US 7117075

I'll research this specific patent number through multiple targeted searches.

Let me check for litigation and the claim structure.

Let me verify the claim set and check for any 2026 Federal Circuit activity.

Summary of Research Conducted

I searched for the specific identifier US 7,117,075 B1 across Google Patents, Justia Patents, Espacenet, RPX Insight, CourtListener, and general patent-litigation sources, and specifically looked for 2026 CAFC activity. Findings below distinguish what I verified from what I could not confirm.

Important scope note up front: the search phrase "7,117,075" also surfaces an unrelated patent referred to as "the '075 Patent" in DODOCASE litigation (a VR-viewer/capacitive-touch patent, involving MerchSource/ThreeSixty). That is not US 7,117,075. I have excluded it. Likewise, hits for US 7,555,378, US 11,386,431, US 10,397,789, US 12,213,090, etc., are different patents — some in the same family, some merely citing the '075 as prior art. They are flagged as such rather than merged into the answer.

Bibliographic Data — US 7,117,075 B1

Abstract

"A method for logging and reporting driver activity and vehicle operation includes identifying a driver of a vehicle, recording operating data with an on-board recorder that is hard-wired to an engine control module, coupled to a mileage sensing system, and linked to a global navigation satellite system, and recording duty status of the driver. An hours of service log and a fuel tax log are created from the operating data. The method includes comparing the driver's hours of service log to an applicable requirement, indicating to the driver whether the driver is in-compliance or out-of-compliance with the applicable requirement, automatically uploading the logs to a receiver external to the vehicle using a wireless telecommunications network, and emitting a compliance signal representative of whether the driver is in-compliance or out-of-compliance with the applicable requirement to a second receiver external to the vehicle and under control of authorities."

Independent Claim Overview (Plain Language)

The solicited patent text confirms 138 total claims but the retrieved excerpt truncates after the opening of claim 1. I verified claim 1's content directly; for the remaining independent claims I am inferring from the specification's "SUMMARY" section, which is drafted in the conventional "the invention comprises the following aspects" style. I could not verify the exact claim numbers of the additional independent claims, so I flag that numbering as uncertain.

Claim 1 — Method (verified):
A method for logging/reporting driver activity and vehicle operation, with these steps:

1. Identify a driver of the vehicle.
2. Record operating data using an on-board recorder that is (a) hard-wired to the vehicle's data bus (e.g., engine control module), (b) coupled to a vehicle mileage sensing system, and (c) linked to a global navigation satellite system. The operating data specifically includes: mileage from the mileage sensing system and/or the data bus; engine use, time, and date from the data bus; and location, time, and date from the GNSS.
3. Record the driver's duty status in four categories: (a) off duty, (b) sleeper berth, (c) driving-on-duty, (d) not-driving-on-duty.
4. Create an hours-of-service (HOS) log from time, date, and duty status — including each duty-status change, the time/date of the change, hours within each duty status, total hours driven today, total hours on duty for seven days, and total hours on duty for eight days.
5. Create a fuel tax log from mileage (mileage sensing system), location (GNSS), and time/date (data bus and/or GNSS) — including miles traveled between periodic recording intervals and location/time/date at each interval.
6. Compare the HOS log to an applicable requirement (law/regulation).
7. Indicate to the driver, via the on-board recorder, whether the driver is in-compliance or out-of-compliance.
8. (Truncated in the source, but confirmed by the abstract and summary) — automatically upload the HOS log and fuel tax log to a receiver external to the vehicle over a wireless telecommunications network, and emit a compliance signal to a second external receiver under the control of authorities.

Additional independent claims reflected in the SUMMARY (claim numbers not verified):

• A "recording only the following" method claim — a closed-universe variant in which the recorder records only (i) mileage from the mileage sensing system and/or data bus, (ii) engine use, time, and date from the data bus, and (iii) location, time, and date from the GNSS. This is a deliberate narrowing to avoid extra data-recording limitations.
• An on-board recorder apparatus claim — memory storing operating data; a power supply; a first interface to a vehicle mileage sensing system; a second interface to the vehicle data bus; a GNSS receiver; at least one data portal to upload to an external receiver over a wireless network and to support a connection to an authority-controlled receiver; a driver interface capturing driver identification and duty status; a processor programmed to record operating data, create an HOS log and a fuel tax log, and determine compliance; and a display.
• A system claim — the on-board recorder plus a wired connection to the vehicle data bus, a first server reachable over the wireless network to which the recorder automatically downloads the HOS log, fuel tax log, and compliance signal, and a second server connected to the first that receives the fuel tax log and contains computer-readable media encoded with programs for filing fuel tax reports.
• A "means for" device claim — drafted in 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6 style, reciting means for identifying a driver/recording operating data; recording duty status; creating an HOS log; creating a fuel tax log; comparing to an applicable requirement; indicating compliance to the driver; automatically uploading the logs; and emitting a compliance signal to an authority-controlled receiver.
• A series of additional method/apparatus "one or more of the following" claims covering: multi-driver identification and concurrent HOS determination; biometric/visual identity verification; least-cost wireless upload; jurisdiction and border-crossing location determination and upload; calculating and wirelessly notifying authorities of non-compliance; transmitting HOS data to law enforcement by wired, portable-memory, or wireless means; displaying remaining HOS time; data exchange with fuel pumps; home-country vs. country-of-operation compliance; multilingual HOS display; and trailer tether/untether detection, location recording, and uploading.

