US 6748317

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

Let me check the CAFC/appeal history and the reexamination outcome specifically.

Let me verify any 2026 appellate activity tied specifically to this patent and the reexamination outcomes.

US Patent 6,748,317 ("6748317") — Analyst Report

Methodology note: I ran targeted web searches against patents.google.com, Justia, docketalarm (PTAB and E.D. Tex.), Unified Patents, RPX Insight, Patexia, and fedcircuitblog. I do not have direct API access to USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or to the Federal Circuit's CM/ECF docket, so anything not surfaced by those searches is flagged as uncertain rather than asserted. I did not auto-correct any identifier; where the document text contains apparent typos, I quote it literally.

1. Bibliographic data (authoritative — from the full patent text)

Assignment chain (recorded on the patent page): Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. (2012-10-11) → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (2014-09-08) → Maxell, Ltd. (2018-01-25) → Maxell Holdings, Ltd. (merger, 2021-11-29) → Maxell, Ltd. (change of name, 2021-12-03).

Abstract (verbatim, abridged): "A portable terminal has a function of walking navigation. The direction of a destination is displayed by an indicating arrow that always points in the direction of the destination. In the navigation processing, the user enters data to select a menu and/or set retrieving conditions on the setup screen. At first, the user gets the location information of the portable terminal, represented by a latitude/longitude or coordinates and an altitude… Then, the user gets the direction information of the portable terminal, which is the direction of the tip of the portable terminal as determined by a compass, a gyro, or a clinometer. The location information and the direction information are set as terminal information for the retrieving conditions…"

2. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Orienting display (no server). A portable terminal with (a) a device that gets its own location, (b) a device that gets its orientation/direction (compass/gyro/clinometer), (c) an input device for entering a destination, and (d) a display. The display shows the destination and present positions plus the relationship between the device's own orientation and the direction from present place to destination, and the display changes as the user turns the device — i.e., the "arrow always points to the destination" effect, for walking navigation.

Literal-text caveat: the claim reads "denoting a resent place of said portable terminal" (evidently OCR/typo for "present"), and the reference numeral/list around "display device 71" and CPU "71" is duplicated in the spec. I have not corrected either.

Claim 6 — Server-retrieval variant. Same location + direction sensing hardware, but instead of an input destination the terminal has a device connected to a server that outputs the location and direction information and receives retrieved information computed at the server on the basis of that output; the display shows the retrieved information. This is the "thin client" claim.

Claim 10 — "Meet by appointment" variant. Location sensor + direction sensor + a device that obtains the location of another portable terminal over a connected network, and a display showing the two positions and the relation of the device's orientation to the direction toward that other terminal, updating as the device is turned.

Literal-text caveat: claim 10 recites "said display displays positions of said destination" even though claim 10 never previously introduces a "destination" (a classic antecedent-basis ambiguity worth noting in any infringement/invalidity analysis).

Claim 15 — Route-retrieval add-on to claim 1. Adds "a device for retrieving a route from said present place to said destination," with the display showing the route and indicating the direction of movement by the arrow.

Claim 18 — Route-retrieval add-on to claim 10. Same additional route-retrieval element, phrased as depending from claim 10 (and again referring to "said destination," which claim 10 does not introduce).

Dependent claims, briefly: cl. 2 (direction shown by orientation of a line); cl. 3 (distance as a number); cl. 5 (distance as line length); cl. 4 (symbols for present location and the other terminal's location — also lacks an antecedent for "another portable terminal"); cl. 7 (retrieved info is stores or roads); cl. 8 (lists); cl. 9 (store list, select one → detailed info); cl. 11–14 (line orientation, symbols, numeric distance, line-length distance); cl. 16 ("said grid information" of the route — no antecedent for grid information in claim 15); cl. 17 (route drawn as a bent line with start/end symbols plus a symbol for present place); cl. 19 (grid info, depends on 18); cl. 20 (bent-line route, oddly recited as "according to claim 17").

3. Post-grant proceedings and litigation (confirmed by search)

District court

• Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036 (Texarkana Div.) — the '317 patent was pleaded (Apple's Final Election of Prior Art covers "the '317, '498, and '999 Patents," relying on CyberGuide, Hayashida (US 6,067,502), Maruyama (JPH10-197277), and Garmin NavTalk).
• E.D. Tex. 5:16-cv-00179 and CAFC 20-2211 / 20-2132 appear on the patent's litigation record.
• A Maxell letter dated 2018-10-09 states the ZTE litigation produced a ~$43.3M verdict on seven patents, "including U.S. Patent Nos. 6,748,317 ('317 Patent)," and that each asserted patent "survived IPR petitions filed by ZTE." (Chinese-language trade press corroborates 8 Maxell patents asserted against ZTE in 2016, including 6748317.)

PTAB

• IPR2020-00407, Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd. (U.S. Pat. 6,748,317): filed 2020-01-13; institution denied 2020-08-11 under Apple v. Fintiv (parallel E.D. Tex. litigation). Claims challenged: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18.
• IPR2018-00235: listed on the patent page as filed, not instituted (merits).

CAFC (this is the only appellate activity confirmed for the '317 patent)

• Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., Nos. 2020-2132, 2020-2211, 2020-2212, 2020-2213, 2021-1033 — appeals from PTAB non-institution decisions in IPR2020-00203, -00407, -00408, -00409, -00597. A panel (Dyk, Wallach, Taranto) dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, holding non-institution decisions are unreviewable under 35 U.S.C. §314(d). Combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc denied February 22, 2021; mandate to issue March 1, 2021.

Ex parte reexaminations (USPTO)

• 90/014,639, request filed 2020-12-23, granted; and 90/014,662, request filed 2021-01-27, granted. Both challenge claims 1, 15 and 17 of the '317 patent; both in Art Unit 3992, primary examiner Kenneth Whittington.
• References relied on for the SNQs: (a) US 6,067,502 (Hayashida); (b) JPH10-197277 (Maruyama); (c) US 6,124,826 (Garthwaite); (d) US 5,146,231 (Ghaem); (e) JP06-282796 (Konishi). Note the "317 Patent" label used in the orders is shorthand; the orders explicitly identify "United States Patent No. 6,748,317 to Kishiko Maruyama et al."

4. CAFC 2026 dockets — what I found and what I did not

I searched specifically for a 2026 Federal Circuit docket tied to 6748317. Results:

• Maxell, Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., CAFC 2026-1625, filed Apr 7, 2026, "Appeal From PTO," status Pending, appellant counsel Robert G. Pluta (Mayer Brown) — per Patexia. (Pluta is the same Maxell counsel appearing in the '317 PTAB/district filings.)
• [Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.), Ltd. v. Maxell, Ltd., CAFC 26-1320 (Jan 7, 2026); Maxell, Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., CAFC 26-1330 (Jan 12, 2026); CAFC 26-1111 (Oct 29, 2025) — all per Docket Alarm.

