US 7469197

I'll verify the patent's litigation/docket status and bibliographic data with searches, then summarize.

Let me do one more targeted check for litigation history on this patent.

Verification note up front

I searched for US 7,469,197 against general web/litigation sources. No result tied this patent number to any 2026 CAFC docket, PTAB proceeding, or district-court action. The only litigation documents the searches surfaced concerned unrelated patents (e.g., U.S. 9,280,689; 9,298,864; 10,691,579; 8,924,192; 11,151,485; 11,107,017). The two most directly relevant hits were Google Patents and Justia's patent page for 7469197 itself.

Important limitation: I do not have direct API access to USPTO PatentCenter, the USPTO assignment database, or the CAFC docket. So "no CAFC 2026 docket found" means the open-web searches returned nothing, not that I have authoritatively confirmed the absence of a proceeding. Treat that as a negative search result, not a certification. Note also that the patent is recorded as Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2025-08-09), which makes active 2026 assertion litigation less likely.

Per your rule, I read "7469197" literally as US 7,469,197 B2 and did not substitute any similar number.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent text)

Ownership chain recorded in the file: Vodafone K.K. → SoftBank Mobile Corp. (change of name, 2008-01-23) → Vodafone Group PLC (2008-01-24) → Vodafone IP Licensing Limited (2010-05-10) → RPX Corporation (2010-06-02). Security interests were recorded to Jefferies Finance LLC (2018) and Barings Finance LLC (2020, 2024), with releases noted. The "SoftBank Corp" entry on Google Patents reflects the SoftBank Mobile name lineage.

Abstract (as granted)

"A data collection unit (37) collects measurement data which satisfies a data collection condition designated by an application (33) and stores the measurement data in a temporary storage area (24). The data report unit (38) reports, to the application (33), measurement data which is stored in the temporary storage area (24) and satisfies a data report condition designated by the application (33). As a result, the load on the application 33 using a measurement result by a sensor in measurement data acquisition is reduced."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent is a sensor data-servicing architecture for a mobile handset: instead of every application directly driving the handset's motion sensor and filtering raw samples itself, a middleware layer collects, buffers, and delivers only the samples the application asks for.

Claim 1 — Method (the only method claim I can confirm as independent).
Covers a method of collecting measurement data from a sensor built into a portable information device and notifying an application, where the sensor measures:

• attitude angles about three mutually perpendicular axes, and
• accelerations in at least two of those three axes.

The method has three steps: (1) condition designation — the application designates a data collection condition; (2) data collection — measurement data meeting that condition is collected and put in temporary storage; (3) data report — measurement data held in temporary storage that meets a separately designated data report condition is reported to the application. The specification expressly notes the two conditions are kept separate because they are "either identical or different" (e.g., "give me the N newest samples as of the moment I ask").

Device claims (commencing at claim 27 and running through claim 48).
In plain terms, these recite the same invention as an apparatus: a portable information device comprising a multi-axis sensor (three attitude angles plus at least two acceleration axes — a 5-axis sensor in the described embodiment, extendable to 6-axis with a Z acceleration); temporary storage means; data collection means for collecting and buffering data meeting an application-designated collection condition; and data report means for notifying the application of buffered data meeting an application-designated report condition. The dependent device claims add the consumer-facing options described throughout the spec: reporting in response to an application data request; reporting the number of reportable data on request; reporting data collection completion; a ring-buffer/FIFO temporary store; sensor operation start/stop means triggered by events (application start/stop, key operation, voice input, arrival of a designated time, call reception, and device-shape changes such as folding/unfolding or rotating); and a radio communication part for a mobile communication network.

Uncertainty flag: Google Patents reports 48 claims and Justia's claim listing shows claim 35 as a "portable information device" claim from which claim 36 depends, claim 33 as a base for claim 37, claim 27 as a base for claim 39, and claim 45 as a base for claims 46–48. That pattern is consistent with claim 1 being the method claim and claims 27/33/35 being the device-claim family, but I could not retrieve the full verbatim granted claim set, so I cannot state with certainty how many claims are independent versus dependent within claims 27–48. The substantive scope descriptions above are drawn from the specification's own recitation of the claimed aspects, which tracks the claim language closely.

Technical context and cited prior art

The background cites three Japanese references as "prior arts 1–3":

• JP 2001-272413 (cellular phone with acceleration/angular-velocity sensor displaying measured values)
• JP 2002-169645 (cellular phone deriving a moving locus from acceleration and recognizing it as input text)
• JP 2003-111142 (cellular phone with geomagnetic sensor for azimuth input)

The stated problem is that these references disclose using sensor results but not how to collect measurement data, so each application would have had to directly control the sensor and post-process raw output — a heavy load. The claimed invention moves that burden into a middleware layer (measurement data processing part 35) sitting between the sensor unit and the application, with a "measurement data" definition that expressly excludes raw sensor output: it is offset-corrected and physically converted data in the notification format (angles, accelerations).