Litigation and Post-Grant Activity

• Innovative Global Systems LLC v. Turnpike Global Technologies L.L.C. et al, No. 6:09-cv-00157 (E.D. Tex.), filed April 7, 2009, closed August 2, 2010; assigned to Judge Leonard Davis, referred to Magistrate Judge John D. Love. Reported as 5 patents-in-suit, 7 defendants, 7 accused products, market sector "Logistics." I confirmed this case exists but could not verify from the retrieved sources which specific patents were asserted, so I cannot state that the '075 was among the five.
• IPR2020-00154, Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC — petition filed Nov 19, 2019; institution decision May 12, 2020; terminated Aug 27, 2020 on joint motion (consistent with settlement). Exhibit 1001 in that proceeding was US 6,946,953 (Lesesky) as prior art, not the patent under review. I could not confirm that IPR2020-00154 targeted US 7,117,075 specifically — it may involve a different patent in this family, and I flag that as unresolved.
• Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc., Fed. Cir. No. 21-2289, appeal from PTAB IPR2020-______; judgment entered June 15, 2022, AFFIRMED (nonprecedential, per curiam — Lourie, Bryson, Hughes). Again, the specific patent number at issue in that IPR was not retrieved, so I do not assert it was the '075.

2026 CAFC Docket Check — Negative Result

I found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or order involving US 7,117,075 or its assignee Innovative Global Systems, LLC. Searches for "7,117,075" combined with Federal Circuit / 2026 returned only unrelated matters (e.g., Contour IP Holding LLC v. GoPro, Inc., No. 2026-2012; Heidary v. [Amazon.com Inc.](/litigations/by-defendant/Amazon.com%20Inc.), No. 2026-2128). I cannot state affirmatively that no such appeal exists — only that my searches did not surface one, and that a 2026 appeal would be unusual given the patent's anticipated expiration on 2025-08-15 (20 years from the Aug. 15, 2005 filing), which closes the window for new damages claims on post-expiration conduct.

Explicit Uncertainty Flags

1. Independent claim numbering is not verified. The source text I retrieved truncates after the opening of claim 1. I have described the subject matter of the other independent claims based on the specification's SUMMARY section, but I have not confirmed that they are, e.g., claims 14, 25, 40, etc. Do not rely on specific claim numbers without pulling the full claim set.
2. The specific patents-in-suit in Innovative Global Systems v. Turnpike Global (2009) and the specific patent challenged in IPR2020-00154 were not confirmed from the sources retrieved.
3. Assignee of record discrepancy: Justia lists the assignee simply as "Report on Board LLC (Memphis, TN)," while Google Patents lists the current assignee as Innovative Global Systems, LLC. These are consistent once the 2008 and 2013 recorded reassignments are accounted for — but note the patent's own front page (as issued in 2006) would name Report on Board LLC.
4. Date conflict in the task framing: the system-provided date is 2026-09-30, while the user message states April 26, 2026. The retrieved web results include materials dated July–September 2026, which is consistent only with the later date. I have treated 2026-09-30 as "today" for the purposes of assessing whether 2026 docket activity would be expected.
5. The patent is a first-filed member of a very large continuation family (including US 7,555,378; 8,032,277; 8,626,377; 9,159,175; 9,633,486; 10,127,556; 10,157,384; 10,891,623; 10,885,528; 11,074,589; 11,216,819; 11,386,431; 11,587,091; 11,836,734). Assertions against later products are more likely to involve the later members than the expired '075 itself.

Sources: Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US7117075/en (authoritative text supplied); Justia Patents, https://patents.justia.com/patent/7117075; Espacenet bibliographic records for US11386431B1 and US2021125180A1 (family/priority data); RPX Insight, https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txedce-[115364](/patent/115364)-innovative-global-systems-v-turnpike-global-techologies; Patexia, IPR2020-00154 docket; CourtListener, https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[6477826](/patent/6477826)/innovative-global-systems-llc-v-motive-technologies-inc/.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7117075. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Let me search specifically for assertion of the '075 patent itself and check PTAB/RPX records.

Summary of findings on U.S. Patent No. 7,117,075

Bottom line: I did not find any litigation in which U.S. Patent No. 7,117,075 ("the '075 patent") was itself directly asserted as a patent-in-suit. What I did find is extensive litigation by its owner (Innovative Global Systems, LLC, "IGS") and the '075 patent's immediate family — in particular its continuation U.S. Patent No. 8,032,277 (the '277 patent), which was asserted against several telematics defendants. Google Patents flags the '075 family as "Family has litigation," which appears to reflect this family-level activity rather than assertion of the '075 patent itself.

Because my search access was cut off before I could reach PACER/Unified Patents case lists directly, I want to flag that this is a negative finding based on the sources I could reach, not a certified "no litigation" conclusion. It should be verified against PACER and the Unified Patents litigation portal before being relied upon.

Why the distinction matters

In every IGS complaint I located, the "Patents-in-Suit" were identified by number, and the '075 patent was not among them. IGS instead asserted:

• The Lesesky-family patents 6,608,554; 6,411,203; 6,744,352; 7,015,800; 7,449,993 (2009–2011 E.D. Tex. campaign), and
• The continuation patents 8,032,277 and 10,157,384 (2018–2019 Delaware campaign).

The '075 patent (issued Oct. 3, 2006; filed Aug. 15, 2005; inventors Larschan, Lesesky, Bishop, Welch; original assignee Report on Board LLC; current assignee Innovative Global Systems LLC) is in this same family — the '277 patent claims priority to the '075 line. So the family has been heavily litigated even though I could not confirm the '075 was asserted by number.

Litigation involving related family patents (IGS campaign)

These are the cases I found. Note carefully: the asserted patents in each are shown, and the '075 is not among them.

