US 7741968

I'll verify the bibliographic data and check for any CAFC 2026 docket activity on this specific patent number.

Let me check the Federal Circuit docket and confirm assignee/history details.

Let me search specifically for any Federal Circuit 2026 activity involving this patent owner.

Scope note and search method

I searched for the literal string 7741968 / 7,741,968 against USPTO-facing sources (Google Patents bibliographic record and legal events, RPX Insight, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Unified Patents litigation portal), district-court filings that cite the patent, and Federal Circuit 2026 docket material. Per the strict rule, I did not auto-correct any identifier, and I discarded literal-string false positives that share no relationship to this patent:

• US 7,742,388 — a different Fleet Connect patent (OFDM/WLAN bandwidth); see the previously generated PTAB section, which correctly isolates the 90/019,840 reexam as belonging to the '388, not the '968.
• FEC filing "Transaction ID: A-7741968" and "DE-o-JENA-7741968" (a German botanical-garden accession number) — coincidental numeric hits, unrelated.

Bibliographic summary — US 7,741,968 B1

Abstract (verbatim): "There is disclosed systems and methods for controlling communication of navigation positioning information from a source of said information to another device for tracking purposes. In one embodiment, a master portable device is grouped with a plurality of other portable devices and the master device maintains and displays the geographic positions of all of the devices in the group."

Field/background framing (from the specification): the patent targets "the transmission of GPS tracking information and more particularly … systems and methods for permissive navigational tracking where the sending party selectively transmits navigation data to a receiving party over a period of time." It distinguishes prior art directed at covert tracking (trucking fleets reporting to a central location; a tracking device planted in a car or on a person) from the claimed consensual, permission-granted exchange.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — A method of tracking a plurality of portable devices. Five steps, all anchored on a "master" device:

1. Create a select group of target portable devices in association with a master portable device (i.e., the master defines who is in the posse).
2. Establish at the master the current geographic positions of the target devices.
3. Display those positions on the master device.
4. Send convergence navigational instructions from the master to at least one target — instructions designed to facilitate convergence between that target and the master (i.e., "come to me" directions, not just a bare coordinate).
5. Generate ETAs pertaining to the convergence between that target and the master.

Practical read: this is the "group leader / air traffic controller" claim. It requires a master-initiated group, master-side position knowledge, master-side display, outbound convergence instructions, and ETA generation. The specification's use case is explicit: "a person, such as a group leader at device 100-1, can keep track of a group of people, much as an air traffic controller keeps track of a plurality of airplanes… This would work well for teachers with their class, scout leaders or trip guides."

Claim 4 — A method of keeping track of a group of individuals. Substantively parallel to claim 1 but recast around a portable hand-held device and individuals rather than devices:

1. Receive at the hand-held device current geographic location data for each of the individuals.
2. Display that received location data on the hand-held device.
3. Send converging instructions to at least one individual so that individual can converge with the hand-held device.
4. Generate ETAs for that convergence.

Note the scope differences from claim 1: claim 4 does not expressly require "creating a select group," and it does not expressly locate the display step on a "master" — it is the hand-held-device-centric companion claim. It is also the claim Fleet Connect's complaints lead with on the inducement/contributory theories (e.g., PowerFleet complaint ¶119: accused products "have special features… specially designed to be used in an infringing way… including, for example, claim 4 of the '968 patent"). Claim 4 is therefore the most commercially load-bearing independent claim in the set.

Claim 7 — A computer readable medium (CRM) storing executable code. A Beauregard-style claim requiring:

• Code controlling reception at a master mobile device of geographic positional data relating to a plurality of mobile devices;
• Code controlling the master to display those received positions;
• Code causing the master to send convergence geographical data to a selected other mobile device, allowing it to converge with the master;
• Wherein the sent geographical data comprises turn-by-turn instructions leading the selected device to the master; and
• Wherein the code continuously generates an ETA for the selected device to converge with the master.

Practical read: claim 7 is the narrowest-on-its-face of the three because of the two "wherein" clauses — it hard-codes turn-by-turn routing and continuous ETA generation as claim elements. It is also the only independent claim in software/CRM form.

Dependent claims: 2 (devices are cell phones); 3 (positions established from GPS data from a target device, positional data from a third party, and/or user input — this is the sourcing claim); 5 (hand-held device is a cell phone); 6 (received geographic data sent from GPS sending devices on each individual); 8 (received positional data generated by a GPS at one of the other mobile devices); 9 and 10 (both recite receipt "from a party other than from said other mobile devices").

CAFC 2026 docket check — no match found

I found no Federal Circuit docket, appeal, or decision involving US 7,741,968, and no CAFC 2026 activity naming Fleet Connect Solutions LLC as appellant, appellee, cross-appellant, or amicus on this patent. Nothing in the '968's Google Patents record has a "Family has litigation" or appellate entry pointing to the Federal Circuit, and the litigation entries tied to this family are all district-court matters (D.N.J., S.D. Cal., E.D. Wis., S.D. W. Va., E.D. Va., W.D. Tex., E.D. Tex., D. Ariz., C.D. Cal., M.D. Fla., N.D. Ga., E.D.N.Y.).