Caveat on scope: this patent expired on 2025-08-09, so it is of historical/defensive-interest value rather than an enforceable right as of the current date.

I'll research this patent's litigation history. Let me run several searches.

Let me search more specifically, including the litigation portals you mentioned.

Summary of Findings

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,469,197 was identified in the searches I was able to complete. I could not locate any district court action, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding in which the '197 patent is the asserted or challenged patent.

I want to be explicit about the limits of this result, because "no results found" is not the same as "no litigation exists."

What I searched

• General web searches for the patent number in combination with litigation terms ("litigation," "lawsuit," "plaintiff," "defendant," "infringement").
• Searches directed at RPX-related litigation and Unified Patents' litigation portal content.
• Searches combining the patent number with likely patent owners (RPX, Vodafone).

These queries returned no hits tying the '197 patent to any case. The results that did surface were unrelated — e.g., RPX Corp. v. Applications in Internet Time, LLC (Fed. Cir. 2018) and Cascades Computer Innovation v. RPX (N.D. Cal.) concerning RPX's real-party-in-interest practices, neither of which involves the '197 patent. I did not locate a Unified Patents litigation/caselist entry, PACER docket, or CAFC appeal referencing 7,469,197.

Critically, the searches did not return a "no litigation" confirmation from an authoritative database either — they simply returned nothing on point. The tool limit was reached before I could query Docket Navigator, PACER directly, or the USPTO Patent Center litigation/assignment tabs comprehensively.

Relevant context about the patent (verified from the patent record)

• Title: "Measurement data collection method and portable information device"
• Patent No.: US 7,469,197 B2
• Application: 11/654,686; continuation of PCT/JP2005/014879
• Priority date: 2004-08-09; granted: 2008-12-23
• Status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2025-08-09
• Ownership chain (per recorded assignments): Vodafone K.K. → SoftBank Mobile Corp. (2008) → Vodafone Group PLC (2008) → Vodafone IP Licensing Limited (2010) → RPX Corporation (2010) → security interests recorded to Jefferies Finance LLC (2018) and Barings Finance LLC (2020, 2024), with releases of certain liens in 2020 and 2024.

RPX is a defensive patent aggregator; assets it acquires are frequently held to license members rather than to be asserted offensively, though RPX has also transferred patents to third parties. That business posture, combined with the patent's expiration in August 2025, is consistent with — but does not prove — a low likelihood of active assertion. I have no evidence that this patent was ever asserted.

Caveats / recommended verification

Because I could not complete a comprehensive docket-level check, I would not treat this as a definitive negative. To confirm, the following should be checked directly:

1. PACER / Docket Navigator — full-text search on "7,469,197" across all district courts (litigation is often pleaded by patent number in the complaint).
2. USPTO Patent Center / Patent Assignment Search for the '197 patent — assignment records sometimes reference litigation settlements or transfers tied to suits.
3. Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — filtered search on the patent number.
4. PTAB — confirm no IPR/PGR/CBM listing the '197 patent as the challenged patent (post-grant challenges are not "litigation" per se but are relevant).
5. CAFC — search for the patent number as an appeal reference.

If you'd like, I can continue with targeted queries against those specific sources in a follow-up.

Bottom line: Based on available search results, I found no known litigation involving US Patent 7,469,197, but this is an unverified negative rather than a confirmed absence, and I am flagging that explicitly rather than stating it definitively.

I'll verify the canonical (empty) list with targeted searches before reporting.

No results on the first pass. Let me run a few more targeted queries (PatentTrials/PTAB E2E style, litigation-driven IPRs) before concluding.

Let me run final confirmation queries targeting docket aggregators and litigation history.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,469,197: 0. As of the USPTO Open Data Portal ingest reflected in the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block, there are no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings — so there is no breakdown into active / invalidated / sustained / settled / institution-denied. Supplemental web searches (Google Patents, PTAB petition-document results, docket-aggregator queries, and litigation-history phrasing) likewise surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent. I could not directly query PatentTrials/PTAB E2E or PACER within this session, so I flag that as a residual verification gap rather than claiming perfect certainty — but the ODP record is the canonical list and it is empty, and nothing in the open web contradicts it.

Bottom-line defensive posture: This is not a "hardened by IPR" patent and it is not a "claims canceled" patent — it is an untested and, more importantly, expired patent. Per the Google Patents legal-status record, the anticipated expiration date was 2025-08-09 and the current status is Expired – Lifetime. As of today (2026-09-29) the statutory term has run. An expired patent cannot be infringed going forward, and the owner cannot recover damages for post-expiration conduct. For a defendant receiving a demand letter today, the first question is not validity — it is whether the owner is asserting a patent that has already lapsed.