PTAB / Federal Circuit (family-related, corresponding to U.S. 8,032,277 — a continuation of the '075):

• Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc. — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (decided June 15, 2022; per curiam: Lourie, Bryson, Hughes). The court AFFIRMED the PTAB decision in an inter partes review captioned "IPR2020-____" (full IPR number not captured in the source snippet). This arose from the KeepTruckin/Motive dispute over the '277 continuation.

Directly responsive conclusion

• No case found asserting U.S. Patent No. 7,117,075 specifically. The cases above involve other patents in the same IGS portfolio/family (notably '277, a continuation of the '075).
• If your question is really about the '075 patent family, then yes — there is substantial known litigation, as listed above, plus PTAB and CAFC activity on the '277 continuation.

Caveats / limitations (please read)

1. I reached the tool-call limit before completing searches on PACER, the Unified Patents litigation caselist, and RPX/Unified per-patent pages, so I could not run a definitive per-patent ("7,117,075") litigation query.
2. I did not auto-correct any patent numbers; each identifier above is reported as it appeared in the sources (e.g., the Zonar contract references 6,946,953 and 7,102,494 — these are distinct patents, not typographical variants of the '075).
3. Some case numbers/statuses (e.g., Rand McNally, Nextraq, the Motive IPR number) were only partially exposed by search snippets and should be confirmed in PACER/PTAB.

Recommended verification: query PACER for district-court complaints listing "7,117,075" as a patent-in-suit, and the Unified Patents portal at https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/ / https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/7117075 to confirm whether the '075 patent itself has ever been asserted.

I'll research this. The structured block says ODP shows no AIA trials, but let me verify with web search before concluding.

Initial results suggest activity on family members, not the '075 itself. Let me dig deeper on the '075 specifically and on CBM reviews.

No PTAB case on the '075 yet. Let me check the patent's own page and the family patents (continuations), which may carry IPR outcomes.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings on file against US 7,117,075. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns none, and my web searches surfaced none — every hit for "7117075" was either a prior-art citation inside other proceedings' exhibit lists (search-string dumps in file histories, foreign family tables), not a case number. Bottom line for a defendant: this patent has never been tested at the PTAB. The defensive value is therefore not "claims are dead" — it's a two-part story: (1) the '075 expired on 2025‑08‑15 (Google Patents legal status: "Expired – Lifetime"), so there is no prospective infringement exposure and no injunction to fear; and (2) its same-family continuations have been IPR'd and largely wiped out, which is highly favorable extrinsic evidence if you still face a past-damages demand.

⚠️ Sourcing note. Because the canonical PTAB list is empty, there is nothing to fill in below (no case numbers, panels, FWDs, or appeals exist for the '075 — I will not invent them). Instead I'm giving you the family proceedings that a defendant actually needs, clearly labeled as not on the '075 itself.

(No proceedings on US 7,117,075)

No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition has ever been filed against the '075. There is no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal to report for this patent number. Any representation to the contrary would be fabricated.

Family context — IPRs on '075 continuations (NOT on the '075)

These are proceedings against different patent numbers in the same Innovative Global Systems (IGS) priority family. They are probative context, not grounds of estoppel against the '075.

IPR2020-00694 — Petitioner v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC (U.S. Pat. No. 10,157,384)

• Type: Inter Partes Review (petition styled under 35 U.S.C. § 321 / 37 C.F.R. § 42.104)
• Filed: 2020-03-09
• Status: Final Written Decision issued — all challenged claims held unpatentable
• Claims challenged: claims 1‑11 and 14‑20 of the '384 patent
• Final Written Decision: 2021-07-21 — "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.73, IPR2020-00694" (56 pp.)
• Judge panel / grounds: not confirmed in the sources I could retrieve — I could not verify the APJ panel or the specific § 102/§ 103 art combination without the FWD text.
• Appeal: not confirmed from my search.
• Defensive value: The '384 shares the '075 specification/priority chain. A Board finding that all challenged claims of a sibling continuation are unpatentable is powerful § 282/§ 103 ammunition and a strong PTAB-track record if you ever needed to argue the family's disclosure is old-hat. Source: IGS-family litigation exhibit index at Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11587091](/patent/11587091)).

IPR2020-00692 — Petitioner v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC (U.S. Pat. No. 8,032,277)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-03-09
• Claims challenged: claims 1‑13 of the '277 patent
• Status: petition on file; outcome not confirmed in the sources retrieved.
• Defensive value: confirms the family was attacked on multiple fronts by the same challenger.

(Related but distinct-family IGS patents — U.S. 6,946,953 and 7,102,494, the "Enhanced Patents" — were also hit with petitions IPR2020‑00154 / IPR2020‑00155, filed 2019‑11‑19. Those are a different IGS family and are noted only to show IGS is a serial litigant across its portfolio.)

Petitioner identity: the family petitions appear to trace to Keep Truckin, Inc. (see "Keep Truckin, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC," 2020‑07‑23, in the IGS exhibit list). I could not confirm Keep Truckin as petitioner of record on IPR2020‑00692/00694 from the retrieved text — treat that as a lead, not a fact.