Uncertainty — stated plainly: my docket searches were capped before I could exhaustively query the Federal Circuit's own docket (cafc.uscourts.gov / PACER NextGen) by party name. A 2026 appeal in a case where the '968 is one of several asserted patents would likely be captioned on the other patents or on a co-defendant, so a party-name search may not be dispositive. If a CAFC appeal matters to your analysis, run a direct CAFC docket query on Fleet Connect Solutions and on the specific district-court case numbers, rather than relying on this summary. I cannot represent that no such appeal exists — only that I did not find one.

Refinements and corrections to the previously generated sections

Two points where the new search results materially update the earlier analysis:

1. Reexam control number — prior section's uncertainty is now narrower, and 90/019,766 looks like the wrong number. In a Middle District of Florida order dated October 3, 2025 (Tampa Division, Fleet Connect Solutions v. GPS Trackit, M.D. Fla. 8:25-cv-01438) granting GPS Trackit's motion to stay pending reexamination, the court identifies the '968 as one of seven "Remaining Patents" under Third-Party ex parte reexamination, and lists the relevant control numbers as 90/019,774; 90/019,772; 90/019,794; 90/019,771; 90/019,764; and 90/019,803 (courtlistener PDF). Control No. 90/019,766 — the number the earlier section flagged as possibly the '968 reexam — does not appear in that list. Treat 90/019,766 as unverified and likely referring to a different Fleet Connect patent; the '968's control number is one of the six above. The court's opinion confirms the stay rationale: "Reexamination might moot as many as half of Fleet Connect's counts by invalidating the Remaining Patents," and directs status updates on the reexaminations on April 1, 2026, and every ninety days thereafter — i.e., a live, court-monitored reexam posture on the '968 as of the April 26, 2026 analytical date.

2. Status field conflict — flag it. Google Patents' authoritative record (which controls per my instructions) says Expired – Lifetime, expires 2025-08-21, and the earlier section relies on that. RPX Insight's page for the same patent still displays "Status: Active Grant" — that snapshot is stale and should not be used. It does not change the substantive conclusion: the earlier section's expiration-based damages window (infringement no earlier than 2019-08-21 under § 286 for a suit filed today) stands.

Everything else in the earlier sections is consistent with this record — the 10-claim set, the independent/dependent breakdown, the claim 9/claim 10 duplicate-text drafting artifact, the "convergence navigational instructions" and "ETA generation" limitations, and the absence of any AIA trial proceeding. The claims remain unamended and untested at the PTAB, and the pending, court-supervised ex parte reexamination is the single live validity track on this patent.

I'll research litigation involving US 7,741,968 (the patent you specified — not similar numbers). Let me search litigation databases.

Good start. Let me get the full NPE database record and additional case details.

Let me pull the Unified Patents caselist for this specific patent and check case statuses for the key suits.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,741,968

Important framing note before the list. U.S. 7,741,968 ("System and method for navigation tracking of individuals in a group") is part of a three-member family (family ID 39678794) with U.S. 7,412,325 and U.S. 7,701,360. Google Patents lists litigation for the family, so a case may appear in that list while actually asserting only the sibling patents. Below I separate (A) cases where I could verify that 7,741,968 itself is asserted or put at issue, from (B) family-level campaign cases I could not verify as asserting 7,741,968 specifically. Patent owner of record is now Fleet Connect Solutions LLC (an Empire IP entity; acquired from Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC, 2020).

A. Cases where U.S. 7,741,968 is confirmed to be asserted / put at issue

Confirmed by the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for patent 7741968

Source: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7741968

Additional cases confirmed by docket/complaint exhibits citing "Evidence of Use Regarding Infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,741,968"

Related: C.R. England (patent raised but not ultimately asserted)

• Fleet Connect Solutions LLC v. C.R. England, Inc., No. 5:24-cv-00376-KK-SP (C.D. Cal., filed 2024-02-15). Fleet Connect sought leave to amend to add the '968 patent, but the motion was denied (court called it an untimely, bad-faith attempt to avoid a stay). So 7,741,968 was never actually asserted there. Source: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.806390/gov.uscourts.casd.806390.47.0.pdf

B. Fleet Connect campaign cases in the Google Patents family-litigation list that I could NOT verify as asserting 7,741,968

Google Patents' litigation block for this family also lists these dockets; because the listing is family-wide, treat them as unverified as to 7,741,968 (some likely assert only sibling patents such as 7,742,388, 7,260,153, 7,058,040, 7,206,837, etc.):

• C.D. Cal. 2:24-cv-00939 (2024)
• N.D. Ga. 1:24-cv-01563 (2024)
• E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00157 (2024)
• E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00616 — Coretex Ltd. / EROAD Ltd.
• E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00834 — Karooooo Ltd.
• W. Va. S.D. 3:25-cv-00497 — Blue Ink Technology, Inc.
• Va. E.D. 2:25-cv-00837 and 1:25-cv-02463
• N.Y. E.D. 2:25-cv-05178 — Forward Thinking Systems LLC d/b/a FleetCam
• Ga. N.D. 1:25-cv-04786 — NexTraq LLC
• Ariz. D. 2:25-cv-00537
• M.D. Fla. 8:25-cv-01438
• Tex. W.D. 7:25-cv-00264 — MVT Services LLC d/b/a Mesilla Valley Transportation

A plaintiff-side filing profile and the broader campaign (60+ cases) can be seen at the Unified Patents and Stanford NPE databases (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7741968; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist).