No proceedings to enumerate

There are no proceeding numbers to report. I am deliberately not manufacturing placeholder entries such as "IPR2019-XXXXX" — the instruction not to invent proceeding numbers controls, and no real one exists in the record.

For completeness, the closest-adjacent items the searches surfaced (e.g., the RPX Applications in Internet Time real-party-in-interest appeals, and the Enzo v. Becton Dickinson appeal concerning a different patent, U.S. 7,064,197) are unrelated to US 7,469,197 and are not proceedings on this patent. I mention them only to be transparent that they appeared in results and were screened out.

Strategic summary

Claim status — UNTESTED. Because no AIA trial was ever instituted, no claim of US 7,469,197 has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. Nothing is "dead," and nothing is "hardened" by an adverse or favorable Board ruling. Claim 1 was never the subject of a Final Written Decision. That means there is no PTAB record to point to either way — the patent's validity has never been administratively tested.

Estoppel landscape — § 315(e)(2) is irrelevant here. Estoppel only attaches to a petitioner (and its privies/real parties in interest) that obtains a Final Written Decision. With no FWD, no party is estopped, and consequently every prior-art ground remains available to a defendant — § 102, § 103, and § 112 challenges are all unencumbered, subject only to the ordinary district-court limits of the IPR-versus-litigation estoppel rules that never triggered. Conversely, the absence of a prior FWD also means there is no PTAB claim construction or patentability record to leverage offensively.

Pattern signals — the owner is a defensive aggregator, not an assertion entity. The assignment chain runs Vodafone K.K. → SoftBank Mobile Corp. (2008-01-23) → Vodafone Group PLC (2008-01-24) → Vodafone IP Licensing Ltd. (2010-05-10) → RPX Corporation (2010-06-02), with subsequent security interests to Jefferies Finance LLC and Barings Finance LLC (collateral-agent financing, typical of RPX's patent-portfolio financing structure, not assertion activity). RPX is a defensive patent aggregator whose business model is to acquire and hold patents to reduce members' litigation exposure — it is not a plaintiff. That is the single most explanatory data point for why no IPRs were filed: RPX members had no litigation threat to defend against, and RPX itself does not assert these patents. There is no evidence of multiple petitions by a single petitioner, no patent-owner appeal activity, and no NPE in the chain.

One caveat worth stating plainly. The absence of IPRs here is not the usual "this patent was never worth asserting" signal in the classic sense — it is consistent with the patent sitting inside a defensive aggregator's portfolio and aging out. Combined with expiration, the practical exposure is very low.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with the expiration / lapse issue. The record shows anticipated expiration 2025-08-09 and status Expired – Lifetime. If a demand letter or complaint asserts this patent today (2026-09-29), ask the sender to identify the asserted claims and the accused acts, and to explain how a lapsed patent supports ongoing infringement relief. Verify term directly in USPTO Patent Center and the USPTO Assignment records before relying on the Google Patents status field for anything filed or argued.
2. Confirm no proceedings via the authoritative sources yourself. Because I could not query them live in this session, run the patent number through PTAB E2E / PTAB Center and, for any litigation-linked IPR, CourtListener's RECAP docket search for "7,469,197." If both return nothing, the "no PTAB activity" conclusion is airtight.
3. If the patent is somehow still being asserted despite expiration (e.g., for pre-expiration conduct in a pending case), then there is no estoppel bar: any defendant is free to raise § 102/§ 103/§ 112 grounds, including grounds that could have been, but were not, raised in an IPR. There is no prior PTAB FWD to link to, because none exists.
4. Do not represent to a court that any claim has been canceled. No claim of US 7,469,197 has been adjudicated invalid by the PTAB. Any statement to the contrary would be unsupported by the record summarized here.

Honest limitation: the proceeding list is sourced from the structured ODP block and is empty; web verification was consistent with that but was not exhaustive against every docket aggregator. If litigation counsel has actual notice of a demand or suit involving this patent number, re-run PTAB E2E and PACER against that case number before finalizing strategy.

I'll research the assignment chain and any litigation before writing. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig for the specific assignment records and any litigation.

Ownership Reconstruction — US 7469197 B2

Data-quality caveat up front. The authoritative full text supplied for this patent (Google Patents) carries a legal-events table but no reel/frame numbers and no correspondent-of-record fields. My attempts to pull the underlying Assignment Center / plainSite records for this specific patent returned no results (searches for "7469197", plainsite patent assignment 7469197, and RPX/Vodafone combinations came back empty before I ran out of tool budget). I will therefore not fabricate reel/frame numbers or correspondent names. Every item below is grounded in the Google Patents legal-events table, which is itself derived from USPTO assignment records; where the reel/frame and correspondent would normally go, I mark them [not retrieved] and explain what would be needed to confirm. Treat the correspondents section as the single biggest open item.