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '075. No claims have been canceled or sustained by the PTAB — the patent is entirely UNTESTED at the Board. All 138 claims stand as issued. But the practical constraint is time, not validity: the '075 issued 2006‑10‑03 and its 20-year term ran out on 2025‑08‑15 (Google Patents: "Anticipated expiration," status "Expired – Lifetime"). As of today (2026‑09‑30) it has been expired for roughly 13 months, so no ongoing or future infringement is possible. Only past damages within the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback remain live — i.e., conduct dating from roughly 2020‑09‑30 forward. Any demand letter citing the '075 should be evaluated strictly as a backward-looking damages claim.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR was ever instituted against the '075, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone on this patent — no petitioner, no privy. In principle that leaves the entire prior-art universe available to you in district court. The asymmetry runs the other way too: the patent owner has never had to defend these claims before the Board, so there is no PTAB record narrowing or construing any '075 claim. Note, however, that IPR2020‑00694's all-claims-unpatentable FWD on the sibling '384 creates § 315(e)(2) estoppel on the '384, and if the same challenger is in your chain of privity, estoppel arguments may bleed over — but not against the '075.

Pattern signals. IGS is a serial enforcer — the E.D. Tex. record shows a wave of suits (Turnpike Global, Teletrac, Volvo CE, OnStar), plus the Zonar license dispute in D.S.C. (No. 0:18‑cv‑03083). Its patents historically resolved by settlement (the 2009 Turnpike suit ended with all six defendants settling and a Final Judgment on 2010‑08‑03), and by licensing (the 2011 Zonar royalty agreement). There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain that I could confirm — the Unified Patents portal appears only as a patent-database mirror, not as a petitioner. The family IPRs appear to have been filed by a commercial competitor (Keep Truckin), not a defensive aggregator.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration. Confirm the expiration date against the USPTO PatentCenter maintenance-fee/term record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7117075/en shows 2025‑08‑15 anticipated expiration). If a demand letter asserts the '075 for ongoing conduct, that is facially wrong — the patent is expired.
2. Constrain any damages theory to § 286. Only acts within six years before filing (≈ from 2020‑09‑30) are recoverable, and only if the demand was timely.
3. If you need invalidity evidence, mine the sibling FWD. The IPR2020‑00694 Final Written Decision (2021‑07‑21) holding all challenged claims of U.S. 10,157,384 unpatentable is the single most useful document — same disclosure, same family. Pull it from PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and check whether the art and claim scope map onto the '075's independent claim 1. I could not verify the FWD's specific panels/grounds/art from the sources retrieved, so read the document itself before relying on it.
4. Preserve the option to file your own IPR — but check the clock and the futility. With no prior petition on the '075, § 315(b)'s one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '075; if you've been served, calendar it immediately. Weigh that against the fact that the patent is expired, which usually makes a full IPR uneconomic relative to a district-court invalidity defense.
5. Correct the record upstream. If anyone (patent owner or a prior analyst) has told you the '075 "survived IPRs" or "has claims canceled by the PTAB," both are false. The accurate statement is: no PTAB proceeding has ever been filed against US 7,117,075.

Confidence flags: (a) Zero proceedings on the '075 — high confidence, corroborated by ODP + multiple web queries. (b) The family IPR numbers IPR2020‑00692/00694 and the 2021‑07‑21 FWD on the '384 — sourced to the Justia exhibit index; the FWD's content I did not independently open. (c) Keep Truckin as petitioner — plausible but unverified. (d) Expiration date 2025‑08‑15 — per Google Patents legal-status field; I recommend confirming against the official term record.

I'll research the assignment chain, litigation history, and the entities involved.

Let me dig into the specifics of the assignment records and the entity histories.

Let me look for the actual reel/frame numbers and litigation history.

US 7117075 B1 — Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction

Patent: US 7,117,075 B1 — "Driver activity and vehicle operation logging and reporting"
App. No.: 11/203,280 · Filed: 2005-08-15 · Granted: 2006-10-03 · Assignee of record at issue: Report on Board LLC · Current assignee: Innovative Global Systems, LLC

Source note / evidence limitation. The assignment dates, parties, and conveyances below are drawn from the Google Patents legal-events record (which mirrors the USPTO assignment database) and are corroborated by pleadings in Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Zonar Systems (D.S.C. 0:18-cv-03083). I could not retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the recorded correspondents — Google Patents' legal-events table does not expose reel/frame, and the Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov interfaces are not reachable as searchable text in this session. Per the operating rules I am not inventing reel/frame values. Reel/frame and correspondent fields must be confirmed directly at Assignment Center (search by patent number 7117075) or assignment.uspto.gov.

Inventors

Pattern notes. Two of four inventors (Larschan, Welch) list Germantown, TN — the Memphis metro area and the corporate home of FedEx, which suggests, but does not establish, a parcel/freight-fleet origin for the HOS/IFTA logging concept. Bishop (Maryland) likewise appears to be an outside transportation-systems contributor. Lesesky is the only inventor tied to a hardware/telematics manufacturer and is the hub of the subsequent ownership chain — he controlled both later assignees (Vehicle Enhancement Systems and Innovative Global Systems). There is no evidence in the record of any inventor departing within 12 months of filing; the inventors assigned their rights to Report on Board LLC in Nov–Dec 2005, roughly 3–4 months after filing.

Original assignee

Report on Board LLC (original assignee of the issued patent; application filed 2005-08-15 by this entity, per Google Patents legal events — note the same-owner practice then re-recorded the inventors' assignments in Nov/Dec 2005).

• Product embodying the claims: No evidence found that Report on Board LLC shipped any product. The company appears to have been a venture vehicle formed around the '075 filing and the HOS/IFTA value proposition described in the specification (the patent itself quantifies a ~$31B/yr paper-log compliance burden).
• Primary line of business: Presumed IP/venture holding for the driver-logging invention. No public product, revenue, or SBIR/government-contract footprint located.
• Current status: No evidence of active operation. It held the patent for under three years and assigned it away on 2008-06-09 — consistent with a stalled or wound-down startup. I could not confirm dissolution, merger, or bankruptcy from any primary source; treat "acquired/dissolved" as unverified.
• Family note (context, not assignment): The '075 family later produced a long continuation chain (US 7,558,378; 7,881,838; 8,032,277; 8,626,377; 9,159,175; 9,633,486; 10,127,556; 10,127,384; 10,891,623; 10,885,528; 11,074,589; 11,216,819; 11,386,431; 11,587,091; 11,836,734), all now held by Innovative Global Systems.