These searches did not establish that any of these 2026 dockets involve US 6,748,317. The '317 patent is recorded as expired as of 2020-07-11, which makes it unlikely to appear in fresh 2026 infringement appeals; the 2026 Maxell/Samsung appeals are "Appeal From PTO" matters more plausibly directed to Maxell's later, unexpired patents. I therefore cannot confirm any CAFC 2026 docket for patent 6748317 and will not assert one exists. Confirming this would require a name/patent-number query in the Federal Circuit's own docket system or PACER, which I could not reach.

5. Explicit uncertainty disclosures

1. Reexamination outcome unknown. Both ex parte reexaminations were granted, but my searches did not surface a reexamination certificate (37 CFR 1.530–1.570) or any final decision confirming/cancelling claims 1, 15, 17. Whether the '317 claims were confirmed, amended, or cancelled — and whether any re-exam appeal reached the CAFC — is not something I can state with confidence. If a certificate issued, the patent's claims text would differ from the grant text quoted in Section 2.
2. Claims text above is the as-granted text, not a post-reexam text.
3. No verified 2026 appellate activity for this patent number (see Section 4).
4. The patent-page "Family has litigation" links cite case 5:19-cv-00036 and 5:16-cv-00179; the latter's docket details (parties/venue outcomes) were not independently confirmed in my searches.
5. I could not verify the JP3791249B2 counterpart's status; the patent page lists only JP (1) family member.
6. One search hit described a Maxell case using the label "317 Patent" in a filing captioned at Docket 646-5/646-6; the underlying USPTO orders themselves spell out "6,748,317," so the identification is supported, but the shorthand "/317" is occasionally used loosely across Maxell's portfolio — treat any bare "317" reference with care.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6748317. Let me search multiple sources.

I found significant leads. Let me dig deeper into the specific cases and PTAB proceedings.

Let me confirm the Huawei case, the IPR petitioners, and check the Unified Patents litigation portal.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,748,317 ("Portable terminal with the function of walking navigation")

Based on my searches of patent litigation sources (Unified Patents portal, Docket Alarm, CourtListener, Law360, and related filings), U.S. Patent No. 6,748,317 (the "'317 patent," originally assigned to Hitachi, later Maxell) has been asserted in a small, related family of patent-infringement suits brought by Maxell, Ltd. There is no broad set of unrelated litigation — the '317 patent appears only in the Maxell enforcement campaigns against smartphone/consumer-electronics makers. Below is what is documented, with confidence levels noted.

1. District Court Litigation

A. Maxell, Ltd. v. ZTE Corporation and ZTE (USA), Inc.

• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Texarkana Division (Judge Robert W. Schroeder III)
• Case No.: 5:16-cv-00179-RWS
• Filed: November 2016 (Unified Patents lists 2016-11-17; Chinese-language coverage reports November 18, 2016)
• Role of '317 patent: One of the patents-in-suit. Multiple sources confirm 6,748,317 was among the asserted patents in this action.
• Outcome/Status: This went to trial, and Maxell won. A jury found infringement across seven Maxell patents and awarded Maxell approximately $43.3 million; the jury expressly found that ZTE did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that claims 1–3 of the '317 patent are invalid. ZTE subsequently filed a Rule 50 motion for judgment as a matter of law and a Rule 59 motion for a new trial (Docket No. 292, filed 08/28/2018). The docket shows the case terminated March 11, 2019. Unified Patents litigation page; Docket Alarm 5:16-cv-00179 Document 292

Note on the verdict amount: I found the ~$43.3M figure attributed to the ZTE case across sources, and a separate $43.3M / "$4330万美元" figure widely reported in Chinese press in mid-2018 (with a willfulness finding that could have supported enhancement). I could not fully reconcile every reported dollar figure within my search budget; treat the exact amount as approximate.

B. Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc.

• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Texarkana Division (Judge Robert W. Schroeder III)
• Case No.: 5:19-cv-00036-RWS
• Filed: March 15, 2019
• Role of '317 patent: One of ten patents originally asserted (the set included 6,329,794; 6,928,306; 6,408,193; 10,084,991; 10,212,586; 6,430,498; 6,580,999; 6,748,317; 7,116,438; and 8,339,493). The court ordered Maxell to narrow to six patents. The '317 patent was directed at Apple's "Maps," "Find My Friends," and "Location" services.
• Outcome/Status: Settled and dismissed with prejudice. The parties announced a settlement on the eve of trial (March 22–23, 2021); the court granted a joint motion to dismiss, and final judgment dismissing the case with prejudice was entered April 7, 2021. UniCourt case summary; Law360 report

C. Maxell, Ltd. v. ZTE Corp. (companion/bifurcated action)

• Case No.: 5:18-cv-00080 (E.D. Tex.) — described by Law360 as a "bifurcated suit" related to the '179 action.
• Caveat: I could not confirm that the '317 patent was asserted in this specific companion case (the 5:18-cv-00034 Maxell v. ZTE action I found asserted a different patent set — e.g., 7,324,487; 7,068,503; 8,982,086; 6,928,306; 6,983,140 — and terminated March 12, 2019). Treat the '317 linkage here as unconfirmed.

D. Maxell v. Huawei (possible related suit)

• Chinese-language coverage states Maxell sued Huawei in the same court on the same day (Nov. 18, 2016) asserting eight U.S. patents, "with slightly different patent contents." Search results surfaced a Huawei Device USA action, E.D. Tex., Texarkana Division, Case No. 5:16-cv-00178-RWS.
• Caveat: Because the coverage explicitly says the Huawei patent set differed from the ZTE set, I cannot confirm that U.S. 6,748,317 was among the Huawei-asserted patents. This is flagged as uncertain.

2. PTAB (Inter Partes Review) Proceedings

• IPR2018-00235 — Inter partes review of U.S. Pat. 6,748,317. Filed by ZTE (consistent with a Law360 exhibit noting each asserted patent "survived IPR petitions filed by ZTE"). Status: Not Instituted – Merits.
• IPR2020-00407 — Inter partes review of U.S. Pat. 6,748,317. Petitioner: Unified Patents (per the Google Patents litigation listing). Status: Not Instituted – Procedural.

Both are listed on the Google Patents page for US6748317 and on the Unified Patents PTAB portal (IPR2018-00235; IPR2020-00407).

3. Related USPTO Ex Parte Reexaminations (not "litigation," but relevant challenges)

The '317 patent was also subjected to ex parte reexaminations (both granted, target claims 1, 15, 17):

• Control No. 90/014,639 — filed December 23, 2020; granted.
• Control No. 90/014,662 — filed January 27, 2021; granted.

These filings (which name Apple as third-party requester in the Apple-related papers) were part of the same Apple dispute. Docket Alarm reexam transmittal (90/014,639); Docket Alarm reexam transmittal (90/014,662)

4. Federal Circuit Appeals

The Google Patents page lists two appeals involving the patent family:

• Fed. Cir. Case No. 20-2132
• Fed. Cir. Case No. 20-2211

I could not retrieve details on which underlying district-court/PTAB decisions these appeals arose from (most plausibly the ZTE '179 case and/or related PTAB rulings), and I did not confirm that the '317 patent specifically was the subject of either appeal. Treat these as unconfirmed/for further verification.