Inventors

• All four inventors assigned to Vodafone K.K. on the US filing date (recorded 2007-01-18, same day the application was filed). This is the normal filing-day assignment; the application is a continuation of PCT/JP2005/014879 (filed 2005-08-09), claiming JP priority 2004-232231 (2004-08-09) and 2004-346267 (2004-11-30).
• Departure pattern: not determinable. The record shows no inventor-side assignments to third parties, so there is no documentary basis for the "all inventors left within 12 months" fire-sale precursor. I will not infer it. (Note the practical difficulty: the operating employer itself changed hands — see below — so inventor departures in 2006–2008 would be indistinguishable from the corporate reorg in the assignment record.)

Original assignee

• Entity on the face of the issued patent (2008-12-23): Google Patents lists the original assignee as Vodafone K.K. However, by the issue date the ownership of record had already moved (2008-01-23 change of name → 2008-01-24 assignment), so the assignee of record at grant was effectively Vodafone Group PLC, not Vodafone K.K.
• Primary line of business: Vodafone K.K. was the Japanese mobile network operator of Vodafone Group PLC. The claimed subject matter is device-side sensor middleware — a 5-axis sensor (pitch/roll/yaw + X/Y acceleration) feeding a measurement-data collection/report layer that serves mobile applications — i.e., handset firmware for a carrier's phones, not a sold chipset.
• Product embodiment: Plausible in principle (carrier-branded handsets with motion sensors), but not evidenced in the record; a carrier assignee is not the same as a product-shipping OEM.
• Current status of the original assignee: Vodafone K.K. no longer exists as such — the operating business was acquired by SoftBank and the entity was renamed SoftBank Mobile Corp. (change of name recorded 2008-01-23; the name change itself was executed earlier, in the 2006 SoftBank acquisition timeframe — recording lag is common). SoftBank Mobile subsequently became SoftBank Corp., which is what Google Patents lists in the "current assignee" field alongside RPX. Vodafone Group PLC remains an operating global carrier; Vodafone IP Licensing Limited is its IP-holding/licensing subsidiary.

Assignment timeline

All dates below are the event/recording dates as shown in the Google Patents legal-events table. Execution dates and reel/frame numbers are [not retrieved] — see caveat.

1. 2007-01-18 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of inventors' interest)
   • Assignor: Daisuke Tsujino; Yasuhiro Nishide; Jun Yamazaki; Hirohisa Kusuda
   • Assignee: Vodafone K.K.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Standard filing-day assignment of inventors' rights to the employer/operating company.

2. 2008-01-23 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Change of Name
   • Assignor: Vodafone K.K.
   • Assignee: SoftBank Mobile Corp.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Change of name only (no change in beneficial ownership) following SoftBank's acquisition of Vodafone's Japanese operating business.

3. 2008-01-24 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: SoftBank Mobile Corp.
   • Assignee: Vodafone Group PLC
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Internal reorg / IP-retention cleanup — one day after the name change, the divested Japanese operating entity conveyed the patent rights back to the Vodafone Group parent. This is the classic "carve the IP out of the entity you just sold" step.

4. 2010-05-10 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: Vodafone Group PLC
   • Assignee: Vodafone IP Licensing Limited
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Internal reorg — consolidation of group patents into the Vodafone IP-holding subsidiary, immediately preceding the sale below.

5. 2010-06-02 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: Vodafone IP Licensing Limited
   • Assignee: RPX Corporation
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Sale / transfer to a defensive aggregator — the operating carrier sold the asset to RPX roughly three weeks after parking it in the IP-holding subsidiary (consistent with a portfolio-sale package assembled for RPX).

6. 2018-06-29 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Security Interest
   • Assignor: RPX Corporation
   • Assignee: Jefferies Finance LLC
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Securitization / financing — collateral grant, not an ownership transfer. Timing is consistent with the 2018 take-private financing of RPX (inference, not established by the record).

7. 2020-10-23 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
   • Assignor: RPX Clearinghouse LLC; RPX Corporation
   • Assignee: Barings Finance LLC, as collateral agent
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Securitization — replacement/refinancing collateral package; note RPX Clearinghouse LLC (the Rockstar/Nortel-transaction vehicle, per RPX's 2014-12-22 8-K) appears as a co-grantor.

8. 2020-10-26 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
   • Assignor: Jefferies Finance LLC
   • Assignee: RPX Corporation
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Release of the 2018 lien upon refinancing.

9. 2024-08-05 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Release of Lien on Patents
   • Assignor: Barings Finance LLC
   • Assignee: RPX Corporation
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Release of the 2020 lien.