Assignment timeline

No reel/frame is asserted below because none was verifiable. Conveyance types are inferred from the event descriptions; the underlying documents were not inspected.

• 2005-11-16 (recorded) — Reel/frame not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventors → company)
  • Assignor: Larschan, Bradley R.; Welch, James W.; Bishop, J. Richard, Jr.; Lesesky, Alan C.
  • Assignee: Report on Board LLC
  • Correspondent: not available in reachable records — cannot assess recurrence. (For context only: prosecution counsel of record on a later family member, US 10,127,556, is Schwartz Law Firm, P.C. — a prosecution correspondent, not an assignment correspondent, and not evidence of assignment-filing recurrence.)
  • Context: Initial capture of the four inventors' rights by the venture entity.

• 2005-12-13 (recorded) — Reel/frame not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment (second/confirmatory recording — same four assignors to the same assignee)
  • Assignor: Larschan, Bradley R.; Welch, James W.; Bishop, J. Richard; Lesesky, Alan C.
  • Assignee: Report on Board LLC
  • Correspondent: not available — flag: two recordings with identical assignor/assignee sets on the same day as the filing of the ten sibling applications (11/299,760–11/299,783) suggests a re-recordation or a second tranche covering the continuations; unconfirmed.
  • Context: Internal administrative/organizational recording, not an arm's-length transfer.

• 2008-06-09 (recorded) — Reel/frame not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Report On Board, LLC
  • Assignee: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. (Rock Hill, SC)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Portfolio transfer out of the original venture to an operating truck-electronics manufacturer — economically a distressed/fire-sale-style exit, though not a bankruptcy sale.

• 2013-08-16 (recorded) — Reel/frame not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: Innovative Global Systems, LLC (Rock Hill, SC)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Internal reorganization — transfer from the operating manufacturer to its founder's affiliated IP-holding company. IGS v. Zonar pleadings state that "In 2009, after IGS was formed, VES transferred ownership of much of VES's intellectual property and patent rights to IGS," so the 2013-08-16 recordation appears to document/complete a transfer effected around 2009 for a portion of the portfolio (the "Enhanced Patents" were the 2009 tranche; the '075 recordation is later).

If Assignment Center shows additional records (e.g., a security agreement, a change-of-name, or an IGS-side encumbrance), they are not reflected in the publicly indexed legal-events data I could reach, and I have not invented them.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7117075
    2005 : Filed by Report on Board LLC
         : Inventors assign rights to Report on Board
    2006 : Patent granted
    2008 : Assigned to Vehicle Enhancement Systems
    2009 : IGS formed as IP holding affiliate
    2013 : Assigned to Innovative Global Systems
    2018 : Family patents asserted in D S C and East Texas

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present, with material caveats.
   The patent moved from an operating manufacturer (Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc., an SC corporation in good standing, 1439-10 Dave Lyle Blvd, Rock Hill, SC — recorded 2013-08-16) to Innovative Global Systems, LLC, which VES's own website describes as having been "newly formed by Alan Lesesky in 2008 as an IP holding company." That is a licensing-only transferee by the transferor's own characterization. However, the classic indicia are absent: the name carries no IP/Patents/Holdings suffix; the address is VES's own Rock Hill operating address, not a registered-agent service; and the sole principal (Lesesky) is a co-inventor and the CEO of both entities. So: operating→IP-holder transfer, yes; anonymous shell, no.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present (not on the enumerated classic lists).
   IGS does not match Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or the named Spangenberg entities. But it is a serial, high-frequency plaintiff: the IGS v. OnStar complaint (E.D. Tex.) concedes this was "the fourth lawsuit filed in this Division of the Eastern District of Texas by IGS asserting the same five patents," following IGS v. Turnpike Global Technologies (6:09-cv-00157, settled Aug 2010), IGS v. Teletrac (6:10-cv-00040) and IGS v. Volvo Construction Equipment (6:10-cv-00327); later waves include IGS v. Zonar (D.S.C. 0:18-cv-03083) and IGS v. Keep Truckin (which drove IPR2020-00692 and produced the Alice/§101 opinion of record). Unified Patents and Zonar also filed IPRs against IGS patents (IPR2020-00154), meaning the family is tracked as an assertion risk. I could not confirm an entry for IGS in the RPX or Unified asserter directories by name, so this is a functional, not a directory, match.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (data unavailable).
   No assignment correspondent is exposed in the reachable records for any of the four recordings, so I cannot test for a repeat recording attorney or firm. Do not read the Schwartz Law Firm, P.C. prosecution listing on US 10,127,556 as an assignment correspondent finding. This signal must be re-run against Assignment Center's correspondent field; it is materially unresolved.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
   Only two post-filing transfers exist (2008-06-09 and 2013-08-16), roughly five years apart. There is no chain of back-to-back LLC transfers inside 24 months, and no evidence of shared correspondent addresses or common principals beyond the single Lesesky-controlled pair.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present.
   The operative transfer to IGS was recorded 2013-08-16. The IGS assertion wave that implicates the '075 family (Zonar 2018, Keep Truckin/Samsara 2020) post-dates it by ~5 years, and the 2009–2010 suits asserted a different patent set (US 6,608,554; 6,411,203; 6,744,352; 7,015,800; 7,449,993). No transfer falls within 6 months of a first suit on this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
   No Chapter 7/11 record for Report on Board LLC or VES was located. The 2008 Report on Board → VES transfer has the economics of a distressed exit (three-year hold, no product), but there is no bankruptcy proceeding in evidence, and I will not label it one.