Summary Table

Important caveats and verification notes

1. I want to be explicit about uncertainty: My searches did not retrieve the full docket text confirming every element (exact filing date, exact verdict amount, and whether the '317 patent was in the Huawei and 5:18-cv-00080 actions). Items marked "unconfirmed" above should be verified against the primary docket.
2. No unrelated litigation found. The '317 patent does not appear as an asserted patent in any litigation outside the Maxell enforcement campaign (the ZTE and Apple suits) in the sources I searched.
3. Recommended primary sources for confirmation: Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation), CourtListener/RECAP, Docket Alarm, and PACER for E.D. Tex. cases 5:16-cv-00179 and 5:19-cv-00036. Note that a search for the case number 5:18-cv-00080 ("Maxell v. ZTE Corp.") would confirm whether '317 was added to that bifurcated action.

If you'd like, I can run additional targeted searches on the two Federal Circuit appeal numbers (20-2132, 20-2211) and on E.D. Tex. 5:18-cv-00080 to close the remaining gaps.

I'll verify the two PTAB dockets and the CAFC appeals surfaced in the patent record before writing this up.

Two PTAB dockets are visible; let me pull the institution decisions, the reexam outcomes, and the CAFC appeals.

Proceedings overview

Two AIA trial proceedings have been filed against US 6,748,317 — both were denied institution; zero reached a Final Written Decision, so no claim of this patent has ever been canceled or confirmed by the PTAB (breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained on the merits, 0 settled, 2 institution denials). Note the discrepancy with your structured block: the USPTO ODP feed shows no proceedings, but the patent record and third-party PTAB dockets confirm IPR2018-00235 (ZTE) and IPR2020-00407 (Apple), both labeled "Not Instituted" in the Google Patents litigation data (patents.google.com/patent/US6748317/en). The defensive posture is therefore not "hardened by surviving IPRs" in any merits sense — it is "never merits-tested at the PTAB, but expired on 2020-07-11," which is the dominant fact for anyone receiving a demand letter today.

IPR2018-00235 — ZTE Corporation and ZTE (USA) Inc. v. Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (now Maxell, Ltd.)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2017-11-22 (petitioner's exhibits are docketed as the "11-22-2017-Petitioner" submission; docketalarm IPR2018-00235)
• Status: Verbatim: "Not Instituted - Merits" (Google Patents litigation data for US6748317). Third-party dockets reflect a denial of institution; the decision is cited by later petitioners as "ZTE Corporation et al. v. Maxell, Ltd., IPR2018-00235, Paper 9 (P.T.A.B. June 1, 2018)" — i.e., the denial issued on or about 2018-06-01.
• Judge panel: Not confirmed in the sources retrieved. Flagging as unknown rather than guessing.
• Petition grounds: § 103 obviousness only, against claims 1–3, 6–8, 10, 15–17 and 20. Per the Declaration of Dr. Scott Andrews filed with the petition, the specific combinations were: Norris (claims 1–3, 10, 15–16); Norris + Lauro (claims 1–3, 10, 15–16); Norris + Colley (claims 17, 20); and Ohmura + Colley (claims 1–3, 15–17, 20).
• Institution decision: Denied, ~2018-06-01, on the merits of the petition (per the "Not Instituted – Merits" label). The panel's substantive reasoning is not in the material I could retrieve; do not represent it as a merits win.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim was canceled or confirmed.
• Settlement / termination: The underlying district court case settled confidentially in 2019 (Maxell v. ZTE, 5:16-cv-00179), but the IPR was disposed of by denial, not by settlement.
• Appeal: None identified for IPR2018-00235 specifically.
• Defensive value: The denial meant ZTE's Norris/Ohmura art never got an estoppel-generating FWD, and Maxell carried that art-free record straight into the June 2018 jury trial, where the jury found claims 1, 2 and 3 willfully infringed and not invalid. For a defendant today, this is a cautionary data point: two separate § 103 attacks on claim 1 died at the institution stage.

IPR2020-00407 — Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-01-13
• Status: Verbatim: "Not Instituted - Procedural" (Google Patents). Docket aggregators record the status as "Institution Denied," with an institution decision date of 2020-08-11 (docketalarm IPR2020-00407; RPX Insight). The "procedural" characterization indicates denial on a non-merits basis; the specific rationale is not verified from the sources I retrieved.
• Judge panel: John Hudalla, Lynne Pettigrew, Minn Chung, Frederick Laney and Jason Melvin (docketalarm); Patexia lists Pettigrew, Chung and Hudalla as the panel, with Pettigrew writing. Panel composition should be confirmed against the decision PDF before quoting.
• Petition grounds: § 103 obviousness against claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 18 (per Patexia's claim list; note this is a broader set than ZTE's, including the "another portable terminal" claims 10–14). Art per the petitioner's exhibit list: Hayashida (US 6,067,502), Abowd et al., "Cyberguide: A Mobile Context-Aware Tour Guide", Ikeda (JPH09-311625 + certified translation), Gildea (US 5,589,835) and Want (US RE42,927), supported by the Declaration of Michael D. Kotzin.
• Institution decision: Denied, 2020-08-11. Reasoning not verified in the retrieved record — do not quote it.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Not settled as a PTAB matter; the parallel district court action was the one that settled (below).
• Appeal: Yes. This denial was appealed and folded into the Federal Circuit cluster Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., Nos. 20-2132, 20-2211, 20-2212, 20-2213 and 21-1033. The question presented, per the Federal Circuit Blog's collection of the en banc petitions, is "whether the Court has jurisdiction to review a decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denying a petition for inter partes review where the appeal argues that the decision was based on an agency rule that exceeds the Office's statutory authority, is arbitrary and capricious, and was adopted without observance of required procedures" (fedcircuitblog.com). I could not confirm the ultimate disposition of these appeals in this session — treat the outcome as unverified (the jurisdictional framing is a § 314(d) / Thryv v. Click-to-Call problem). Google Patents lists both 20-2132 and 20-2211 against this patent's record.
• Defensive value: Apple got the same treatment as ZTE — no institution, no estoppel. If your adversary cites this patent, Apple's own unsuccessful petitions tell you the art is worth using in district court, not at the PTAB: Abowd/Cyberguide and NavTalk are precisely the references Apple actually litigated as § 102/§ 103 defenses in Maxell v. Apple (E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036), including motions for partial summary judgment of no invalidity on those references.