10. 2024-08-06 (recorded) — Reel [not retrieved]

    • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
    • Assignor: RPX Clearinghouse LLC; RPX Corporation
    • Assignee: Barings Finance LLC, as collateral agent
    • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
    • Context: Re-grant of collateral to Barings one day after release — a lien refresh/re-financing, not an ownership change. RPX remains the owner.

11. 2025-08-09 — Anticipated expiration (20 years from the 2005-08-09 PCT filing). Status: Expired – Lifetime.

Ownership bottom line from the chain: legal title to US 7469197 has rested with RPX Corporation since 2010-06-02, subject to lender liens (Jefferies 2018, Barings 2020/2024). The Google Patents "current assignee" field showing both SoftBank Corp and RPX Corp is a name-history artifact (SoftBank inherits the Vodafone K.K. name chain), not evidence that SoftBank retained rights.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7469197
    2004 : Priority JP filings
    2005 : PCT application filed
    2007 : Inventors assign to Vodafone KK
         : US application filed
    2008 : Name change to SoftBank Mobile
         : Rights assigned to Vodafone Group PLC
         : US 7469197 issued
    2010 : Transfer to Vodafone IP Licensing
         : Sold to RPX Corporation
    2018 : Security interest to Jefferies Finance
    2020 : Security agreement with Barings
    2024 : Release and new Barings lien
    2025 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The one intermediate IP-holding hop (Vodafone Group PLC → Vodafone IP Licensing Limited, 2010-05-10) has the "Licensing" suffix, but it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an operating carrier, held for three weeks before a genuine third-party sale, not an anonymous single-purpose asserter. No registered-agent-service address, no single-member Delaware/Texas LLC appears. The other intermediate hops (SoftBank Mobile, Vodafone Group PLC) are named operating entities on the 2008-01-23 / 2008-01-24 records.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. The 2010-06-02 assignee, RPX Corporation, is a defensive aggregator and does not appear on the asserter lists cited (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg). Its model is documented as "catch-and-hold" defensive aggregation. Its subsidiary RPX Clearinghouse LLC (co-grantor on the 2020-10-23 and 2024-08-06 security agreements) is the vehicle used for the 2014-15 Rockstar/Nortel purchase and likewise is a defensive/clearinghouse vehicle, not a plaintiff.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (data gap). I could not retrieve any correspondent of record; the source text does not expose that field and my targeted searches returned nothing. This is the specific test the chain would most benefit from, and I am flagging it as unverified rather than negative: the 2010 and 2018–2024 recordings would each carry a correspondent, and if the same attorney/firm recurs across the Vodafone→RPX and RPX→lender recordings, that would be worth a second look. Reel/frame lookup in Assignment Center is required to close this.

4. Cascading transfers — weak / not an NPE cascade. There is a genuine cluster: 2010-05-10 → 2010-06-02 (two transfers in ~3 weeks), plus the 2008-01-23/24 pair one day apart. But these are a corporate reorg feeding one identifiable third-party buyer, not a chain of chained LLCs sharing an address or principal. No common-principal shell cascade appears.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. I found no evidence of an infringement suit naming this patent; RPX does not assert patents. (Caveat: my litigation cross-check was cut off by tool limits, so this is "no evidence found," not a definitive negative.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Neither Vodafone nor SoftBank nor RPX filed bankruptcy in connection with this asset. (The Rockstar/Nortel bankruptcy is unrelated to this patent.)

7. Privateering — not present. A carrier selling a portfolio to a defensive aggregator is the opposite of privateering; there is no evidence the patent was transferred to an NPE to assert on Vodafone's behalf against competitors.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — PRESENT. The chain terminates at RPX Corporation per the 2010-06-02 assignment, and RPX remains the owner as of the most recent 2024-08-06 Barings security agreement (in which RPX/RPX Clearinghouse are the grantors, i.e., owners). RPX's documented business — "defensive buying," catch-and-hold, making acquired assets available under FRAND-style terms, and taking patents out of the assertion market — is the defining inverse signal. The patent has effectively been neutralized.

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting.

The ownership chain ends at RPX Corporation (recorded 2010-06-02, assignor Vodafone IP Licensing Limited), a defensive patent aggregator, and RPX is still the owner as grantor on the most recent 2024-08-06 security agreement to Barings Finance — the 2018 Jefferies and 2020/2024 Barings entries are collateral liens and lien releases, not transfers of title. The only intermediate IP-subsidiary hops (2008-01-23 name change, 2008-01-24 assignment to Vodafone Group PLC, 2010-05-10 transfer to Vodafone IP Licensing Limited) are operating-company reorg steps, and no asserter, shell LLC, or NPE appears anywhere in the chain.

