US 6580999

I'll verify this patent against live sources, particularly for any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check the Federal Circuit appeals and 2026 docket activity more specifically.

Identification of the record

I searched for the exact patent number 6,580,999 (B2) — "the '999 Patent" — and excluded similar numbers. Note one important caveat up front: the page you supplied (Google Patents) contains an auto-generated "Definitions" block near the top that looks like patent prose but is machine-extracted. Two other documents in this record also use a bare "'999" designation for unrelated patents (e.g., a Supreme Court appendix discussing a different '999 with claims 1–35 and an IPR final written decision on § 101). Those are not US 6,580,999, which has only 6 claims. I flag this because the identifier "'999" is ambiguous across sources.

Bibliographic summary (from the authoritative patent text)

Abstract (verbatim sense of the patent's Abstract section): The patent describes a portable terminal with a walking-navigation function that displays information on a narrow screen so as to be easy for a walking user to understand and to provide an intuitive interface for entering retrieval conditions, saving input labor. When a walker is lost en route to a destination, information is compressed — e.g., direction and distance to the destination from the present place shown as the orientation and length of an arrow — and the arrow orientation is matched to the destination's direction in real space. Specifying a compressed information item for inquiry causes the arrow to always point to the corresponding destination, and the retrieval condition can be set by turning the tip of the portable terminal in the desired direction.

The three independent claims, in plain language

Claim 1 — direction + distance to another portable terminal.
A portable terminal with walking navigation includes: (a) a device that obtains location information for the terminal's own present place; (b) a device that obtains direction information giving the terminal's orientation; and (c) a device that obtains the location information of a different, second portable terminal. The terminal then displays the direction from its own present place to that other terminal's location, together with the distance between the two locations, as route-guidance (walking-navigation) information.

Claim 5 — same three inputs, but the display is the relationship between orientation and bearing.
Structurally identical to claim 1 (location device, direction device, other-terminal location device), but the displayed output is "a relation between said orientation and a direction from said present place to the location of said another portable terminal," shown with the distance between the locations, as walking-navigation information. The distinction from claim 1 is that the relative relationship between where the terminal is pointing and where the other person is relative to it is what is displayed.

Claim 6 — same as claim 5, with the other location received over a network.
Adds the limitation that the other portable terminal's location information is obtained from that other terminal via a connected network. The display shows the relation between the terminal's own orientation and the direction to the other terminal, as route-guidance information. (Notably, claim 6 does not expressly recite a distance display, unlike claims 1 and 5.)

Dependent claims 2–4 (all depend from claim 1):

• 2: the direction is shown by the orientation of a line and the distance by a number.
• 3: the direction is displayed using symbols marking the present location and the other terminal's location.
• 4: the direction is shown by a line whose starting and ending points are distinguishable (e.g., black-circle start / white-circle end, per the FIG. 5 description).

Litigation / post-grant proceedings (verified against live sources)

1. Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., No. 5:19-cv-00036-RWS (E.D. Tex., filed 2019-03-15) — the '999 patent was one of ten patents-in-suit, with Maxell asserting claims 1–6. Claim-construction order Doc. 235 (2020-03-18). Source: docketalarm.com / CourtListener.
2. IPR2020-00409 — Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., IPR of US 6,580,999 B2, petition filed 2020-01-13 challenging claims 1–6. Google Patents' litigation panel records the outcome as "Not Instituted – Procedural," and the Federal Circuit briefing in the consolidated Apple appeals confirms the PTAB denied institution of the five Apple IPRs (Fintiv-based discretionary denial), including IPR2020-00409. Note a source conflict: RPX Empower lists an "Institution: 08/11/2020" date, which appears to be the date of the decision (a denial), not an institution.
3. Federal Circuit Nos. 20-2132, 20-2211, 20-2212, 20-2213, 21-1033 — Apple's consolidated appeals from the PTAB non-institution decisions (IPR2020-00203, -00407, -00408, -00409, -00597). The court denied panel rehearing and rehearing en banc on 2021-02-22, mandate to issue 2021-03-01. Sources: fedcircuitblog.com; dockets.justia.com.
4. Ex parte reexamination 90/014,640 — requested 2020-12-23; granted 2021-01-21 (Art Unit 3992, Examiner C. M. Tarae) as to claims 1 and 3, on a substantial new question over U.S. 6,067,502 (Hayashida), U.S. 6,167,277 (Kawamoto), and JP H10-197277 (Maruyama). Source: docketalarm.com Doc. 646-3.
5. Maxell, Ltd. v. Blackberry Corp., No. 1:17-cv-01446 (D. Del., filed 2017-10-13) — listed in the Stanford NPE database as a case involving '999.

2026 CAFC docket check — what I did and did not find

• I found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming US 6,580,999. This is consistent with the patent being expired-lifetime with an anticipated expiration of 2020-07-11, and with the 2020–2021 appeals having terminated (mandate 2021-03-01).
• The 2026 CAFC dockets I did find involving Maxell are not confirmed to involve '999: 26-1111 (Maxell, Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., filed 2025-10-29; opening brief 2026-03-16; extension to 2026-06-26 for appellee brief), 26-1320 ([Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.), Ltd. v. Maxell, Ltd., filed 2026-01-07), and 26-1330 (Maxell, Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., filed 2026-01-12). These arise from the Maxell–Samsung smart-device/video-processing disputes, not from a '999 appeal. Sources: docketalarm.com; dockets.justia.com.

Uncertainty statement: Docket coverage of the Federal Circuit and of district courts is not exhaustive in free sources, and my search was limited to publicly indexed results. I therefore cannot state with certainty that no 2026 proceeding touching '999 exists — only that I found none, and that no such proceeding is expected given the patent's 2020 expiration. I also cannot independently confirm from live sources whether the 2021 ex parte reexamination 90/014,640 concluded with claims 1 and 3 confirmed, amended, or cancelled; the certificate of reexamination would need to be pulled from USPTO Public PAIR/PatentCenter to resolve that.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6580999. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cases and outcomes.

Let me get details on the BlackBerry case outcome and the Federal Circuit appeals.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,580,999 ("the '999 Patent")

Patent: US 6,580,999 B2 — "Portable terminal with the function of walking navigation" — Kishiko Maruyama et al.; original assignee Hitachi, Ltd.; priority date July 12, 1999; granted June 17, 2003. (Current owner per Google Patents: Maxell, Ltd.)

Based on searches of Docket Alarm, Unified Patents' litigation/PTAB portals, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, RPX Empower, CourtListener, PatExtia, and USPTO/PTAB records, the following matters involve U.S. Patent No. 6,580,999 specifically. Note that several results for "099"-type numbers (e.g., 6,899,099 / 6,651,099 / 10,129,590) are different patents and have been excluded.

1. Maxell, Ltd. v. BlackBerry Corporation and BlackBerry Ltd.

• Court / Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (D. Del.)
• Case No.: 1:17-cv-01446
• Filed: October 13, 2017
• Presiding Judge: Maryellen Noreika
• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd. (successor to Hitachi)
• Defendants: BlackBerry Corporation; BlackBerry Ltd.
• '999 involvement: The Stanford NPE Litigation Database lists this case as a matter involving patent 6,580,999, and a Docket Alarm patent-number search for "(6580999)" returns this docket. The '999 patent was part of a multi-patent assertion (the complaint also covered other Maxell patents).
• Status/Outcome: A stipulation of dismissal as to Count 1 was filed by Maxell on/about August 24, 2018; the case proceeded on remaining counts with a scheduling order (trial set Nov. 30, 2020) and was ultimately resolved by the parties.
• Confidence: Medium on the specific role of the '999 patent (which count it corresponded to); High on the docket/case identifiers.
• Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1:17-cv-01446 ; https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6580999 ; https://www.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent%3A%286580999%29

2. Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc.

