US 6605038

I'll search for this specific patent's litigation and docket status before summarizing.

Let me search more specifically for any CAFC appeals or 2026 activity.

Let me verify the post-reexamination claim set and check for any 2026 appellate activity.

US Patent 6,605,038 B1 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note: I could not query USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket system directly from this environment. The findings below come from web-search results against the Google Patents record, the Official Gazette text of the patent (mirrored at Indiana University's Virtual Disk Library), the Unified Patents litigation portal, Docket Alarm, and PTAB/Board documents. Where I could not corroborate something authoritatively, I say so explicitly.

1. Bibliographic data (verified)

Foreign family (per Google Patents): PCT/US2001/020014 filed 2001-06-22 → WO2002000111A1; EP1292218B1; JP2004500949A; CA2413148C; KR100821945B1; AU2001270092A1; BR0111918B1; IL153516A; MXPA02012643A, among others.

2. Abstract (as published)

"A system for detecting, monitoring and reporting physiological information includes a sensor device adapted to be worn on the upper arm that includes at least one of an accelerometer, a GSR sensor and a heat flux sensor and generates data indicative of at least one of activity, galvanic skin response and heat flow. The sensor device may also generate derived data from at least a portion of the data indicative of at least one of activity, galvanic skin response and heat flow. The system includes a central monitoring unit that generates analytical status data from at least one of the data indicative of at least one of activity, galvanic skin response and heat flow, the derived data, and previously generated analytical status data, a means for establishing electronic communication between the sensor device and the central monitoring unit, and a means for transmitting data to a recipient."

3. Independent claim — plain language

⚠️ Important discrepancy to flag. The Google Patents "Description/Summary" text describes the sensor device as including "at least one of" an accelerometer, GSR sensor and heat flux sensor. However, the printed claim 1 in the issued patent (per the Official Gazette text) recites "at least two of" those sensors. Do not conflate the two — the claim is narrower than the summary. I have not been able to retrieve the exact post-reexamination claim text (see §4), so the claim language below reflects the as-issued text and may have been amended.

Claim 1 — "A system for detecting, monitoring and reporting human physiological information, comprising:"

1. A sensor device adapted to be placed in contact with an individual's upper arm, the device including at least two of: an accelerometer, a GSR (galvanic skin response) sensor, and a heat flux sensor, and adapted to generate:
   • (i) raw data indicative of at least two of (a) motion, (b) skin resistance to electric current, and (c) heat flow; and
   • (ii) derived data computed from at least a portion of that raw data — where the derived data is a physiological parameter of the individual that cannot be wholly measured directly by any single one of the three sensors (i.e., the derivation must add information beyond what any one sensor alone provides);
2. A central monitoring unit remote from the sensor device, adapted to generate analytical status data from at least a portion of (i) the raw data, (ii) the derived data, and/or (iii) previously generated analytical status data — the unit including a data storage device for retrievably storing that data;
3. Data transfer means for establishing at least temporary electronic communication between the sensor device and the central monitoring unit; and
4. Means for transmitting the raw data, derived data and/or analytical status data to a recipient (e.g., the user or an authorized third party).

In plain terms: an arm-worn multi-sensor band (motion + skin-conductance + heat flux) that computes derived physiological values no single sensor could measure alone, uploads them to a remote server that crunches "analytical status" conclusions (with storage and re-use of prior conclusions), and delivers the results to someone.

Other independent claims: The patent has 73 claims, and the reexamination record identifies multiple separately-challenged claim groups (e.g., claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–22, 24–28, 30–35, 38–46). The specification also describes a second independent aspect — "a system for monitoring the degree to which an individual has followed a suggested routine" (with feedback across categories such as nutrition, activity level, mind centering, sleep, and daily activities). I do not have authoritative claim text for the remaining independent claims (likely including method/apparatus claims and the suggested-routine claim), so I will not paraphrase them rather than guess.

Preferred-embodiment claim support (for context): the armband hardware is described as a computer housing + molded flexible wing body with an elastic strap, containing a two-axis (ADXL210) or three-axis accelerometer, GSR electrodes (conductive carbonized rubber/gold/stainless steel), a micro-foil heat-flux sensor (RdF Corp.), RF (optionally Bluetooth) transceiver, vibrating motor and ringer for tactile/audible feedback, and SRAM/flash memory.

4. Post-grant proceedings (this is where most of the action is)

• Inter partes reexamination, Control No. 95/002,354, requested 09/14/2012 by Basis Science, Inc. (patent owner BodyMedia, Inc.; examiner Majid A. Banankhah; Art Unit 3992). An Action Closing Prosecution (09/30/2013) maintained rejections of claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–22, 24–28, 30–35 and 38–46, and proposed rejection of new claims 74–99 (with claim 100 added by the owner). Basis Science's third-party comments argued obviousness over Myllymäki (5,670,944) in view of Root (6,013,007).
• PTAB Appeal 2015-004784 (Technology Center 3900): an Order to Show Cause dated November 10, 2015 directed the patent owner to explain why the appeal should not be dismissed for failing to identify six related inter partes reexaminations, failing which "the appeal shall stand dismissed." ⚠️ Uncertainty: I could not retrieve the Board's final disposition of Appeal 2015-004784 or the resulting inter partes reexamination certificate for the '038 patent. If a certificate issued, the certificate — not the 2003 print — is the operative claim text, and I have not verified it.
• **Litigation: BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., No. 1:12-cv-00133-GMS (D. Del.)**, filed February 2, 2012 before Chief Judge Gregory M. Sleet, asserting U.S. Patents 6,605,038; 7,020,508; 7,261,690; 7,285,090; 7,689,437; and 8,073,707. On June 6, 2013 the court granted Basis Science's motion to stay the case pending completion of inter partes reexamination of the patents-in-suit and denied the alternative motion to transfer to the Northern District of California. Unified Patents records this as the family's litigation entry (case 1:12-cv-00133).
• Ownership backdrop: BodyMedia was acquired by AliphCom (Jawbone) in 2013; Basis Science was acquired by Intel in 2014. The patent subsequently moved through security interests and assignments to JB IP Acquisition LLC.

5. CAFC 2026 dockets — search result

I found no CAFC 2026 docket activity for U.S. Patent 6,605,038. Searches for a Federal Circuit appeal involving this patent returned either (a) the 2015 PTAB reexamination appeal, (b) the 2012–2013 Delaware district court case, or (c) unrelated patents with similar-looking numbers (e.g., 6,877,038; 8,950,038; 10,038,989; 11,589,660). Because the patent's recorded status is expired (adjusted expiration 2021-02-27), and no live assertion appears in the searchable dockets, I have no authoritative basis to report any pending or decided 2026 appellate proceeding for this patent. Absence of search hits is not proof of absence — a definitive answer requires a direct PACER/CM-ECF and USPTO PatentCenter query, which I could not perform here.

6. Explicit uncertainty flags

1. Operative claim text. Post-reexamination claim language for the '038 patent is unverified; the reexamination certificate (if any) controls.
2. Claim 1 sensor count. Issued claim 1 requires "at least two of" the three sensors; the specification/abstract summary says "at least one of." This is a real textual difference, not a transcription error I have corrected.
3. Current assignee. Google Patents says JB IP Acquisition LLC; another source says J Fitness LLC. The assignment/security history involves several parties; verify against USPTO Assignment records.
4. Independent claim count/content. I have not verified the full 73-claim set or the identities of every independent claim.
5. No 2026 CAFC activity found — but this is a negative search finding, not a certification.

I'll research litigation involving US 6,605,038. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific Delaware case referenced and search for other litigation.