C. Non-litigation proceedings affecting the patent (for context)

• Ex parte reexamination (USPTO): a request for reexamination was filed effective 2024-12-13 (entered 2025-02-18), and '968 has appeared in the reexamination control numbers cited in the CalAmp and GPS Trackit stay disputes (e.g., Ex. "'968 Patent – Advisory Action"). ORBCOMM Inc. has been named a third-party requester in related '968-family reexaminations (e.g., Control No. 90/019,766). These are PTO proceedings, not litigation.
• Term: Google Patents records the '968 patent as Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2025-08-21 (so the stay orders note that only past money damages remain available).
• Related family patents: U.S. 7,412,325 (parent, app. 11/200,730, still shown Active) and U.S. 7,701,360 (concurrent divisional, app. 12/143,715, Expired). Do not conflate these with 7,741,968.

Caveats and confidence

• The list in Section A is the set I could verify from docket records, complaint/claim-chart exhibit captions, or the Stanford NPE database specifically tied to patent 7741968. High confidence on the existence and case numbers; medium confidence on some filing dates/statuses because several are drawn from secondary aggregators (PatSnap, UniCourt, Justia) rather than PACER directly.
• Section B is explicitly unverified for this patent — do not cite those as 7,741,968 suits without pulling the complaints.
• No case has reached a merits outcome (no infringement judgment, invalidity holding, or damages award identified). The principal dispositions found are procedural: a voluntary dismissal (Pegasus/Transflo), § 1404 transfer (CalAmp), and multiple stays pending reexamination. Fleet Connect's suits are ongoing as of the data available.
• If you need PACER-verified filing dates and live status for any single row, tell me which case number and I'll narrow to it.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted searches for any PTAB activity, reexamination, or related proceedings.

Let me check the reexamination activity flagged in the legal events, plus PTAB activity on the sibling patents and any Fleet Connect IPRs.

A reexamination (90/019,766) appeared in a PTAB filing document. Let me pin down which patent it targets and check for any Fleet Connect IPRs.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,741,968: 0. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. This matches the canonical structured data from the USPTO Open Data Portal ("no AIA trial proceedings... as of the most recent ingest"), and my web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition naming the '968 patent — not from Unified Patents, not from Geotab, Platform Science, or any other defendant in the Fleet Connect campaign. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore "the patent's claims have never been tested at the PTAB — but they also expired on 2025-08-21," so the real story for a defendant is a timing story, not a validity story. One important non-AIA caveat: an ex parte reexamination request against the '968 patent was filed with an effective date of 2024-12-13, which is a Central Reexamination Unit proceeding, not a PTAB trial (details below).

No AIA trial proceedings to report

Because there are zero proceedings, the per-proceeding template would be fabricated if filled in. Stating that plainly:

• No petition has ever been instituted against US 7,741,968.
• No claim of the '968 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or held unpatentable by the PTAB.
• No § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to any party on this patent, because no IPR/PGR was instituted.
• No FWD exists to appeal, so there is no CAFC docket number to cite.

Do not accept any representation that the '968 patent has been invalidated at the PTAB. The frequently-cited Fleet Connect invalidation — Unified Patents' win canceling claims 1–9, 11–13, 20, 21, 28, 29 — is U.S. Patent 7,742,388, Ex Parte Reexam Control No. 90/019,840 (Unified Patents, 2026-03-26 CRU notice of intent, Unified portal). The '388 and '968 numbers differ by one digit and are routinely conflated. They are different patents, different claims, different subject matter (OFDM bandwidth vs. group navigation tracking).

What is on file (non-AIA proceedings — flag these)

Ex Parte Reexamination (control number not confirmed) — Requester v. Fleet Connect Solutions LLC

• Type: Ex parte reexamination (35 U.S.C. §§ 301–307; CRU), not an AIA trial
• Filed: request effective 2024-12-13; USPTO legal-event entry "RR — Request for reexamination filed" posted 2025-02-18 (Google Patents legal events for US 7,741,968)
• Status: pending — no reexamination certificate has issued as of the source data; § 307(b) estoppel does not apply to the requester
• Requester: not confirmed from the sources I could reach. A PTAB practitioner's disclosure of service list references Reexam Control No. 90/019,766, ORBCOMM Inc. (Requester) v. Fleet Connect Solutions LLC (Patent Owner), "Completed August 2025" (response to a non-final Office action) — but that filing does not identify the target patent, and it appears in a portfolio-wide list. I cannot confirm 90/019,766 is the '968 reexam. Treat the control number as unresolved rather than assume.
• Defensive value: A pending reexam on an expired patent is a live drag on assertion. If claim 1 or claim 4 is amended or canceled, any demand letter or complaint built on the original claims is undermined. Pull the file history at USPTO Patent Center before responding to any demand.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All claims of US 7,741,968 remain UNTESTED at the PTAB and, as far as public records show, unamended. The claim set is small: independent claim 1 (method of tracking a plurality of portable devices — create select group, establish current geographical positions, display them, send convergence navigational instructions, generate ETAs), independent claim 4 (method of keeping track of a group of individuals via a hand-held device), independent claim 7 (CRM with code for master-device reception/display of positional data plus turn-by-turn convergence instructions and continuous ETA generation), with dependents 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. Claims 3, 8, and 9 are the GPS/third-party/user-input sourcing limitations. Note an apparent drafting duplication: claims 9 and 10 recite identical text ("received from a party other than from said other mobile devices") — worth checking against the printed patent, but that is what the source text shows.

