US 6199001

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US Patent 6,199,001 B1 — Analyst Summary

Confidence note: The bibliographic data below is corroborated by the full patent text you supplied (Google Patents), FreePatentsOnline, Justia Patents, and uspto.report. I could not locate any Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket activity, PTAB proceeding, or district-court litigation involving this specific patent number. That absence is itself the finding below — treat it as "no record found," not as affirmative proof that none exists.

1. Bibliographic Data

Prior-art reference cited against others (not a litigation record): EP 1 785 327 A3 lists US 6 199 001 B1 (Ohta et al.) as an "A" category document. The patent family shows "NONE" for foreign family members in that citation table.

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A control system for a vehicle includes a route information detector, which detects route information for the vehicle, and behavior control system, which is controlled by the route information detector and which controls the behavior of the vehicle. The control system also includes a means for detecting the accuracy of the detection of the route information, and a changing controller which changes the control of the behavior control system based on the accuracy of the detection of the route information. In this case, the behavior control system can be a transmission, a suspension system, a brake system, a steering system, an engine, or an auto drive control system. The behavior control system is controlled by control patterns that can be changed by a changing controller."

3. Core Technical Problem and Solution

The patent addresses a specific gap in the prior art (e.g., JP Laid-Open HEI 5-262251, which merely switched control rules between "normal" and "failure" states). The inventors' point: route information can be degraded but not failed — GPS reception lost in tunnels or between tall buildings, map-matching unresolved, parallel roads confusable — so a binary normal/fail switch is inadequate. The invention therefore quantifies/estimates the accuracy of the route information first, then scales the behavior-control response to that accuracy.

Two complementary control blocks are described:

• Accuracy detection (Figs. 7–11): compares vehicle position from a first data detecting unit (dead-reckoning: geomagnetic sensor, gyro, steering sensor) and a second data detecting unit (GPS/ground-data receivers) against stored map data; flags questionable conditions (e.g., position on "non-driveable" areas like sea/river, excessive map-matching correction gap, curvy road inconsistent with steering angle, parallel roads, dense intersections).
• Control-pattern changing (Figs. 12–19): applies the accuracy result to transmission shift mapping, downshift-on-corner, upshift prohibition on down-slopes, power shift pattern on climbs, brake line pressure, adaptive-cruise cancel, suspension damping, steering assist, and engine fuel-cut.

4. Plain-Language Overview of Each Independent Claim

Claim 1 — Vehicle control system (vehicle-behavior, broadly) (the flagship claim)
A vehicle control system having (a) a route information detector that detects route information, and (b) a behavior control system driven by that route information to control vehicle behavior. The system comprises:

• means for detecting the accuracy of the route-information detection, and
• a changing controller that changes the control of the behavior control system based on that accuracy;
• wherein the behavior control system includes a transmission of a vehicle.

In plain terms: detect how good the navigation-derived route data is, and modulate the transmission's control accordingly. The "wherein ... transmission" clause is the step that narrows this claim away from pure steering/brake variants.

Claim 5 — Transmission control system (deceleration-triggered engine braking) (a distinct independent claim, related to Figs. 20–23)
A control system for a transmission shifted by a shift instruction from a predetermined shift diagram — plus a route information detector — comprising:

• a vehicle speed decreasing point detector (identifies where speed must be reduced, e.g., a corner);
• a vehicle target speed calculator for that point;
• a target deceleration calculator;
• a vehicle deceleration calculator computing the deceleration needed to bring present speed to target speed;
• a deceleration judgment device (is deceleration > threshold?); and
• a transmission condition change device that changes the transmission condition to produce engine braking when the threshold is exceeded.

In plain terms: use map/navigation data to look ahead for corners, compute whether a deceleration is actually required, and only then downshift for engine braking — suppressing unnecessary downshifts.

Claim 7 — Method for controlling a vehicle
A method comprising: controlling a behavior control system based on route information detected by a route information detector; detecting the accuracy of the route-information detection; and changing the control of the behavior control system based on that accuracy. This is the method counterpart of Claim 1, notably not limited to a transmission (its "wherein" narrowing is absent), making it the broader process coverage.

Claim 11 — Vehicle control system based on calculated location accuracy
A control system having a route information detector detecting vehicle location and a behavior control system driven by that location, comprising:

• means for calculating the location of the vehicle;
• means for determining the accuracy of the calculated location by comparing it with position data, wherein the position data includes areas that are not driveable by the vehicle (the patent's sea/river/off-map test); and
• a controller controlling the behavior control system based on that accuracy.

In plain terms: a location-reasonableness check — if the computed position lands on a non-driveable area of the map, treat the location as inaccurate and adjust vehicle behavior control.

Dependent claims (2–4, 6, 8–10, 12–16) are summarized in the search results but not reproduced in full above. Visible dependencies include: Cls. 2–4 depend from Claim 1 and specify the behavior control system as, respectively, a brake system, an engine system, or a vehicle auto drive control system. Claim 6 depends from Claim 5 (the speed-decreasing point includes a corner). Claims 8–10 depend from Claim 7 (adding control-pattern changing and corner-detection). Claims 12–16 depend from Claim 11 and add the specific accuracy tests: curve driving condition, slip condition, lane condition, GPS-inoperable areas, and parallel road comparisons.

5. Litigation / CAFC 2026 Search Result

• No CAFC 2026 docket entry, appeal, or oral-argument record referencing patent 6199001 was found. No PTAB IPR/PGR petition for this number surfaced either.
• The only "legal-status" record located is the anticipated expiration on 2017-12-17 (Expired – Lifetime) on Google Patents.
• Caution — same-number, different-jurisdiction trap: searches surface JP-6199001-B1, a Japanese grant titled "Water treatment apparatus and water treatment method" (priority 2016-01-12, grant 2017-09-20). This is a completely unrelated Japanese patent that merely shares the numeric string. It is not the patent in question and should not be conflated with US 6,199,001.
• Uncertainty statement: I am not asserting that no litigation ever touched this patent. Because it expired in 2017 and is a 1997-priority Toyota powertrain/navigation patent, any enforcement activity would most likely predate 2018 and would not appear on a 2026 CAFC active docket. Authoritative confirmation would require direct query of USPTO PatentCenter/Assignment records and PACER, which the available searches did not surface.

6. Sources Consulted

• Google Patents — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6199001B1](/patent/US6199001B1)/en (full specification, claims, classification, legal status)
• FreePatentsOnline — https://FreePatentsOnline.com/6199001.html (claim set 1–16)
• Justia Patents — https://patents.justia.com/patent/6199001 (claim text)
• uspto.report — https://uspto.report/patent/grant/6199001
• EveryPatent — http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat6199001.html
• EP 1 785 327 A3 search-report citation (US 6 199 001 B1 listed as category "A")
• PubChem patent record for JP-6199001-B1 (unrelated Japanese grant — flagged for disambiguation)