Let me pin down the outcomes and check for additional cases asserting this patent.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,605,038

Important framing note: I interpreted the number literally as US 6,605,038 B1 ("System for monitoring health, wellness and fitness," Teller et al.; Appl. No. 09/602,537; filed June 23, 2000; granted Aug. 12, 2003; original assignee BodyMedia, Inc.; current assignee of record JB IP Acquisition LLC; adjusted expiration Feb. 27, 2021). I excluded everything involving other numbers (e.g., 7,020,508; 7,261,690; 7,285,090; 7,689,437; 8,073,707; 7,454,002, etc.), even where the same parties appear.

Based on the sources I could reach (Google Patents family data, the Unified Patents litigation portal, PlainSite/Justia dockets, and PTAB records), only one federal district court case appears to have asserted the '038 patent.

1. BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc.

Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A12-cv-00133 ; https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2ihv896xp/delaware-district-court/bodymedia-inc-v-basis-science-inc/ ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6605038B1](/patent/US6605038B1) (family-litigation links).

2. Related administrative challenge to the '038 patent (not litigation, but relevant)

Because you asked about the patent's assertion history, note that Basis Science also attacked the '038 patent at the USPTO:

• Inter partes reexamination No. 95/002,354 — Basis Science, Inc. (Requester) v. BodyMedia, Inc. (Patent Owner), filed Sept. 14, 2012; appeal Appeal 2015-004784 at the PTAB (Tech. Center 3900). On Nov. 10, 2015, the Board issued an Order to Show Cause requiring the Patent Owner to explain why the appeal should not be dismissed for failing to identify six related inter partes reexaminations. (This triggered the parallel stay/reexam activity in the Delaware case.)

  • Source: https://casetext-staging-alt.com/admin-law/ex-parte-6605038-b1-et-al-1

• IPRs filed by Fitbit, Inc. against BodyMedia, Inc. in 2016 (e.g., IPR2016-00543 on 8,961,413; IPR2016-00545 on 8,073,707) are against other patents in the same family, not against 6,605,038.

3. Cases I checked and excluded (they do NOT involve U.S. 6,605,038)

• Fitbit, Inc. v. AliphCom d/b/a Jawbone & BodyMedia, Inc., N.D. Cal. Nos. 3:15-cv-02579 and 5:15-cv-04073; and D. Del. 1:15-cv-00881 — asserted the '923, '053 and '307 patents. Not the '038.
• AliphCom / BodyMedia v. Fitbit, and ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-963 ("Certain Activity Tracking Devices") — asserted U.S. 8,073,707; 8,398,546; 8,446,275; 8,529,811; 8,793,522; 8,961,413. Not the '038.
• iLife Technologies Inc. v. Body Media, Inc. (W.D. Pa. 2:14-cv-00990) — BodyMedia was a defendant on iLife's patents; the '038 was not at issue.
• My Health, Inc. v. BodyMedia, Inc. (E.D. Tex.) — asserted U.S. 6,612,985. Not the '038.
• Ozmo Licensing, MCOM IP, SportBrain Holdings, etc. — different patents entirely.

Bottom line

To the best of the records I can retrieve, *the only district court litigation in which U.S. Patent No. 6,605,038 was asserted is BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., D. Del. No. 1:12-cv-00133 (filed Feb. 2, 2012), which terminated without a merits ruling (stayed/transferred, then resolved privately).* The '038 patent also faced an inter partes reexamination (95/002,354) requested by Basis Science.

Caveats / confidence level: I could not query PACER or the CAFC docket directly, and the Delaware docket available to me does not include a final disposition order. My statement that the case ended in settlement rather than judgment rests on docket-implied inference plus secondary reporting, not on a directly retrieved dismissal order. If you need a certified litigation history (e.g., for an IDS, invalidity/§ 282 notice, or damages analysis), I'd recommend a formal PACER pull of D. Del. 1:12-cv-00133 and a check for any later-filed cases naming the '038 patent in district courts or the ITC, since post-2021 assertions are unlikely given the patent's Feb. 27, 2021 adjusted expiration and expired lifetime status.

I'll start by checking whether any AIA trial proceedings exist beyond the ODP ingest, since that block is the canonical source but may lag.

The ODP block says no AIA trials. But search surfaced a pre-AIA inter partes reexamination (95/002,354) by Basis Science against this exact patent, plus related IPRs by Fitbit on sibling patents. Let me pin down what happened and confirm there's no AIA trial I'm missing.

No AIA trial (IPR/PGR/CBM) appears on this patent. But the '038 patent was in a substantial pre-AIA inter partes reexamination (95/002,354) that reached the PTAB on appeal. Let me nail down the claim-level outcome and confirm the CAFC picture.

PTAB proceedings — US 6,605,038 ("System for monitoring health, wellness and fitness")

Proceedings overview

There are ZERO AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) on US 6,605,038. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal, the canonical list — states that the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated via AIA trial / 0 claims sustained via AIA trial / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. My independent web/source search found nothing contradicting that, provided you scope "proceeding" to AIA trials: the only PTAB-facing activity I can verify on the '038 patent is a pre-AIA inter partes reexamination (Control No. 95/002,354), which is not an AIA trial, is not eligible for CBM (the claims are to a physiological sensor/system, not a financial product or service), and would never appear in an "AIA trial proceedings" ODP feed.

Bottom line for a defendant: you cannot say "the claims have been canceled by the PTAB — the demand letter is dead on arrival," because no IPR/PGR/CBM ever canceled anything here. But you also cannot say "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened," because it never faced an AIA trial at all. The accurate posture is: the '038 patent is expired (2021-02-27) and its validity was drawn into a contested inter partes reexamination that reached the Board on appeal — so the substantive prior-art fight has already been had in a different forum, and damages exposure today is limited to pre-expiration conduct.

95/002,354 — Basis Science, Inc. (Requester) v. BodyMedia, Inc. (Patent Owner)

⚠️ Not an AIA trial proceeding. This is a pre-AIA inter partes reexamination under former 35 U.S.C. §§ 311–318. It is included because it is the only adversarial PTAB-adjacent challenge I can verify on this patent, and because the instruction is to flag anything the ODP AIA-trial list would miss. Do not cite this as an IPR/PGR/CBM.