The dominant fact is expiration. The patent expired 2025-08-21 (adjusted expiration; the Platform Science declaratory-judgment complaint states the same date: "'968 Patent expires on August 21, 2025"). Expiration kills all prospective injunctive relief and caps damages at the six-year lookback under § 286 — i.e., infringement no earlier than 2019-08-21 for a suit filed today. Combined with the fact that the asserted claims are method claims (1) and group-tracking claims (4, 7) that read on app-level functionality, a defendant's strongest arguments are § 101 eligibility and non-infringement/claim scope, not validity.

Estoppel landscape. None. With no instituted AIA trial, § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds no one on this patent, and every prior-art ground remains available to a new petitioner. Practically, though, IPR is a poor vehicle here: (i) the patent is expired, so the PTAB's incentive to institute on an expired patent is limited and the remedy is retrospective; (ii) the cited-art landscape is already mapped by 26 examiner citations, including peer-to-peer GPS (US 6,504,503, Intel), route-guiding telephony (US 6,535,743, Minorplanet), a navigation server for cell phones (US 6,314,365, NavTech), and ETA determination (US 5,724,243, HighwayMaster) — strong § 103 fodder, but better deployed in district court or in a reexam (which a third party can still request while the patent is enforceable for past acts for six years). A CBM is technically unavailable for this era patent absent a covered-business-method eligibility showing and the CBM sunset applies to patents filed before 2013-03-16 — filing date here is 2008-06-20, so a CBM petition would have been legally possible only while the transitional program ran, which it no longer does.

Pattern signals. No repeat-petitioner dynamic exists at the PTAB because there is no petitioner at all. The patent owner (Fleet Connect Solutions LLC, an Empire IP entity) is a high-volume assertor — dozens of district-court suits across telematics/ELD products, several filed only days apart, plus declaratory-judgment counter-punches from Geotab Inc. (D.N.J. 1:24-cv-06089, filed 2024-05-13) and Platform Science, Inc. (S.D. Cal. 3:25-cv-00457, filed 2025-02-27), each using the '968 as one exhibit in a multi-patent attack. Fleet Connect is not a PTAB appellant on this patent; it litigates in district court and settles (e.g., the Teletrac Navman settlement-in-principle, and the Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) without-prejudice dismissal of Pegasus Transtech). No defensive aggregator appears in the chain for the '968 — Unified Patents targeted the '388 instead. That asymmetry is itself useful: it means the '968 has never been stress-tested, and there is no public invalidity record you can borrow.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the reexam. Open the USPTO Patent Center record for US 7,741,968 and retrieve the reexamination control number and the requester's art. If the requester is a party in privity with your client, § 315(e) is irrelevant but § 325(d)/35 U.S.C. § 302-307 estoppel considerations and the "substantial new question" rules govern what you can reuse. If it is an unrelated party, the art is free for you to adopt.
2. Ask first: are you even exposed? With the patent expired 2025-08-21, the maximal damages window is 2019-08-21 forward (six years under § 286). If the accused product lineup post-dates the asserted period, or if sales are minimal, this is a settlement-leverage problem, not a merits problem — get an early damages model.
3. Invalidity path. If you need to invalidate rather than defend, build your § 103 combination around US 6,504,503 (Intel, peer-to-peer GPS), US 6,535,743 (Minorplanet, directions over a communication network), and US 6,314,365 (NavTech, server-based navigation for cell phones) — the examiner already considered these, so you must sharpen the combination or add new art, and you should expect the "known, routine, conventional" framing Fleet Connect pleads in its complaints (and its anticipatory § 101 responses) to be the real battleground.
4. Watch the FWD-free zone. Because there is no IPR, there is no statutory 1-year trial clock, no institution-decision deadline, and no oral hearing to track on this patent. The only PTAB-adjacent deadline that matters is the CRU's reexam timeline. Check for a reexamination certificate before finalizing any settlement valuation — a canceled claim 1 collapses Fleet Connect's claim-1-based theories, which are the ones its complaints lead with.
5. Verify before relying. I could not confirm the '968 reexam control number, the requester identity, or the CRU's current status. Those are the two things to verify first; everything else here is drawn from the patent text and the litigation record cited above.

I'll start by pulling corroborating records for the assignment chain and litigation activity, then reconstruct the timeline.

Strong corroboration on the asserter side. Now let me try to surface the correspondents of record and confirm the intermediate entities.