Two honest limits on this verdict: (a) I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondents of record, so the repeat-correspondent signal is unverified rather than cleared; and (b) I found no litigation involving this patent, but that cross-check was truncated. Verifying both at the Assignment Center search page — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent-number search for 7469197; companion index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — would close the two open items without, on the present evidence, changing the verdict.

I'll research the prior-art citations on the face of US 7,469,197. Let me run several targeted searches.

The searches surfaced a different patent (US 7,647,197 — "Mobile instrument, viewing device") which I must not conflate with 7,469,197. Let me dig for the actual front-page citations of 7,469,197.

Let me try to retrieve the citations section directly via the patent PDF and the PCT/EP family records.

Important preliminary caveats

Before the analysis, two honesty flags that affect the answer:

1. I could not retrieve the front‑page "References Cited" box of US 7,469,197. The authoritative full text you provided is truncated and does not include the granted patent's (56) References Cited list (U.S. Patent Documents / Foreign Patent Documents). My web/patent searches for that citation block kept returning the patent's description and unrelated documents, not the citation table. I do not have direct API access to USPTO PatentCenter or Patent Assignment Search. So I can only report the references I can identify with confidence from the specification itself, plus flag the ones I could not confirm.

2. Do not conflate US 7,469,197 with US 7,647,197. One search result surfaced a different patent, US 7,647,197 B2, "Mobile instrument, viewing device, and methods of processing and storing information" (issued Jan. 12, 2010). That is a distinct patent number and is not the patent under analysis. Per the strict rule, I am not substituting it.

1. USPTO / patent‑number lookup result (number read literally)

The number 7469197 resolves to this single record. No similar-number record (e.g., 7,647,197) should be returned in answer to a lookup for 7469197.

2. References cited in the specification (applicant/background citations)

The specification expressly cites three Japanese documents as "prior arts 1–3." These are the only patent references I can tie to US 7,469,197 with confidence. Full citations, dates, descriptions, and §102 analysis follow.

Reference A — JP 2001‑272413 (spec's "prior art 1")

• Full citation: Japanese Patent Application Publication (Kokai) No. 2001‑272413 A.
• Dates: Published 2001 (exact publication day unverified from my searches). It pre‑dates the earliest priority date (2004‑08‑09), so it qualifies as prior art under §102(a)/(b) if its disclosure is enabling.
• Content (per the '197 specification): a cellular phone device comprising a sensor that measures acceleration or angular velocity, and that displays the measured acceleration/angular‑velocity data on a display means.
• §102 analysis: A §102 anticipation requires every element of a claim in a single reference. This reference discloses the sensor measuring accelerations/attitude quantities and outputting them to a display — it does not disclose the asserted architecture of independent claim 1: an application‑designated data collection condition, collection into temporary storage, and separate reporting based on an application‑designated data report condition. It likewise lacks the device‑claim elements (temporary storage means + data collection means + data report means). It does not anticipate claim 1 or the independent device claims. At most it is a §103 background reference (and the patent itself uses it precisely as background showing "use" but not "collection").

Reference B — JP 2002‑169645 (spec's "prior art 2")

• Full citation: Japanese Patent Application Publication (Kokai) No. 2002‑169645 A.
• Dates: Published 2002 (exact day unverified). Pre‑dates the 2004 priority date → §102 prior art if enabling.
• Content: a cellular phone device with an acceleration sensor; the device derives a moving locus from measured acceleration and recognizes the locus as input text.
• §102 analysis: This is an acceleration-sensing application (gesture/text recognition). It does not disclose middleware that collects data according to an application-designated collection condition, buffers it, and reports per an application-designated report condition. No anticipation of claim 1 or the device claims. §103-type background at most.

Reference C — JP 2003‑111142 (spec's "prior art 3")

• Full citation: Japanese Patent Application Publication (Kokai) No. 2003‑111142 A.
• Dates: Published 2003 (exact day unverified). Pre‑dates the 2004 priority date → §102 prior art if enabling.
• Content: a cellular phone device with a geomagnetic sensor; a numerical azimuth value can be input by directing the phone body to a specific azimuth.
• §102 analysis: A different sensor (geomagnetic) used for azimuth input. Does not disclose the claimed collection/report architecture or the claimed multi-axis attitude-angle + ≥2-axis acceleration sensor. No anticipation. Background/§103 at most.

3. What I could NOT retrieve (and why it matters)

The examiner-cited references — the U.S. patents/published applications and foreign patent documents listed in the (56) References Cited box on the face of US 7,469,197 — were not obtainable through my searches. This is a real gap: in a typical §102/§103 analysis, the examiner-cited art is usually the most material prior art, because the examiner selected it as relevant to the claims actually allowed.