• Type: Inter partes reexamination (pre-AIA). Patented under Art Unit 3992 / Technology Center 3900.
• Filed: 2012-09-14 (request filing date of record).
• Status: Concluded at the examiner level with a Reexamination Certificate on the patent (USPTO file wrapper/USPTO.report note a Reexamination Certificate for 6,605,038). The claim-level disposition of that certificate I could not verify within my search budget — see "what I did not confirm" below. Do not assume any particular claim survived as originally written.
• Judge panel (Board): Administrative Patent Judge Irvin E. Branch signed the only Board paper I could retrieve (BASIS SCIENCE, INC. v. BODYMEDIA, INC., Reexamination Control 95/002,354, Appeal 2015-004784, PTAB Nov. 10, 2015 — an Order to Show Cause). A full merits panel composition is not in the record I retrieved.
• Petition grounds (as framed by the third-party requester / Examiner): Substantive rejections under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a):
  • Myllymäki (U.S. 5,670,944) in view of Root (U.S. 6,013,007) — applied to claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 24–28, 33–35, 38–41 and 44–46, and to proposed new claims 78–83, 92–94 and 99.
  • Myllymäki, Root and Mault — applied to claims 84–91 (proposed new claims).
  • The Action Closing Prosecution (ACP) of 2013-09-30 maintained rejection of claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–22, 24–28, 30–35 and 38–46 and adopted the proposed rejection of new claims 74–99. Patent Owner's response added new claim 100. Original patent issued with 73 claims; claim 1 and claim 47 were the independents.
• Institution/initiation: This is a reexamination, not a trial — there is no "institution decision" in the AIA sense. The Office found a substantial new question of patentability and ordered the reexam; the procedural posture reached the Right of Appeal Notice (RAN) stage and then the Board.
• Final Written Decision / Board decision: Not verified. The Board appeal (Appeal 2015-004784) was docketed 2015-04-02 and an oral hearing was held 2015-10-14. On 2015-11-10 the Board issued an Order to Show Cause directing Patent Owner, within 14 days, to "show cause why the Board should not dismiss the appeal … for failing to properly identify the inter partes reexaminations related to this inter partes reexamination proceeding," or the appeal "shall stand dismissed." The Order recited that Patent Owner had identified six other related inter partes reexaminations on six related patents. I could not confirm whether the Board then dismissed the appeal or decided it on the merits, nor which claims were ultimately canceled/confirmed. Treat any claim-level statement about the '038 reexamination as unverified until you pull the Reexamination Certificate and the Board's final paper.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement identified on this record. Merits dispositions in reexam are by examiner action + Board decision + certificate, not settlement.
• Appeal: The reexam was the subject of a Board appeal (2015-004784). I found no Federal Circuit appeal specifically from 95/002,354. (The Federal Circuit appeals in this family — Nos. 2015-1786 and 2015-1788 — arise from sibling reexaminations 95/002,371 and 95/002,376 on the '437 and '707 patents, not from the '038 reexam.)
• Defensive value: This is the proceeding that matters for a defendant today — it put claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–22, 24–28, 30–35, 38–46 (and pending new claims 74–99) under a maintained § 103 rejection over Myllymäki + Root at the ACP stage, meaning the Examiner found the core independent claim 1 prima facie obvious. Whether that ripened into cancellation depends on the certificate. Get the certificate before you build anything on these claims.

Related proceedings on sibling patents (NOT on the '038 patent)

These are surfaced by the same family and are useful for pattern-of-play, but none of them involves US 6,605,038:

• IPR2016-00543 — Fitbit, Inc. v. BodyMedia, Inc., on U.S. 8,961,413 (AIA trial; petition filed ~2016).
• IPR2016-00545 — Fitbit, Inc. v. BodyMedia, Inc., on U.S. 8,073,707 (AIA trial). A Final Decision / Termination Decision document dated 2017-07-19 appears on the docket, and the Board's '707 final decision recites that, in the earlier reexam, claims 1–18 and 20–22 of the '707 patent were finally rejected as anticipated by Amano '342, affirmed by the Board (Basis Science v. BodyMedia, Control No. 95/002,376, PTAB Mar. 27, 2015) and summarily affirmed on appeal.
• Basis Science reexaminations: 95/002,371 (U.S. 7,689,437) and 95/002,376 (U.S. 8,073,707).
• Federal Circuit: BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., Nos. 2015-1786 and 2015-1788, per curiam (O'Malley, Linn, Stoll), AFFIRMED under Fed. Cir. R. 36, 2016-07-12 (nonprecedential; 655 F. App'x 842). Reported at CourtListener opinion 4237606 and the PDF of the 2016-07-12 judgment.
• Litigation chain: Delaware District Court case 1:12-cv-00133 (family litigation flagged on Google Patents); Jawbone/BodyMedia v. Fitbit, N.D. Cal. 3:15-cv-02579; ITC 337-TA-963 (Certain Activity Tracking Devices).

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '038 patent — narrowed? canceled? sustained? I can state with confidence only the pre-decision posture: as of the 2013-09-30 ACP, claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–22, 24–28, 30–35 and 38–46 were under maintained § 103 rejection over Myllymäki + Root, and proposed new claims 74–99 were under rejection over Myllymäki + Root (and Myllymäki/Root/Mault for 84–91). A Reexamination Certificate issued, which means the reexam terminated with a claim-level outcome — but I could not verify which claims were canceled, confirmed, or amended, and I will not guess. There is therefore no claim on this patent that I can honestly label "CANCELED" or "SUSTAINED" from an AIA trial, because no AIA trial occurred. Sibling-patent precedent (the '707 reexam, claims 1–18 and 20–22 held anticipated by Amano and affirmed) shows the BodyMedia family was hard-hit by the Basis Science reexams and the Fitbit IPRs, but that is not a statement about the '038 claims.

Estoppel landscape. Because there is no IPR/PGR, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone on this patent. A defendant today is not estopped from raising any prior-art ground in district court and is not bound by the Basis Science reexam. The only estoppel that exists runs against Basis Science as third-party requester under the pre-AIA inter partes reexam provisions (former § 315(c)), on the claims finally determined patentable and the grounds it raised — which, if anything, helps a new defendant (Basis can't relitigate what it lost). Practically: every § 102/§ 103/§ 101/§ 112 defense remains open to you, subject to ordinary IPR timing and district-court invalidity practice. The corollary is that you cannot free-ride on a PTAB cancellation — you must prove invalidity yourself, or rely on the expiration/laches and prior-user/§ 286 limits.

Pattern signals. The same requester (Basis Science) ran a multi-patent reexam campaign against BodyMedia — six related inter partes reexaminations on six related patents, by the Board's own count in the 2015-11-10 Show Cause order. Fitbit then filed two IPRs (2016-00543 and 2016-00545) on the '413 and '707 patents. No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) appears as a petitioner on the '038 patent — the Unified Patents material in my search is a patent page/dashboard entry, not evidence of a filed IPR. The patent owner's posture was aggressively appellate: it appealed the adverse reexams to the Board and then to the Federal Circuit (2015-1786, 2015-1788) and lost both on the merits (summary affirmance). But note the practical telling point: the '038 patent itself never attracted a single AIA trial petition, despite sitting in a family that was otherwise heavily attacked — which is fully explained by its expiration on 2021-02-27 and the fact that Asserters had already obtained the same prior art on the board in reexam.

Recommended next steps

1. There are no PTAB Final Written Decisions to link for this patent. If someone has told you "the PTAB invalidated the '038 claims," that is wrong — no IPR/PGR/CBM exists on US 6,605,038. Do not cite an FWD; there isn't one.
2. Pull the Reexamination Certificate for 95/002,354 from USPTO PatentCenter (or the PTAB/file-wrapper "Reexamination Certificate" image referenced by third-party patent databases) and read the exact claim disposition. That document — not any IPR FWD — is the single most important piece of evidence about this patent's surviving scope. Also pull (a) the Action Closing Prosecution, 2013-09-30, (b) the Right of Appeal Notice, and (c) the Board's final disposition in Appeal 2015-004784 on PTAB E2E to see whether the 2015-11-10 Show Cause order ripened into dismissal or a merits affirmance.
3. If the reexamination certificate canceled or narrowed the asserted claims, that is your strongest, cheapest defense: an adjudicated post-grant cancellation of the exact claim being asserted (a reexam cancellation is enforceable against the world, not just the requester). Quote the certificate's listing of canceled/confirmed claims verbatim.
4. If the asserted claims survived, pivot to (i) the expiration date of 2021-02-27 — the patent is expired, so relief is limited to past damages within the § 286 six-year lookback (which, as of today, reaches only a short pre-expiration window), plus pre-suit notice/§ 287 marking issues; and (ii) the Myllymäki + Root and Amano art already of record in the family reexams, now usable in district court free of § 315(e)(2) estoppel.
5. Check chain of title before anything else. The record shows assignments running BodyMedia → JB IP Acquisition LLC / J FITNESS LLC (2019), with a Delaware suit (1:12-cv-00133) and the Jawbone/Fitbit litigation in the history. Confirm the current owner and whether it has standing (and any license/security-interest clouds from the BlackRock, Wells Fargo, Spring Capital and Silver Lake security agreements) before negotiating — the "troll" question here is a standing/ownership question, not a PTAB question.