• Court / Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Texarkana Division (E.D. Tex.)
• Case No.: 5:19-cv-00036-RWS
• Filed: March 15, 2019 (amended complaint October 2019)
• Presiding Judge: Robert W. Schroeder III
• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendant: Apple Inc.
• '999 involvement: The '999 patent was one of ten patents asserted (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,748,317; 6,580,999; 6,430,498; 8,339,493; 6,329,794; 6,408,193; 6,928,306; 10,084,991; 7,116,438; and 10,212,586). The '999 patent was the subject of claim construction (Docket 235, March 18, 2020) and of Maxell's motion for partial summary judgment of no invalidity in view of the "NavTalk" alleged prior art (Docket 458, July 30, 2020).
• Status/Outcome: Settled and dismissed with prejudice. On March 22–24, 2021 the parties notified the court of settlement at the close of jury selection; the court stayed deadlines (Docket 689), granted the joint motion to dismiss (Docket 698), and entered final judgment dismissing the case with prejudice on April 7, 2021 (Docket 699). Terms were confidential (undisclosed settlement). The court had earlier required Maxell to narrow its case from ten to six patents.
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/5--19-cv-00036/Maxell_Ltd._v._Apple_Inc/ ; https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-maxell-ltd-v-apple-inc-59177 ; https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Maxell-Ltd-v-Apple-Inc-id-[123381](/patent/123381)

3. Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd. (PTAB — Inter Partes Review)

• Forum: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Case No.: IPR2020-00409
• Petition filed: January 13, 2020
• Petitioner: Apple Inc. (O'Melveny & Myers)
• Patent Owner: Maxell, Ltd.
• '999 involvement: Directly on point — the petition requested inter partes review of claims 1–6 of U.S. Patent No. 6,580,999, applying a July 12, 1999 priority date.
• Status/Outcome: Not instituted. Google Patents reports the IPR as "Not Instituted – Procedural." (RPX Empower lists an "Institution" date of 08/11/2020, which most likely corresponds to the Board's decision declining institution.) The parallel district court case settled in March 2021 and the PTAB proceedings were resolved in connection with the global settlement.
• Note: There is a minor discrepancy between sources as to the exact disposition date; the consistent substantive outcome is that Apple's IPR petition against the '999 patent did not result in an instituted trial.
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00409/ ; https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/ptab/11227-apple-v-maxell-ltd-ipr-of-999

Related USPTO proceeding (not litigation, but directly on the '999 patent)

• Ex parte reexamination Control No. 90/014,640, Request filed December 23, 2020 (third-party requester: Apple Inc.), patent under reexamination 6,580,999. The USPTO granted reexamination for claims 1 and 3, finding a substantial new question of patentability. This was filed contemporaneously with the E.D. Tex. litigation and IPR.
• Source: Docket Alarm / E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036, Docket 646-3 (reexamination order).

Federal Circuit appeals (listed on the '999 family record — not independently confirmed)

The Google Patents family-litigation section for the '999 patent lists three Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit matters:

• Nos. 20-2132, 20-2211, and 20-2213

I was unable to confirm these appeals' parties, underlying judgments, or outcomes in the sources retrieved, and I cannot state with confidence that they arise specifically from the '999 patent (they may relate to other members of the same Maxell/Hitachi litigation family or to parallel Maxell–Apple matters). I flag these as unverified.

Important caveats

1. Unverified item: The three Federal Circuit appeal numbers above are reported by the Google Patents family record but I could not corroborate their subject matter or resolution.
2. Family patents: The '999 patent shares a family with US 6,430,498, US 6,748,317, and US 6,263, at least the patents 6,430,498 and 6,748,317 were co-asserted with '999 against Apple. Litigation over those sibling patents is not litigation over US 6,580,999 itself.
3. Excluded similar numbers: Regeneron/Amgen (6,899,099), NetScout (6,651,099), Maxell v. Samsung/Samsung–Maxell (10,129,590, 8,130,280, etc., including ITC 337-TA-1432), Maxell v. VIZIO, Maxell v. ASUSTeK, and Maxell v. Huawei are different patents and are not matters involving 6,580,999.
4. ITC: Media reports reference a Maxell ITC complaint against Apple over navigation/mobile patents around 2019–2020; I could not confirm that ITC investigation asserted the '999 patent, so I do not list it as '999 litigation.

If you need a certified litigation history (e.g., for an opinion or IDS), the authoritative sources would be PACER for D. Del. 1:17-cv-01446 and E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036, the PTAB P-TACTS record for IPR2020-00409, and the USPTO reexamination file for 90/014,640.

I'll start by reconciling the structured "no PTAB activity" default against the litigation flag I see in the patent's own Google Patents record (IPR2020-00409, petitioner Unified Patents).

Key correction already: the petitioner is Apple Inc. (the "Unified Patents" in the Google Patents block is the data provider, not the filer). Let me pull the institution decision, the appeal chain, and check for any other proceedings against '999.

Now let me pin down the '999-specific institution denial, check for any additional petitions against '999, and trace the certiorari path.

PTAB AIA Trial Analysis — US 6,580,999 ("Portable terminal with the function of walking navigation")

Data-integrity flag before anything else. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block says the USPTO ODP returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is incomplete. A real petition exists — IPR2020-00409, Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd. — and it was denied institution on 2020-08-11. The patent's own Google Patents record surfaces it too (flagged there as "Not Instituted - Procedural"). Note also that the Google Patents block's "Petitioner: Unified Patents PTAB Data" is the data-provider label, not the petitioner. The petitioner of record is Apple Inc. Do not carry that label into any filing.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings identified on US 6,580,999: 1. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained on the merits, 0 settled, 1 institution denied. Bottom line defensive posture: all six claims (1–6) are entirely untested on the merits by the PTAB — the Board never reached patentability, so Apple obtained no invalidity ruling and defendants obtain no estoppel-based shield, but the patent expired on 2020-07-11, which means the real-world exposure is backward-looking damages only.