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 6,748,317 has been canceled, amended, or confirmed through any AIA trial. Claims 1–20 stand exactly as issued on 2004-06-08. The only post-issuance narrowing attempts were two ex parte reexaminations, not AIA trials: control 90/014,639 (request filed 2020-12-23, third-party requester Apple via Erise IP) and control 90/014,662 (request filed 2021-01-27), both granted by Art Unit 3992 in early 2021 against claims 1, 15 and 17 only, on Hayashida, JP H10-197277 (Maruyama), Garthwaite, Ghaem and JP06-282796 (Konishi). I could not retrieve the resulting reexamination certificates, so I will not tell you those claims were confirmed, narrowed, or canceled — verify the certificate in Patent Center before relying on it. Separately, the district court record is favorable to the patent: a 2018 jury found claims 1, 2 and 3 willfully infringed and valid (ZTE was ordered to pay $43.3M before settling confidentially in 2019), and the source patent is now Expired – Lifetime, anticipated expiration 2020-07-11. Claims 1–20 are UNTESTED at the PTAB and expired.

Estoppel landscape. Because both petitions were denied institution, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attached — estoppel requires a final written decision. Neither ZTE/Apple nor their privies are barred from raising § 102/§ 103 grounds against the '317 claims in district court, and there is no § 315(e)(1) bar on follow-on IPR petitions either. Practically, though, an expired patent means: (a) damages accrue only for pre-2020-07-11 conduct, subject to the § 286 six-year bar (which reaches back to roughly mid-2014), (b) no injunctive relief, and (c) the PTAB will still institute on an expired patent but rarely does so when damages exposure is stale. The reusable art set is small and well known: Norris, Ohmura, Lauro, Colley (ZTE) and Hayashida, Abowd/Cyberguide, Ikeda, Gildea, Want (Apple), plus NavTalk and Abowd as litigated district-court references. Note the claim-construction overlay the district court adopted: several "device for…" elements were treated as § 112 ¶ 6 means-plus-function terms with structure limited to CPU 71 + data communication device 76, and Apple argued (and at least partly won) that an infrared ray sensor is a required part of the "device for getting location information" structure — that construction narrows the asserted scope and is a powerful non-infringement lever.

Pattern signals. Different petitioners, not a serial-filer pattern: ZTE filed first (2017-11-22, denial ~2018-06-01), Apple filed three years later (2020-01-13, denial 2020-08-11). No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents) appears as petitioner on this patent — the two IPRs are party-driven, filed in the shadow of Maxell v. ZTE and Maxell v. Apple. The patent owner (Maxell, originally Hitachi/Hitachi Maxell, later Maxell Holdings → Maxell, Ltd.) is the aggressor in every thread and does not appear to have appealed any PTAB decision itself; the only appellate activity is Apple's jurisdictional appeals from the institution denials (20-2132/20-2211/20-2212/20-2213/21-1033, with en banc petitions on file). The family has drawn IPRs on siblings as well ('498, '999, '493, '794), so a defendant should assume the whole Maxell walking-navigation family, not just the '317, is in play.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the expiration and the reexam certificates. The single most useful fact is that the '317 patent is listed as Expired – Lifetime, anticipated expiration 2020-07-11. Pull the reexamination certificates for 90/014,639 and 90/014,662 from USPTO Patent Center; the outcome for claims 1, 15 and 17 is not verified here and controls whether your invalidity stipulation needs to address amended claims.
2. Get the two denial decisions themselves. IPR2018-00235 Paper 9 (~2018-06-01) and the IPR2020-00407 institution decision (2020-08-11) are the documents that actually matter, and neither is quoted in the sources I retrieved. Retrieve them from PTAB E2E so you can characterize the panels' reasoning rather than relying on the "Not Instituted – Merits/Procedural" labels.
3. Verify the CAFC dispositions for 20-2132 / 20-2211 / 20-2212 / 20-2213 / 21-1033 on the Federal Circuit docket and CourtListener. The appeals raise a pure § 314(d) jurisdictional question about the denial rule; the panel disposition is unverified in this session and should not be assumed.
4. Screen the district court evidence, not the PTAB record. The productive prior-art work is Apple's: Abowd/Cyberguide, NavTalk, Hayashida, Ikeda and Gildea — including Maxell's own motions for partial summary judgment of no invalidity on Abowd/Cyberguide and NavTalk in Maxell Ltd. v. Apple Inc, 5:19-cv-00036 (E.D. Tex.). That docket also shows the case was dismissed with prejudice on 2021-04-07 after a confidential eve-of-trial settlement.
5. Lead with the means-plus-function construction. CPU 71 + data communication device 76, and the disputed "infrared ray sensor" requirement, are the fastest routes to non-infringement outside the PTAB.

Uncertainty flags (do not rely on without verification): the exact reasoning in both institution denials; the IPR2018-00235 panel; the final disposition of the Federal Circuit appeals; and the outcome of reexaminations 90/014,639 and 90/014,662.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent, focusing on what's verifiable.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 6,748,317

Sourcing / methodology limit (read first). I could not reach the USPTO Assignment Center directly (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) with the tools available — it is a session-based search UI, not a fetchable index — and my searches for this specific patent's reel/frame and correspondent-of-record fields returned nothing. I therefore will not supply reel/frame numbers or correspondent names for the '317 recordings. What I can ground: (a) the USPTO-derived reassignment events reproduced on the patent's Google Patents legal-events table (assignor/assignee/conveyance/date), and (b) admissions in Maxell's own federal complaints describing the same transfers. Where a sibling Maxell patent's assignment record surfaced in search, I flag it as probable-corresponding — not as verified for '317. Confirming reel/frame + correspondent requires a live Assignment Center query, which I flag as an open item.

Inventors

Employer determination: the inventors are Hitachi, Ltd. personnel — the JP priority application (JP19701099A → JP3791249B2) was filed by Hitachi, and the '317 line was prosecuted and issued with Hitachi, Ltd. as applicant/owner (Google Patents: "2003-05-05 — Application filed by Hitachi Ltd"). The specification is written from Hitachi's development perspective and Maxell's litigation narrative uniformly treats the inventors as Hitachi R&D staff.

Unusual-pattern check: no evidence of any inventor departure, individual assignment to an NPE, or inventor-entity record anywhere in the chain. The chain runs corporate-to-corporate from 1999 to today. This is the opposite of the "inventors bail, portfolio gets fire-sold" precursor. Per my tools I cannot verify individual inventor employment-continuity dates beyond 1999 — that is an open item if it matters.

Original assignee

Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo) — named owner on the issued patent; a diversified operating conglomerate, not a holding shell. Hitachi was a genuine, long-lived electronics manufacturer with an in-house mobile-handset business during the 1999–2004 window.

• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear. No evidence surfaced that Hitachi commercialized a walking-navigation portable terminal reading on claim 1. The specification (FIG. 10) describes an ordinary portable telephone/PHS architecture, which is consistent with Hitachi's phone business, but I could not confirm a shipping product.
• Primary line of business: diversified industrial/consumer electronics (heavy industry, power, IT, media, and — relevant here — mobile handsets and consumer media).
• Current status: operating. Hitachi, Ltd. remains a listed, functioning conglomerate. It is no longer the owner of this patent (see below).