Confidence and gaps (stated explicitly): I am confident of (a) zero AIA trials on US 6,605,038 per the canonical ODP block, (b) the existence and grounds of inter partes reexamination 95/002,354, (c) the 2015-11-10 Show Cause order and its terms, and (d) the sibling-patent IPRs and the Fed. Cir. 2015-1786/2015-1788 affirmances. I could not verify, and have not asserted: the final claim-level disposition of 95/002,354, the outcome of Appeal 2015-004784, or any Federal Circuit appeal specific to the '038 reexam. Those three items require a live look at the Reexamination Certificate and PTAB E2E.

I'll reconstruct this from primary records. Let me pull the assignment data and cross-reference the parties.

Found reel/frame leads. Let me pin down the full chain and correspondents.

Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,605,038 B1

Scope note before the findings. I could reach and corroborate the content of the assignment chain (parties, conveyance types, dates, several reel/frame numbers) through Google Patents legal-event records, PTAB petition exhibits, and USPTO-hosted documents. I could not reach the Assignment Center record viewer itself, so correspondent-of-record fields were not retrievable for most entries. I am flagging that gap rather than inventing names — per your constraint, an absent field is reported as absent. Reel/frame numbers below are the ones I could substantiate from document text; where a reel/frame is not shown, it is marked [not retrieved]. Verify all of it at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6605038).

Inventors

Seven named inventors, all listed on the face of the patent with Pittsburgh-metro residences, all assigning to BodyMedia, Inc.:

Unusual patterns: none found. The opposite of the fire-sale tell — the inventors signed the assignment at filing (signing dates 2000-06-15 to 2000-06-16, per the recorded assignment of inventors' interest at Reel 024328/0213, which recites "TELLER, ERIC; STIVORIC, JOHN M.; KASABACH, CHRISTOPHER D.; AND OTHERS; SIGNING DATES FROM 20000615 TO 20000616"). Stivoric remained with BodyMedia through the 2013 Jawbone acquisition. There is no evidence of founding-inventor flight within 12 months of filing.

Original assignee

BodyMedia, Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA; Queen Anne–era entity designations on the records are inconsistent — the 2000-11-22 assignment names "BODYMEDIA, INC., A DELAWARE CORPORATION," while later records reference "BODYMEDIA, INC., PENNSYLVANIA"; treat this as a reincorporation/entity-state field artifact, not evidence of a hidden transfer).

• Product shipped: yes. BodyMedia commercialized the claimed armband architecture — the SenseWear Armband (research/clinical) and the consumer BodyMedia FIT armband, worn on the upper arm and using accelerometer + GSR + heat-flux sensing, matching the FIG. 12–20 embodiment. The portfolio was also cross-used in the Jawbone UP line.
• Primary line of business: wearable physiological/contextual body monitoring (hardware + Health Manager web service).
• Current status: acquired and wound down. BodyMedia was acquired by Jawbone / AliphCom in 2013 (reported consideration in excess of $100M). Jawbone subsequently collapsed; the patent estate was carved out and assigned to a New York IP-holding LLC in 2018 (see below). BodyMedia, Inc. appears on the 2019 records only as an assignor. Separately, the entity appeared on a Small Entity Status assertion signed by Luke Conticello for "JAWB Acquisition LLC, 321 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036" — the same address associated with the acquiring LLC family (document for US 8,503,691, not an assignment record).

Assignment timeline

2000-06-15 / 2000-06-16 (executed) / recorded 2000-11-22 — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: Teller, Stivoric, Kasabach, Pacione, Moss, Liden, McCormack
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: initial formation-stage assignment — founder/inventor to operating company.

2000-06-15 / 2000-06-16 (executed) / recorded ~2010-04 — Reel 024328/0213

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (late-recorded / confirmatory)
• Assignor: Teller, Stivoric, Kasabach, Pacione, Moss, Liden, McCormack
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc. (Pennsylvania)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: chain-of-title clean-up recording, filed roughly a decade after execution and shortly before the 2010 secured-financing cycle. Caveat: this reel/frame is confirmed for the BodyMedia family; I could not confirm on the record that US 09/602,537 is itemised within it.

2006-05-12 (executed) / recorded 2006-06-02 — Reel 017718/0063

• Conveyance: Security Agreement (not a title transfer)
• Assignor: BodyMedia, Inc.
• Assignee: Oxford Finance Corporation (Virginia)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: securitization — venture-debt lien over the portfolio.

2010-09-30 — Reel 025066/0759

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: Oxford Finance Corporation
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: lien discharge on payoff/refinance.

2010-09-30 — Reel 025137/0583

• Conveyance: Security Agreement (not a title transfer)
• Assignor: BodyMedia, Inc.
• Assignee: Spring Capital Partners II, L.P. (Maryland)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: securitization — replacement lender takes the same collateral package.

2012-10-30 (executed) — Reel 030287/0805

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: Spring Capital Partners II, L.P.
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: lien discharge.

2013-06-17 (executed) / recorded 2013-06-27 — Reel 030698/0001

• Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (correcting errors in the release and schedule previously recorded at Reel 030287/0805)
• Assignor: Spring Capital Partners II, L.P.
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: clerical correction of the prior release — not a title transfer.

2013-12-04 — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
• Assignor: ALIPH, INC.; ALIPHCOM; BODYMEDIA, INC.; MACGYVER ACQUISITION LLC
• Assignee: Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as Agent
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: securitization — post-acquisition financing secured by the combined AliphCom/Jawbone + BodyMedia estate.

2014-12-03 — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Notice of Substitution of Administrative Agent in Patents
• Assignor: DBD Credit Funding LLC, as resigning agent
• Assignee: Silver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P., as successor agent
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal reorg of the lender group — agent swap, no change in grantor.

2015-04-28 — Reel [not retrieved] (see correction at 035531/0554 below)

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party (two records — Wells Fargo, as agent; Silver Lake Waterman Fund, as administrative agent)
• Assignor: Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (agent); Silver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P.
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.; AliphCom; Aliph, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: lien discharges on refinancing.

2015-08-27 — Reel 036500/0173

• Conveyance: Security Interest (Patent Security Agreement)
• Assignor: ALIPH, INC.; ALIPHCOM; BODYMEDIA, INC.; MACGYVER ACQUISITION LLC; PROJECT PARIS ACQUISITION LLC
• Assignee: BlackRock Advisors, LLC (agent for noteholders)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: securitization — BlackRock takes a blanket lien across the five Jawbone-family grantors. Signatories on the underlying agreement were Hosain Rahman for each grantor and Lisa O'Donnell for BlackRock.

2017-01-26 — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (correcting application number 13/870,843 previously recorded at Reel 036500/0173)
• Assignor: Aliph, Inc.; AliphCom; BodyMedia, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition, LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLC
• Assignee: BlackRock Advisors, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: clerical correction.

2017-11-02 — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (correcting incorrect application no. 13/982,956 previously recorded at Reel 035531/0554 — i.e., the 2015 Silver Lake release)
• Assignor: Silver Lake Waterman Fund, L.P., as Administrative Agent
• Assignee: BodyMedia, Inc.; Aliph, Inc.; MacGyver Acquisition LLC; Project Paris Acquisition LLC; AliphCom
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: clerical correction of the 2015 release.