IPR2020-00409 — Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-01-13
• Status: "Institution Denied" (Decision Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), Paper 12, entered 2020-08-11). Plain English: the Board exercised its discretion to refuse to institute at all — no trial, no Final Written Decision, no claim ever adjudicated.
• Judge panel: The panel of record on the '999 docket is listed as APJs Lynne E. Pettigrew, Minn Chung, John A. Hudalla, Jason W. Melvin, and Frederick C. Laney. The related Apple–Maxell proceedings (IPR2020-00407/'317 and IPR2020-00408/'498) were coordinated by a five-APJ conduct-of-proceeding order (Paper 11, 2020-07-22), and the merits denials in the companion cases were authored by the three-judge panel of Chung, Melvin, and Laney. Treat the exact three-judge composition of the '999 denial as needing confirmation against Paper 12 itself.
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1–6 — i.e., every claim in the patent. Statutory basis: obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Hayashida (Ex. 1004) in view of Abowd, "Cyberguide" (Ex. 1005). Apple asserted Abowd as a printed publication qualifying as prior art under pre-AIA § 102(b), supported by a MARC-record/librarian declaration (Ex. 1009, Munford Decl.). Petitioner applied a 1999-07-12 priority date. In the parallel district court case Apple also pressed NavTalk art, but that is district-court art — do not attribute it to the petition.
• Institution decision: Denied — 2020-08-11. Reasoning: the Board applied the then-precedential Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc., IPR2020-00019, Paper 11 (2020-03-20), factors and, after "a holistic consideration of the relevant facts," held that "the efficiency and integrity of the system are best served by denying institution." The operative facts: the E.D. Tex. court had denied Apple's motion to stay (PO Ex. 2001); trial was set to occur roughly ten months before the statutory FWD deadline; there had been substantial investment by court and parties (claim construction completed); there was material overlap between the petition and the district court invalidity case (same Hayashida/Abowd theories); and the Board weighed Apple's delay in filing. Notably, the Board denied Apple's request for supplemental Fintiv briefing (IPR2020-00407/408/409, Paper 11, 2020-07-22) about Maxell's summary-judgment motion attacking Abowd's public availability. Maxell's Preliminary Response also argued the petition failed on the merits ("does not show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing"), but the denial rested on § 314(a) discretion — so no merits holding issued on '999.
• Final Written Decision: None. Never issued. No claims were canceled, confirmed, or otherwise adjudicated. Claims 1–6 of '999 stand exactly as granted.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement in IPR2020-00409 — it ended by discretionary denial, not by § 317 termination. (Separately, Apple and Maxell later settled a different set of IPRs — IPR2021-00362/-00367/-00400, concerning US 8,982,086, US 10,176,848, and US 10,129,590 — by joint motion on 2021-04-08, with the agreement kept confidential under 35 U.S.C. § 317(b). That settlement does not touch '999 and its terms are confidential.)
• Appeal: Yes. Apple filed its Notice of Appeal on 2020-08-27 (16 days after the denial). Federal Circuit No. 20-2213, consolidated with Nos. 20-2132, 20-2211, 20-2212, and 2021-1033 (appeals from IPR2020-00203, -00407, -00408, -00409, -00597). Panel: Judges Dyk, Wallach, and Taranto. On 2020-10-30 the court dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction, applying 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) and In re Cisco Systems — a decision declining to institute is final and nonappealable. Apple's combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc was denied on 2021-02-22; the mandate issued 2021-03-01. Apple advanced the same APA/ultra vires theory it pressed in Apple v. Optis; the en banc court declined to create an avenue of review for NHK-Fintiv denials. The denial order is at the Federal Circuit's nonprecedential order (Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., Nos. 20-2132 et al.); the PTAB record is on the DocketAlarm IPR2020-00409 docket.
• Defensive value: This proceeding gives a defendant almost nothing on the merits and a lot on timing. There is no PTAB invalidity finding to borrow and no statutory estoppel (see below), so you cannot tell a court "the PTAB already killed these claims." What you can use: (i) Apple's own Hayashida + Abowd § 103 theory was never adjudicated, so it remains fully available and un-estopped; (ii) the Board never signed off on Maxell's validity; and (iii) the patent is expired, so any assertion today is a damages-only, six-year-lookback fight.

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 6,580,999 has ever been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed by the PTAB. Claims 1–6 are all UNTESTED. There is no IPR certificate to point to and nothing to cabin the claim scope. The only claim-level narrowing anywhere in this story has come from district court claim construction (e.g., the E.D. Tex. court construed the "device for getting location information / direction information / another portable terminal" terms as means-plus-function under § 112 ¶ 6, mapping structure to the wireless/cellular antenna, GPS, PHS, data receiver, compass/gyro/clinometer, and CPU 71 + data communication device 76 of Fig. 10), not from the Board.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach. Estoppel is triggered only by an IPR "that results in a final written decision under section 318(a)." IPR2020-00409 was denied institution, so Apple — and its privies — are not estopped from raising Hayashida, Abowd, NavTalk, or any other ground in district court or a future PTAB filing. Conversely, Maxell gained no estoppel benefit either. Every prior-art ground against '999 is still on the table for any defendant, including the exact Hayashida + Abowd combination Apple tried in 2020. The practical caveat is evidentiary: Maxell moved for summary judgment that Abowd was not publicly available prior art, so a future petitioner must build a cleaner § 102(b) public-accessibility record than Apple's MARC-record declaration.

Pattern signals. Apple filed a coordinated family of IPRs against Maxell's walking-navigation portfolio — IPR2020-00203, -00407 ('317), -00408 ('498), -00409 ('999), and -00597 ('493) — and the Board denied institution across the board, effectively on the same Fintiv rationale (parallel E.D. Tex. trial date + no stay + heavy overlap). Apple then fought the non-institution decisions all the way through panel rehearing and en banc, which the Federal Circuit refused. There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in this chain — no CBM, no PGR, and no third-party IPR on '999. The patent owner (Maxell, now Maxell Holdings → Maxell, Ltd.) never had a PTAB appeal to pursue because it never lost a PTAB case; its wins were in the district court and at the institution stage. Note the law has since shifted: the NHK-Fintiv rule was rescinded by Director Vidal's 2022 interim procedure, so a new petition today would not face the 2020 discretionary denial that stopped Apple — though the patent's expiration materially changes the calculus.

Bottom line for a defendant today. You are not facing a hardened, PTAB-tested patent — you are facing an expired, merits-untested one whose only AIA challenge died on the courthouse steps for procedural timing reasons. The absence of any Final Written Decision is the headline.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not accept the "no PTAB activity" default. The ODP block omitted a docketed, publicly documented IPR. Before relying on it, cite IPR2020-00409 and its outcome expressly — a defense brief that says "no IPR has ever been filed on the '999 patent" is wrong and easily rebutted.
2. Lead with expiration. The patent's legal status is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2020-07-11). Any current assertion is backward-looking under 35 U.S.C. § 286 (six-year damages lookback) and cannot support an injunction. Confirm the expiration date and the terminal-disclaimer/double-patenting history against the file wrapper (Applicant filed a terminal disclaimer over US 6,430,498 during prosecution).
3. Preserve the un-estopped prior art. Because no FWD issued, Hayashida + Abowd (§ 103) and NavTalk remain fully available. If you intend to use Abowd, invest early in a public-accessibility record — Maxell already attacked it on summary judgment in the underlying case, so that fight is teed up.
4. If you are contemplating a new IPR, be realistic. Post-Fintiv-rescission, the 2020 discretionary bar is gone, but (a) the patent is expired, so the Board may view review as serving little purpose and your real forum is damages; and (b) an expired patent is construed under Phillips, with no claim-amendment path. Get a damages/mootness assessment before spending on a petition.
5. Verify the district-court endgame independently. I confirmed the parallel case (Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., No. 5:19-cv-00036-RWS, E.D. Tex., filed 2019-03-15; Apple's motion to stay denied) and the litigation flags on the patent (D. Del. 1:17-cv-01446; Fed. Cir. 20-2213, 20-2211, 20-2132), but I did not verify the jury verdict, final judgment, or any appeal outcome on '999. Pull the docket via CourtListener before characterizing what the district court did to these claims.

What I could not confirm: the full text of Paper 12 (the '999-specific denial) to state whether the Board also rejected Apple's merits showing or rested purely on § 314(a); the exact three-APJ panel composition on Paper 12; and the final disposition of the E.D. Tex. case as to '999. Each of those should be checked against PTAB E2E and PACER/CourtListener rather than assumed.

I'll pull the assignment records and cross-reference litigation/NPE data before writing.

