US 11054239

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

Let me run targeted searches for any litigation or PTAB activity involving this specific patent.

US Patent 11,054,239 — Summary

Important scope note on the search: I searched for this specific number across general web sources (Google Patents, uspto.report, patent aggregators) and for CAFC/PTAB/litigation dockets. I found no district-court litigation, no PTAB proceeding, and no CAFC 2026 docket involving US 11,054,239 in the sources reachable by my search tool. I cannot rule out a pending case that simply is not indexed in the sources I can reach — so treat "no litigation found" as a search result, not an authoritative negative. Several search hits were false positives for the same digit string and should not be conflated with this patent:

• JP 11054239 A — a Japanese application number for an unrelated centrifugal tea-leaf dehydrator.
• SEC filing ID 11054239 — a 2004 Form 6-K for Randgold Resources (not a patent).
• IPR2021-00213 (TA Instruments–Waters v. Malvern Panalytical) — involves U.S. 10,254,239, a different patent number.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative full text)

Abstract (as granted)

A device for determining information indicating a length of a tire footprint includes an input for a signal from a magnetic earth field sensor configured to generate the signal indicating a measured magnetic earth field, and a processing module configured to determine the information indicating the length of the footprint of the tire based on the signal indicating the measured magnetic earth field.

Technical gist

The patent replaces the conventional in-tire acceleration sensor (whose micro-mechanical elements can be damaged at resonance) with a magnetic earth field sensor (e.g., Hall or XMR-type) mounted in the tire. As the sensor rotates, its signal is sinusoidal over the circular part of its trajectory but becomes constant/less variant while it traverses the flat footprint region. The processor detects these deviations from the sinusoidal sequence and derives footprint length from the timing of entry/exit combined with the tire's rotational velocity.

Independent claims — plain language

• Claim 1 (device). An input interface receives a signal from a magnetic earth field sensor; a processor receives that signal and determines the footprint length from it. The processor also determines load information of the tire or vehicle from the footprint length, determines a timing of deviations from a sinusoidal signal sequence, and computes footprint length from that timing plus information indicating the tire's rotational velocity.

• Claim 5 (device). Same input/processor framework and same load-information requirement as claim 1, but the footprint length is determined by differentiating the sensor signal and comparing the differentiated signal against a threshold.

• Claim 8 (device). Same input/processor framework and load-information requirement, but directed to tire localization: the processor localizes multiple tires on the vehicle's wheels by correlating (a) wheel rotational frequencies derived from the sensor signal with reference rotational-frequency information, or (b) an angular position of a wheel indicated by the signal with reference angular-position information.

• Claim 11 (tire pressure measurement system). A TPMS comprising the input interface and processor, with the claim 1-style limitations: footprint length from the magnetic earth field signal, load information, timing of deviations from the sinusoidal sequence, and footprint length from that timing plus rotational velocity.

• Claim 12 (tire for a vehicle). A tire including a magnetic earth field sensor that generates the signal, plus a device with the input interface and processor, again requiring load-information determination, timing of sinusoidal deviations, and footprint length from timing plus rotational velocity.

• Claim 13 (method). Steps performed by at least one processor: determine information on a timing of deviations from a sinusoidal signal sequence in the signal; determine the footprint length from that timing and from information indicating the tire's rotational velocity; and determine load information of the tire or vehicle from the footprint length.

• Claim 15 (non-transitory computer-readable medium). A CRM encoded with program code implementing the same method steps as claim 13 (timing of deviations; footprint length from timing + rotational velocity; load information).

Dependent claims 2–4, 6–7, 9–10, and 14 add: radial/tangential field measurement (2); an ADC for sampling (3); inclusion of the sensor and the tire in the device (4); entry/exit timing via threshold comparison and footprint-duration-to-rotation-cycle relation (6); dynamic threshold adaptation relative to maximum signal amplitude (7); the sinusoidal-deviation/rotational-velocity limitations in the localization claim (9); reference information supplied by an anti-lock braking system (10); and generating the magnetic earth field signal in the method (14).

Context from cited art

Among the 20+ cited references, several are directly on point: US 2006/0212193 A1 (Automotive Technologies International — "Tire Pressure Monitoring Using Hall Effect Sensors"), US 2009/0205414 A1 / US 7,942,047 B2 (Continental Automotive France — determining footprint length on the ground), US 2009/0069969 A1 (Infineon — tire sensor system and method), and GB 2533658 A (Continental — wheel load from tire). The patent has been cited by Goodyear filings on tire auto-location/wear estimation using footprint length (e.g., US 2024/0190188 A1 and US 12,330,454 B2), consistent with the load-detection and localization features recited in claims 1, 8, 11, 12.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11054239 across patent litigation sources.

Initial results show no litigation. Let me check the specialized litigation sources directly.

Let me search litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Report: U.S. Patent No. 11,054,239

Bottom Line

No litigation is known to involve U.S. Patent No. 11,054,239 (the " '239 patent").

Based on my searches of patent litigation sources — including Unified Patents' litigation portal, court dockets (PACER/CourtListener), RPX Insight, USPTO PTAB records, and general web search — I found no district court complaints, no declaratory judgment actions, no ITC Section 337 investigations, and no PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) in which the '239 patent was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

I therefore cannot provide plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome, because no such case has been identified.

What the '239 Patent Is

For context (grounded in the patent text you provided):

• Title: "Device, a tire pressure measurement system, a tire, a vehicle, a method and a computer program for determining information indicating a length of a footprint of a tire"
• Patent number: US 11,054,239 B2 (interpreted literally as provided)
• Application no.: US 15/696,942
• Filing date: September 6, 2017
• Priority date: September 7, 2016 (DE 102016116696.0)
• Grant/publication date: July 6, 2021
• Assignee: Infineon Technologies AG (current and original)
• Inventors: Michael Kandler, Thomas Lange, Jooil Park
• Status: Active; adjusted expiration listed as 2039-09-23
• Subject matter: Determining tire footprint length using a magnetic earth field sensor (in-tire), with load detection, differentiation/threshold signal processing, and TPMS wheel localization using ABS reference data.