Successor of interest: Maxell, Ltd. (1 Koizumi, Oyamazaki, Oyamazaki-cho, Otokuni-gun, Kyoto, Japan) — per Maxell's own complaints, "a leading global manufacturer of information storage media products, including magnetic tapes, optical discs, and battery products." A practicing manufacturer in adjacent markets, with a large, deliberately centralised patent-licensing/enforcement arm.

Assignment timeline

Events are the Google Patents legal-events reassignment entries (USPTO-derived). Execution dates and reel/frame were not retrievable — the dates shown are recording dates, which is a material distinction here (see Contradiction flag).

• 2004-06-08 (approx.) / not shown in the retrieved table — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: original inventor assignment (inventors → Hitachi, Ltd.)
  • Assignor: Maruyama, Shimada, Sasaki (individuals)
  • Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: routine pre-issuance inventor assignment. Not surfaced in the legal-events table I could pull; assumed standard.

• 2012-10-11 (recorded) / executed per Maxell "in 2009" — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: HITACHI, LTD.
  • Assignee: HITACHI CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal corporate reorganisation — Hitachi deconsolidated a large IP tranche into its consumer-electronics subsidiary. Bulk portfolio transfer, not a sale to a third party.

• 2014-09-08 (recorded) / executed per Maxell "in 2013" — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: HITACHI CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CO, LTD. (the Google page lists this assignor twice — quoted literally; likely a data duplication in the record)
  • Assignee: HITACHI MAXELL, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorganisation — consolidation of the IP into Hitachi Maxell. Maxell's complaints: this was "an effort to align its intellectual property with the licensing, business development, and research and development efforts of Maxell."

• 2018-01-25 (recorded); execution date on the sibling record = 2017-10-01 — Reel not retrieved for '317

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST (Google Patents wording for '317) / sibling-wording "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"
  • Assignor: HITACHI MAXELL, LTD.
  • Assignee: MAXELL, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved for '317. ⚠️ Probable-corresponding sibling record — on Maxell's US 10,129,590 (same assignor→assignee, same recording date 2018-01-25, exec. 2017-10-01), the recorded correspondent is NADEEN NSOULI, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606, reel 045142/0208 (141 pages). I am NOT asserting this reel/frame or correspondent for '317 — it is offered only as the likely companion bulk recording. Flag: if the same correspondent/reel block also covers '317, that is one repeat-player data point — a single appearance, which per the rubric is not by itself a "repeat correspondent" finding.
  • Context: transfer to the entity that asserts — Hitachi Maxell drops "Hitachi" from its name amid restructuring and hands the portfolio to Maxell, Ltd.; Maxell then drives US enforcement.

• 2021-11-29 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: MERGER
  • Assignor: MAXELL, LTD.
  • Assignee: MAXELL HOLDINGS, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: change of corporate structure only — merger.

• 2021-12-03 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: CHANGE OF NAME
  • Assignor: MAXELL HOLDINGS, LTD.
  • Assignee: MAXELL, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: change of name only — four days after the merger; a pure paper round-trip restoring the "Maxell, Ltd." name. No change in beneficial ownership.

Contradiction flag (vs. the previously generated section): the earlier section's table rendered the 2012-10-11 and 2014-09-08 entries as bare "reassignment" dates. Those are recording dates; Maxell's own complaints describe the underlying transfers as occurring in 2009 (Hitachi → Hitachi Consumer Electronics) and in 2013 (Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell). Both are consistent, but anyone computing "time-to-litigation" from the Google dates alone would be ~2–3 years short. Use the execution dates from the assignment abstracts, not the Google reassignment dates, for any timing analysis.

No defensive-aggregator termination: the chain does not end at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. It ends at an asserting operating company.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6748317
    1999 : Priority filing by Hitachi Ltd
    2004 : Patent issues to Hitachi Ltd
    2009 : Hitachi transfers IP to Hitachi CE
    2012 : Assignment recorded to Hitachi CE
    2013 : Hitachi CE transfers IP to Hitachi Maxell
    2014 : Assignment recorded to Hitachi Maxell
    2016 : ZTE suit filed
    2017 : Hitachi Maxell assigns to Maxell Ltd
    2018 : Assignment recorded to Maxell Ltd
    2019 : Apple suit filed
    2021 : Merger into Maxell Holdings
         : Name change back to Maxell Ltd

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. Every assignee in the recorded chain is a named operating Japanese corporation: Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell Holdings, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. No "IP/Patents/Licensing/Ventures" suffix, no single-member Delaware/Texas LLC, no registered-agent-service address appears in the chain. (Note: Maxell Research and Development America, LLC ("MRDA"), Marshall, Texas, is named in Maxell's complaints as a business affiliate — not as an assignee of '317. Its Texas footprint is venue-relevant but is not an ownership finding.)

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (against the enumerated list); UNCLEAR more broadly. Maxell, Ltd. / Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. do not match Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid-Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Spangenberg entities. Maxell is a manufacturer. However, Maxell is a high-frequency patent plaintiff tracked in Unified Patents' litigation dataset (linked from the patent page: E.D. Tex. 5:16-cv-00179, 5:19-cv-00036; plus Huawei, ASUS campaigns). If one applies a patent-monetisation-entity definition rather than the classic NPE definition, Maxell sits in the hybrid/aggressive-licensor zone — but by the rubric's actual list, this signal is not present.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — INSUFFICIENT DATA. Reel/frame and correspondent-of-record were not retrievable for any '317 link, so I cannot assess recurrence. The only data point I have is the sibling-patriot record showing Nadeen Nsouli, 71 South Wacker Dr, Chicago on the Hitachi Maxell → Maxell recording (reel 045142/0208). One appearance is not a finding. Separately — and distinct from assignment correspondents — Maxell's litigation/PTAB counsel recurs hard: Mayer Brown (Robert G. Pluta; Jamie B. Beaber; Alan Grimaldi) on IPR2018-00235, IPR2020-00407, and the ZTE/Maxell CAFC appeals; Erise IP (Adam P. Seitz) for the Apple petitioner side. This is a repeat-player litigation pattern, not a repeat recording pattern — do not conflate them.

4. Cascading transfers through chained LLCs in <24 months — NOT PRESENT. The transfers are spread over 1999, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021 and run through named parent/subsidiary corporations, not anonymous LLCs sharing a correspondent address. The only sub-24-month pairing (2021-11-29 merger + 2021-12-03 name change, 4 days apart) is an internal reorganisation, not a cascade — no new beneficial owner entered.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT / WEAK. The first infringement suit naming '317 was Maxell v. ZTE, 5:16-cv-00179 (filed 2016-11-18) — roughly 11 months before the Hitachi Maxell → Maxell, Ltd. assignment was executed (2017-10-01) and ~14 months before it was recorded (2018-01-25). So the recorded change in owner did not precede the first assertion. (The 2017/2018 transfer does precede the 2019-03-15 Apple complaint, but the patent had already been in suit for two-plus years.) No clean "arranged-to-sue" transfer-on-the-eve pattern.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Neither Hitachi, Hitachi Consumer Electronics, Hitachi Maxell, Maxell, nor Maxell Holdings filed Chapter 7/11 in connection with this transfer. All recorded conveyances are assignments, a merger, and a change of name.