Assignment & Chain-of-Title Reconstruction — US 6,580,999 B2

Retrieval-status caveat (read first). I attempted to pull the record-level Abstract of Title for this patent from the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) and the legacy Assignment Search (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). I exhausted my retrieval budget before resolving the reel/frame numbers printed on the '999 abstract of title itself. The record does exist — Google Patents' legal-events panel documents four post-issuance reassignments for '999 — so I am not stopping after the timeline section. However, every reel/frame below is flagged by provenance: [DIRECT] = read from the '999 record; [SIBLING] = read from a sibling patent captured in the same bulk omnibus assignment that covers '999; [UNKNOWN] = no reel/frame recovered. Do not cite the [SIBLING] numbers as the '999 abstract of title without re-verifying in Assignment Center.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check. I found no evidence that any inventor departed Hitachi within 12 months of the 1999-07-12 priority filing, and no inventor-side assignment record separate from the standard employer-takes-all filing. The employer attribution is an inference from the JP priority filing and the original assignee, not a directly documented employment record — treat it as moderate-confidence only. Notably, the inventorship here is not the monetization story: the patent was held by Hitachi for ~13 years before the portfolio-level transfers described below, which is the opposite of the "inventors leave, then assets fire-sale" pattern.

Original assignee

Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; TSE: 6501) — named on the face of the issued patent.

• Primary line of business: diversified Japanese industrial/electronics conglomerate (information systems, power, rail, consumer electronics, automotive systems). Hitachi is an operating company, not, at any point in this chain, an anonymous holding vehicle.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence of one. The '999 claims a portable walking-navigation terminal with GPS/compass inputs displayed on a small screen. Maxell's own pleadings characterize the 1999 inventors as "experimenting" with phone-based navigation — i.e., an R&D concept, not a shipped Hitachi product. I found no Hitachi commercial product mapped to claims 1–6 in any retrieved source.
• Current status: Operating. Hitachi, Ltd. remains a listed operating company. Its stake in the mobile/consumer patent portfolio was moved out; Hitachi itself was still a ~3.03% shareholder of Maxell Holdings as of 2019-04-01 (per Maxell Holdings Integrated Report 2019, quoted at docketalarm.com Doc. 170-1).

Current assignee of record: Maxell, Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan; TSE: 6810) — an operating manufacturer of batteries, storage media, projectors and related electronics. It is a real company, not a shell; but it does not ship a product embodying the '999 claims.

Assignment timeline

Recorded post-issuance events for '999, per Google Patents legal events (no reel/frame printed) cross-checked against sibling-patent assignment records. Four recorded transfers, plus one issuance-era prosecution event (terminal disclaimer).

• 2012-10-11 (per Google Patents) / executed 2013-06-07, recorded 2013-06-20 (per sibling records) — Reel 030662/0927 and Reel 030802/0610 [SIBLING]

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors Interest) — bulk portfolio transfer
  • Assignor: Hitachi, Ltd.
  • Assignee: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. (2-1, Otemachi 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan)
  • Correspondent: McDermott, Will & Emery, LLP, 500 North Capitol Street NW, Washington, DC 20001 (recorded on reel 030662/0927). Single appearance in this chain — flagged, not a recurrence finding.
  • Context: internal corporate reorg — carve-out of the consumer-electronics/mobile IP estate into Hitachi's consumer-electronics affiliate.
  • Date conflict — flag: Google Patents shows 2012-10-11 for '999; sibling records show execution 2013-06-07 / recordation 2013-06-20; and Maxell's own complaint in Maxell v. ZTE (5:18-cv-00034, Doc. 1 ¶ 4) states "in 2009 Hitachi, Ltd. assigned intellectual property, including the patents in this case, to Hitachi Consumer Electronics." Three sources, three dates. This is likely multiple omnibus tranches, but it is unresolved for '999 specifically.

• 2014-08-26 (executed) / recorded 2014-09-08 — Reel 033694/0745 [SIBLING]

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. (recorded with a duplicated assignor string — "HITACHI CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CO, LTD., HITACHI CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.")
  • Assignee: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not recovered [UNKNOWN]
  • Context: internal reorg / transfer-to-monetization-affiliate — the mobile and mobile-media patent estate moved to the Maxell entity, which was positioned as the group's licensing vehicle. Note Maxell's complaint says this happened "in 2013"; the record says executed 2014-08-26.

• 2017-10-01 (executed) / received and recorded 2018-01-25 — Reel 045142/0208 [SIBLING]

  • Conveyance: Assignment (141 pages — omnibus, covers a large batch of patents)
  • Assignor: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
  • Assignee: Maxell, Ltd. (1 Koizumi, Oyamazaki, Oyamazaki-cho, Otokuni-gun, Kyoto, Japan)
  • Correspondent: Nadeen Nsouli, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606. Recurs on this bulk recording across the Maxell post-2017 portfolio; whether the same correspondent appears on other links of this specific chain is unverified.
  • Context: internal reorg / spin-out — Hitachi Maxell's patent estate consolidated into the newly independent Maxell, Ltd., aligned with Maxell's licensing, business-development and R&D efforts in the mobile/mobile-media market.

• 2021-11-29 (recorded) — Reel not recovered [UNKNOWN]

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Maxell, Ltd.
  • Assignee: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: internal corporate reorg — merger (holding-company structure).

• 2021-12-03 (recorded) — Reel not recovered [UNKNOWN]

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
  • Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: change of name only — no change in beneficial ownership; rounds the chain back to the "Maxell, Ltd." name.

Also recorded in the file but not an assignment: a terminal disclaimer filed during prosecution (application filed 2002-06-18; all claims rejected on non-statutory double patenting over US 6,430,498; applicant filed a terminal disclaimer; Notice of Allowability 2003-01-30). This is the reason the 20-year term runs from the 2000-07-11 parent filing date and the patent expired 2020-07-11. Source: IPR2020-00409 Petition at 1, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2020-00409/.

Family-wide note: the same corporate hand-off is recited across the '999 family. In Maxell v. Apple (5:19-cv-00036, Doc. 646-3), Maxell states the '423 application's chain and the reexamination posture; in Maxell v. ZTE the complaint describes the 2009 (Hitachi→HCE) and 2013 (HCE→Hitachi Maxell) steps.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6580999
    1999 : JP priority filed by Hitachi Ltd
    2000 : US parent application filed
    2002 : Continuation application filed
    2003 : Patent issued to Hitachi Ltd
    2012 : Assigned to Hitachi Consumer Electronics
    2014 : Assigned to Hitachi Maxell Ltd
    2017 : BlackBerry suit filed by Maxell
    2018 : Assigned to Maxell Ltd
    2019 : Apple suit filed by Maxell
    2020 : Patent expires
    2021 : Merger into Maxell Holdings Ltd
         : Renamed back to Maxell Ltd

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Every assignee in the chain is an identifiable, registered, revenue-generating Japanese corporation: Hitachi, Ltd.; Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.; Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.; Maxell Holdings, Ltd.; Maxell, Ltd. There is no "IP / Patents / Licensing / Ventures" LLC, no Delaware or Texas single-purpose entity, no registered-agent service address, no single-member LLC. The 2021 "Maxell Holdings, Ltd." name is a Japanese holding-company merger artifact (reel unknown, recorded 2021-11-29), not a shell — it was renamed straight back to "Maxell, Ltd." two days later (2021-12-03).

