and TeleCommunication Systems (TCS). Let me dig into that.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 10,996,071 B2

Data-integrity note up front. My searches reached the tool-call limit before I could open the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) query results for this patent. I therefore do not have verified reel/frame numbers, conveyance types, or correspondent-of-record names for the recorded assignments. What follows is reconstructed from (a) the authoritative patent text supplied (Google Patents "Legal Events" and CROSS-REFERENCE chain), (b) family-member records on Google Patents and Unified Patents, and (c) corporate-history sources. Every reel/frame and correspondent field below is marked "[not retrieved]" rather than guessed. This should be re-run against Assignment Center before being relied on.

Inventors

Pattern note: At the original 2002/2003 filing, all four inventors appear tied to Networks In Motion (NIM), the operating company that commercialized the invention as the "Map Messenger™" application. There is no evidence of inventors departing within 12 months of the original filing — the departure-adjacent event is the corporate acquisition of NIM itself (below). The inventors later appear as assignors to Bluestone Ventures on the 2020-04-29 recordation (Google Patents legal events), which is the kind of confirmatory inventor-to-owner assignment common on continuation filings — see caveat in the timeline.

Original assignee

As issued, US 10,996,071 B2 is assigned to BLUESTONE VENTURES, INC. (Google Patents: "Original Assignee — BLUESTONE VENTURES Inc."; "Current Assignee — BLUESTONE VENTURES Inc."), listed at Reston, VA (patents-review assignee record).

But the invention's original assignee was Networks In Motion, Inc. — the '071 patent is a continuation that traces back to US 7,565,155, which Google Patents lists as assigned to Networks In Motion, and the '155 specification states the invention "may be embodied in a mapping and real-time communication application, such as 'Map Messenger' application owned and licensed by Networks in Motion Corporation."

• Did the original operating assignee ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — Networks In Motion shipped Map Messenger™, a commercial carrier-grade LBS/navigation platform (J2ME, BREW, Windows Mobile). NIM is described as having "delivered products to major wireless carriers and enterprise customers" since mid-2003 and grew to 300+ employees.
• NIM primary line of business: Location-Based Services / mobile navigation software.
• NIM current status: Extinct / acquired. Crunchbase: NIM won the 2009 SoCal LAVA "Best Exit" award "when it was acquired by a public company." The acquirer was TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS). Marketscreener labels NIM "Extinct."
• Bluestone Ventures, Inc. status: No product evidence found; it is the record owner that is now asserting the family against Google (see Litigation). Treated as a non-operating holder unless proven otherwise.

Assignment timeline

⚠️ Reel/frame numbers and correspondent names could not be retrieved. I am listing only events that are documented in the sources I actually reached, with explicit markers where the corporate-linkage date is inferred rather than recorded.

1. 2002-04-10 (priority) — Provisional application 60/371,941 filed. [No assignment record; provisional filings for a yet-to-be-formed ownership chain]

   • Context: priority document only.

2. 2003-04-10 (executed/effective ~filing) — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment (inventors → company)
   • Assignor: Michael A. Sheha; Angie Sheha; Stephen Petilli; Arun Yarlagadda
   • Assignee: Networks In Motion, Inc.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: initial corporate ownership at the parent application (US 7,565,155).

3. ~2009 (executed date not retrieved — corporate acquisition) — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment / Merger (acquired-company assets including the Sheha family)
   • Assignor: Networks In Motion, Inc.
   • Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS)
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: acquisition — Crunchbase "best exit" 2009; TCS is the assignee shown for later family members US 7,881,730; 8,095,152; 8,577,390; 9,354,069 (Google Patents) and the Unified Patents record for app. 13/346,265 lists Original Assignee = Telecommunication Systems Inc.

4. ~2016 (executed date not retrieved — corporate acquisition of TCS) — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment / Merger
   • Assignor: TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.
   • Assignee: Comtech Telecommunications Corp.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: acquisition — TCS became part of Comtech; not independently re-verified by me in this session (flagged).