Consequently:

• I can state with confidence that JP 2001‑272413, JP 2002‑169645, and JP 2003‑111142 are cited by this patent (they appear verbatim in the specification's Background Art / "prior arts 1–3").
• I cannot state the full set of U.S. patent documents or additional foreign documents cited on the face of the grant. I will not fabricate that list.

4. Cross-family search-art lead (flagged, not confirmed)

The European family member EP 1 738 566 A1 ("Measurement Data Collection Method and Portable Information Device," Vodafone KK; priority 2004‑08‑08/09) is a sibling of US 7,469,197. Its European/International search report would be expected to carry the same or heavily overlapping cited art (typically with X/Y relevance categories). I attempted to retrieve that ISR/ESR but the search step limit was reached before I could confirm its cited-document table. This is the single best next step to obtain the examiner-grade citation list.

5. Bottom line on §102

• Identified, spec-cited prior art: JP 2001‑272413, JP 2002‑169645, JP 2003‑111142.
• Anticipation under §102: None of these anticipates any claim of US 7,469,197. Each discloses a sensor-equipped mobile phone that uses a measurement result; none discloses the claimed middleware — application-designated data collection condition, buffering in temporary storage, and separate application-designated data report condition — which is the core of independent claim 1 and the device claims (claims commencing at 27). Their role is background/§103 fodder, and the patent itself distinguishes over them on exactly this ground.
• Not verified: the examiner-cited U.S. and foreign references in the front-page (56) list, and the EP 1 738 566 / PCT JP2005/014879 search-report citations.

Recommended verification steps (to close the gap I could not): (a) open the Google Patents "Patent Citations" tab for US7469197; (b) pull the USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" / "Foreign Citations" and "Other References" for appl. 11/654,686; (c) retrieve the EP 1 738 566 A1 European search report and the PCT/JP2005/014879 ISR, which carry the X/Y-categorized citations.

If you can supply the (56) citation block (or a screenshot/PDF of the front page), I will map each listed reference to the specific claims it could anticipate under §102 with element-by-element analysis.

I'll ground this analysis in the patent's own prior-art section and verify the cited references before building the § 103 combinations.

Let me verify the other two cited Japanese references and pull the full claim set to ground the element-by-element analysis.

Let me check the patent's front-page citations and family, and verify I'm not conflating the '197 patent with a numerically similar patent that does have litigation.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 7,469,197 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Method note / scope: Per your instruction, I used the prior art identified in the patent's own prior-art section — the three Japanese publications the specification labels "prior arts 1 to 3." I independently verified each against J-GLOBAL/Google Patents (URLs below). I did not import the unrelated documents that surfaced incidentally in search (see the "trap" flag below).

0. Two flags before the analysis

(a) Numeric-lookalike trap — flagging a potential contradiction with the earlier litigation section. My searches for litigation surfaced PTAB petition documents that repeatedly discuss "the '919 patent" — a mobile-telephone cradle / input-output device with enlarged display, inventor Peter Warren, filed 2007-09-04, issued 2009-01-13, asserted in ASUS Computer International et al v. ExoTablet, Ltd, No. 4:14-cv-01743-PJH (N.D. Cal.). That is not US 7,469,197. It is a different patent with a colliding short-form suffix ("'919"). Per the literal-interpretation rule, I did not substitute it. If the earlier litigation section ever appears to attribute the ExoTablet/ASUS proceedings to 7,469,197, that would be an error requiring correction. For 7,469,197 itself, the earlier "no known litigation found" negative stands.

(b) Status. The patent is recorded Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2025-08-09). A § 103 analysis at this point is therefore defensive/historical, not a pre-assertion validity opinion.

1. Governing law and prior-art status

• The application was filed 2007-01-18 as a continuation of PCT/JP2005/014879 (2005-08-09), claiming JP priority 2004-08-09 and 2004-11-30. It is pre-AIA, so § 103(a) with the Graham v. John Deere framework as elaborated by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
• All three cited references published before the earliest effective filing date (2004-08-09) and are thus prior art printed publications (JP 2001-272413 and JP 2002-169645 are more than one year before, i.e., § 102(b)-type; JP 2003-111142 published 2003-04-11, before the effective filing date). All are analogous art — same field (sensor-equipped portable phones) and same problem (expanding handset function via built-in sensors).

2. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1 (method)

Claim 1 recites (a) a portable information device; (b) a sensor measuring attitude angles about three mutually perpendicular axes and accelerations in at least two of them; (c) a condition-designation step where the application designates a data collection condition; (d) a data-collection step storing conforming measurement data in temporary storage; and (e) a data-report step delivering stored data meeting a separately designated data report condition.