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (moderate).
Maxell, Ltd. is a documented high-frequency patent plaintiff. Evidence in the record: it asserted the '999 family against BlackBerry (Maxell, Ltd. v. BlackBerry Corp., 1:17-cv-01446, D. Del., filed 2017-10-13), against Apple (5:19-cv-00036, E.D. Tex., filed 2019-03-15 — the '999 patent was one of ten patents-in-suit, with Maxell asserting claims 1–6), and campaigned against ZTE, Huawei and ASUSTeK (docketalarm 5:18-cv-00034 Doc. 1; RPX complaint text citing "U.S. Patent Nos. 6,748,317; 8,339,493; 7,116,438; 6,408,193; 6,928,306; and 6,329,794 … previously asserted"). I did not find Maxell on the enumerated classic-NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.). Calling this "known asserter" rests on RPX/Unified-tracked frequent-plaintiff status plus the prior section's note that the Stanford NPE database lists the BlackBerry case as involving '999 — I could not independently re-verify the Stanford classification within this session.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / weak.
Two correspondents are documented, and they are different firms: McDermott, Will & Emery LLP (reel 030662/0927, Hitachi→HCE) and Nadeen Nsouli, Chicago (reel 045142/0208, Hitachi Maxell→Maxell, 141-page bulk recording). Nsouli recurs on Maxell's post-2017 bulk recordings generally, but I have one data point inside this chain and none for the 2014 and 2021 links. Per the strict rule (single appearance ≠ finding; recurrence is the signal), I decline to call this present.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
The transfers span 2012/2013 → 2014 → 2018 → 2021, i.e. roughly nine years and ~4 events, all within one corporate family. There is no burst of chained LLC-to-LLC conveyances inside 24 months, no shared correspondent address across unrelated assignees, and no common-principal shell layering.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Nearest transfer = executed 2017-10-01 / recorded 2018-01-25. First suit naming '999 = BlackBerry, filed 2017-10-13 — i.e. the assignment was recorded after the suit; the Apple suit came ~14 months after recordation. Neither lands inside the 6-month window that would indicate a chain arranged to manufacture standing or venue immediately before filing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 for Hitachi, Ltd., Hitachi Consumer Electronics, Hitachi Maxell, Maxell Holdings or Maxell, Ltd. in any retrieved source. The transfers are corporate reorganizations/disclosures, not insolvency sales.

7. Privateering — PRESENT (this is the controlling signal).
The asset originated in an operating company (Hitachi, Ltd.), was pushed down to a group affiliate (Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell) whose stated post-transfer purpose was licensing, and was then asserted against Hitachi's erstwhile competitors by an entity that does not build the accused product class. Concrete corroboration: (a) Hitachi, Ltd. seconded its own employee, Satoshi Matsuo, to Hitachi Maxell after the assignment specifically "to assist HMX's efforts in licensing the smartphone portfolio" (declaration of Tiffany A. Miller, Maxell v. Apple, docketalarm Doc. 170-1 ¶ 3); (b) the assignment to Maxell is expressly tied to "the licensing, business development, and research and development efforts of Maxell, including in the mobile and mobile-media device market" (Maxell v. ZTE Doc. 1 ¶ 4); (c) Maxell sued Apple, BlackBerry, ZTE, Huawei and ASUSTeK while asserting the '999 family — companies competing in a mobile-device market Maxell itself does not compete in with a walking-navigation terminal. Note the nuance: the "privateer" here is a corporate affiliate of the originator, not a third-party troll hired as a front.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Maxell, Ltd., an operating manufacturer — not RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. The inverse is true: the record shows a defensive player on the other side — the IPR2020-00409 litigation panel is populated from Unified Patents' PTAB dataset, and Apple's IPRs (consolidated Fed. Cir. Nos. 20-2132, 20-2211, 20-2212, 20-2213, 21-1033) were denied institution and the rehearing denial issued 2021-02-22. Caveat: Google Patents renders "Petitioner: Unified Patents PTAB Data," which is the data-source label, not the petitioner — the IPR2020-00409 petitioner was Apple Inc. Do not read that panel line as evidence Unified filed the IPR.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: two signals fire, only one of them at full strength. The privateering signal is strong: the '999 asset was moved out of operating company Hitachi, Ltd. into a group licensing affiliate (reel 030662/0927 & 030802/0610 [SIBLING], then reel 033694/0745 [SIBLING], then reel 045142/0208 [SIBLING], executed 2017-10-01 / recorded 2018-01-25), with Hitachi personnel seconded to run the licensing program post-transfer, and Maxell then asserted the family against Apple, BlackBerry, ZTE, Huawei and ASUSTeK — competitors in a product market where Maxell ships nothing embodying claims 1–6. The known-asserter signal is moderate (extensive Maxell assertion campaign 2017–2019; not found on the canonical NPE name lists). It fails to reach "high confidence" because there is no shell entity, no cascading LLC chain, and no pre-litigation transfer — the chain is a nine-year intra-group reorganization ending at a real, listed manufacturer (TSE: 6810). Under a strict definition requiring anonymity and no products, this grades as moderate rather than high.

Time-bar note: the patent expired 2020-07-11 (term running from the 2000-07-11 parent filing; terminal disclaimer over US 6,430,498). All assertion activity was 2017–2021, and the 2021 recordings are pure housekeeping (merger, then change of name), so no live assertion exposure exists as of 2026-09-28.

Verification link: search patent number 6580999 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) to confirm the four post-issuance reels and capture the reel/frame for the 2021-11-29 merger and 2021-12-03 change-of-name entries, which I could not recover.

Residual uncertainties I will not paper over: (i) no reel/frame printed for '999 in any source I could retrieve — all numbers above are sibling-sourced; (ii) the 2009 vs. 2012-10-11 vs. 2013-06-07/20 conflict for the Hitachi→HCE step is unresolved; (iii) whether the ex parte reexamination 90/014,640 (granted 2021-01-21 on claims 1 and 3) concluded with those claims confirmed, amended or cancelled — the certificate would have to be pulled from PatentCenter, and it does not affect the ownership chain above.

I'll verify the citation record for US 6,580,999 against live sources before analyzing each reference.

Let me verify the remaining examiner citations and the IPR-based art.

Let me verify the two Japanese family citations and the reexamination references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 6,580,999 B2

Builds on the earlier identification/bibliographic/litigation sections. Not repeated here: bibliographic table, claim plain-language summaries, and litigation history.

0. Scope, method, and two threshold flags

Method. Per instructions, I searched for the literal number 6,580,999 and analysed the references that the record itself ties to it. Google Patents lists exactly five "Patent Citations" on the face of the '999 and two "Family Cites Families." I verified each of the five U.S./US-facing citations against live sources; the two Japanese family citations could not be independently verified (see §3). I then added the art actually asserted against the '999 in the 2019–2021 IPR/reexamination/contentions (see §4), because that art is more substantive than the face citations and is central to any validity analysis.

Flag 1 — §102 requires a single reference to disclose every limitation. The '999's independent claims 1, 5 and 6 each require a device for getting the location information of another portable terminal. This is the point of novelty over generic GPS/PDA navigation art. For that reason (developed below), none of the five face-cited U.S. references strictly anticipates claims 1, 5 or 6 as a whole; the strongest of them is a §102(a)/(b) reference for the sub-combinations, not the completed claim. I therefore report "potentially anticipates" conservatively and identify where a reference is really §103 (obviousness) material rather than §102 material. Reporting otherwise would overstate the record.