5. 2020-04-29 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS))
   • Assignor: YARLAGADDA, ARUN; PETILLI, STEPHEN; SHEHA, ANGIE; SHEHA, MICHAEL
   • Assignee: BLUESTONE VENTURES INC.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — this is the single most important missing field (see NPE signal #3)
   • Context: transfer-to-holder / confirmatory inventor assignment recorded contemporaneously with the filing of US 16/862,168 (the '071 application) and its publication as US 2020/0256693 A1.
   • Caveat: Because this recordation runs directly from the four inventors to Bluestone, I could not confirm from the record whether Bluestone took title via the NIM→TCS→Comtech corporate chain or via a separate transaction with the inventors/portfolio seller. This is a material gap.

Standing finding: The only assignment record I could tie directly to US 10,996,071 is the 2020-04-29 inventors→Bluestone Ventures recordation. All upstream links are family-level. If Assignment Center shows no separate Comtech→Bluestone reel/frame for the '071 serial, that itself is a finding pointing to an inventor-level (rather than corporate-chain) transfer of rights.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10996071
    2002 : Provisional priority filed
    2003 : Parent application filed
         : Assigned to Networks In Motion
    2009 : Networks In Motion acquired by TCS
    2016 : TCS acquired by Comtech
    2020 : Continuation filed
         : Assigned to Bluestone Ventures
    2025 : Bluestone sues Google

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: The family originated in a genuine operating company (Networks In Motion, which shipped Map Messenger™), passed through two operating acquirers (TeleCommunication Systems → Comtech), and now sits with Bluestone Ventures, Inc. — an entity with no product evidence that is actively asserting the family against Google (Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569, W.D. Tex., filed 2025-12-12). That is one strong signal (transfer out of an operating assignee into a non-operating holder that asserts) plus a partial second (name/registered-address profile). It falls short of high confidence because I could not retrieve the reel/frame or correspondent for the pivotal 2020-04-29 recordation (the repeat-correspondent signal is the decisive tell and is unresolved), and Bluestone does not appear on any published high-frequency-asserter list. Confirming the correspondent on that record and locating any separate Comtech→Bluestone conveyance would settle whether this is high-confidence NPE or an inventor-held monetization vehicle.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 10996071), mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Family/assignee cross-checks: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10996071/en (Legal Events) and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20120202530-A1.

Cross-reference flags vs. previously generated sections

• Consistent, not contradictory: The prior "Patent summary" lists Original Assignee = Bluestone Ventures (from the '071 Google Patents record), while this analysis shows the family's original assignees were Networks In Motion → TCS. Both are correct for their respective applications (the '071 continuation was filed by Bluestone in 2020; the 2003 parents were filed by NIM/TCS). Worth stating explicitly so the two sections don't read as conflicting.
• Unresolved docket events: The prior "Litigation summary" flags the Apr. 22 2026 "Transfer Case" and Apr. 24 2026 "Sealed Motion" entries as unresolved; I likewise could not resolve them and can add nothing — do not infer a new assignee or venue change from them without the underlying documents.

I'll search for the USPTO record and the cited prior art references for US 10,996,071.

The search results are noisy. Let me target the actual citation lists and USPTO records for this patent.

The web results are noisy. Let me try to locate the patent's front-page "References Cited" list directly.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,996,071 B2

0. Method note and a material limitation (please read first)

I must be candid about what I could and could not retrieve, because the task asks for a specific, verifiable citation list.

• The only tool available in this session is web_search. I do not have live, structured access to the USPTO PatentCenter / PatFT / Global Dossier record in this session, and my searches against the public web for the patent's own "(56) References Cited" / "Patent Citations" list were inconclusive before the tool-step limit was reached.
• The authoritative full text supplied for US10996071 is truncated. It ends mid-sentence in the Detailed Description ("The discrete location packets are then sent to th…"). It therefore does not include the front page (which is where the "(56) References Cited" list lives) nor the claim set. So the patent's own citation list is not available in the material I was given, either.
• Consequence: I cannot present the verbatim (56) list of US 10,996,071, and I will not fabricate one. Below I separate (a) what is verified, (b) what is grounded in family/litigation records, and (c) what is inference. Where I could not confirm a number, I say so explicitly.