7. Privateering — PARTIALLY PRESENT / WEAK. This is the only signal with any traction. Hitachi, Ltd. transferred a large IP tranche out of the parent (2009 → Hitachi Consumer Electronics; 2013 → Hitachi Maxell), explicitly "to align its intellectual property with the licensing, business development… efforts of Maxell" (per Maxell's complaints), and the recipient then sued Hitachi's own device-market competitors — ZTE, Huawei, ASUS, Apple, Samsung. IAM's contemporaneous coverage ("Deals with Fujifilm and an NPE suggest recently-reorganised Maxell is focused on patent profit," 2018-02-22; "Maxell expands its monetisation drive," 2017-11-14) describes exactly this posture. But the recipient is a genuine manufacturer with its own R&D and products, not an arm's-length NPE shell, and there's no SEC-filing evidence of a "you-sue-for-us" fee arrangement. Call it one weak signal, not a strong one.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. Chain terminates at an asserting operating company; the patent is not neutralised. (It is, however, expired — Google Patents legal status "Expired – Lifetime," anticipated expiration 2020-07-11 — which caps further assertion value regardless of ownership.)

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: The recorded chain (Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell → Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell Holdings → Maxell, Ltd., per the Google Patents legal events, recorded 2012-10-11, 2014-09-08, 2018-01-25, 2021-11-29, and 2021-12-03) runs entirely through named operating Hitachi/Maxell corporations — no shell LLC, no known NPE, no <24-month cascade, no bankruptcy, and no defensive-aggregator termination. The current owner (Maxell, Ltd.) is a real manufacturer of storage media and batteries that asserts the patent against actual competitors: ZTE (5:16-cv-00179, 2016), Apple (5:19-cv-00036, 2019), plus Huawei and ASUS campaigns. Definitional caveat: the rubric's operating-company verdict ideally requires the assignee to ship a product embodying the claims, and Maxell's own product list (wireless charging, flash drives, media players, storage, headphones) does not obviously include a walking-navigation phone — so Maxell is a hybrid: a practicing manufacturer asserting a patent whose subject matter it does not itself commercialise. That hybrid character, plus the Hitachi-origin portfolio transfer and heavy enforcement, is the strongest colourable "monetisation" evidence in the file, but it does not meet the enumerated NPE criteria. One weak signal alone → not an NPE verdict.

Open items to close at the source: (i) pull the actual reel/frame + correspondent for all five recordings from the USPTO Assignment Center; (ii) verify the original inventor → Hitachi assignment recording date; (iii) verify execution dates for the 2012/2014 recordings (complaints say 2009/2013).

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO legacy assignment search (by patent number): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6748317/en

I'll research the cited prior art for US 6,748,317, including the truncated portion of the "Citations (7)" list.

Let me get the complete cited-references list and details on the remaining references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 6,748,317 B2 ("6748317")

Scope note / important caveat first. The authoritative full text I was given contains the patent's own front‑page citation list under the heading "Citations (7)," but that block is cut off in the source after the fourth entry (US5528248A … "Trimble N…"). A Google Patents search snippet for the same page, however, renders the section header as "## Patent Citations (8)." I therefore cannot enumerate the complete face‑of‑patent citation list with certainty; I list the four entries that are literally present in the provided text and mark the remainder as reconstructed/inferred. I also cross‑supply the references that appear in the granted ex parte reexaminations and in the E.D. Tex. invalidity contentions, because those are the references the examiner/parties actually treated as the closest art.

1. Cited references literally present in the '317 text

US 5,146,231 A — detail (relevant to the arrow‑to‑destination concept). Per the reference's own claims (as surfaced): cl. 6 recites "a rotatable pointer and causes the pointer to point in the direction of the desired destination"; cl. 7 "means for a user selecting said desired destination"; cl. 8 "means for entering data defining the location of said desired destination"; cl. 9 the receiver is a GPS receiver. The display likewise shows the housing‑axis orientation with respect to compass North, and the pointer continues to point at the destination as the housing is turned. That is functionally the "arrow always points to the destination, and the display changes as you rotate the terminal" idea of claim 1 — but realized with a directional antenna instead of a compass/gyro.

US 5,528,248 A — detail. Discloses manual/electronic map sorting once location is known, location‑determination receivers (Loran, GPS, etc.), and a handheld computing unit — i.e., background for the location‑getting device and displayed map elements rather than the direction‑sensing/arrow element.

2. Likely remainder of the citation list (reconstructed — flagged as inference)

The two granted ex parte reexaminations (90/014,639, 90/014,662) identify the substantial‑new‑question‑of‑patentability references as (a) US 6,067,502 (Hayashida); (b) JPH10‑197277 (Maruyama); (c) US 6,124,826 (Garthwaite); (d) US 5,146,231 (Ghaem); (e) JP06‑282796 (Konishi). Note that (d) = cited entry #1 above and (e) = cited entry #3 above (JP06‑282796 ↔ JPH06282796A, Suzuki Motor/Konishi). It is therefore plausible that the full "Citations (7)" set is exactly: US5146231, JPH06282795, JPH06282796, US5528248, US6067502, JPH10‑197277, US6124826. I have not verified this against the page and will not assert it as fact.

3. § 102 anticipation assessment (claim‑by‑claim, cautious)

Because I only have full text for the '317 specification/claims (not for the cited references), the following is a potentially‑anticipates screen, not a concluded invalidity opinion.

Key structural point: the reexaminations targeted only claims 1, 15 and 17, and Apple's IPR2020‑00407 challenged 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18. So the references above are most probative against the independent "arrow" claim (1), its route add‑on (15), and the bent‑line/grid claims (16–17). Independent claims 6 and 10 (server‑retrieval and meet‑by‑appointment variants) were not squarely attacked by the art identified here, which is consistent with their being the harder-to‑invalidate claims.

4. What these citations are not

• The "Cited By (48)" and "Families Citing this family (162)" lists (e.g., US20040204825A1, the Garmin, Honda, Nielsen, Skyhawke, Toyota families) are forward citations — they post‑date the '317 priority/filing and are not § 102 art against it.
• The 2026 Maxell/Samsung CAFC dockets discussed in the prior section do not supply prior art; they are appeal proceedings, not references.

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. Incomplete citation list. The source text I was given truncates the "Citations (7)" block after US5528248A; I could not retrieve entries 5–7. A Google Patents snippet shows "(8)," so the count itself is inconsistent between the text I hold and the live page. Do not treat § 2 as a verified enumeration.
2. Titles/dates for US 6,067,502, US 6,124,826 and JPH10‑197277 were not independently verified in this session; I have their numbers and their role, not confirmed bibliographic data.
3. Anticipation calls above are screens only. Without the full text of each reference I cannot confirm that any single reference discloses all elements of any claim, as § 102 requires.
4. As‑granted claim text was used (the reexamination certificates, if issued, could have changed claims 1/15/17).
5. Identifier handling: I have not auto‑corrected anything; where the patent and the reexam orders use different formalisms for the same document (e.g., JP06‑282796 vs. JPH06282796A; US 5,146,231 vs. US5146231A), I have kept both as written.