Flag 2 — critical date / statute. The '999 is a pre-AIA patent. Effective priority is 1999-07-12 (JP 11-197010); the application itself was filed 2002-06-18 as a continuation of US 09/613,634 (filed 2000-07-11, now US 6,430,498). Apple's IPR2020-00409 petition expressly "applies July 12, 1999 as the priority date for the Challenged Claims" (petition PDF). All four U.S. face-cited references and both JP family citations comfortably predate even the earliest date and are §102(b) art via their issue dates or PCT publications.

1. The five face citations (Google Patents "Patent Citations (5)")

1.1 — US 5,146,231 A — "Electronic direction finder"

Full citation: US 5,146,231 A, Electronic direction finder, inventors Ghaem et al., assignee Motorola, Inc. (Schaumburg, IL). App. 07/770,850, filed 1991-10-04; issued 1992-09-08. 20 claims. (Google Patents; full-text PDF)

Description. A hand-holdable GPS receiver with a housing major axis, an omnidirectional antenna and a directional antenna. It computes an electrical signal (angle A) giving the direction of the housing axis relative to a compass heading (north) without a flux-gate compass, by using the GPS positions of the receiver and one satellite. It generates a destination-direction signal and drives a display that shows a rotatable pointer that points in the direction of a user-selected desired destination, and it includes means for a user to enter/select the destination location (claims 5–8; Fig. 6 step 80 "DISPLAY ARROW TO SELECTED DESTINATION"). A companion Motorola case, US 5,173,709 (Lauro et al.), is the flux-gate version of the same display concept.

Claims potentially anticipated / material to: The reference discloses, in a single unit, elements (a) own location and (b) own orientation, plus a direction-to-destination arrow — the "relation between orientation and direction" concept that appears verbatim in claims 1 and 5. However, the destination is a user-entered waypoint or otherwise-known location, not the location of another portable terminal. Consequently:

• Claims 1, 5, 6: No strict §102 anticipation — each lacks "a device for getting the location information of another portable terminal" (and claim 6's network limitation).
• §102/§103 material for: the "direction denoted by an orientation of a line/pointer" concept (claim 2 context) and the "line distinguished between starting and ending points" concept (claim 4), if the "another terminal" element were supplied by combination.
• Net: strong background/§103 art; not an anticipatory reference for any of claims 1–6 as issued.

1.2 — US 5,528,248 A — "Personal digital location assistant including a memory cartridge, a GPS smart antenna and a personal computing device"

Full citation: US 5,528,248 A, inventors Glenn C. Steiner, Lloyd H. Banta, Matthew M. Trask; assignee Trimble Navigation, Ltd. (Menlo Park, CA). App. 08/293,048, filed 1994-08-19; issued 1996-06-18. 15 claims. (Google Patents; USPTO.report)

Description. A PDA plus PCMCIA memory cartridge plus "GPS Smart Antenna," running a standard OS (DOS/Windows/Macintosh/Geoworks) and a map application. It displays the user's location as an icon on a map (Fig. 3, icon 180), shows map features/attributes proximate to the user's position, provides a map orientation key that selects north-up or ground-track-up, and the specification states the apparatus may "store and display locations or calculate range and bearing to another location." Expressly contemplates pedestrian/land use and "walking path maps."

Claims potentially anticipated / material to: Discloses (a) own location via GPS and (b) a display that can be aligned to the user's ground track (the orientation-matching idea). It provides "range and bearing to another location" but that location is a map-database feature/waypoint, not the transmitted location of another portable terminal, and there is no compass/heading sensor recited. Therefore:

• Claims 1, 5, 6: No strict §102 anticipation — no "location of another portable terminal"; no direction/orientation device.
• Dependent claim 3 (symbols for present location): the icon-on-map disclosure is the most on-point face-cited disclosure for the "symbols denoting the present location" idea — but claim 3 depends from claim 1, which is not anticipated, so claim 3 as a whole is likewise not anticipated.
• Net: §102(b) art for the location-display and orientation ("ground-track-up") sub-elements; classic §103 combination art.

1.3 — US 6,069,585 A — "Personal direction finding apparatus" ★ most relevant face citation

Full citation: US 6,069,585 A, inventor Jacques Lanciaux; assignee Rockwell-Collins France (Blagnac). US App. 09/180,611 (national stage of PCT/FR97/00841, PCT filed 1997-05-13); FR priority 96/05980, 1996-05-14; corresponding WO 97/43599 A1 published 1997-11-20; US issued 2000-05-30. (Google Patents; WO 97/43599; family)

Description. A headset with two earphones and a track-error circuit. A magnetic compass on the headset outputs a heading signal; a position-location/navigation receiver (GPS) outputs a "heading to be followed"; a computing circuit subtracts them and drives binaural audio so the user perceives the guidance as coming from the direction to be followed. Crucially for the '999, the reference expressly discloses obtaining another party's position over a wireless link and homing on it: a "radioelectric receiver (15) to allow download of geographical coordinates of a route point via a radioelectric data transmission," and "the apparatus also allows the homing of a correspondent by radioelectric means. The geographical coordinates of the correspondent are transmitted radioelectrically, these coordinates are received in the receiver 15 and automatically loaded…" (see claims 1, 8 and description).

Claims potentially anticipated / material to: This is the only face-cited reference that discloses both (i) the user's own orientation from a compass and (ii) the location of another party acquired by wireless transmission. That maps directly onto the "Meeting by Appointment Guidance Service" embodiment of the '999 (Fig. 5; black-circle origin / white-circle endpoint). As a §102(a)/(b) reference it is materially close to:

• Claim 6 — "location information of another portable terminal from said another terminal via connected network… relation between said orientation and a direction from said present place to the location of said another portable terminal is displayed." Caveat: Lanciaux's disclosure is audio (binaural), not a visual display, and the "another terminal" is a radio/position transmitter rather than a described portable terminal with a display. Whether it "anticipates" turns on how the panel construes "displayed"/"portable terminal." I would characterise this as strong §102/§103 art for claim 6, not a clean anticipation.
• Claims 1 and 5 — supplies own location, own direction, and another party's location; caveat: the output is not "direction… displayed with the distance information" in the claimed visual sense.
• Claims 2–4 — no line/number/symbol display disclosed → not anticipated.

1.4 — US 6,124,826 A — "Navigation device for people"

Full citation: US 6,124,826 A, inventors Paul Garthwaite and Gerd Waizmann; assignee Mannesmann Aktiengesellschaft (Düsseldorf). US national stage of PCT/DE95/01415, PCT filed 1995-10-06 (DE priority 1994-10-07); corresponding WO 96/11381 A1 published 1996-04-18; US issued 2000-09-26. (Google Patents; WO 96/11381; PDF)

Description. A portable, self-powered handheld unit = navigation unit (satellite/GPS receiver), communication unit, input unit (keyboard / pen / voice) for entering a target position, and an output unit whose "optical display [shows] directional tips in the form of symbolic arrows." A stationary external computer holding a digitized road map does route calculation and wirelessly transmits routing tips to the portable unit via a mobile-phone transmitter/receiver; position may be determined from the cellular network. The output can be a map with the current position, or "routing tips" only, in step-by-step fashion to minimise memory.