Evidence Considered

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — No case list entry referencing 11054239 appeared.
2. PTAB / USPTO proceedings — No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition naming the '239 patent was found; the PTAB materials that surfaced involved unrelated patents (e.g., '054, '542, '508 patents in other technologies).
3. CourtListener / PACER-oriented results — Hits containing "11054239" resolved to unrelated matters or to the patent document itself, not to a docketed case.
4. RPX Insight — Infineon enforcement activity that surfaced (e.g., Infineon power-transistor suits against Fairchild) involved entirely different patents ('631, '675, '698, '223, '798), not the '239 patent.
5. Forward citations — The '239 patent is cited by later Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company patents (e.g., US 2024/0190188 / US 12,330,454, "System for auto-location of tires employing footprint length"), but citing a patent as prior art is not litigation. Google Patents' "Cited By" listing does not indicate any assertion of the '239 patent.

Important Caveats / Confidence Level

• Moderate-to-high confidence that no litigation exists, given that this is a 2016-priority patent that has been granted since 2021 and is still held by its operating company (Infineon), with no NPE reassignment recorded. A large enforcement campaign would ordinarily surface in the sources searched.
• However, I cannot guarantee exhaustiveness. Free web tools do not perfectly index every PACER docket, and sealed, recently filed, or non-publicly reported actions could exist. Sources like Docket Alarm, Derwent LitAlert, Lex Machina, or a direct PACER/Delaware and E.D. Tex. docket search would be the authoritative confirmation.
• I did not find any litigation for this specific patent number; I am not relying on any auto-corrected or similar number. Any superficially similar numbers encountered (e.g., other '542, '054, or '508 patents) belong to unrelated matters and are expressly not reported here as litigation involving US 11,054,239.

Recommendation

To confirm with certainty, run targeted docket queries for the exact string "11,054,239" and "11054239" across:

• PACER (all district courts, esp. D. Del., E.D. Tex., W.D. Tex., C.D. Cal., N.D. Cal., D.N.J.)
• Docket Alarm and Lex Machina (patent case filters)
• Unified Patents Portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and PTAB for any IPR/PGR
• USITC EDIS for Section 337 investigations
• CAFC docket search for any appeal

If those return nothing, the conclusion stands: no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,054,239.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted searches before reporting.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition against US 11,054,239 B2, and independent web searching surfaced no PTAB docket numbers, institution decisions, or Final Written Decisions naming this patent, its inventors (Kandler, Lange, Park), or its owner (Infineon Technologies AG). The count is 0 active / 0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is best described as "uncontested and un-narrowed — the full claim set you're being asserted against is exactly as issued, so there is no free kill waiting at the PTAB."

Because no proceeding exists, the per-proceeding subsections required by the template have no content. Reporting them with invented numbers, panels, or dispositions would violate the constraints. What follows instead is what the record does support.

No proceedings to report

• Proceeding numbers: none — I found no IPR/PGR/CBM number associated with this patent. I decline to supply a plausible-looking number.
• Filings, institution decisions, FWDs, settlements, appeals: none located.
• Verification note: the 2024-10-17 Maintenance fee payment (4th year, large entity) and "Active, expires 2039-09-23" status in the ODP record are consistent with a patent that has never been through an AIA trial — no adverse judgment, no disclaimer, no cancellation certificate appears in the legal events.

One caveat on sourcing: my last two searches were cut off by a tool step limit before I could complete a Docket Navigator / CourtListener-style sweep for litigation that might have triggered a petition. I did not find any district court case in which this patent was asserted, but I cannot state that with the same confidence as the PTAB finding.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 15 claims, all UNTESTED and all intact. Claims 1–15 stand exactly as granted on 2021-07-06. Nothing is CANCELED; nothing is SUSTAINED-by-the-Board (which is a different thing from never-challenged). Three independent device/system claims (1, 5, 8), one system claim (11), one tire claim (12), and method/CRM claims 13 and 15 form the assertion surface. Note the claim drafting style carried through from prosecution: the load-determination limitation ("determine load information of the tire or a vehicle based on the information indicating the length of the footprint") appears as a positive, load-bearing element in every independent claim. Any invalidity theory must therefore meet that limitation head-on; you cannot sidestep it as mere intended use, because the Board would read it as a required function of the processor.

Estoppel landscape: empty. With no petitioner and no instituted trial, § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds no one. There is no prior IPR petitioner whose grounds are foreclosed, no privity chain to worry about, and no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or similar entity) anywhere in the chain. Practically: a defendant today has the full universe of § 102/§ 103 art genuinely available — there is no "reasonably could have raised" trapdoor shutting off art that a hypothetical earlier petitioner had in hand. That is the one genuine silver lining of a clean PTAB history.

Pattern signals: none — and that is itself the story. There is no repeat-petitioner pattern to mine, no patent-owner appeal aggression to model, and no PTAB-canceled claim to anchor a § 282 defense. The relevant signal is the patent's positive citation trail: Goodyear filings (US 11,981,163; US 11,774,301; US 12,220,946; US 12,263,704; US 2024/0190188 and US 12,330,454 on auto-location employing footprint length) cite into this family, showing the industry treats magnetic/field-based footprint-length measurement as a live technical area. For a defendant, that cuts both ways: it suggests real commercial relevance, and it means the prior-art landscape around "estimate tire load from contact-patch length" is crowded enough that a well-funded § 103 challenge is a serious option rather than a formality.

Recommended next steps

• No PTAB activity exists for this patent. Plan on that basis. Do not budget for an IPR-based stay or an early invalidation win off a prior FWD — there is nothing to inherit.
• If you are a defendant facing a demand letter: the practical questions are (a) whether claims 1/5/8 are actually infringed given the mandatory load-determination limitation, and (b) whether pre-2016 art — particularly the art already cited on the face of the patent (e.g., US 2006/0212193 A1, Hall-effect TPMS; US 2009/0205414 A1 / US 7,942,047 B2, Continental's footprint-length determination; GB 2,533,658 A, Continental's wheel-load determination; US 2016/0011279 A1, Infineon's own magnetic field sensor device) — can be combined into a § 103 theory that the applicant did not squarely address. The examiner cited these, so a straight re-run of them risks being read as considered-and-overcome.
• If you file first, watch § 325(d). The Board's discretion to deny institution on art already before the examiner is the single largest gate you face here, precisely because no one has cleared the path for you.
• Trial-stage milestones: none — there is no institution decision, no oral hearing, and no statutory § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD deadline running against anyone.
• Monitor: this is an Infineon portfolio asset (German counterpart DE 10 2016 116 696 A1, published 2018-03-08, still pending per the family record). If Infineon begins asserting it against automotive TPMS suppliers, expect the first IPR petitioner to appear within months of the first complaint — and at that point the calculus above changes materially.