Bottom line: within the confirmed citations, US 5,146,231 A (Motorola, Ghaem) is the most relevant single reference (arrow‑to‑destination display that updates as the unit is turned — aimed at claim 1). The closest navigation art the examiner and Apple actually relied on — US 6,067,502 (Hayashida) and JPH10‑197277 (Maruyama) — targets claims 1, 15 and 17, the same claims the 2020–21 reexaminations singled out.

I'll verify the cited prior-art references before mapping them onto the claims.

Confirmed Ghaem's pointer behavior. Now the Japanese references and the reexam references.

Let me pull the actual IPR grounds for the '317 patent and the remaining references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,317 ("6748317") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. This analysis builds on, and does not repeat, the two earlier sections (Patent summary; Litigation summary). It uses the Prior Art material on the Google Patents page for US6748317 — the examiner-cited references, the "Cited By" and "Families Citing" tables, and (because the page's face-citation list is truncated) the references of record identified in the USPTO reexamination orders and the IPR papers that appear in the page's litigation links. I ran live searches to verify the disclosure content of the key references. No tribunal has adjudicated obviousness of these claims on the merits — the PTAB non-institutions were discretionary, and the E.D. Tex. Apple case settled before trial. Everything below is an analytical prediction, not a holding.

0. Corrections and reconciliations with the previously generated sections

Flagging these because the prior sections contradict each other in several places:

Record discrepancies I will not auto-correct:

• US 6,067,502 (Hayashida): Google Patents lists issue date 2000-05-23; the reexam Order Granting states "issued November 21, 2000."
• JP06-282796 (Konishi): Google Patents lists 1993-03-29 / publication 1994-10-07; the reexam Order says "published March 29, 1993."
• US 6,124,826 (Garthwaite): issued 2000-09-26, i.e. after the 1999-07-12 priority date. It can only be §102(e)/§103 art if its filing date predates the '317 invention date. Relevant to the reexam SNQ.
• The page's own face citations are incomplete: "Citations (7)" but only four are rendered (US5146231A; JPH06282796A; JPH06282795A; and US5528248A, whose text cuts off at "Trimble N…").

1. Framework and PHOSITA

Priority is 1999-07-12, so pre-AIA §103(a) governs (the '317 is a 2003 continuation in a chain to a 2000-07-11 filing; no post-AIA claims). The Graham v. John Deere factors apply, with KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (2007) governing motivation: a combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely obvious when it yields no more than predictable results, and the motivation need not be found in the references themselves — it can come from the knowledge, design incentives, and market pressures known to a PHOSITA.

PHOSITA (proposed): a bachelor's degree in EE/CS or equivalent, plus 2–3 years' experience with handheld consumer electronics, GPS positioning, electronic compass/heading sensors, and small-screen route-guidance UI. By July 1999 this person knew: GPS receivers in handheld form; compass/gyro heading sensors; client-server Internet map services over cellular/PHS; and the conventional "arrow points to destination" pedestrian aid.

2. The prior art of record

3. What each reference teaches

Ghaem (US 5,146,231) — the single most damaging reference for claim 1. Verified from the specification text:

• Hand-holdable housing (cl. 3: "dimensioned so as to be hand holdable") — expressly "a portable navigation device usable by hikers and other pedestrians."
• GPS receiver determining receiver position (location means).
• Direction means producing a signal indicating "the direction of the housing axis (18) with respect to at least one predetermined compass heading" (North) — i.e., the orientation of the terminal itself.
• Keypad for user entry of a desired destination / waypoint and a "HOME" designation; pushbutton to command the arrow.
• Display generating "a pointer 19 … in the form of an arrow which will point towards a desired destination … with respect to the user's heading," where "as the user turns in that direction, the head of the pointer 16 automatically moves in a counterclockwise direction," and a compass card that rotates so N lines up with true north.
• Stated advantage: "the user does not need to be familiar with compass or navigation terminology to determine the direct route toward the desired destination."

Hayashida (US 6,067,502) — the map/route reference. Verified:

• "Present position detector 20, including GPS receiver 25, and beacon receiver 26," central processor/CPU.
• A split screen: 1st screen shows "a simple map which shows geographical relation between a present position of the car and a destination" plus the destination direction; 2nd screen shows the detailed map.
• North-up in one screen, head-up in the other — "a map which above (upper) of the map is the direction of the progress." Display contents change in response to "a change of an azimuth of a car."
• Route searching, guide routes, re-search on deviation, "return route" display, facility retrieval with retrieval results and selection branches.
• Express pedestrian applicability: "applied to the carrying-type navigation device … the small navigation device which can be accompanied by the human and which is used in a cycling, a travel, a mountaineering, a hike, a fishing or so on."
• Claim 17 recites maps with the car/start/destination marked, maintained absolute azimuth vs. moving-direction orientation.

Lauro (US 5,173,709). Direction finder with navigation receiver and a compass, producing "a bearing signal that indicates the direction of a desired destination," display showing a rotatable pointer, and expressly directed to "the distance and bearing from the user's present position to a desired destination." Useful for numeric-distance claims.

Konishi (JPH06-282796, Suzuki) — car navigation device and a communication method using the same: a navigation device that exchanges data with a remote station. This is the best documentary art on the page for the "device connected to a server" and "another portable terminal … via connected network" limitations.

Suzuki '795 (JPH06-282795) — conventional car navigation: present-position detection, destination setting, route retrieval and route display with a present-position mark. Supplies the bent-line route + present-position mark conventions of claims 17/20.

Trimble (US 5,528,248) — a "Personal Digital Location Assistant" = PDA + GPS smart antenna + map application, "for displaying a geographical location as an icon on a map," with wireless/IR/serial/PCMCIA interfaces. Establishes the 1994-vintage hand-carried GPS+PDA+map ecosystem (and thus the predictability of merging position sensing with a pocket computing/display device).

Maruyama (JPH10-197277) — a 1998 Japanese publication by Satoshi Maruyama et al. It is cited in the reexam SNQ and was Apple's elected art. It is also, notably, the same inventor surname as the '317's first-named inventor (Kishiko Maruyama); whether it is a different Maruyama or the same inventive entity matters for pre-AIA §103(c) and §102(a) "by others," and I could not verify its disclosure content or inventorship — flagged as unresolved.

Garthwaite (US 6,124,826) — relied on in the reexam SNQ, but I did not verify its disclosure within this session (the search terminated). Do not rely on my characterization of it.