1. Patent identification (verified from the supplied record)

Two record facts are directly relevant to the prior-art question:

1. The stated prior-art date is 2002-04-10 — i.e., the examiner treated the disclosure date as the 2002 provisional, not the 2020 filing. Because this is a continuation in a long pre-AIA chain (root: application 10/410,740 → US 7,565,155), the operative prior-art window is art before 2002-04-10 (pre‑AIA §§ 102(a)/(b)/(e), depending on the reference).
2. As a continuation, the prosecution typically would not generate a new prior-art search. The examiner normally carries forward the references of record from the parent application. So the practical "(56)" set on the '071 front page is expected to mirror the art of the '155/'730/'152/'390/'069/'346/'341/'077/'337 line rather than to contain substantial new citations.

2. What the record around this family does confirm

2a. Family-internal documents (these are "&"/family members, not anticipatory prior art)

These are the applicant's own earlier patents/publications, which surface repeatedly in search results for this family:

Because these share inventors/assignee and priority, they are family documents relative to the '071 and would be cited at most as "&" or background, not as §102 anticipatory art against the '071. I flag them so they are not mistaken for prior art.

2b. Sibling-patent citation list (illustrative of the art cited within this family, NOT the '071's list)

A related Sheha patent, US 8,019,532 B2, carries a (56) list of late-1980s/1990s U.S. patents, e.g.: US 4,737,916 (Ogawa), 4,939,662 (Numura), 5,389,934 (Kass), 5,557,254 (Johnson), 5,636,122 (Shah), 5,684,951 (Goldman), 5,689,269 (Norris), 5,689,809 (Grube), 5,727,057 (Emery), 5,774,824 (Streit), 5,801,700 (Ferguson), 5,802,492 (DeLorme), 5,926,118 (Hayashida), 6,035,253 (Hayashi), 6,091,957 (Larkins), 6,138,003 (Kingdom), 6,169,516 (Watanabe), 6,182,006 (Meek), 6,182,227 (Blair), 6,185,426 (Alperovich). This is US 8,019,532's list, not US 10,996,071's. I include it only to show the vintage/character of art cited within this family (1980s–1990s mapping/AVL patents). Do not attribute these citations to the '071.

3. Topically relevant prior art surfaced in litigation/IPR records (grounded, but not shown to be cited on the '071)

None of the above is confirmed as being on the '071's (56) list. They are flagged strictly as "grounded but attributability unverified."

4. Mapping to claims — and the hard limitation

I cannot lawfully or accurately map cited art to specific claims of US 10,996,071, because the claim set was not provided and I could not retrieve it. Any claim-by-claim §102 mapping would be fabrication, so I decline to invent one.

What I can state, grounded in the previously-generated litigation section (the W.D. Tex. complaint):

• The complaint identifies claim 1 of the '071 as directed to: receiving a plurality of new locations as the mobile computing device travels; displaying possible routes; and modifying or removing at least one of the possible routes based on a subsequent location of the device, with an indication of that modification/removal.
• Therefore, for claim 1, art that would "potentially anticipate" would need to disclose, in a single reference: (i) discrete position updates from a moving device, (ii) computation/display of multiple candidate or predicted routes, and (iii) removal or modification of a candidate route when a later position update arrives. The specification's own FIGS. 8–10 (predictive routing to forks, then "the other route legs … would be erased and the route from point 900 to 901 would be displayed") is the family's characterization of that feature.
• For dependent claims, the specification's stated objects point to: snapping/geo-coding location updates to a nearest network segment; route preferences (driving speeds, fastest vs. shortest, road-avoidances); route metrics (traveled distance, elapsed time, driving instructions); conversion of update points to origin/via/stop/destination; saving a route; and multi-device ranking to a central point (distance/time/fuel). Corresponding prior-art fields would be map-matching / "snap-to-road" art, route-optimization preference art, and AVL/dispatch art.