Sources: USPTO ODP structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical, nil); Google Patents US11054239B2 (claims, legal events, citation trail); USPTO PatentCenter for the '239 file history. No PTAB E2E or CourtListener decision exists to link for this patent.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record for US 11,054,239 by querying the assignment databases and cross-referencing available sources.

I hit the tool step limit before I could pull the reel 043509/0166 cover sheet directly, so I'll be explicit below about what is confirmed from the authoritative record versus what I could not verify. I will not fabricate the missing fields.

Inventors

Pattern check — no unusual signals. All three inventors assigned their rights to the employer of record, and I found no evidence of inventors departing Infineon within 12 months of the 2017-09-06 filing. Kandler's and Park's portfolios remain attributed to Infineon years later, which is inconsistent with a pre-fire-sale inventor exodus. (Note: Kandler and Lange are almost certainly German-resident inventors given Infineon's German R&D base for tire/automotive sensing; Park's residency is not determinable from the records I reached — do not infer a US location.)

Original assignee

Infineon Technologies AG (Munich/Neubiberg, Germany) — original and current assignee of record.

• Business: Operating semiconductor manufacturer (power semiconductors, automotive/microcontroller, sensor ICs). Public company (Frankfurt: IFX). Infineon is a genuine supplier in the relevant space — it markets TPMS sensor ICs and Hall/XMR magnetic-field sensors, which are the component categories the '239 claims operate on. So this is an operating company that plausibly ships sensor hardware within the technical field of the claims.
• Status: Operating — no acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy. Confirmed by the 2024-10-17 4th-year maintenance-fee payment by "LARGE ENTITY, Original event code M1551" and the "Active, expires 2039-09-23" status.
• No public-company forced-transfer event (no 8-K/10-K disclosure of a patent sale affecting this family surfaced).

Assignment timeline

The authoritative legal-events block in the granted patent text shows exactly one recorded assignment, and no second entry appears anywhere in the record:

• 2017-08-21 → 2017-08-24 (executed; multiple inventor signing dates) / recorded 2017-09-06 — Reel 043509 / 0166
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Kandler, Michael; Lange, Thomas; Park, Jooil (individually, as joint inventors)
  • Assignee: Infineon Technologies AG (Germany)
  • Correspondent: ⚠️ Not determinable from the sources I reached. The Google Patents legal-events text truncates the record before the correspondent field, and my searches did not surface the reel 043509/0166 cover sheet. Caveat / inference only: Infineon's recurring US prosecution/recording correspondent in this era is Volpe and Koenig, P.C., 30 South 17th Street, 18th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103 (correspondent string "VOLPE AND KOENIG PC AND INF"; submitter Ryan F. Heavener) — observed on a different 2018 Infineon assignment (reel 046345/0855). I flag that as the probable firm but I have not confirmed it is the correspondent on reel 043509/0166. Treat as unverified.
  • Context: Ordinary employment/initial prosecution assignment — inventors-to-employer, executed days before filing, recorded the same day the application (US 15/696,942) was filed. Not a fire-sale, securitization, reorg, or transfer-to-asserter.

No post-issuance assignment exists. There is no recorded transfer to any licensing entity, no security agreement, no merger conveyance, and no change-of-name filing on this patent. Per the rules above, this is itself the finding: the original assignee still owns the patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11054239
    2017 : Inventors assign to Infineon
         : Application filed 2017-09-06
    2021 : Patent granted to Infineon
    2024 : Maintenance fee paid year 4

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. No assignment off Infineon to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" LLC. The only recorded conveyance (reel 043509/0166) runs inventor→operating employer and the chain stops there.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither the current nor any prior assignee matches a public NPE/PAE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Conversant, etc.). Current assignee is Infineon Technologies AG, a large operating semiconductor company. (Contrast: RPX has documented WiLAN acquiring other Infineon patents via Polaris/North Star — those are different patents, not this one, and are expressly not reported here as involving US 11,054,239.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT (and not testable). There is only one link in the chain, so the "recurrence" test cannot fire even if a Volpe and Koenig correspondent is later confirmed. A single appearance is not a finding by the stated rubric.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Zero consecutive assignments, let alone multiple LLC-to-LLC hops within 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No assignment within 6 months of any infringement suit, because no suit naming this patent exists (per the litigation and PTAB sections already generated) and no post-issuance assignment exists at all.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Infineon is solvent and operating; the 2024 maintenance fee was paid by a large entity. No Chapter 7/11 event.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer from Infineon to any entity that asserts on its behalf. No SEC disclosure of such a divestiture surfaced.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Infineon itself, which is neither an NPE nor a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment). Under the template's own definition, a chain consisting solely of the initial assignment falls in this category — here, the single inventor→employer conveyance executed 2017-08-21/24 and recorded 2017-09-06 at reel 043509/0166, with no recorded transfer thereafter. Substantively, the evidence is affirmative that no NPE pattern is present: every one of the eight signal tests is not present, the assignee is an operating semiconductor manufacturer that plausibly ships sensor ICs in this field, and there is no known litigation and no PTAB proceeding (per the previously generated sections) to anchor a "transfer-to-asserter" narrative. I therefore cannot issue an NPE verdict of any confidence — the correct disposition is a clean, non-NPE chain retained by the original operating assignee, which the rubric labels Insufficient data absent any post-issuance record.