2018-02-05 (executed) / recorded 2019-05-15 — Reel 049805/0582

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: ALIPHCOM, LLC; BODYMEDIA, INC.
• Assignee: JB IP ACQUISITION LLC (New York)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: transfer-to-asserter / estate carve-out — the BodyMedia patent family leaves the operating company and lands in a purpose-named IP holding LLC. Executed 2018-02-05, recorded 15 months later.

recorded 2019-07-19 / 2019-07-22 — Reel 049825/0907

• Conveyance: uncertain — the record shows "JB IP ACQUISITION, LLC" in the assignor position on the 049825 reel, consistent with either a confirmatory re-recording of the 2018 assignment or a further encumbrance. I am not asserting which.
• Assignor: JB IP ACQUISITION, LLC
• Assignee: not determinable from the sources reached
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: unclear — needs Assignment Center confirmation.

recorded 2019-07-22 — Reel 049825/0718

• Conveyance: UCC Financing Statement
• Assignor / debtor: JB IP ACQUISITION, LLC
• Assignee / secured party: J FITNESS LLC (New York)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: securitization — the acquirer pledges the estate to a lender.

recorded 2019-07-22 — Reel [same 049825 series]

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: JB IP ACQUISITION, LLC
• Assignee: J FITNESS LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: securitization — companion lien record to the UCC-1 above. This is why some databases list "J FITNESS LLC" as current owner; that is a security-interest artifact, not a title transfer.

2019-08-08 — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: BlackRock Advisors, LLC
• Assignee: AliphCom, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: discharge of the 2015 BlackRock lien.

2019-08-15 — Reel 050067/0286

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: JAWBONE HEALTH HUB, INC.; JB IP ACQUISITION, LLC
• Assignee: J FITNESS LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: release/clean-up in the J Fitness financing relationship.

On the correspondent signal specifically: you flagged this as the highest-value tell, and it is the one field I could not obtain. None of the reachable sources expose the recording correspondent (attorney/firm/address) per reel. The only attorney names that surfaced anywhere near this chain are Luke Conticello, signing a small-entity assertion for related entity JAWB Acquisition LLC at 321 West 44th Street, New York — a prosecution/status document, not a recording correspondent — and Fenwick & West, appearing as counsel of record for Basis Science in the IPR2016-00543 petition against the sibling patent US 8,961,413 (i.e., adverse counsel, not the owner side). Neither supports a "repeat correspondent across the chain" finding. Treat signal 3 as not assessable and pull the correspondent fields directly from Assignment Center before relying on it.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6605038
    2000 : Filed 16 Jun 2000 as a CIP
         : Inventors assign to BodyMedia Inc
         : Patent issued as US 6605038
    2006 : Security agreement to Oxford Finance
    2010 : Oxford lien released
         : Security agreement to Spring Capital
    2012 : BodyMedia sues Basis Science
    2013 : Spring Capital lien released
         : Jawbone buys BodyMedia
         : Wells Fargo patent security agreement
    2014 : Silver Lake becomes successor agent
    2015 : Wells Fargo and Silver Lake releases
         : BlackRock security interest recorded
         : AliphCom sues Fitbit
    2017 : Corrective filings on prior records
    2018 : Estate assigned to JB IP Acquisition
    2019 : JB IP assignment recorded
         : JB IP pledges estate to J Fitness LLC
         : BlackRock lien released
    2021 : Patent expires 27 Feb 2021

Note: the patent-issued event is placed under 2000 in the diagram per the year-label requirement; issuance was 2003-08-12.

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The estate moved from BodyMedia, Inc. (operating; shipped the SenseWear/BodyMedia FIT armband) to JB IP ACQUISITION LLC, a New York LLC whose name carries the "IP Acquisition" holding-entity suffix, per assignment recorded at Reel 049805/0582 (executed 2018-02-05, recorded 2019-05-15). Corroborating address evidence: related Jawbone-estate entity JAWB Acquisition LLC is on record at 321 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036 (small-entity assertion for US 8,503,691, signed Luke Conticello). I found no product attributable to JB IP Acquisition LLC. Caveat: I could not confirm the LLC's registered-agent service or membership structure, which would harden this from "present" to "strong."

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee in the chain matches the supplied list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) or any high-frequency plaintiff I could surface via Unified Patents. The only asserting party in the record is BodyMedia, Inc. itself — plaintiff in the D. Del. action cited on the Google Patents page (case 1:12-cv-00133), which pre-dates every transfer to a holding entity.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not assessable. See the note above: correspondent fields were not retrievable from the sources reached. No finding either way.

4. Cascading transfers — present (moderate). Three recordings inside roughly nine weeks in 2019: 049805/0582 (2019-05-15, assignment of the estate to JB IP Acquisition LLC), then on the same 049825 reel 049825/0718 (UCC financing statement) and 049825/0907, both recorded 2019-07-22, with the 050067/0286 release following 2019-08-15. Same-reel clustering plus a single acquirer-lender pair is the classic pattern; the 15-month lag between execution (2018-02-05) and first recording is an additional tell.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The only litigation in the record (D. Del. 1:12-cv-00133) pre-dates the 2018 transfer by ~6 years, and the patent's adjusted expiration was 2021-02-27, after which assertion value is largely extinguished. No assignment was timed to a suit naming this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — unclear. The economics fit (BodyMedia acquired 2013, Jawbone wound down, estate carved out in 2018), but I did not locate a Chapter 7/11 docket or a court-approved sale order for the Jawbone asset disposition. Do not treat this as established.

7. Privateering — not present. Jawbone/AliphCom's assertions (AliphCom v. Fitbit, 2015; BodyMedia v. Basis Science) were made by the operating company against competitors while it still owned the patents — that is ordinary competitor litigation, not privateering. The later holding company has not, on this record, asserted.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. No RPX / AST / LOT / Unified / OIN entity anywhere in the chain.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The chain runs cleanly through the operating company for 18 years: BodyMedia assigned at filing (Reel 024328/0213), borrowed against the portfolio repeatedly (Oxford 017718/0063; Spring Capital 025137/0583; Wells Fargo 2013-12-04; BlackRock 036500/0173), and asserted the family itself as an operating plaintiff (D. Del. 1:12-cv-00133; AliphCom v. Fitbit, 2015). It then changed character at Reel 049805/0582 — executed 2018-02-05, recorded 2019-05-15 — when ALIPHCOM, LLC and BODYMEDIA, INC. sold the estate to JB IP ACQUISITION LLC, a non-operating holding entity at the same New York address used by related Jawbone-estate shell JAWB Acquisition LLC, followed within nine weeks by same-reel security records to J FITNESS LLC (049825/0718, 049825/0907) and a release at 050067/0286. That is one strong signal (shell-entity transfer to a productless holding LLC, with a confirmable shared-address affiliate) plus one moderate signal (cascading same-reel recordings in 2019) — enough to call NPE at moderate, not high, confidence, because no correspondent evidence could be retrieved and the holding entity has no assertion history of record. Practical significance is limited: the patent's adjusted expiration of 2021-02-27 means any assertion window has effectively closed. Verify correspondent fields and the 049825-series conveyance types at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

I'll research US patent 6605038 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the specific prior-art citations of record for this patent.