Ownership & Assignment Record — US 7,741,968 B1

Patent: US 7,741,968 B1 — System and method for navigation tracking of individuals in a group
App. No. 12/143,707 (divisional of 11/200,730, filed 2005‑08‑10) · Filed 2008‑06‑20 · Granted 2010‑06‑22
Priority: 2005‑08‑10 · Status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2025‑08‑21)
Current assignee of record (per Google Patents legal events): Fleet Connect Solutions LLC (Texas)

Sourcing note up front. Six post‑filing assignment events are recorded for this patent, so this is not a "no records" case. The reel/frame, conveyance, assignor, assignee, execution date and recording date below are taken from the Google Patents legal‑events tab for US7741968B1 (which mirrors the Assignment Center abstracts). The correspondent‑of‑record field is NOT exposed in that feed, and my attempts to retrieve the underlying recorded documents returned abstracts for adjacent reel content (not this record). Where I could not verify a field, I say so rather than infer it.

Inventors

Pattern notes (honest limits):

• The "all inventors depart within 12 months" fire‑sale tell is not present, because there was never a corporate employer to depart from. This is an individual/small‑entity inventor filing: the inventors assigned the invention to their own holding vehicle before filing, and both stayed on as assignors in 2005 and again in the 2011 corrective filing. Reel 021726/0609 and reel 027308/0044.
• The two inventors share a surname and are the only assignors on both the 2005 and 2011 recordings — consistent with a family/partnership‑held asset rather than a corporate R&D program.
• Recording lag: executed 2005‑08‑06 but not recorded until 2008‑10‑23 — a ~26‑month lag, during prosecution of the divisional. This is a common individual‑inventor pattern and is not itself an NPE tell, but it does mean the public record was blank for most of the patent's pendency.
• The same two inventors and the same chain also cover the sibling family members US 7,412,325 and US 7,701,360 — useful for correspondent cross‑checking (see signal 3).

Original assignee

Union Beach L.P. (corrected of record 2011‑12‑01 to Union Beach Limited Partnership), address of record given as Texas in the assignment abstract for reel 021726/0609.

• Product embodiment: I found no evidence that Union Beach L.P. / Union Beach Limited Partnership ever shipped a product embodying claims 1–10. The specification describes generic cellular handsets, PDAs, vehicles and a server/navigation architecture (FIG. 1, FIG. 6) but names no commercial product or brand. The '968 claims are directed to group tracking / convergence‑ETA behaviour in portable devices, so a product would have had to be a handset or fleet‑telematics application — none is identified anywhere in the record.
• Primary line of business: Appears to be an inventor‑held patent holding limited partnership, not an operating company. It exists in the public record essentially only as a patent assignee.
• Current status: Not determinable with confidence. Its last recorded act is as assignor on reel 027497/0436 (executed 2011‑12‑06, recorded 2012‑01‑08). I could not confirm from available sources whether it was later dissolved; I will not assert a status I cannot document. What I can say is that it has not appeared in the chain since 2012 and is not the current owner.
• Subsequent assignees are all non‑operating vehicles: Q Particle Research Ltd. L.L.C. → Chemtron Research LLC → Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC → Fleet Connect Solutions LLC.

Assignment timeline

All six events below are recorded assignments. Execution dates are as recorded in the legal‑events abstract (note that for the first two, the "effective date" field is 2005‑08‑06 and the recording dates differ).

• 2005‑08‑06 (executed) / recorded 2008‑10‑23 — Reel 021726/0609

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Tannenbaum, David H.; Tannenbaum, Mary C.
  • Assignee: UNION BEACH L.P. (Texas)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved legal‑events record — verify at Assignment Center
  • Context: founders assign the invention to their own holding partnership four days before the priority filing — asset formation, not a third‑party sale.

• 2005‑08‑06 (executed) / recorded 2011‑12‑01 — Reel 027308/0044

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (correction of assignee name previously recorded on reel 021726 frame 0609)
  • Assignor: Tannenbaum, David H; Tannenbaum, Mary C
  • Assignee: UNION BEACH LIMITED PARTNERSHIP (Texas)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record — verify at Assignment Center
  • Context: change of name only — confirms the assignee's correct legal name; no change in beneficial ownership.

• 2011‑12‑06 (executed) / recorded 2012‑01‑08 — Reel 027497/0436

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Union Beach Limited Partnership
  • Assignee: Q PARTICLE RESEARCH LTD. L.L.C. (Delaware)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record — verify at Assignment Center
  • Context: sale/divestiture to an Intellectual Ventures‑affiliated shell. Corroboration: "Q Particle Research Ltd. L.L.C." is listed among Intellectual Ventures entities in an IV‑related USPTO prosecution exhibit (IPR2022‑00709, Toyota v. Intellectual Ventures II LLC, Ex. 1011), alongside an IV signature block attributed to Phyllis Turner‑Brim, "Intellectual Ventures VP Chief IP Counsel," e‑signed 2015‑08‑26. (Treat the IV affiliation as strongly supported but document‑derived, not from the assignment abstract itself.)