One unverified field to close: the correspondent of record on reel 043509/0166 could not be confirmed with the sources I reached. If you want that nailed down, pull the cover sheet at the USPTO Assignment Center:

• https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 11,054,239 or application 15/696,942)
• Mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Sources: Google Patents US11054239B2 — legal-events block (reel 043509/0166; 2024-10-17 maintenance fee; active to 2039-09-23); PatentLeaderboard – Kandler and Park; RPX Insight news search (WiLAN/Infineon activity on unrelated patents); USPTO assignment cover sheet for a separate Infineon filing (reel 046345/0855, Volpe and Koenig) used only as the basis for the flagged inference, not as a confirmed record for this patent.

I'll verify the patent record and then examine each cited reference. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me verify a few more key references before compiling the analysis.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 11,054,239 B2

0. Patent verification (USPTO / Google Patents record)

Searching the USPTO record for the literal number 11054239 returns exactly one document:

I did not substitute any similar number. All references below are the ones cited on the face of US 11,054,239 ("Patent Citations (24)" plus the Non-Patent Citations), which is what the task asks for.

Methodology / standard applied. Under § 102 a single reference anticipates only if it discloses every element of the claim as arranged. The independent claims here (1, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15) each require a specific combination: (a) a magnetic earth field sensor signal; and (b) determination of load information from the footprint length; and (c) either timing of deviations from a sinusoidal signal sequence + rotational velocity (claims 1/11/12/13/15) or differentiation vs. a threshold (claim 5) or localization by correlating rotational frequency / angular position with reference info (claim 8). Because (b) is a mandatory, load-bearing limitation in every independent claim, a reference that measures a footprint but does not derive load cannot alone anticipate. I therefore flag, reference by reference, where the § 102 case is real vs. where the art is at most a § 103 building block. My bottom line: none of the cited references appears to be a clean, single-reference § 102 anticipation of any independent claim; the strongest references are § 103 combinations, chiefly around magnetic-field wheel sensing + footprint-length-to-load.

TIER 1 — Closest art (magnetic-field / footprint-length measurement and load)

1. US 2009/0205414 A1 — and its grant US 7,942,047 B2

• Citation. Vassilieff et al., "Method for determining the length of the footprint on the ground of a tire of a wheel of a vehicle," US 2009/0205414 A1, pub. 2009-08-20, priority 2008-02-15; granted as US 7,942,047 B2, 2011-05-17; assignee Continental Automotive France.
• Description. Mounts a magnetic sensor (coil, Hall, MR/GMR) on the rim and analyzes the measured magnetic field to detect field variations caused by tire deformation as a circumferential zone enters and leaves the ground contact. Footprint length is derived from the time between the two field variations combined with known wheel rotation speed, and the spec expressly states this yields, "amongst other things, the load of the vehicle, its traveling/stopped state, state of inflation/deflation." Notably, the sensor is positioned "so that [it] is not sensitive to the variations of the earth magnetic field when the wheel is rotating."
• § 102 analysis. This is the single most structurally similar reference and the strongest § 102 candidate — but it fails on a critical claim element and, I would argue, is not an anticipation: the '239 claims require a signal indicating a measured magnetic earth field, whereas '0205414 teaches away from the earth field (it senses the tire's own magnetized metal belt and deliberately isolates the sensor from the earth field). Also, '0205414 derives footprint length from timing of raw field variations, not from "deviations from a sinusoidal signal sequence."
  • Potentially anticipatory claims if the earth-field distinction is disregarded: independent claim 1 and system claim 11 (magnetic sensor → footprint length → load → rotation-speed-based timing); claim 5 is weaker (no differentiation/threshold compare disclosed).
  • Most realistic use: primary § 103 reference against claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15.

2. US 7,646,195 B2 (Infineon) — from US 2005/0093539 A1

• Citation. Infineon Technologies AG, "Apparatus and method for sensing rotation of a wheel," US 7,646,195 B2, pub. 2010-01-12, priority 2003-09-02 (pre-grant pub. US 2005/0093539 A1).
• Description. Same assignee as the '239 patent. A sensor for sensing the earth magnetic field disposed in the wheel, plus a detector that detects a change in the sensed earth field to sense wheel rotation; the output is described as "an oscillation with a frequency depending on the rotation speed," from which rotation speed/vehicle speed is inferred. Motivates it as avoiding mechanically deformable (acceleration) sensors — the exact motivation recited in the '239 background.
• § 102 analysis. Discloses the earth-field sensor-in-wheel + rotational-velocity-from-oscillating-signal elements of claims 1/11/13/15, but does not determine footprint length or load. No single-claim anticipation. It is, however, the strongest § 103 partner to reference #1: combining the earth-field wheel sensor of '195 with the footprint-to-load method of '0205414 reaches the core of claims 1, 11, 12, 13 and 15. The examiner's citation of it is disclosed, so a straight re-run of this pair risks § 325(d) at the PTAB, but it is the natural starting combination.

3. GB 2 533 658 A — and US 2017/0355234 A1

• Citation. Dharamshi et al., "Method and system for determining a wheel load acting on a tire of a vehicle," GB 2 533 658 A, pub. 2016-06-29, priority 2014-12-22; US counterpart US 2017/0355234 A1; assignee Continental Automotive GmbH.
• Description. Determines a tire footprint (e.g., contact length via a tire-mounted sensor), then selects one of a plurality of calculation models based on tire information and calculates the wheel load from footprint + measured operating conditions (pressure, temperature, velocity). Explicitly relies on the fact that wheel load affects footprint length, and cites US 8,255,114 B1 (wheel load from footprint length).
• § 102 analysis. Supplies the footprint-length → load limitation that reference #1 makes implicit, and adds model-selection. Not an anticipation of any independent claim because it does not use a magnetic earth field sensor nor the sinusoidal-deviation timing (claim 1/5/13/15), and it is not localization (claim 8). Strong § 103 reference for the load-information limitation across claims 1, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15.

TIER 2 — Other tire-deformation / footprint / contact-length estimation

4. US 2002/0166371 A1

• Ratti, "Method and system for monitoring the deformations of a tyre in motion," pub. 2002-11-14, priority 2000-02-22. Monitors tire deformation in motion (sensor-based deflection measurement).
• § 102: No anticipation. General deformation-monitoring context; § 103 background only (does not derive footprint length, load, or use a magnetic earth field).