Conclusion as to claim 1: The three cited references do not teach or suggest the invention's central abstraction — a middleware service layer that (i) sits between the sensor and the application, (ii) collects samples according to an application-specified collection condition, and (iii) delivers buffered samples according to a separately application-specified report condition. Each reference is directed to a user-facing function (displaying values, recognizing a gesture as text, reading an azimuth as a number), not to servicing other applications. A § 103 rejection of claim 1 resting solely on prior arts 1–3 would therefore be weak and vulnerable on the "motivation to combine / articulated reasoning" prong.

3. Where a viable § 103 combination can be built

Combination A — Refs 1 + 2 + 3 for the sensor/device/conditioning platform (renders the environment obvious)

• Primary: JP 2001-272413 — teaches the claimed hardware substrate: a portable phone with a motion sensor, a switch/control means for the sensor, and a functional use of the output.
• Secondary: JP 2002-169645 — shows that an application-level feature in the phone can consume acceleration data after computational processing (trajectory → text), i.e., that a phone function is a consumer of conditioned sensor data.
• Secondary: JP 2003-111142 — shows (i) converting raw sensor output into a physical quantity via a stored conversion table and (ii) CPU-controlled power-up/power-down of the sensor with an OFF signal.

Why a PHOSITA would combine: identical field (handset + embedded sensor), identical stated objective ("expand handset functionality"; ref 1's own problem statement), and predictable results. Under KSR, combining known elements (sensor + controller + table/conversion + display/consumer) according to known methods to yield a predictable, user-facing capability is obvious; no reference teaches away.

What Combination A alone does not reach: the application-facing collection-condition/report-condition API, temporary buffering of conditioned data, reportable-data counts, and completion reports.

Combination B — Combination A + conventional data-acquisition/software-design knowledge (the stronger examiner position against the dependent claims)

The dependent claims largely recite routine data-servicing mechanics. These are the claims where obviousness is most defensible, using refs 1–3 as the platform plus the ordinary skill of a PHOSITA in embedded/OS software:

Motivation to combine (Combination B): a PHOSITA implementing a shared sensor service for multiple phone applications would predictably adopt (a) a periodic sampler, (b) a fixed-size ring buffer, (c) a request/response retrieval API with metadata, and (d) event-driven power gating — each independently well known and each yielding only the expected benefit (reduced application burden, bounded memory, reduced power). KSR's "predictable result / ordinary creativity" rationale applies with little friction.

4. Claim-class outcomes (analyst's assessment)

5. KSR / Graham summary

• Scope & content: refs 1–3 establish a phone with a multi-parameter sensor, sensor on/off control, raw-to-physical-quantity conversion, and an application consuming processed sensor output.
• Differences from claim 1: the middleware separation of collection condition vs. report condition and delivery to an application rather than to a user interface. This is the entire inventive delta — and it is not in the cited refs.
• Level of ordinary skill: ~2 years' embedded/mobile software engineering (consistent with a 2004–2005 handset middleware designer).
• Secondary considerations: none identified in the record I could access; the earlier bibliographic work found RPX holding post-2010, which is not probative commercial-success evidence here.

6. Bottom line

1. On the patent's own cited prior art (JP 2001-272413, JP 2002-169645, JP 2003-111142), a § 103 rejection of independent claim 1 would be difficult to sustain — the references disclose using sensor output, but not the claimed application-facing collection/report-condition service architecture. The patent's own background section concedes exactly this gap ("the references … contain no mention of a method of collecting measurement data by the sensor").
2. A § 103 rejection of the dependent claims — especially FIFO/ring-buffer storage, periodic collection, request/response retrieval, reportable-data counts, completion notification, and event-driven sensor start/stop — is considerably stronger, built from refs 1–3 plus ordinary skill (Combination B above).
3. To attack claim 1, you would need additional art teaching a sensor/measurement abstraction or middleware layer with separately configurable acquisition vs. delivery conditions — e.g., OS/device-driver sensor APIs, publish–subscribe measurement services, or data-logger configuration APIs in portable terminals. None of the three cited references supplies that.

7. Recommended verification before relying on this

1. Pull the full verbatim granted claims (USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter) to resolve how many of claims 27–48 are independent — the earlier section flagged this uncertainty and I could not close it with the tools available.
2. Run a front-page-citation and family search on US 7,469,197 (PCT/JP2005/014879 → corresponding WO publication) to see whether the examiner cited U.S. references beyond the three Japanese documents; my searches did not return the granted front page verbatim.
3. If a formal invalidity position is needed, search sensor middleware / abstraction-layer art with priority before 2004-08-09; that is where claim 1 turns.

Uncertainty disclosure: I could not retrieve the complete verbatim claim set or the examiner's cited-reference list within the available searches, so the claim-1 mapping above is based on the specification's recitation of the claimed aspects (which tracks the claim language closely). Statements about what the references do not disclose are based on the abstracts/claims excerpts verified at the linked J-GLOBAL/Google Patents pages, not on a full-text read of each Japanese document.