Let me pull the prior-art reference lists from the Unified Patents and PubChem records.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent No. 6605038

1. Patent identification (read literally)

Important sourcing caveat. I did not obtain the patent's own "References Cited" block directly. The authoritative Google Patents text supplied in this task was truncated before the front-page citation list, and the USPTO PatentCenter full-text is not directly queryable with the tools available here. The citation list below was therefore reconstructed from third-party databases that mirror USPTO front-page data (Google Patents front-page family feed, the Unified Patents record for US-6605038-B1, and the PubChem patent record for US-6605038-B1). Where a title/assignee could not be confirmed, I say so rather than guess. I have not verified the examiner's statutory basis for each citation.

Also important — the distinction the question hinges on:

• "References Cited" / prior-art of record = documents the examiner listed on the face of the patent and/or applied during prosecution. These are the ones that can support a § 102 anticipation or § 103 obviousness attack.
• "Cited By" / forward citations = later patents that cite this patent. These are not prior art to the '038 patent and cannot anticipate it. Many search results (e.g., the lists of thousands of citing patents) are of this type and are excluded below.

I also note the family is not prior art to itself: US 09/595,660 → US 7,689,437 B1 and US 09/923,181 → US 7,261,690 B2 are same-family members, not § 102 art against the '038 patent.

2. The claims at issue

I could not retrieve the exact claim set from the fetched text, so I will not invent claim language or count. What the record does establish: a PCT search report (WO 2005/018442 A1) cites US 6,605,038 B1 and maps it to claim numbers into the 30s–50s range, indicating the patent carries at least ~51 claims, with claim 1 as the principal independent claim (sensor device worn on the upper arm with accelerometer / GSR / heat-flux sensing) plus dependent claims adding the remote central monitoring unit, derivative/analytical data generation, storage, electronic communication, and reporting to a recipient.

Under § 102, a reference must disclose every element of a given claim, arranged as claimed, in a single document. My assessments below are therefore labelled by confidence and framed as potential anticipatory disclosures, not as confirmed examiner findings.

3. Candidate prior art of record — analysis

3.1 Closest art on the core "wearable sensing" concept

3.2 Closest art on "store at remote site / transmit to recipient / feedback"

(Where I have not confirmed the title or assignee — e.g., US 5,445,149 A, pri. 1992-05-21 — I deliberately leave it uncharacterised rather than invent one.)

4. Non-patent literature and foreign documents of record

The PubChem record for US-6605038-B1 lists the following non-patent references (APP) in addition to the U.S./EP patents above, including:

• "Personal Health Monitor for Homes," Tuomisto & Pentikäinen, ERCIM News No. 29 (Apr.).
• "Portable Sensor Provides Remote Monitoring of Heart," Nikkei Weekly, Oct. 27, 1998.
• "Georgia Tech Researchers Develop First 'Smart T-shirt'," Georgia Institute of Technology press release, Nov. 14, 1997.
• "Estee Soft Announces New Version of LifeConnect…," Business Wire, Jan. 20, 1999.
• "FDA Clears New Datex-Ohmeda 3900/3900P Pulse Oximeter with World's First Remote Fax Capability," BW HealthWire, Dec. 3, 1998.
• "Nearer to the Heart," B. Krebs, Washington Post, Jan. 17, 1999.
• "Matsushita Electric Works to Sell Home Health Check System," The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Dec. 17, 1998.
• "Patent Office Allows 25 Additional Claims for its Internet Healthcare Technologies," BW HealthWire, Oct. — etc.

These "APP" items are non-patent literature, admissible as § 102(a)/(b) printed publications if their public-availability dates precede the 2000-06-16 priority date. The "Smart T-shirt" (1997), "LifeConnect" (1999), the Georgia Tech release (1997) and the* Nikkei Weekly */Washington Post items (1998–99) are the most relevant NPL, because they disclose body-worn sensing + remote/networked health monitoring, which together touch most limitations of claim 1.

The PubChem record also lists a long run of U.S. patent-application publications the examiner tagged as "PRS" (US 2001/044732 A1, US 2002/019586 A1, US 2002/037746 A1, US 2002/046278 A1, US 2002/107454 A1, … US 2004/249315 A1, etc.), plus WO 2004/078281 A1 and WO 2004/100764 A2 (tagged AP/ISR/SEA). Note the dates: most of these publications post-date the 2000-06-16 priority date and thus are not § 102 prior art to the '038 patent — they were cited as background/related material (PRS = "potentially relevant subject matter"/related), not as anticipating art. Treating them as § 102 references would be an error.

5. Ranked "most relevant prior art" and anticipated-claim mapping

Given the claim structure (wearable multi-sensor device → remote central monitoring unit → analytical/derived data → storage → electronic transmission → reporting/feedback), the strongest § 102 (single-reference anticipation) candidates are:

1. US 5,012,411 A — anticipates claims reciting monitoring, storing and transmitting physiological information to a remote site. Highest § 102 value on the data-flow claims.
2. US 4,827,943 A — anticipates the portable body-worn multi-channel monitoring device claims.
3. US 5,733,136 A — anticipates the suggested-routine / compliance-feedback claims (closest to the "Health Index"/compliance concept).
4. US 6,312,363 B1 (iFIT) and US 5,956,501 A — anticipate feedback-generation and analytical status claims.
5. US 6,292,698 B1 and US 5,865,733 A — anticipate wireless/remote telemetry claims.
6. US 5,515,858 A / US 5,555,490 A — anticipate the wearable form-factor claims.

Overall assessment. No single reference in the list of record appears to disclose the combination of (a) an arm-worn accelerometer/GSR/heat-flux sensing triad, (b) a remote central monitoring unit that generates analytical status data including from previously-generated analytical status data, and (c) reporting via web pages to an authorized recipient. That is why the examiner allowed the case. The realistic invalidity theory is therefore § 103 obviousness — e.g., US 4,827,943 A or US 5,012,411 A in view of US 5,733,136 A and US 6,312,363 B1 — rather than § 102 anticipation. I flag this explicitly because the question asks for § 102 mapping, and for most of these references the honest answer is "cited art, but only § 103-fodder — no single-reference anticipation of the independent claim."

6. Explicit limitations on this analysis

1. I could not directly retrieve the patent's front-page "References Cited" block; the list above is reconstructed from Google Patents' family data, the Unified Patents record for US-6605038-B1, and the PubChem patent record. Treat the citation set as high-confidence but not examiner-verified item-by-item.
2. I do not have the full claim text or the prosecution history (Office Action rejections), so I cannot state which references the examiner actually applied under § 102 vs. § 103. The claim mapping above is my technical assessment, not a record fact.
3. Where a title was not confirmed in the sources, I declined to supply one (no fabrication of references or identifiers).
4. Patent numbers and identifiers are reproduced exactly as found; none were auto-corrected.

I'll research the prior art cited against this patent and the references used in the inter partes reexamination, then build the § 103 analysis on those.

Let me pull the full cited-references list and details on the key references used in the reexamination.

Let me get the complete front-page references-cited list for the patent and details on the Mault reference used against the web-page claims.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,605,038 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on the "Prior Art" section. The Google Patents record supplied on this page does not contain a populated "References Cited / Similar Documents" block in the text I was given — it contains only the classifications, landscapes, and prior-art keyword fields. So I reconstructed the operative prior art from two verified sources: (a) the patent's own front-page "References Cited" listing, and (b) — far more probative — the references actually applied by the Examiner and the Requester in inter partes reexamination 95/002,354, which is where this patent's § 103 record was actually made. Citations below are drawn from the reexamination papers and the reference full texts; where I could not verify an identifier I say so.