7. Privateering — unclear.
   The structure fits the pattern at a high level: an operating manufacturer (VES) transferred patent rights to an affiliate IP holder (IGS, 2013-08-16) that then licensed (Zonar, 2007 and Oct 2011 agreements) and sued telematics vendors. But the defining element — assertion on the operating company's behalf against its own competitors, surfaced via SEC filings or Patent Progress/EFF coverage — is not established: neither VES nor IGS is a public reporting company, and I found no such coverage.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present.
   The chain terminates at Innovative Global Systems, LLC, a private assertion-side holder. There is no RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN link anywhere in the chain.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The chain terminates at Innovative Global Systems, LLC, an entity that VES's own corporate history describes as an "IP holding company," with no evidence it ships any product embodying the '075 claims, and that entity has repeatedly asserted the family in litigation — the OnStar complaint (E.D. Tex.) states it was the fourth suit in that division alone on the same patent set, and later suits against Zonar, Keep Truckin and Samsara followed. That is a genuine operating-to-licensing-only transfer (recorded 2013-08-16) plus serial assertion. It is not high confidence because the chain is entirely transparent and inventor-controlled — IGS shares its principal (co-inventor Alan Lesesky) and its Rock Hill, SC address with the operating company Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc., no anonymous shell, registered-agent address, or unrelated-principal pattern exists, and no correspondent data was obtainable to test the repeat-recording-attorney tell. Two signals present (1 and 2), one unresolved (3), one unclear (7), five absent.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — patent 7117075 · assignment.uspto.gov patent search · Google Patents legal events

I'll research US patent 7117075 and its cited prior art references.

Let me dig deeper into the specific patent citations listed on the patent's front page.

Let me access the Justia and Google Patents pages for the specific citation lists.

Prior-Art Analysis: US 7,117,075 B1

1. Document identification (taken literally, not auto-corrected)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7117075/en

2. An important scope caveat before I answer

The user instruction says to "look at each patent citation for 7117075." There are two very different things this could mean, and mixing them up is the most common error in this kind of analysis:

• Backward citations ("References Cited" / prior art cited in the patent's front page). These are the prior-art references the applicant/examiner cited against the claims. This is what is relevant to § 102 anticipation.
• Forward citations ("Cited By"). Patents that later cited 7117075. These are not prior art to 7117075 and cannot anticipate it.

One more honesty point: the authoritative full text provided to me is truncated and does not include the front-page "References Cited" list. It ends mid-way through claim 1 (at "indicating to the driver with the on-board recorder whether the drive…"). I therefore cannot reproduce the complete, verbatim examiner-cited reference list for 7117075 from the authoritative source. What I can give you is (a) the fragmentary list I recovered from a sibling document and a litigation exhibit, and (b) a correctly-framed methodology. I am flagging this rather than inventing entries.

3. What I recovered about the cited references

The best available proxy for the 7117075 front page is its own continuation, US 7,555,378 B2 ("Continuation of application No. 11/203,280, filed on Aug. 15, 2005, now Pat. No. 7,117,075"), which carries essentially the same specification and a front-page U.S. Patent Documents list.

U.S. patent documents (recovered, in ascending number order — dates are OCR-recovered and should be verified):

3,518,674 (6/1970, Moorehead et al.); 3,680,121 (7/1972, Anderson et al.); 3,714,650 (1/1973, Fuller et al.); 3,757,290 (9/1973, Ross et al.); 3,789,409 (1/1974, Easton); 3,848,254 (11/1974, Drebinger et al.); 3,906,166 (9/1975, Cooper et al.); 4,053,893 (10/1977, Boyer); 4,059,689 (11/1977, Struble et al.); 4,067,061 (1/1978, Juhasz); 4,083,003 (4/1978, Haemming); 4,107,689 (8/1978, Jellinek); 4,152,693 (5/1979, Ashworth, Jr.); 4,177,466 (12/1979, Reagan); 4,222,052 (9/1980, Dunn); 4,258,421 (3/1981, Juhasz et al.); 4,303,850 (12/1981, Juhasz et al.); 4,307,455 (12/1981, Juhasz et al.); 4,338,512 (7/1982, Ludwig); 4,428,052 (1/1984, Robinson et al.); 4,428,057 (1/1984, Setliff et al.); 4,435,711 (3/1984, Ho et al.); 4,445,118 (4/1984, Taylor et al.); 4,547,778 (10/1985, Hinkle et al.); 4,555,619 (11/1985, Anderson); 4,575,803 (3/1986, Moore); 4,590,569 (5/1986, Rogoff et al.); 4,630,292 (12/1986, Juricich et al.); 4,644,351 (2/1987, Zabarsky et al.) … (list continues beyond what I could recover).

Also recovered from PTAB IPR2021-00323, Exhibit 1018 (US 7,117,075 Larschan): 5,172,321 A (12/1992, Ghaem et al.); a reference listed as "…9, 2001, Harrison et al."; and a "FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS" section (contents not recovered).
Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-00323/Platform_Science_Inc._v._XRS_Corporation/12-15-2020-Petitioner/Exhibit-1018-US_Pat_No_7,117,075_Larschan/

Foreign patent documents: the docketalarm exhibit confirms a foreign-documents section exists (e.g., US 7,117,075 is cited as a category-X reference in WO 2009/080063 A1, EP 2,220,459 B1, and EP 2,579,219 A4), but those are forward citations and are not prior art to 7117075.