Claims potentially anticipated / material to: This is the closest face-cited reference to the system architecture (portable terminal + wireless network + remote server that computes and returns guidance, with arrow direction tips). But it lacks the direction/orientation sensor of the terminal itself and lacks the location of another portable terminal (the target is a user-entered destination). Therefore:

• Claims 1, 5, 6: No strict §102 anticipation — missing the "device for getting direction information denoting an orientation of said portable terminal" (all three) and the "another portable terminal" element (all three).
• §103 material for: claim 6's network/server architecture and the "step-by-step" arrow display of claims 2/4.
• Net: background/§103 art; the reference is cited mainly for the portable-wireless-navigation architecture, not for the point of novelty.

1.5 — US 6,430,498 B1 — the parent (same family), not third-party prior art

Full citation: US 6,430,498 B1, Portable terminal with the function of walking navigation, Maruyama et al., Hitachi, Ltd.; App. 09/613,634, filed 2000-07-11; issued 2002-08-06. It is the immediate parent of the '999 (the '999 is a continuation of it), and one of four members of family ID 16367294 (with US 6,748,317 and US 6,892,630).

Why it is on the list, and why it is not §102 art. Google Patents flags it with the examiner asterisk because it was the reference in the double-patenting rejection: Apple's petition records that "On June 18, 2002, the Examiner rejected all claims of the application that resulted in the '999 Patent under the non-statutory doctrine of double patenting as unpatentable over the claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,430,498" (petition PDF) — a defect resolved by a terminal disclaimer (consistent with the '999 and '498 expiring together, 2020-07-11). Because the '498 shares the identical disclosure and inventive entity with the '999, it is a same-family/self citation, not prior art "by another" under §102. It should be excluded from any §102 anticipation table.

2. Consolidated §102 assessment of the face citations

3. Family citations (Google Patents "Family Cites Families")

JPH06282795 A — "Car navigation device" and JPH06282796 A — "Car navigation device and communication method using the same", both Suzuki Motor Corp., filed/priority 1993-03-29, published 1994-10-07. Both are §102(b) art by publication date.

Important characterisation: these appear under Google Patents' family citation panel (i.e., cited in connection with the '999 patent family, not necessarily on the face of the '999 itself). I could not verify their disclosures in this session (search-step limit reached before retrieval), so I will not assert which claims they might anticipate. Based only on title, assignee and date, they are in-vehicle (car) navigation disclosures and, on their face, would address vehicle route guidance rather than the portable-terminal/another-terminal limitations at issue; that is an inference from metadata, not a verified reading. Treat as unverified pending retrieval of the JP full texts.

4. Art asserted against the '999 outside the patent face (more probative than the face citations)

These references are not on the '999's face but are the art actually used by Apple (IPR2020-00409; E.D. Tex. invalidity contentions) and by the USPTO in the ex parte reexamination. For a real validity analysis these matter more than §1:

Note on JPH10-197277 (Maruyama): the name matches the '999's first-named inventor, Kishiko Maruyama — if that is the same person, it is a pre-critical-date publication by the inventor's own group, which would be §102(a)/(b) art unless antedated by the JP priority. I flag this as an item worth confirming from the JP document itself, since inventorship overlap changes the antedating analysis.

5. Bottom line and ranking

1. Strict §102 anticipation: On the record available, no single reference anticipates any of claims 1–6 of the '999 as a whole. The reason is structural: claims 1, 5 and 6 all require "a device for getting the location information of another portable terminal," and every face-cited U.S. reference either points to a user-entered waypoint/map feature (US 5,146,231; US 5,528,248; US 6,124,826) or guides by audio rather than a claimed display (US 6,069,585).
2. Most relevant face citation: US 6,069,585 A (Lanciaux / Rockwell-Collins, WO 97/43599, pub. 1997-11-20) — it is the only face reference that transmits another party's coordinates over a wireless link and combines them with the user's compass heading. It is the best §102(a)/(b) candidate for claim 6, and §103 material for claims 1/5.
3. Most probative overall art: US 6,067,502 (Hayashida) with Abowd (1997) — this is the combination Apple built the IPR around, even though the PTAB denied institution (Fintiv-based) and the Federal Circuit affirmed the non-institution on rehearing (mandate 2021-03-01). Non-institution is not a merits holding of validity, so this art remains live for any §102/§103 analysis.
4. The remaining face citations — Motorola US 5,146,231, Trimble US 5,528,248, Mannesmann US 6,124,826 — are background/§103 art for the direction-arrow, location-icon and portable-network-navigation sub-elements, not §102 anticipatory references for the '999's independent claims.

Explicit uncertainties: (a) I could not verify the two JPH06 family citations' disclosures, so §3 is metadata-level only; (b) whether US 6,069,585 anticipates claim 6 depends on claim construction of "displayed" and "portable terminal," which I cannot resolve here; (c) the reexamination outcome (confirmed/amended/cancelled claims 1 and 3) still needs the reexamination certificate from PatentCenter, as previously flagged.

I'll ground the analysis in the actual pre-'999 references from this page's Prior Art section. Let me pull their disclosures.

Let me verify the two-way location-sharing art (Garmin GPS/radio) and the JP references, plus the parent patent.

§103 Obviousness analysis — US 6,580,999 B2 ("the '999 patent")

Builds on the earlier sections. I don't repeat the bibliographic table, the claim summaries, or the litigation/PTAB findings. Two cross-references matter here: the '999 patent has only 6 claims, all of which recite a "device for getting the location information of another portable terminal" (claims 1, 5, 6 — the independent ones), and the earlier section flagged a terminal disclaimer / parent patent US 6,430,498 in the family. Both points drive the analysis below.

One housekeeping note: the task states today is April 26, 2026, while the page fetch and system date show 2026-09-28. Neither date matters to a §103 analysis of a patent whose critical date is 1999‑07‑12; I flag the discrepancy only so the record is clean.

1. Framework and critical date

The '999 patent issued from US 10/173,423 (filed 2002‑06‑18), a continuation of US 09/613,634 (filed 2000‑07‑11), claiming JP priority 1999‑07‑12. Pre‑AIA §103 governs. The references must qualify under pre‑AIA §102, and the analysis proceeds under Graham v. John Deere with KSR v. Teleflex's teaching that a motivation to combine may come from the ordinary creativity of a PHOSITA, from market demand, or from the predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions — no express TSM is required.

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA): as of mid‑1999, a B.S. in EE/CS (or equivalent) with ~2–3 years' experience designing handheld GPS receivers, electronic-compass subsystems, or cellular/PHS handsets and their user interfaces. This person was intimately familiar with (i) GPS position fixing, (ii) magnetic/gyro heading sensing, (iii) pager/FRS/PHS data exchange, and (iv) map/arrow UI on small LCDs.

2. Prior art from this page's Prior Art section — qualification

Two further notes on qualification:

• US 6,430,498 B1 (the parent) is not §103 prior art. It is cited on the page, but it is the same family, same inventors, filed 2000‑07‑11 — the same day as the '999's parent, and later than the 1999‑07‑12 priority. It is not "by another" and is not "before" applicant's invention. Its appearance in the citation list is a double-patenting / terminal-disclaimer artifact, exactly as the earlier section anticipated. Nothing in the §103 case should rest on it.
• The JP H06 references and the Garmin family are the only page-listed items pointing at terminal-to-terminal location, and Garmin's 1999‑05‑07 filing date narrowly beats the '999 priority date.

3. Claim 1 — element mapping

Difference from the art: only the display modality ('585 → binaural audio) and the aggregation of four separately known capabilities. That is the entire §103 question.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground A — '585 in view of '231 (primary ground for claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 6; with '430 or '248 for claim 3)

'585 discloses (a) GPS, (b) a compass measuring the user's own heading, (c) radioelectric receipt of a remote correspondent's coordinates, plus the computation of the angular difference between the user's heading and the bearing to the correspondent — and distance from the GPS. Its only gap for claim 1 is that it renders the guidance acoustically ("a sound signal perceived … as seeming to come from a point located in the direction to be followed") rather than visually.