This analysis builds on the two previously generated sections. It confirms and resolves one item those sections flagged: the Official Gazette text of issued claim 1 uses "at least two of" (twice) — for the sensor set and for the data set — not the abstract/summary's broader "at least one of." The discrepancy was real, and the claim (narrower) wins. It also flags one new inconsistency in the family data (see Caveats).

I. Governing framework

The patent was filed June 23, 2000 (CIP of App. 09/595,660, filed June 16, 2000), so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) applies. The reexamination papers expressly frame the rejections under "§ 103(a)." KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) governs, and the Graham factors (scope/content of prior art; differences; level of ordinary skill; objective indicia) structure the inquiry. MPEP §§ 2143 and 2144.04 supply the two rationales that do the most work here: "known technique to improve similar devices" and "predictable variation."

II. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

At June 2000, a POSITA would have had a bachelor's degree in EE/BME/CS or equivalent plus ~2–4 years' experience designing ambulatory/wearable physiological monitors and their data-handling software, with working familiarity with (i) accelerometry, GSR/electrodermal and thermopile/heat-flux sensing; (ii) microcontroller signal conditioning and multi-signal algorithms; and (iii) clinical/consumer telemetry over serial, IR, RF and the Internet. (The analogous level adopted by the Board in IPR2019-01665 for a comparable activity-monitoring patent is consistent with this.)

III. The claims at issue

Issued claim 1 (confirmed verbatim from the Official Gazette text) requires:

1. a sensor device adapted to be placed in contact with an individual's upper arm, including at least two of {accelerometer, GSR sensor, heat flux sensor}, generating (i) data indicative of at least two of {motion, skin resistance to current, heat flow} and (ii) derived data from at least a portion of that data, "said derived data comprising a physiological parameter of said individual that cannot be wholly measured directly by any one of said accelerometer, said GSR sensor and said heat flux sensor";
2. a central monitoring unit remote from the sensor device adapted to generate analytical status data from the raw data, the derived data, and/or previously generated analytical status data, including a data storage device;
3. data transfer means for at least temporary electronic communication; and
4. means for transmitting any of the above to a recipient.

The ACP of Sept. 30, 2013 maintained rejections of claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–22, 24–28, 30–35, 38–46 and proposed rejection of new claims 74–99 (plus owner-added claim 100). That is the set I analyze.

IV. Construction of the dispositive limitations

Key corollary: because claim 1 needs only two sensors and two data types, a reference teaching accelerometry + skin conductance alone satisfies every sensor/data limitation.

V. The prior art

VI. Combination 1 (primary): Myllymäki + Root → claims 1, 2, 14, 15, 19–28, 30–35, 38–46

Element-by-element:

• Arm-placed sensor device with ≥2 of the three sensors. Myllymäki's unit 1 is body-held/continuous-wear and may sit on "some other body member suitable for measuring"; it carries an acceleration transducer 4 and a skin-conductivity transducer 6 — two of the three claimed sensors. Root supplies the express upper-arm teaching: monitor 101 "strapped around the upper arm with a strap 302" (Root 5:1-4; FIG. 3).
• Data indicative of ≥2 of {motion, skin resistance, heat flow}. Myllymäki's movement transducer + conductivity transducer yield motion and skin resistance — two of three. Claim 1 does not require heat flux.
• Derived data = a physiological parameter no single one of the sensors can wholly measure. This is the contested limitation, and it is met: Myllymäki's microprocessor derives a "physical condition and/or performance condition" (and detects anomalies, e.g., distinguishing elevated HR from exertion vs. illness, and detecting a fall followed by unconsciousness) by comparing a plurality of transducer signals so that "false data caused by an individual transducer" is compensated (Myllymäki 2:45-52; 3:65-67; claim 1). A cross-sensor condition such as "exertion vs. illness" or "fall + unconsciousness" is by construction not measurable by the accelerometer alone or the conductivity sensor alone. Under the broad construction this is the very same act the '038 specification calls derivation (col. 13:46-48); under the narrow construction, the same cross-sensor derivations map onto the spec's Table 2 examples (stress, sleep/activity state).
• Remote central monitoring unit adapting/generating analytical status data + storage. Myllymäki itself discloses a remote receiver 7 and remote alarm center, and Root discloses the personal computer 701 and remote computer 801 receiving uploaded historical data sets and running trend analysis — a computer understood by any POSITA to include data storage. The combination thus teaches storage and further analysis.
• Data transfer means. Root's modem 613, serial port 118 and IR port 124 (5:36-49; FIGs. 6–7); Myllymäki's two-way wireless link (claim 4).
• Means for transmitting to a recipient. Myllymäki transmits an alarm to the wrist unit and to an alarm center; Root publishes performance data to participating athletes via an Internet web site (8:58-9:09). Either is a "recipient."

Result: a complete prima facie § 103(a) case on claim 1 — which is precisely what the Examiner held and the Requester defended.

VII. Why a POSITA would have combined them (the motivation analysis)

This is the part that must be articulated with a rational underpinning (In re Magnum Oil Tools, 829 F.3d 1364, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2016)):

1. Same field of endeavor. Both are wearable, body-held physiological/performance monitors — Myllymäki's claim 1 is literally "A body-held monitoring device for a physical condition and/or a performance condition"; Root's field is "personal performance monitoring." KSR; MPEP § 2144.04.
2. Same problem, same solution architecture. Both convert multiple raw sensor signals into user-meaningful derived information delivered to a display or remote party; both use a microprocessor and a communication link. Combining them is combining the same type of system with itself at a higher level of integration.
3. Known technique improving a similar device (MPEP § 2143). Root's remote storage / long-term trend analysis / networked reporting is a known technique for enhancing a monitoring device. Applying it to Myllymäki's local, alarm-only device yields the predictable benefit of longitudinal tracking and remote supervision — the classic "improvement of a similar device by a known technique."
4. Bodily incorporation is expressly taught, not merely possible. Root teaches the upper-arm strap that Myllymäki left as an open option ("some other body member suitable for measuring"). Substituting/adding a known, ergonomically validated wear site is a predictable variation of a known parameter.
5. Myllymäki's own design principle invites multi-sensor fusion. Because Myllymäki's core inventive feature is cross-comparing transducer signals to cancel individual-sensor error, extending that principle to the system level (aggregating over time, at a remote computer, across sensors) follows directly from the reference's stated purpose; there is no teaching away.
6. Reasonable expectation of success. Every element is off-the-shelf engineering (electrodes, accelerometers, microcontrollers, modems, PCs, web servers). Root already implements storage, trend analysis and Internet reporting, so no new science or unpredictable result is required.
7. Obvious to try. At most a finite, identified set of known wear sites (chest/wrist/ankle/arm) and known data paths (serial/IR/RF/modem/Internet) exists; selecting among them is routine design choice.

Predicted rebuttals and their answers: (a) Root is GPS/athlete-specific → the KSR "familiar element" and MPEP § 2143 rationales do not require the references to address the same activity; Root's non-GPS elements (HR/temp sensors, storage, PC/remote analysis, web reporting, arm strap) are what is borrowed. (b) Myllymäki has no heat-flux sensor → claim 1 needs only two of three sensors. (c) Myllymäki's processor is onboard, not remote → Myllymäki also discloses remote receivers/alarm centers and its wrist unit may hold all transducers and analysis, showing the location of the processing/storage is a design choice, not a technical necessity.