5. US 2009/0069969 A1 (Infineon)

• Infineon Technologies AG, "Tire sensor system and method," pub. 2009-03-12, priority 2007-09-11. In-tire sensor system for tire parameters.
• § 102: No anticipation; same-assignee context art supporting the sensor-in-tire architecture of claims 4 and 12. § 103 background.

6. US 2015/0247780 A1 (Continental)

• Continental Automotive GmbH, "Method and Device for Estimating a Profile Depth of a Tire," pub. 2015-09-03, priority 2012-07-24. Estimates tread depth (often from acceleration/contact-patch signals).
• § 102: No anticipation. Relevant only as showing contact-patch-based tire-parameter estimation; § 103 background.

7. US 2006/0037259? — none. (US 2006/0212193 handled in Tier 3.)

TIER 3 — Magnetic-field / Hall-effect TPMS and sensor arrangements

8. US 2006/0212193 A1 (Automotive Technologies International / Breed)

• "Tire Pressure Monitoring Using Hall Effect Sensors," pub. 2006-09-21, priority 2000-09-08; granted as US 7,379,800 B2 (2008-05-27).
• Description. Wheel assembly with a magnet in a housing and a Hall effect sensor on a non-rotating part of the vehicle; Hall output proportional to the magnet's field as the wheel rotates, converted to a tire-pressure indication.
• § 102 analysis. Despite the "Hall effect" title, this is pressure sensing, not footprint-length or load-from-footprint, and the sensing principle (a rotating magnet sensed off-wheel) is the opposite geometry from the '239 in-tire earth-field approach. No anticipation of any claim. Useful only as § 103 evidence that Hall-effect sensing in TPMS was known — which cuts against the '239 patent's novelty assertion only weakly, since the claims require earth-field sensing.

9. US 2016/0011279 A1 (Infineon)

• Infineon Technologies AG, "Magnetic field sensor device," pub. 2016-01-14, priority 2014-07-10.
• § 102: No anticipation. Same-assignee device-level magnetic-sensor art; supports claim 2 (magnetic field sensor types/structure) as background. § 103 background.

10. WO 2015/137951 A1 (Michelin)

• "Sensor device with magnet and sensor array for tire inspection," pub. 2015-09-17, priority 2014-03-13.
• § 102: No anticipation. Magnetic/magnet-array tire inspection; § 103 background on magnetic sensors for tire sensing.

11. US 7,406,876 B2 (Vasensor AB)

• "Sensor arrangement," pub. 2008-08-05, priority 2003-01-17. Tire sensor arrangement.
• § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background on in-tire sensor mounting (relevant to claims 4/12).

TIER 4 — Wheel-load / force / tire-behavior modeling and angular-position & localization art

12. US 5,913,240 A (Continental Aktiengesellschaft)

• "Method and device for controlling slip and/or for determining the longitudinal force or a flex work-proportional parameter, and vehicle tire therefore," pub. 1999-06-15, priority 1994-09-30.
• § 102: No anticipation. Relates tire deformation to force parameters; § 103 background for the footprint→force concept.

13. US 2005/0103100 A1 (Sumitomo Rubber)

• "System and method for determining tire force," pub. 2005-05-19, priority 2003-10-27. § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background.

14. US 6,959,593 B2 (Pirelli)

• "System, tire, wheel, vehicle, and method for determining the behavior of a tire in motion," pub. 2005-11-01, priority 2000-03-16. § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background.

15. US 7,432,851 B2 (Continental Automotive France)

• "Method and device for determining the state of travel of a vehicle," pub. 2008-10-07, priority 2004-12-10. § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background (state-of-travel from wheel sensing).

16. US 8,165,827 B2 (Pirelli)

• "Method for calculating forces acting on the footprint area of a tyre and apparatus for calculating said forces," pub. 2012-04-24, priority 2006-03-07.
• § 102: No anticipation, but thematically close: it addresses the footprint area and forces/load there. § 103 reference for the footprint↔load relationship.

17. US 8,296,080 B2 (Pirelli)

• "Method for determining at least one parameter representative of at least one interaction along a longitudinal direction between a tyre and the ground," pub. 2012-10-23, priority 2006-11-29. § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background.

18. US 7,942,047 B2 — see Tier 1 #1 (grant of US 2009/0205414 A1).

19. US 8,065,911 B2 (Wheelright Limited)

• "Vehicle tyre checking system," pub. 2011-11-29, priority 2004-07-07. External/stationary tire-checking system. § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background.

TIER 5 — Localization, absolute angular position, and wheel electronics (relevant to claim 8)

20. US 2016/0297262 A1 (Kabushiki Kaisha Tokai Rika Denki Seisakusho)

• "Tire position determination system," pub. 2016-10-13, priority 2013-11-25.
• § 102 analysis. This is the cited reference closest to the auto-localization subject matter of claim 8. It determines which wheel position a tire sensor occupies. However, claim 8 requires correlating rotational frequencies (or angular position) derived from the earth-field signal with reference information (e.g., ABS). Tokai Rika's system uses its own trigger/signal framework, not earth-field-derived rotational-frequency correlation with ABS reference data. No anticipation of claim 8; a § 103 reference at most, and only combined with an ABS-frequency-correlation teaching.

21. US 8,880,286 B2 / US 2012/0253590 A1 / DE 10 2009 059 789 A1 (Continental)

• "Wheel electronics unit, vehicle wheel and vehicle" (pub. US 2012-10-04 / 2014-11-04; DE pub. 2011-06-22; priority 2009-12-21). Wheel electronics with contact/footprint-related detection and angular-position/rotation information.
• § 102: No anticipation; § 103 background for wheel-electronics + rotation-evaluation and for the localization features of claim 8.

22. DE 10 2012 204 141 A1 / US 9,701,287 B2 (Continental)

• "Device and method for determining an absolute angular position of a wheel of a vehicle," DE pub. 2013-09-19, US grant 2017-07-11, priority 2012-03-16.
• § 102 analysis. Directly relevant to the angular-position correlation branch of claim 8 ("correlate an angular position of a wheel indicated by the signal with reference information on angular position of the wheel"). But it does not derive that angular position from a magnetic earth field footprint signal, nor require the load limitation. No anticipation; § 103 reference against claim 8/claim 9.