4. The obviousness grounds

Ground 1 — Claim 1

Grounds: (i) claim 1 anticipated or, in the alternative, obvious over Ghaem alone in view of the POSITA's knowledge; (ii) claim 1 obvious over Ghaem + Hayashida; (iii) claim 1 obvious over Hayashida + Ghaem (this is materially Apple's IPR2020-00407 Ground 2, with Ghaem substituted for the contested Abowd).

Ground 2 — Claims 2, 3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14

Obvious over any of Grounds 1/3 further in view of Ghaem (line/arrow orientation; optional numeric readout of "the range and bearing of the desired destination") and Lauro (explicit "distance and bearing" display; a line whose length denotes distance is a routine cartographic convention also shown by Suzuki '795 and by Trimble's icon-on-map). Claims 4/12 (symbols for present and other-terminal location) are met by Hayashida's car/destination marks and Ghaem's compass-card center.

Ground 3 — Claim 10

Location means + orientation means (Ghaem/Lauro/Hayashida) + a device for getting another portable terminal's location over a network, in view of Konishi (navigation device with a communication method) alone or in further view of the admitted prior art in the '317's own Background (cellular/PHS data services; "meeting by appointment" messaging is admitted as the ordinary portable-telephone message/e-mail function). Motivation: Konishi already pairs a navigation device with remote data exchange; applying that to a handheld position/orientation navigator to answer "where is my friend?" is the predictable substitution of one known data channel for another. (NavTalk and CyberGuide are corroborating but are product/publication art with contestable §102(b) dates — see §6.)

Ground 4 — Claims 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Claim 15/18's "device for retrieving a route" is squarely met by Hayashida's route searching and guide-route display (and by Suzuki '795 / Suzuki '796). The added "direction of movement by the arrow" is Ghaem's arrow (and Hayashida's arrow-form route displays, which Apple's petition charted as "Hayashida Displays Routes as Arrows"). Claims 17/20 (bent-line route with start/end symbols plus a symbol for the present place) are met by Suzuki '795/'796 and Hayashida route displays combined with ordinary cartographic practice. Claim 16/19's "grid information" — if construed as the underlying street grid of the displayed route — is inherent in any map-based route display (Hayashida).

Ground 5 — Claim 6 (and 7, 8, 9)

Claim 6 is the thinnest-supported ground in the public record (no IPR or reexam has challenged claim 6), so this is my own mapping:

• location + orientation sensor → Ghaem / Lauro / Hayashida;
• "device connected to a server" that outputs location and direction and receives retrieved information computed at the server → Konishi (navigation device + communication method) and/or Hayashida's beacon receiver 26 (infrastructure-supplied information received at the device), in further view of the admitted prior art in the '317's own Background: Internet map/content services reached from a portable telephone/PHS through base station → wireless network → gateway → WWW server → application server with a spatial information database (the '317's own FIG. 9).
• Motivation: the '317 specification admits that "portable terminals as portable telephones and PHS terminals are low in processing capacity," which is precisely the design rationale for pushing retrieval to a server. Under KSR, that is a design choice driven by a known constraint, not an inventive contribution.
• Claims 7/8/9 (stores/roads; lists; list-then-detail) → Hayashida's facility retrieval plus the admitted content-service art, with list/detail navigation being a conventional small-screen UI.

5. Why a PHOSITA would have combined these references

1. Same field, same problem. Every reference is a portable/vehicle navigation aid answering "which way to the destination, and how far?" Ghaem and Hayashida both expressly contemplate pedestrian users.
2. Predictable combination of known elements. Position source + heading source + destination input + small display is a four-element kit whose assembly was routine by 1999; KSR teaches that such combinations are obvious absent a result "beyond what one would expect."
3. The patent's own stated design pressures. The '317 Background concedes that car navigation "is too large for a walker," that PDA+GPS systems "will not be able to supply such real time information as movies, entertainment … restaurants," and that portable telephones "are just provided with some button keys … so they will not be able to cope with inputs of complicated retrieving conditions." Those are the very problems the claims purport to solve — admissions that frame the solution as an engineering response to known constraints.
4. The claimed "invention" is Ghaem's stated advantage. The '317's abstract tout ("the arrow always points in the direction of the destination") is Ghaem's express benefit ("the user does not need to be familiar with compass or navigation terminology").
5. Small-screen compression. Turning a map into an arrow/bent line was a known response to display-size limits (Ghaem's pointer; Hayashida's "simple map" vs. "detailed map" split screen) — not a new insight.
6. Server offload. Client-server map retrieval over cellular/PHS was admitted art; moving retrieval to the server to accommodate a low-capacity handset is a predictable architectural choice.

6. Where the case is weakest (rebuttal preview)

• Element 1(b)'s "orientation of the terminal." Maxell's IPR2020-00407 POPR attacked exactly this: Hayashida's azimuth sensing reflects the car's travel heading, not the physical pointing direction of a handheld device held by a walking user. If a court adopts that distinction, Hayashida alone fails and the case must rest on Ghaem/Lauro, which must then supply the destination-and-present-place position display. That is why Ghaem + Hayashida is the stronger combination than Hayashida alone.
• Abowd/CyberGuide's §102(b) status was genuinely contested (POPR §III.D.2: insufficient evidence of public accessibility of the CMU/Pitt exhibits). Avoid Abowd-based grounds.
• NavTalk is system/product art; on-sale/public-use dates near the 1999-07-12 priority date are contestable.
• Maruyama (JPH10-197277) published 1998-07-31, less than one year before priority and by an inventor with the same surname; its status as "by others" under pre-AIA §102(a) and its interaction with §103(c) needs to be resolved, and I could not verify its content.
• Garthwaite issued after the priority date; its date as §102(e) art depends on its filing date, which I did not verify.
• Claim-drafting defects cut both ways. Claim 10 recites "said destination" though it never introduces one; claim 16 recites "said grid information" with no antecedent in claim 15; claim 20 inexplicably depends "according to claim 17." These are §112 problems, not §103 answers — but a construction that preserves validity (reading claim 10's "destination" as the other terminal's position) makes the claim broader and more easily obvious.
• Secondary considerations are thin and largely unproven. The ZTE jury found claims 1–3 not invalid, but that was on ZTE's particular grounds and does not establish non-obviousness over Ghaem/Hayashida/Konishi. Any commercial-success argument would need a nexus to the claimed feature; a "walking navigation arrow" was already on the market (Ghaem-family devices, NavTalk) before the critical date.
• Timing/licensing context. The patent expired 2020-07-11. Whatever the merits, §103 is now mainly relevant to the pre-expiration damages window (ZTE verdict; the settled Apple case).

7. Confidence and verification status

Bottom line: Claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 17 face a strong §103 attack on Ghaem alone, and a stronger one on Ghaem + Hayashida (or Hayashida + Ghaem), with Konishi added for the network/server limitations of claims 6 and 10 and Suzuki '795/'796 for the bent-line route display of claims 17/20. The most defensible pockets of the patent are the ones nobody has publicly attacked on this record — claims 6–9 and 16/19 — and even those look obvious once the specification's own admissions about client-server map services and low-capacity handsets are treated as prior art.