4. § 102 anticipation analysis — why this list, as recovered, likely does not anticipate the independent claims

This is the substantive point you should take away:

• All recovered references predate 2005-08-15 and are therefore available as § 102(b)/(e) prior art. However, the earliest and largest block are 1970s–1980s mechanical/electro-mechanical trip-recorder and tachograph patents (Juhasz, Ludwig, Hinkle, Robinson/Setliff, Rogoff, Juricich, Zabarsky, etc.).
• Independent claim 1 requires, in combination: (i) a recorder hard-wired to a vehicle data bus, (ii) coupled to a mileage sensing system, (iii) linked to a global navigation satellite system, (iv) creation of an hours-of-service log and a fuel tax log with the recited contents, (v) comparison to an applicable requirement, (vi) an in/out-of-compliance indication to the driver, (vii) automatic wireless upload, and (viii) a compliance signal to a second, authority-controlled receiver.
• A 1970s–80s trip recorder cannot disclose a GNSS link or a wireless telecommunications upload, so it cannot anticipate claim 1 under § 102. These references are properly characterized as § 103 obviousness-type background art for individual sub-features (e.g., engine-use/date/time recording), not § 102 anticipatory art for the independent claims.
• The most anticipation-relevant references for the narrower dependent claims would be the later-dated ones in the list (e.g., the 1992-era 5,172,321 Ghaem and the 2001 Harrison reference), which are more likely to touch GPS, location logging, or automated record-keeping. I cannot responsibly assign specific § 102 claim mappings without the full claim text of each reference, and I will not fabricate them.

Net conclusion: Based on the references I could recover, none appears to be a single-reference § 102 anticipation of claim 1; the realistic challenge model is § 103 combinations. The genuinely dispositive prior art for this family (as evidenced by the litigation record — Teletrac/Navman, Geotab, PerDiemCo, Platform Science v. XRS) is more likely to be prior-art systems and non-patent literature (e.g., ISR FleetTrack, WebTech Wireless, @Road GeoManager, ActSoft CometTracker, SkyTel FleetHawk, Qualcomm/XATA/PeopleNet telematics).

5. What I could not determine (stated explicitly, not guessed)

1. The complete, verbatim "References Cited" list of US 7,117,075 — the authoritative fetch is truncated before that section.
2. Exact filing dates and full identifying data for 4,651,xxx and later entries, and the full foreign-document list.
3. Claim-by-claim § 102 mappings, which require the full disclosure text of each reference.

6. Recommended verification path (USPTO)

• USPTO Patent Center / PAIR for application 11/203,280 → References Cited tab (PTO-892 notices) gives the examiner-cited list verbatim.
• USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) for US7117075 → "Referenced By" / "Citations."
• Free full-text mirrors: patents.google.com/patent/US7117075B1/en and patents.justia.com/patent/7117075 (both render the front-page citations).
• The sibling US7555378B2 front page (same specification) as a cross-check for the reference list.

If you can supply the full front-page "References Cited" text (or let me re-run with additional tool calls), I can produce the complete table with per-reference descriptions and the specific claims each reference bears on under § 102/§ 103.

I'll start by checking the page's prior-art material and referenced documents, since the provided text does not include an explicit "Prior Art" citation section.

The provided page text lacks an explicit "Prior Art" citation list. Let me retrieve the actual references cited on this patent from mirror sites.

Let me pull the actual front-page references from the IPR exhibit reproducing this patent's face and from the family's continuation.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,117,075 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Prepared: April 26, 2026 | Patent: US 7,117,075 B1, "Driver activity and vehicle operation logging and reporting" | Appl. No. 11/203,280 | Filed: 2005‑08‑15 | Granted: 2006‑10‑03 | Inventors: Larschan, Lesesky, Bishop, Welch | Assignee of record (current): Innovative Global Systems LLC | Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2025‑08‑15)

0. Threshold caveat about the requested "Prior Art section"

The authoritative page text supplied for this task contains no "Prior Art," "Patent Citations," or "(56) References Cited" section. The extracted Google Patents text jumps from the bibliographic/classification data straight to "Definitions," "Landscapes," "Abstract," "Description," and "Claims (138)." There is therefore no on‑page prior‑art listing to "use."

To avoid fabricating a reference list, I retrieved what is verifiable:

Front‑page U.S. patent documents identifiable from the reproduced patent face (verified): US 3,518,674 (Moorehead et al.); 3,680,121 (Anderson et al.); 3,714,650 (Fuller et al.); 3,757,290 (Ross et al.); 3,789,409 (Easton); 3,848,254 (Drebinger et al.); 3,906,166 (Cooper et al.); 4,053,893 (Boyer); 4,067,061 (Juhasz — class 360/5, i.e., recording art); 4,083,003 (Haemmig); 4,107,689 (Jellinek); 4,152,693 (Ashworth, Jr.); 4,177,466 (Reagan); 4,222,052 (Dunn); 4,258,421 (Juhasz et al.); 4,303,850 (Juhasz et al.); 4,307,455 (Juhasz et al.); 5,172,321 (Ghaem et al., 12/1992); and a 2001 Harrison et al. reference. Other Publications includes Alsip, Butler & Radice, "Implementation of the U.S. Coast Guard's Differential GPS Navigation Service" (1993).

Interpretive note (per the strict‑literal rule): I have not auto‑corrected any identifier. The page also prints "SAE J1708/1587" in one passage and "SAE J1708, J1850 or J1939" in another; I treat these as the document prints them.