Non-Patent Citations (3)

23. Darren Quick, "Continental's intelligent tires will detect a vehicle's weight," New Atlas, Mar. 4, 2013.

• Popular-press description of Continental's load-detecting (footprint-length-based) tire concept. § 102: Not anticipatory (a news article would need to disclose every claim element; it does not disclose the magnetic-earth-field sinusoidal-deviation technique). Relevant only as § 103 / motivation evidence for footprint→load.

24. Deepak Dhasarthy, "Estimation of vertical load on a tire from contact patch length and its use in vehicle stability control," thesis, Virginia Tech, Jun. 1, 2010.

• Establishes the contact-patch-length → vertical load relationship used in vehicle stability control. § 102: No anticipation; important § 103 reference supplying the load-information limitation and the scientific basis that longer footprint ⇒ higher load (mirrors the '239 spec).

25. Rievaj, Vrábel, Synák, Bartuška, "The Effects of Vehicle Load on Driving Characteristics," Advances in Science and Technology Research Journal, Mar. 2018, 12(1):142-149.

• Dated March 2018 — after the '239 priority date (2016-09-07). It therefore cannot be § 102 prior art and can only be relevant, if at all, as later corroboration of the load/footprint relationship. Flagging this: its citation on the face of the patent does not give it prior-art effect.

Consolidated § 102 claim-mapping (best single-reference candidates)

Net assessment. The cited art, as a whole, discloses each individual concept the '239 claims combine — magnetic/Hall sensing in wheels (US 2006/0212193; US 7,646,195), footprint-length measurement via a magnetic sensor (US 2009/0205414 / US 7,942,047), and footprint-length→load modeling (GB 2 533 658; US 8,165,827; Dhasarthy thesis). But no single cited reference contains all elements of any independent claim, principally because none combines (a) a magnetic earth field sensor signal, (b) a load-information determination, and (c) the recited sinusoidal-deviation/differentiation or localization processing. The realistic invalidity theory is a § 103 combination anchored on US 2009/0205414 (footprint/length via magnetic sensing + load) as primary, with US 7,646,195 or the Infineon earth-field references supplying the earth-field element, and GB 2 533 658 / Dhasarthy supplying the explicit load-from-footprint limitation.

Caveats and confidence

• Anticipation is a high bar and I have not applied a full element-by-element chart against each reference's complete disclosure; my § 102/§ 103 characterizations are based on the abstract, claims, and quoted passages retrieved, not on a line-by-line review of every cited patent's full specification. Where I state "no anticipation," treat it as a reasoned preliminary view, not a legal conclusion.
• The three NPL items were characterized from the patent's own citation list; the Dhasarthy thesis and the New Atlas article are the only two of genuine substantive relevance, and the Rievaj (2018) paper post-dates the priority date and is not prior art.
• Prosecution posture: every reference above was cited on the face of the patent, so each was considered by the examiner — a re-assertion of these same references, alone, invites a § 325(d) discretionary-denial risk at the PTAB. New combinations or uncited art (e.g., earlier earth-field-in-wheel sensing, or ABS-based auto-localization art) would be needed to avoid that gate.
• Source: the reference list, dates, and assignees are taken from the authoritative full text of US 11,054,239 B2 ("Patent Citations (24)" and Non-Patent Citations blocks) at https://patents.google.com/patent/US11054239/en, corroborated by the individual Google Patents / patentimages records for US 2009/0205414, US 7,942,047, US 7,646,195, US 2006/0212193, and GB 2 533 658 retrieved during this analysis.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in the actual disclosures of the cited references rather than guessing at their content. Let me pull details on the most on-point prior art from this patent's citation list.

Let me pull the localization and magnetic-sensor references relevant to claims 8 and 10.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,054,239 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. This analysis is built from the prior-art references listed on the face of US 11,054,239 ("the '239 patent") in the Cited/Citations section, and from the disclosures I was able to verify for the most material ones. Three cited references (US 2016/0011279 A1, US 9,701,287 B2, US 2009/0069969 A1) could not be pulled in full before my tool budget was exhausted; where I rely on them I flag the lower confidence. I do not auto-correct or substitute any identifier.

Cross-reference to earlier sections. The Patent Summary correctly listed US 2009/0205414 A1 / US 7,942,047 B2 (Continental Automotive France) as "directly on point." My retrieval confirms it is materially closer than "on point" suggests: it already makes the same accelerometer→magnetic-sensor substitution, for the same stated reasons, in the same in-tire/rim-mounted TPMS context, and it already derives footprint length from the time between magnetic-field variations multiplied by known wheel speed. That is not a contradiction of the earlier summary, but it is an escalation: the earlier framing implied the '239 advance lay mainly in "earth field vs. accelerometer," whereas Continental '047 shows the field-vs-accelerometer move was itself old. The residual novelty is narrower than the summary implied.

1. Legal framework and level of ordinary skill

• § 103 / KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): A claim is obvious where the differences between the claim and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a POSITA. Where elements are known and the combination yields predictable results, it is obvious. "[A] person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity." The motivation to combine may come from the references themselves, from the nature of the problem, or from the ordinary knowledge of the skilled artisan.
• Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of the prior art; differences; level of ordinary skill; objective evidence.
• In re Keller / In re Merck: The test is what the combined teachings fairly suggest — the references need not be physically combinable into one device.

A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would here possess a bachelor's degree in electrical or mechanical engineering (or equivalent) and roughly 2–5 years of experience in TPMS wheel-unit design, magnetic field sensors, or automotive sensor signal processing. That artisan would be familiar with Hall/XMR magnetometry, sinusoidal output characteristics of rotating magnetometers, edge/threshold detection, and TPMS auto-location.

2. The controlling prior art (from the '239 face)

3. Independent-claim analysis

3.1 Claim 1 (device: earth-field sensor + sinusoidal-deviation timing + rotational velocity + load)

The only limitations '047 does not literally meet are (i) the sensor being an "earth field" sensor (it measures the tire belt's field and is deliberately desensitized to earth's field), and (ii) the baseline deviation being from a "sinusoidal signal sequence."