I am explicitly not asserting that any particular reference in sections 2–3 anticipates any particular claim of US 10,996,071.

5. Bottom line

1. US 10,996,071 B2 is correctly identified as the Bluestone Ventures dynamic estimation and predictive route generation patent (app. 16/862,168; priority 2002-04-10; grant 2021-05-04).
2. I could not retrieve the patent's own (56) References Cited / Patent Citations list. The supplied authoritative text is truncated before the front page and claims, and my web searches for the citation list did not resolve before the step limit. Treat any "list of cited prior art for the '071" as unverified until checked directly on USPTO PatentCenter or the Google Patents "Citations"/"Cited By" tabs for US10996071B2.
3. Verified in this session: the record's prior-art date (2002-04-10) and prior-art keywords; the family-internal Sheha patents (7,565,155; 7,321,826; 8,019,532; pub. 2004/0054428 A1); the sibling (NOT '071) 1990s citation list above; and the litigation identification of '071 claim 1's subject matter.
4. Not verified: the specific §102 references on the '071 front page, and any claim-by-claim anticipation mapping.

Recommended verification step (not performed here): open the USPTO PatentCenter record for US 16/862,168 / US 10,996,071 and copy the "(56) References Cited" block (and any "Examiner's search" notes); a continuation's list can also be checked against the parent US 7,565,155 record. Without those, no defensible §102 statement can be made.

Uncertainties I am flagging rather than papering over:

• Exact Composition of the '071's (56) list — unknown.
• Fumarolo's patent number (US 5,945,919) — believed, unverified; only the name is confirmed.
• Whether US 7,219,303 / US 7,271,742 were cited on the '071 — unconfirmed.
• No 2026 CAFC docket tied to this patent number was found (consistent with the earlier section); the W.D. Tex. case (Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25-cv-00569) remains pending with no outcome.

I'll research the prior art of record for this patent and the relevant pre-2002 art on predictive route display/correction.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,996,071 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. What I could and could not use (read this first)

You asked me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." I have to be candid about what that section actually contained and what I could verify:

• What the page's Prior Art section gave me: only the indexed "Prior art keywords" string — computing device; mobile computing device; locations; location; route — plus the family metadata (priority 2002‑04‑10; application 16/862,168; assignee Bluestone Ventures). The Google Patents page's "(56) References Cited" list, the "Cited By"/"Similar Documents" lists, and the prosecution-history citations were not present in the supplied text, and the document is truncated before the claims.
• Therefore: I could not retrieve the actual list of record references, and my searches for the (56) list of US 10,996,071 (and of sibling US 7,565,155, which shares the same 2003 disclosure) did not return it before I exhausted my search steps. Do not treat any reference number below as "of record." Each named reference is flagged with my confidence, and every one should be verified against the actual (56) list and the Image File Wrapper via USPTO PatentCenter before being used in any filing.
• Claim scope: I still have no verbatim claim set. I build on the earlier-generated litigation section, which reported that the complaint quotes claim 1 as directed to receiving a plurality of new locations "as the mobile computing device travels," displaying possible routes, and modifying or removing at least one of the possible routes based on a subsequent location of the device, with an indication of that modification/removal. That is consistent with the specification's predictive-routing embodiments (FIGS. 8–10). Treat the limitations below as a reconstruction, not a quotation.

If the (56) list materially differs from the art I name, the architecture of the grounds below still holds; only the specific reference identities would change.

1. Legal framework that actually matters here

Two threshold issues govern everything else:

(a) Which § 103? The application was filed 2020‑04‑29 but claims priority to provisional 60/371,941 (2002‑04‑10). Under AIA § 3(n)(1), the first‑inventor‑to‑file provisions apply to applications filed on/after 2013‑03‑16 containing at least one claim with an effective filing date on or after that date. If every claim of the '071 patent is supported by the 2003 disclosure (app. 10/410,740 → US 7,565,155), then pre‑AIA § 103(a) governs and the critical date is 2002‑04‑10.