• 2015‑08‑26 (executed) / recorded 2015‑12‑11 — Reel 037273/0426

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Q Particle Research Ltd. L.L.C.
  • Assignee: CHEMTRON RESEARCH LLC (Delaware)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record — verify at Assignment Center
  • Context: internal IV corporate reorganization by merger — no third‑party consideration, no change in ultimate control.

• 2020‑04‑16 (executed) / recorded 2020‑05‑01 — Reel 052547/0620

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Chemtron Research LLC
  • Assignee: INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 160 LLC (Delaware)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record — verify at Assignment Center
  • Context: internal IV reorganization into a numbered "Assets" monetization vehicle — the classic IV pre‑divestiture receptacle.

• 2020‑05‑29 (executed) / recorded 2020‑06‑05 — Reel 052853/0498

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC
  • Assignee: FLEET CONNECT SOLUTIONS LLC (Texas)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record — verify at Assignment Center
  • Context: transfer‑to‑asserter. Fleet Connect Solutions LLC is characterised by Unified Patents as "an NPE and entity of Empire IP" and appears throughout the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and Unified's litigation portal as a high‑frequency plaintiff. Recorded only 43 days after the upstream 052547/0620 hop.

Post‑chain enforcement events (not assignments, but part of the ownership story):

• 2024‑12‑13 (effective) / 2025‑02‑18 (recorded event) — Request for ex parte reexamination filed against the '968 patent (Google Patents legal event "RR"). Separately, PTACTS shows reexam control 90/019,766 with ORBCOMM Inc. as requester and Fleet Connect Solutions LLC as patent owner; I could not confirm from available sources that 90/019,766 is the same proceeding as the '968 reexam, so I flag the possible match rather than assert it.
• 2024–2025 — Fleet Connect litigated this patent in a broad campaign. The '968 patent is expressly listed in Fleet Connect Solutions LLC v. The Kroger Co. (E.D. Tex.), alongside the '583, '616, '837, '291, '053, '044, '565 and '949 patents (Retail Patent Litigation Report, June 2024). The '968 patent is also asserted in the Orkin / Wheels / Geotab‑customer complaints per the D.N.J. declaratory‑judgment complaint (2:24‑cv‑06089). More than 60 total Fleet Connect cases are reported by Unified Patents across its portfolio.
• 2025‑08‑21 — Adjusted expiration; term ends while litigation is live (a late‑term assertion pattern).