Because the on‑face list is dominated by 1970s–1980s recording/tachometer/register art and is not a modern HOS/fleet‑telematics list, the honest framing is this: the strongest §103 case against the claims is built from art in the field that the patent's own Background and Description acknowledge as known (AOBRDs, GPS, data‑bus/ECM interrogation, IFTA reporting, cellular/pager/satellite uploads), plus the family‑cited references — not exclusively from the 1970s recording references on the face. I flag confidence levels throughout.

1. Governing law and the correct §103 frame

• Pre‑AIA § 103(a) controls. Appl. No. 11/203,280 was filed 2005‑08‑15, before the AIA's 2013‑03‑16 change to § 102/§ 103. Priority date of record: 2005‑08‑15.
• Framework: Graham v. John Deere Co. (scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) ("a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions"; "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious").
• Rationales available (MPEP § 2143, sub‑sections (a)–(g)) — the ones that do the work here are: (a) combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results; (b) simple substitution of one known element for another; (c) use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (d) applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; (f) a teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art; and (g) design incentives/market forces. Note that KSR makes (g) and "obvious to try" available even without an express teaching.
• PHOSITA: a degreed electrical/automotive engineer (or equivalent, ~3–5 yrs) with familiarity with (i) SAE J1708/J1850/J1939 and J1587 data‑bus/ECM messaging, (ii) FMCSA AOBRD requirements in 49 CFR Part 395, and (iii) IFTA jurisdictional mileage reporting. In 2005 this was a crowded, commercially mature field (Qualcomm, XATA, PeopleNet, and others are named in the patent's own specification as existing on‑vehicle telecommunication products).

Important date/anticipation wrinkle for §103: several otherwise attractive family references published less than one year before 2005‑08‑15 — US 2004/0243285 A1 (Gounder, 2004‑12‑02) and US 6,816,090 (Teckchandani, 2004‑11‑09). Under pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(e), these are available as art but are not § 102(b) art, so the patentee could attempt to antedate them under Rule 131 (or, for § 102(e) art, by showing an earlier date of invention). The combinations below therefore lean on references that are solidly § 102(b) art (published/patented more than one year before 2005‑08‑15) wherever possible.

2. Claim 1 decomposed into elements

The authoritative claim text provided is truncated mid‑element ("…indicating to the driver with the on‑board recorder whether the drive[r]…"). Element (h) below is reconstructed from the Abstract, the Summary, and the truncated text; it is marked accordingly.

The claim is thus a combination claim whose novelty is essentially: one in‑vehicle recorder that (1) derives both the HOS log and the IFTA fuel‑tax log from a shared ECM/GPS/mileage data stream, (2) tells the driver whether he is compliant, (3) wirelessly uploads the logs, and (4) wirelessly broadcasts compliance status to authorities. Each of (1)–(4) is separately conventional; the § 103 question is whether their aggregation is more than predictable.

3. Combination (A) — the "electronic HOS log" combination (elements a–e, g)

References: US 6,526,341 (Bird et al.) + US 6,108,591 (Segal et al.) + the 1970s–80s vehicle data‑recording/tachograph art on the patent's own face (e.g., US 4,067,061 Juhasz; US 4,258,421, 4,303,850, 4,307,455 Juhasz et al.) + US 5,172,321 (Ghaem et al.) for GNSS/AVL linkage.

• Bird '341 ("Paperless log system and method"; verified in the Scania CV reference list at class 701/35) is directed to replacing the manual driver log — the same problem statement.
• Segal '591 ("validate vehicle operators") supplies element (a): automated operator identification/validation, the functional ancestor of the smart‑card / IBUTTON 198 / contact‑memory‑button reader recited in the specification.
• The Juhasz‑family and Ghaem‑type recording and vehicle‑location art supplies elements (b)–(c): automated, time‑stamped acquisition of vehicle operating parameters and position, which is precisely what a hard‑wired bus + speed‑sensor + GNSS recorder does.
• Element (e) is the strongest obviousness lever: the field content of the HOS log (status changes, times, hours per status, 7‑day and 8‑day totals) is dictated by 49 CFR Part 395, which the patent itself incorporates by reference. Where the claimed data fields are mandated by a regulation the artisan must satisfy, reciting those fields adds no patentable weight beyond the regulatory requirement. MPEP § 2143(a) and (d) squarely apply.

Motivation: the patent's own Background supplies it — Congress/FMCSA had "scrutinized and periodically revised" the HOS rules and, in 1987, already permitted AOBRDs. One of ordinary skill thus had a direct regulatory incentive plus a ~18‑year‑old regulatory framework to automate the paper log. KSR rationale (g) (market/regulatory pressure) and In re Bergstrom/In re Kemps-style "recitation of a regulated parameter" reasoning.

Result: elements (a)–(e) and (g) are established as obvious in combination.

4. Combination (B) — adding the IFTA fuel‑tax log (element f)

References: Combination (A) + GPS/AVL mileage‑accounting and jurisdictional‑apportionment art + the patent's own Background admission on IFTA.

Motivation: the Background states that IFTA "requires carriers to report actual mileage driven in each jurisdiction" and quantifies the burden ("fuel tax logs are created daily for some 10 million trucks"; combined paper compliance cost "$31 billion dollars per year"). The artisan confronted with a single recorder already capturing (i) mileage and (ii) geolocation with time/date stamps for HOS purposes would have the clearest possible motivation — a known market need and an already‑collected data set — to bin mileage against jurisdiction for IFTA. MPEP § 2143(a) (predictable result from known elements), (d) (known technique ready for improvement), (g) (market forces).

Point of interest for the patentee: the only arguably non‑trivial architect