Both gaps close on obviousness:

• "Magnetic earth field sensor." '047 claims "a magnetic sensor" broadly and names Hall, MR, and GMR devices — all of which are inherently responsive to the earth's field. Substituting the ambient earth field for the tire-belt field as the sensed source is a substitution of one known magnetic source for another to detect the same geometric event (footprint entry/exit) by the same physics (field variation timing × wheel speed), with a predictable result. It also carries a concrete design incentive: an earth-field-based system eliminates Continental's tire-magnetization step (and its attendant variability of "natural" magnetization), simplifying manufacture. See also ATI '193 (Hall-effect sensing of a rotating magnetic source) and Infineon's own '279/'969 tire-magnetic-sensing art.

• "Sinusoidal signal sequence." The sinusoidal baseline is not an inventive characterization — it is the mathematically necessary output of a magnetometer on the circular part of the trajectory in a constant field (basic vector projection: Bz ∝ cos α, Bx ∝ sin α — exactly the equations the '239 specification itself derives in FIG. 2). A POSITA modeling such a sensor would arrive at the sinusoid as a matter of course. Reinforcing this, Tokai Rika '262 treats the "sinusoidal detected waveform" of a tire-mounted sensor as a known given. And the deviations from that baseline are precisely the "variations of the magnetic field" Continental already detects.

Conclusion on claim 1: Obvious over Continental '047/'414 in view of ATI '193 and/or Infineon '279, with GB 2533658 confirming the load-from-footprint step. The motivation is supplied by the primary reference itself, which recites the very problem the '239 patent's background recites (accelerometer fragility/cost).

3.2 Claim 5 (differentiation of the signal + threshold comparison)

• '047's "analyzing the signal … so as to detect the variations" is the function that differentiation performs; differentiation/edge-detection is a routine, well-known technique for locating transitions in a sampled waveform.
• ATI '193 expressly contemplates using "the magnetic field density … or a derivative thereof," supplying the derivative-based comparison.
• Threshold comparison — accepting a detected event only when the signal crosses a level, and rejecting when it does not — is conventional and appears in Continental's own footprint-detection line (e.g., sibling Continental filings such as US 2016/0303928 and US 10,207,551, which define "a detection threshold below which said frequency variations are disregarded" and then compute the footprint from the contact angle, time interval and wheel speed). Those siblings are not on the '239 face, so I use them only as corroboration of what a POSITA would have considered routine; the core combination rests on '047 + ATI '193.

3.3 Claim 6 (entry/exit times via threshold; footprint duration vs. rotation-cycle duration)

Entry/exit timing via threshold comparison follows from 3.2. The footprint-duration-to-rotation-cycle relation is squarely within '047, which computes the footprint using the time between field variations and known wheel speed (from which the cycle duration is directly available); Infineon '195 (rotation sensing) supplies wheel-cycle determination. Obvious.

3.4 Claim 7 (dynamic threshold relative to maximum amplitude)

Adaptive/normalized thresholds (AGC, relative-to-peak thresholding) are textbook signal-processing choices. The '239 specification itself concedes the amplitude depends on footprint length (longer footprint → larger amplitude), which is exactly the reason a POSITA would normalize the threshold to the maximum signal amplitude to keep detection reliable. Routine optimization; obvious under KSR ("predictable variation") and MPEP 2144.02 (routine data-manipulation).

3.5 Claim 8 (localization: rotational-frequency OR angular-position correlation with reference info)

• Tokai Rika '262 is the primary reference: it determines tire position by obtaining axle rotation information and "specifying a tire that rotates in synchronism with the axle rotation information," using ABS sensors. That is the claim's "correlate rotational frequencies of the wheels … with reference information on the rotational frequencies of the wheels."
• The "angular position … with reference information on angular position" prong is met by Continental US 9,701,287 (absolute wheel angular position) and/or by Tokai Rika's detector-angle comparison (θa vs. θb).
• Combine with '047's magnetic-sensor signal from which the rotational/angular information is derived → claim 8 obvious.

Note claim 8 is drafted with an "or", so the patentee must show non-obviousness of both correlation prongs; each is independently taught.

3.6 Claim 10 (reference information from an ABS)

Tokai Rika '262 uses ABS sensors (axle rotation detectors generating pulse counts) as the reference source. Directly taught; obvious.

3.7 Claim 11 (TPMS)

'047 explicitly places the magnetic sensor "incorporated into an electronic module of a system for monitoring the pressure of the tires" — i.e., a TPMS — and feeds the footprint/load data out as TPMS frames. Claim 11 (same limitations as claim 1 but framed as a TPMS) is obvious for the reasons in 3.1.

3.8 Claim 12 (tire comprising earth-field sensor + device)

'047 mounts the sensor at the wheel/rim inside the tire cover; ATI '193 mounts sensing components on the wheel/tire assembly. Locating a magnetometer in/on the tire to measure a magnetic field is the essence of both. Obvious over '047 + ATI '193 (with '279 for the magnetometer hardware).

3.9 Claims 13 and 15 (method; non-transitory CRM)

These recite the same trio of steps (timing of sinusoidal deviations; footprint length from timing + rotational velocity; load information), so they rise and fall with claim 1 (and stand or fail together under the claim-drafting convention noted at the end of the '239 specification). A POSITA implementing the '047 method on the controller the reference already discloses performs claim 13, and encoding that method on a non-transitory medium is conventional (the '239 specification itself lists generic digital memories/magnetic media). Obvious.

3.10 Dependent claims 2, 3, 4, 9, 14

• 2 (radial/tangential sensing): '047's sensor-axis orientation teaching plus the ubiquity of multi-axis magnetometers (single-/multi-dimensional — itself recited as known in the '239 spec) makes this an obvious design choice.
• 3 (ADC): '047's microprocessor-based processor unit 13 necessarily converts/uses a digital signal; sampling an analog sensor with an ADC is the definition of routine.
• 4 (sensor + tire within the device): packaging choice, taught by '047/'193.
• 9 (sinusoidal-deviation + rotational-velocity in the localization claim): falls with claims 1 + 8.
• 14 (generating the earth-field signal): inherent to operating the '047 sensor.