VIII. Additional combinations (for the same or different claim groups)

A. Combination 2 — Myllymäki + Root + Mault (new claims 74–100; the "Health Manager"/web-page claims). The Examiner applied Mault for the web-page features, and noted that "even if … Myllymäki and Root did not disclose this feature, generating a web page would be an obvious improvement for one of ordinary skill." Root's own Internet site (national/international performance averages, virtual competition, member profiles, personal fitness recommendations, 8:58-9:09) independently discloses most of it. Motivation: a user's longitudinal data is only useful if presented; web presentation is the known, lowest-cost channel. Claim 100 (owner-added) was specifically met by Myllymäki + Root.

B. Combination 3 — Amano + Myllymäki (derived caloric-expenditure claims). Where a claim recites derived calories burned, Amano teaches a calorie-expenditure device using pulse, temperature and accelerometer data; Myllymäki contributes the skin-conductance transducer. Motivation: Myllymäki expressly teaches combining a skin-conductance sensor with HR and temperature sensors to compensate for false data, so adding skin conductance to Amano's energy-expenditure device improves accuracy of the rest/active determination and hence the calorie calculation. The Board adopted exactly this reasoning and sustained the rejection in the sibling reexamination (Reexam 95/002,371, Decision of July 2, 2015 — claims 39, 45 of US 7,689,437), rejecting the patent owner's "no impact on the calculation" argument as unsupported.

C. Combination 4 — Myllymäki + Root + Ward / Reinhold / Lester / EP 0 707 825 / WO 99/27483 (telemetry and remote-reporting dependent claims). To the extent any dependent claim (e.g., the transmission/web-page/remote-storage species) is thought not fully met, these front-page references establish that remote physiological telemetry to a central station, and networked patient monitoring generally, were longstanding and well known by 2000 — a "known technique" overlay that forecloses any argument that remote reporting was an inventive contribution.

D. Combination 5 — Myllymäki + Root in view of the NPL (Tuomisto & Pentikäinen; Georgia Tech "Smart T-shirt"; Ames ambulatory monitor). These establish that (i) home/remote physiological monitoring over a network and (ii) integrating physiological sensors into a wearable garment were known published approaches before the priority date — defeating any attempt to locate novelty in the "wearable device → remote site → electronic network" architecture as such.

IX. Dependent-claim specifics

Because claim 1 is the narrowest independent claim in this family (two-of-three sensors; derived data; remote unit with storage; two transfer limitations), the dependent claims are a fortiori obvious to the extent they add only conventional features. Illustratively: armband/strap and housing form factors (Root FIG. 3; Myllymäki claim 2's film transducer); two-way wireless (Myllymäki claims 4, 6–7); audio/tactile/visual feedback (Myllymäki's sound signal & wrist display; Root's audio module 606); continuous wear and activation/power management (Myllymäki claim 5; the '038's own stated battery-conservation rationale); and the Health-Index/feedback-category claims (Root's "athletic performance rating … of 100" and its "recommendation to reach goal"). Each is a predictable use of a known element for its known function.

X. Objective indicia (secondary considerations) — the likely battleground

The patent owner's realistic non-obviousness case rests on: commercial success of the BodyMedia armband, industry praise/rapid adoption, and the multi-sensor armband's integration. Those arguments face three problems on this record:

1. Nexus. Claim 1 covers two-of-three sensors and no heat-flux sensor at all, so success attributable specifically to heat-flux measurement (the product's hallmark) cannot carry nexus to claim 1.
2. Prior litigation/PTAB outcomes. In the co-pending family proceedings the Board sustained obviousness rejections over the same art (Reexam 95/002,371, July 2, 2015), and the Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion in BodyMedia, Inc. v. Basis Science, Inc., No. 2015-1788 (Fed. Cir. July 12, 2016) (nonprecedential, Fed. Cir. R. 36) — an appeal from another of the six sibling reexaminations (No. 95/002,376).
3. Simultaneous invention. Many independent artisans built arm-worn, multi-sensor, network-connected monitors in 1997–2000 (Root, Myllymäki, the Georgia Tech shirt, etc.), which the Federal Circuit treats as evidence of obviousness rather than non-obviousness.

XI. Bottom line

Claim 1 of US 6,605,038 is, in my assessment, invalid under pre-AIA § 103(a) as obvious over Myllymäki (US 5,670,944) in view of Root (US 6,013,007). The Examiner so held in reexamination 95/002,354, and that rejection was maintained at the Action Closing Prosecution. The dependent claims in the challenged groups fall with it (conventional features), and the web-page/Health-Manager claim groups are additionally obvious over Myllymäki + Root + Mault and over Root's own Internet-site disclosure. The strongest single-sentence rationale is MPEP § 2143: using Root's known remote storage/analysis/reporting technique to improve Myllymäki's otherwise-similar body-held multi-transducer monitor, and locating that monitor on the upper arm as Root expressly teaches, was within the ordinary creativity of a POSITA.

XII. Confidence level and caveats (stated explicitly)

1. Operative claim text. I have confirmed claim 1's issued text (OG, 8/12/2003). I could not verify whether an inter partes reexamination certificate issued for the '038, nor its resulting claim set. If one issued, the certificate controls and this analysis must be re-run against it. (The '038's own appeal was 2015-004784; the Board issued an Order to Show Cause on Nov. 10, 2015 threatening dismissal, and I could not retrieve the final disposition from this environment.)
2. "Prior Art" section as requested. The Google Patents page text I received does not itself contain a References-Cited/Similar-Documents block, so the reference list above is built from the patent's front page and, principally, the reexamination record. If your "Prior Art" section contains additional references (e.g., a Google Patents "Similar Documents" list), some of those may add further § 103 grounds — particularly any additional heat-flux and arm-worn references, which would matter for the dependent claims but not for claim 1.
3. Two references I could not fully identify: Amano and the Mault reference applied by the Examiner. I have their teachings and use from the reexamination papers but not verified patent numbers. (Note: US 6,571,200 "Mault" appears in a related reference list but issued May 2003 — after the '038 priority date, so that is not the Mault applied in the reexamination.)
4. One new family-data inconsistency. The front page of US 8,398,546 states that it is a CIP of App. 10/638,588 "now Pat. No. 6,605,038 … which is a continuation of App. 09/602,537 … now Pat. No. 7,689,437." But the '038 issued from 09/602,537 and 10/638,588 published as US 2004/0034289 A1. The lineage as captured is internally contradictory; I did not auto-correct it and flag it rather than relying on it.
5. No 2026 appellate activity. Nothing in the retrieved record shows any 2026 appellate proceeding involving the '038; consistent with its recorded adjusted expiration of Feb. 27, 2021.
6. Date note. The task header states April 26, 2026, while the session date is Sept. 29, 2026. Nothing in this § 103 analysis is sensitive to that difference, but I am flagging the discrepancy rather than silently reconciling it.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6605038B1](/patent/US6605038B1) ; https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5705037](/patent/5705037)/FID867/OG/html/1273-2/us06605038-20030812.html (claim 1 text) ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/4f/06/81/446b218b13f3fb/US5670944.pdf (Myllymäki) ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d7/e6/c6/cbbb11b89b7bff/US6013007.pdf (Root) ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-00543/.../Exhibit-1015-2-Exhibit_1015_Part2.pdf (Requester's Myllymäki+Root claim chart and ACP) ; https://www.finnegan.com/a/web/[112152/2015](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=112152-2015).07.02-2015000274-Basis-v-Bodymedia-Decision-Reexam.pdf (Board sustaining Amano+Myllymäki) ; https://casetext-staging-alt.com/admin-law/ex-parte-6605038-b1-et-al-1 (Order to Show Cause, Appeal 2015-004784) ; https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2016/07/12/bodymedia_inc._v._basis_science_inc..pdf (Fed. Cir. R. 36 affirmance).