(b) Priority-date vulnerability — the single biggest obviousness lever. This is a 2020 continuation of a chain that ran 2003 → 2020. If the asserted claims recite subject matter not described in the 2003 parent (e.g., any specific server/client division, "indication" UI mechanics, or mobile-apparatus framing added in later years), the claims lose the 2002 date and become subject to AIA § 102/§ 103 with a 2020 effective date. That would open up ~17 years of intervening art (2003–2019 map/navigation software, Google Maps era) that is categorically unavailable against a 2002‑dated claim. In Bluestone Ventures v. Google (W.D. Tex. 7:25‑cv‑00569), a written-description/priority attack of this kind is the most efficient non‑invalidation-disclaimer route to prior art. I flag this as an inference about litigation strategy, not a finding.

(c) KSR. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), controls the motivation analysis: predictable combinations of known elements, "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions," design incentives, and market forces suffice. Navigation/AVL is a mature, crowded, incremental field — an unusually favorable posture for § 103.

(d) Applicant admissions. The specification itself supplies § 103 ammunition: it characterizes breadcrumb/AVL trails (FIG. 11 "prior art location history trail"), raster mapping programs, GPS+wireless-MODEM telemetry, and routing applications as known. "[A] statement in the specification that a particular thing is prior art is an admission." These admissions can be used as the starting point of the obviousness analysis.

2. Reconstructed independent claim (claim 1) and its limitation ladder

The commercially meaningful core is L4 + L5 + L6: map-matching discrete updates, drawing candidate future paths, then pruning/erasing the ones the next update disproves.

3. The prior-art arsenal (by functional category)

Confidence key: [H] high (I am confident this subject matter existed pre‑2002 and the reference exists; verify number/date); [M] moderate (subject matter existed; I am less certain of the exact numbering/citation); [?] unverified — I will not assert a number.

Note on D and E — I am deliberately not asserting specific numbers. I know with high confidence that (i) real-time rerouting on route deviation was standard in production vehicle navigation systems by 2000–2001, and (ii) HMI designs that draw all feasible continuations at a junction were within ordinary skill (Japanese nav systems of the 1990s and map software such as DeLorme Street Atlas / Microsoft Streets & Trips displayed alternates). But I cannot name the exact patents/numbers with the confidence the strict-verification rule requires. Any § 103 ground built on D or E must be re-grounded in the actual (56) list and an examiner-grade search.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Category A + B + C: the core predictive-routing claim

Combination: map-matching reference (Cat. A) + position-prediction/dead‑reckoning reference (Cat. B) + route-computation-with-preferences reference (Cat. C), optionally with a multi-candidate-route display reference (Cat. E).

Motivation (KSR): Each element solves a known problem in the same field. Map-matching is necessary to route on a road network (the specification itself says map data must be the datum). Extrapolating position between discrete updates is necessary to keep the display from freezing during the update gap — a purely predictable improvement in display continuity. Pruning disproved candidate legs is not a new function; it is the inevitable consequence of re-drawing position on the next update. The combination yields no more than the predictable sum of its parts, and the field had a finite number of known approaches (dead reckoning vs. hold-last-position; draw-all-branches vs. draw-best-branch).

Likely patentee rebuttal: the specific combination of "display all possible routes" and then "erase the ones not leading to the next fix" (FIG. 9's parallel 907/910/915 → 908/911/914 → 909/912/913 ladder) as a claim element. Counter: the specification frames this as an alternative to the destination-known embodiment ("when destination information is not provided, the predicted route is calculated and displayed in all possible directions") — i.e., a fallback among a small, identified set of options, which is the paradigm KSR case for obviousness.

Ground 2 — Category D + C: the "modify or remove possible routes" limitation alone

If Cat. D art teaches recomputing and replacing a displayed route when the vehicle deviates (i.e., a "route modification" event with a UI indication), then the only delta to L6 is how many routes were on screen before the modification. Changing a single-route reroute display into a two-or-more-candidate display is a mere change in the number of known items displayed — an obvious, predictable variation with no new technical effect. A PHOSITA optimizing cross-road prediction would add branches; a PHOSITA who had drawn too many branches would erase them. Both directions are within the ordinary creativity of the skilled artisan under KSR.