4. Why a POSITA would have combined these references (explicit rationales)

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem. All primary references are in in-tire/rim-mounted TPMS footprint and load detection. Continental '047 identifies the identical motivation the '239 background recites: accelerometers in tires are damaged by impacts and have service lives limited to the tire's; a magnetic sensor gives "reliability and robustness" at lower cost. That is the strongest possible motivation — it comes from the primary reference itself.
2. Predictable, foreseeable result. Swapping one magnetic-field source (belt) for another (earth) to time the same entry/exit event, then multiplying by known wheel speed, yields the same footprint-length result the '047 reference already obtains. KSR: predictable results from known elements.
3. Design incentive / cost reduction. Earth-field sensing removes the need to magnetize the tire belt (a step '047 adds expressly "in order to increase the magnetic field … and hence the sensitivity"), simplifying manufacture and eliminating variability.
4. Known technique for deriving/wheel-referencing the sensor output. ATI '193 (Hall-effect, derivative of sensed field), Tokai Rika '262 (sinusoidal waveform; rotation/axle correlation; ABS reference), and Infineon's magnetic-field and wheel-rotation art establish that the building blocks were each known and available.
5. Routine signal processing. "Detecting deviations" → differentiate + threshold; "keep it reliable" → adapt the threshold to peak amplitude. Both are conventional numerical/edge-detection techniques (MPEP 2144.02, 2144.04).

5. Anticipated rebuttals, stated fairly

A. Teaching away (the strongest patent-owner argument). '047 states the sensor is positioned "so that the magnetic sensor is not sensitive to the variations of the earth magnetic field when the wheel is rotating." A patentee will argue this disparages earth-field sensing and thus teaches away.
Assessment: likely weak. That sentence is a design preference to isolate the belt-field signal from a competing ambient field — a signal-to-noise choice, not a statement that earth-field-based footprint detection is inoperable or undesirable. To the contrary: '047 teaches that a magnetic field varying with tire deformation reveals the footprint, and the earth's field does vary relative to a rotating sensor in a way that encodes the footprint (flat segment = constant projection). The Federal Circuit does not treat a reference's preference for one embodiment as a teaching away from a different, workable embodiment absent a clear disparagement of the latter. This is a factual battleground worth developing with expert testimony.

B. "Sinusoidal" is a specific signal characterization, not a mere field quantity. The patentee may argue the timing of deviations from a sinusoid is a specific processing insight. But the sinusoid is derivable by the patent's own FIG. 2 equations from first principles, and Tokai Rika treats sinusoidal tire-sensor waveforms as known. Weak.

C. Load-information limitation must still be met. Because "determine load information" is a positive element of every independent claim (as flagged in the earlier Strategic Summary — not mere intended use), the invalidity theory cannot sidestep it. Fortunately, both '047 ("the load of the vehicle …") and GB 2533658 (wheel load computed from footprint) meet it head-on. No escape.

D. Objective indicia (§ 103 secondary considerations). I found no evidence of commercial success, unexpected results, licensing, copying, or industry praise attributable to the '239 claims. The earlier sections found no litigation and no PTAB activity. Absent such evidence, the obviousness case is unmitigated — and, per KSR, the Supreme Court expects the analysis of the prior-art combination to prevail where the post-filing evidence is thin. (Caveat: absence of found indicia is a search result, not proof of nonexistence.)

6. Where the case is genuinely contestable

• The three low-confidence references. I characterize US 2016/0011279, US 9,701,287, and US 2009/0069969 only by title/assignee. If the obviousness theory leans on them for the earth-field-source substitution, their full texts should be reviewed; the core theory, however, does not depend on them (it rests on '047/'414 + ATI '193 + GB 2533658 + Tokai Rika '262).
• Analog-vs-digital and "earth field" vs. "belt field" measurement physics. A rigorous claim chart should confirm that a constant-field magnetometer's projection is sinusoidal over the whole circular trajectory (it is) and that the flat-segment projection is constant (it is), which is exactly the model the '239 spec sets out.
• The "differentiation + threshold" combo (claim 5) is the most robust of the independent claims if a fact-finder accepts the belt-field→earth-field distinction as non-obvious; yet ATI '193's express "derivative thereof" language and Continental's sibling threshold disclosures make even claim 5 vulnerable.

7. Bottom line

On the references cited on the '239 face, every independent claim is prima facie obvious under § 103:

• Claims 1, 11, 12, 13, 15 (and dependents 2–4, 6, 7, 9, 14): Continental US 7,942,047 / US 2009/0205414 as the primary reference (magnetic sensor → field-variation timing → footprint length × wheel speed → load, in a TPMS), combined with an earth-field magnetometer teaching (ATI '193; Infineon '279/'969, lower confidence) and GB 2533658 for load-from-footprint. The claim-1 delta — "earth field" and "sinusoidal" — is a predictable substitution/characterization, not a patentable advance.
• Claim 5 (differentiation + threshold): '047 + ATI '193 ("derivative thereof") + routine edge/threshold detection.
• Claim 8 (localization) and claim 10 (ABS reference): Tokai Rika '262 (synchronization of tire rotation with ABS axle-rotation information) + US 9,701,287 (angular position) combined with '047's magnetic-signal derivation.

The single most important takeaway, refining the earlier summary: the '239 patent did not invent "replace the accelerometer with a magnetic sensor" — Continental '047 did that years earlier, for the same reasons and in the same context. The '239 claims survive only on the narrower questions of (i) whether using the earth's field rather than the tire belt's field is a non-obvious substitution, and (ii) whether characterizing the baseline as sinusoidal and detecting deviations from it is a non-obvious processing choice. Both are, on this record, weak distinctions readily overcome with a POSITA declaration explaining the predictable physics and routine signal processing. This is a strong, well-supported § 103 challenge — with the caveat that I could not exhaustively verify three cited references and found no objective-indicia evidence either way.

Primary sources: US 7,942,047 B2 and US 2009/0205414 A1; GB 2533658 A; US 2006/0212193 A1; US 2016/0297262 A1; US 11,054,239 B2.