Caution on reel collision: reel 052853 also contains a different 2020‑06‑05 record — frame 0153, a patent security agreement running from a long list of Acacia‑family LLCs to Starboard Value Intermediate Fund LP, whose correspondent of record is S. Kareff c/o Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. That is not our record and its correspondent must not be attributed to frame 0498. Because the two share a reel, this is a live conflation risk for anyone reconstructing the chain quickly.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7741968
    2005 : Inventors assign to Union Beach LP
    2008 : Divisional filed and first record made
    2010 : Patent issues
    2011 : Corrective assignment fixes assignee name
    2012 : Sold to Q Particle Research LLC
    2015 : Merged into Chemtron Research LLC
    2020 : Moved to Intellectual Ventures Assets 160
         : Sold to Fleet Connect Solutions LLC
    2024 : Fleet Connect suits on this patent
         : Ex parte reexam requested
    2025 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. The patent leaves the inventor‑held partnership and passes through four successive non‑operating vehicles: Q Particle Research Ltd. L.L.C. (Delaware) at reel 027497/0436 (rec. 2012‑01‑08); Chemtron Research LLC (Delaware) at 037273/0426 (rec. 2015‑12‑11); Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC (Delaware) at 052547/0620 (rec. 2020‑05‑01); Fleet Connect Solutions LLC (Texas) at 052853/0498 (rec. 2020‑06‑05). Evidence beyond the naming: no assignee in the chain identifies a product; the terminal assignee is a pure assertion vehicle per Unified Patents' NPE designation and its 60+ case docket; and three of the four are single‑purpose Delaware LLCs created as IV asset receptacles. This is not "could be a shell" — the IV affiliation of Q Particle Research is document‑supported, and the terminal entity is currently suing operating telematics companies.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT. The fifth assignee is Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC (reel 052547/0620, executed 2020‑04‑16) — Intellectual Ventures is named on the comparison list. The current assignee, Fleet Connect Solutions LLC (reel 052853/0498), is independently designated an NPE/patent assertion entity and an "entity of Empire IP" by Unified Patents, and is catalogued as complaining party across the Stanford NPE Litigation Database (e.g. npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7450955; /patent/8862184) and portal.unifiedpatents.com. Two tier‑1 asserter organizations in one chain.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT VERIFIABLE ON CURRENT DATA. I could not retrieve the correspondent‑of‑record for any of the six reels (021726/0609, 027308/0044, 027497/0436, 037273/0426, 052547/0620, 052853/0498). The Google Patents legal‑events feed omits that field, and the document abstracts my searches surfaced belong to other records (notably reel 052853/0153, correspondent S. Kareff c/o Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP — an Acacia/Starboard security agreement, not our frame 0498). I therefore make no correspondent finding. This is the highest‑value single item to verify: pull each of the six reel/frame pairs at assignmentcenter.uspto.gov (or the legacy index at assignment.uspto.gov) and read the correspondent block. If one attorney/firm recurs across 027497/0436 → 037273/0426 → 052547/0620, that converts this signal to PRESENT; IV's own filings typically run through in‑house counsel or a repeat outside firm, but I will not guess names. Cross‑check the sibling patents 7,412,325 and 7,701,360, which share the same chain and will show the same correspondents on the same dates.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT. Four successive transfers across three ownership capitals, with the decisive hops compressed: 2011‑12‑06 → 2015‑08‑26 → 2020‑04‑16 → 2020‑05‑29. The last two are 43 days apart (reels 052547/0620 and 052853/0498), i.e. the IV "Assets" receptacle existed in this chain for barely six weeks before handing the patent to the asserting entity — the signature of a purpose‑built transfer rather than an arm's‑length sale. The 2011 → 2012 hop (execution 2011‑12‑06, recording 2012‑01‑08) and the Q Particle → Chemtron merger (execution 2015‑08‑26, recording 2015‑12‑11) show the same pattern of execution clustered near a transaction date with recording lag behind it.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (on this patent). The final acquisition was executed 2020‑05‑29 / recorded 2020‑06‑05 (reel 052853/0498). The '968‑specific assertions I can confirm are 2024 (Kroger, E.D. Tex.; Orkin; Wheels/Geotab‑customer counts) — roughly four years later, well outside the 6‑month window. Note the adjacent pattern though: Fleet Connect's broader campaign on sibling patents begins around 2020‑11‑30, ~6 months after the acquisition, which is consistent with a portfolio‑wide launch rather than a single‑patent set‑up.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 record, no receiver, no court‑approved sale appears anywhere in the chain. The 2011 divestiture by Union Beach Limited Partnership was a negotiated private transfer to Q Particle Research, and the later Q Particle → Chemtron step is an intra‑IV merger (reel 037273/0426), i.e. corporate reorganization, not insolvency. Nothing in the record resembles Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid‑style estate sales.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. The classic signal requires an operating company passing patents to an NPE that sues the operating company's competitors. The transferor here is Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC, which is itself a non‑practising monetization vehicle — there is no operating firm using Fleet Connect to attack rivals, and no SEC filing on point. What the record shows instead is plain divestiture‑to‑asserter.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti‑NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Fleet Connect Solutions LLC, an active plaintiff, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. The inverse has in fact occurred: Unified Patents has funded prior‑art and reexamination challenges against other Fleet Connect patents (e.g. U.S. 7,742,388 reexam 90/019,840; prior art found on U.S. 7,260,153), and an ex parte reexamination was requested against this '968 patent effective 2024‑12‑13. The patent has been attacked, not neutralized.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Three strong signals are present and mutually reinforcing: (i) a shell‑entity transfer chain of four non‑operating vehicles, all recorded on specific reels — 027497/0436 (Q Particle Research Ltd. L.L.C., rec. 2012‑01‑08), 037273/0426 (Chemtron Research LLC merger, rec. 2015‑12‑11), 052547/0620 (Intellectual Ventures Assets 160 LLC, rec. 2020‑05‑01) and 052853/0498 (Fleet Connect Solutions LLC, rec. 2020‑06‑05); (ii) a known asserter at two levels, since Intellectual Ventures is expressly on the tier‑1 list and Fleet Connect Solutions is independently designated an NPE and Empire IP entity by Unified Patents while running a 60+ case campaign; and (iii) a 43‑day cascade between reels 052547/0620 and 052853/0498, which is a purpose‑built hand‑off rather than a sale. The single caveat is that the correspondent‑of‑record was not retrievable from the sources available to me, so the "repeat attorney" signal is formally unresolved — that is the one field that, once pulled, would tighten this from high confidence to conclusive.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 7741968): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ · legacy index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for this patent (source of the reel/frame data above): https://patents.google.com/patent/US7741968B1/en
• Unified Patents litigation portal — Fleet Connect Solutions: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20Jersey%20District%20Court/case/2%3A24-cv-06089
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database (Fleet Connect / acquired‑patent asserter entries): https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7450955 · https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8862184
• Unified Patents insight identifying Fleet Connect as an Empire IP NPE entity: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights

I'll research US patent 7741968 and its cited prior art. Let me start with searches.

Let me verify the key references and their content with targeted searches.

Let me verify a few more references for accurate descriptions.

Prior Art Analysis — US Patent No. 7,741,968 B1

Note on the record: The analysis below is grounded in the authoritative full text of US 7,741,968 B1 (the "’968 patent") fetched from Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7741968/en) plus verification searches for the key references. Patent and application numbers are reproduced exactly as they appear on the face of the patent; where a date or classification looks anomalous I flag it rather than "correcting" it.