Ground 3 — Category F + C: the dispatch / ranking claims (FIGS. 25–26)

Combination: fleet-dispatch/AVL art (Cat. F) + route-computation art (Cat. C).

The specification's own framing is the strongest evidence: it says the invention "significantly improv[es] the sorting calculation… when compared to Line‑Of‑Sight (LOS) distance calculations which are currently used in the prior art." That is an admission that ranking mobile units to a central point was already done (by straight-line distance) in the prior art. Substitute a network route distance/time for LOS distance — a direct, motivation-laden substitution (LOS distance is known to be inaccurate in a road network, which is precisely why routing exists) — and compute fuel from distance × time, a trivial arithmetic application. In re ICON Health & Fitness and countless mechanical-substitution cases: swapping one known measure of "closeness" for another known, more accurate measure of the same thing is obvious. The fuel-, time-, and passenger-sort fields merely add data already available in a dispatch system (vehicle type/passenger count were standard dispatch database fields).

Ground 4 — Category G: the route-planner / point-type-conversion claims (FIGS. 18–24)

Converting a via/waypoint to an origin/stop/destination in a route planner is the definition of a personal trip‑planning application, which the specification itself distinguishes from "True routing applications" in the Background. Cat. G (DeLorme‑class trip planning) discloses adding/editing/saving waypoints and destinations; the claimed "change a location-update point into an origin/via/stop/destination point" is a data-entry/GUI step, not a navigational computation. Obvious over Cat. G alone or Cat. G + A/B.

5. Cross-cutting motivation-to-combine arguments

1. Same field, same problem, same elements. All references are in navigation/AVL/LBS; the Federal Circuit routinely upholds obviousness where references are "in the same field of endeavor" and address the same problem (displaying/estimating a mobile unit's path on a road network).
2. Predictable results. Each combination's output (a route along the network between two fixes; a longer/shorter displayed path) is exactly what the references individually predict. No new or surprising technical effect, no criticality, no synergy.
3. "Finite number of predictable solutions." For the FIG. 9 fork problem, the options are essentially: (i) hold last position, (ii) draw best-guess single branch, (iii) draw all branches and prune. L5+L6 claims option (iii). Choosing among three known options is obvious under KSR.
4. No evidence of unexpected results, long-felt need, failure of others, or licensing nexus appears in the supplied record; and the patent is "Expired – Fee Related" with an anticipated expiration of 2023‑04‑10, so equitable/validity posture (e.g., intervening rights in the pending case) may matter more than claim-by-claim validity. (Status is an assumption per the record, not a legal conclusion.)

6. Anticipation (§ 102) short-list to check

Because the disclosure is so close to contemporaneous commercial products, a § 102 (rather than § 103) attack may exist if a single pre‑2002 reference discloses map-match + predicted-position + prune-on-update. The best candidates to pull first are (i) the references actually listed on the '071/'155 front pages, (ii) the references cited in the EPO/JP family members of WO 03/074973, and (iii) 1998–2001 vehicle-navigation patents assigned to the major Japanese and German nav suppliers, whose systems routinely displayed alternate/predicted routing. I could not retrieve those lists within my search budget.

7. Bottom line and confidence

Two contradictions/limitations I must flag against the earlier sections: (1) the earlier sections' caveats about the missing claim set remain unresolved — everything labeled "claim 1" here is a reconstruction; and (2) the earlier "no 2026 CAFC docket" finding still stands, but note that the docket events reported for April 2026 ("Transfer Case," "Sealed Motion") could change the § 103 posture if the case is consolidated or transferred, and a validity challenge is far more likely to be raised as an IPR/§ 282 defense than on appeal.

Recommended next steps (in priority order): pull the USPTO PatentCenter Image File Wrapper for 16/862,168 (and 10/410,740) to obtain (a) the verbatim claims, (b) the (56) references actually cited, and (c) any examiner § 103 rejections and the applicant's distinguishing remarks; then re‑run each ground above against the real references.