'231 supplies exactly that missing modality in the same field: a handheld unit with a "visible image of a rotatable pointer" that "point[s] in the direction of the desired destination," together with a display of the housing axis's orientation relative to a compass heading. Substituting a visual pointer for a binaural cue — or adding a display alongside it — is the paradigm of a predictable, interchangeable output modality (KSR). '585 itself even notes that GPS receivers conventionally output "distance from the point selected" that "may be used to inform the user … by an appropriate signal or sound message," i.e., the reference is agnostic as to output channel.

This ground reaches claim 5 (whose "relation between said orientation and a direction from said present place to the location of said another portable terminal" is literally '585's Sc = Sb − Sa term) and claim 6 (whose "obtained from said another terminal via connected network" is literally '585's radioelectric correspondent-coordinate relay). Claim 6 is the broadest independent claim — it does not even recite distance — and is correspondingly the easiest to invalidate. Claim 4 (line with distinguishable start/end) follows from '231's arrow-headed pointer. Claim 2 (line + numeric distance) is met by '248's numeric "range and bearing" readout or '231's WO counterpart, which describes "numerical information indicating … the range and bearing of the desired destination."

Ground B — '826 in view of '585 (and '231) — claims 1–6

'826 provides the pedestrian-specific framing ('999's stated field): a "convenient and portable navigation device for people," light enough to carry, with a mobile phone, an external route-computing server, and an optical display of "symbolic arrows" for directional tips — i.e., route guidance on a small screen. It lacks any handset-orientation sensor and any second-terminal location. '585 supplies both. Combining a pedestrian navigation handset with a compass-referenced heading and with radio relay of a companion's coordinates is the natural completion of '826's stated object ("switch at any time to other means of transportation … without interrupting the navigational assistance" — a pedestrian navigating to a meeting point).

Ground C — '430 in view of '231 (and '248) — claims 1, 3, 5, 6

This is the most direct attack on the point of novelty. '430 discloses plural portable units, each computing its own position and receiving the other's position over a wireless network and displaying the other unit's location — the "another portable terminal" element, verbatim in substance. '430 lacks the orientation sensor. '231 supplies the device that determines the housing-axis orientation, and the resulting arrow display inherently shows the relation between that orientation and the bearing to the other unit (claim 5). '248 supplies the display of one's own location as a symbol (claim 3), numeric range/bearing (claim 2), and map orientation to the direction of travel. Garmin's own specification supplies the motivation, in words that track the '999's "Meeting by Appointment Guidance Service": group members can "see where everyone else is located" and "quickly locate a member who becomes lost or injured."

5. Why a PHOSITA would have combined these references

1. Same field, same problem. All of '231, '248, '585, '826 and '430 address guiding a portable-device user to a point. There is no field-crossing leap to justify.
2. Complementary, non-overlapping teachings. '585/'231 teach how to point at a target relative to the user's own body orientation; '430 teaches how to learn where a moving companion is. Combining them does no more than the sum of the parts — the KSR "predictable variation" rationale.
3. Articulated demand for the combination. '430's camping/hiking passage and '826's weight/reachability discussion both express the market need the '999 claims to satisfy. An unmet, expressly identified need is a classic motivation.
4. Engineering incentive from the art itself. '231's stated purpose is to reduce cost and size by eliminating the flux-gate compass — but '999's claims do not require any particular heading sensor, and '231 shows the same function achieved with the GPS receiver alone. Nothing about adding '430's radio/location-sharing (a software + transceiver change on an already-cellular handset, per '826) threatens handheld size or power in a way that would deter the combination.
5. The patent's own specification concedes the aggregation. The '999 description states the components generically and expressly contemplates alternative distributions of processing ("the application server executes most of processings … each portable terminal is provided only with the function for displaying supplied information"), which underscores that the alleged invention lies in the aggregation and presentation, not in any new component.

Best counter-argument to expect, and its rebuttal. A patent owner would argue that '585 deliberately teaches away from a display (its stated object is to free "eyes and hands" for the diver/pedestrian), and that '231 teaches away from adding a magnetic compass. Under KSR, a reference's preference for one embodiment is not a teaching away unless it "criticizes, discredits, or otherwise discourages" the claimed approach — and '585's own text contemplates the GPS receiver's conventional numeric outputs, while '231's arrow display is a substitution not an addition. These are narrow, embodiment-specific preferences, not disclaimers of the claim scope. Expect the owner to lean on the '585 audio-output limitation and on my Ground C gap (no orientation sensor in '430) as the two genuine vulnerabilities of the art.

6. Dependent claims 2–4

• Claim 2 (line orientation + numeric distance): '248's FIG. 3 readout (Bearing 046°, Range 763 nm) and '231's WO counterpart ("range and bearing of the desired destination") disclose numeric distance alongside a directional line.
• Claim 3 (symbols for present location and other-terminal location): '430 FIG. 4 (circles + identifiers for each unit) and '248 (own position as an icon) disclose the exact symbol convention.
• Claim 4 (line distinguishable as to start/end): the arrow-headed "rotatable pointer" of '231, and '430's identifiers appended to location circles, render this at most a design choice; the specification itself (FIG. 5 description: black-circle start, white-circle end) characterizes it as a mere presentation convention.

Because claims 2–4 depend from claim 1, they fall with claim 1.

7. Conclusion and residual uncertainty

• Claims 1, 5, 6 are, in my assessment, obvious over US 6,069,585 in view of US 5,146,231, and additionally over US 6,373,430 in view of US 5,146,231 and/or US 5,528,248. The critical "another portable terminal" limitation is squarely met by '585's radioelectric correspondent-coordinate relay (claims 5, 6) and by '430's multi-unit location-sharing display (claims 1, 3, 5, 6).
• Claims 2 and 4 are obvious over the same combinations with '248 (numeric range/bearing; directional pointer symbols).
• Claim 1 may be more vulnerable than claims 5/6 because it does not require the display to be orientation-referenced; a north-up map marker plus distance arguably satisfies it, which makes Ground C applicable to claim 1 as well.
• ⚠️ Anticipation flag: the "correspondent coordinates transmitted radioelectrically … loaded … to allow homing" passage in US 6,069,585 is close enough that claim 6 may be anticipated, not merely obvious, if the transmitting apparatus is another user's terminal and if "displayed"/"supplied" is construed to cover non-graphical presentation. This should be verified against the issued '585 columns and FIGS. 1–2 rather than the truncated web text.

Explicit uncertainties. (1) I could not retrieve the full texts of JPH 06‑282795 A / JPH 06‑282796 A; they are excluded from my element mappings. (2) I have not inspected the '999 file wrapper, so I cannot state why the examiner allowed the claims over '585 — the passage above suggests the examiner may not have appreciated '585's correspondent-homing disclosure, but that is inference, not record. (3) The §102 dates for US 6,124,826 and US 6,069,585 rest on family/PCT data reported by third-party databases; the conservative §102(e) date for '585 is 1998‑11‑12, but its WO 97/43599 publication (1997‑11‑20) is independently §102(b) art and renders the point moot. (4) I found no secondary-considerations evidence (nexus, unexpected results, licensing-due-to-merit) in the record supplied.