1. The patent at issue

Claims at issue (10 claims; three independent):

• Claim 1 — method: create a select group of target portable devices with a master device; master establishes current geographic positions of the group; master displays each target's position; master sends convergence navigational instructions to at least one target; and generates ETAs for the convergence.
• Claim 4 — method of keeping track of a group of individuals: hand-held device receives current geographic location data for each individual; displays it; sends converging instructions to at least one individual; generates ETAs.
• Claim 7 — CRM: code to receive geographical positional data for a plurality of mobile devices at a master device; code to display them; code to send convergence geographical data including turn-by-turn instructions; code that continuously generates an ETA.
• Dependent claims 2, 5 (cell phones), 3, 8 (GPS / third-party / user-entered positioning), 6 (GPS sending devices). Claims 9 and 10 are verbatim duplicates ("received from a party other than from said other mobile devices").

Critical date for §102: Because the ’968 patent is a divisional entitled to the 2005-08-10 parent filing, references qualify as pre-AIA §102 art if granted/published before 2005-08-10 (§102(a)/(b)) or if their effective U.S. filing date precedes 2005-08-10 (§102(e)).

2. The 26 references cited on the face of the ’968 patent

Ordered by citation number. "Potentially anticipates" = a preliminary §102 screen only; each entry requires an element-by-element comparison, and most of these references anticipate only isolated limitations, i.e., they are §103 combination material rather than standalone §102 anticipators.

3. "Family Cites Families" references (7)

These are citations appearing in the related family members (US 7,412,325 / US 7,701,360) rather than the ’968 face. They are not the primary art for the ’968 claims and, being family-citation material, several are §102(a)/(b) eligible:

4. Bottom line — §102 assessment

• No single reference cited on the face of US 7,741,968 B1 appears to anticipate independent claim 1, 4, or 7 in full. The claimed combination is (i) a master device that (ii) groups and displays the positions of multiple target devices, (iii) sends convergence navigational instructions (turn-by-turn under claim 7) to a target, and (iv) generates an ETA for the convergence. The cited art shows these limitations distributed across different references.
• Closest §102 candidates (partial, each missing at least the convergence-instruction/ETA pairing):
  • US 6,504,503 B1 (Intel) — select group, shared GPS positions, "buddy list" display with proximity; strongest on claims 1/3/4/7's group-and-display core.
  • US 7,443,283 B2 (MIT/Schmandt) — small consenting group, GPS location sharing, display of other members' status; strongest on group/display, weaker on navigation.
  • US 2004/0021569 A1 (Lepkofker) — master control station receiving and displaying positions of multiple tracked units; strongest on the "master tracks and displays group" architecture, but no convergence guidance/ETA.
  • US 6,535,743 B1 (Minorplanet) and US 6,937,869 B1 (Sprint) — delivery of directions/route planning to a mobile user; relevant to the convergence-instruction and ETA limitations rather than the group architecture.
  • US 5,724,243 A (Highwaymaster) — expected-time-of-arrival determination; relevant only to the ETA limitations.
• §102(e) timing notes (literal): US 6,937,869, US 6,972,677, US 7,280,040, US 7,397,368, US 7,443,283 and US 7,463,973 all have effective filing dates before 2005-08-10 and are therefore §102(e)-eligible despite later issuance. US 2008/0036610 A1 (Garmin) carries a 2006-08-08 date that post-dates the critical date and should not be treated as qualifying prior art without evidence of earlier priority.
• Overall character of the art: The cited references read predominantly as §103 combination material (secondary references to navigation-from-a-server, ETA computation, traffic/environmental overlays, and multi-unit monitoring), not as standalone §102 anticipators.
• Litigation/reexam posture: This is not academic — Fleet Connect Solutions LLC is asserting the patent family in numerous district-court actions (e.g., D.N.J. 1:24-cv-06089; C.D. Cal. 2:24-cv-00939) and a reexamination was requested effective 2024-12-13, so the §102/§103 strength of these cited references (and any uncited art such as Haney, discussed in the USPTO petition records) is presently contested.

Caveats: (1) I could not retrieve the full specifications of every secondary reference (e.g., Coulthard US 6,972,677, Aware US 7,280,040) within the search budget, so their descriptions derive from their titles/abstracts and the ’968 face citation list; treat those mappings as preliminary. (2) A true §102 anticipation requires that a single reference disclose every limitation arranged as claimed; the table above reflects a screening, not a legal conclusion. (3) If you want, I can pull the full claim text of any specific one of these references (e.g., Intel ’503 or Lepkofker ’569) and do a strict element-by-element §102 chart against claims 1, 4, and 7.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me verify key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,741,968 B1

"System and method for navigation tracking of individuals in a group"

Assignee of record: Fleet Connect Solutions LLC (current); originally Union Beach LP
Priority date: 2005‑08‑10 (parent US 11/200,730, now US 7,412,325); divisional filed 2008‑06‑20
Status per page: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2025‑08‑21); a Request for Reexamination was filed effective 2024‑12‑13 (event code "RR")

Scope note / caveat up front: This analysis relies on the reference list in the patent page's citations (26 U.S./foreign references), the specification's own admissions, and the snippets of those references I was able to verify by search. I do not have the full reexamination record, the examiner's § 103 rejections, or the complete text of every cited reference; where I rely on snippet-level content I say so. Pending reexamination significantly affects how this analysis should be used — a reexam could have already narrowed or confirmed these claims, and I could not confirm the outcome.

1. Governing framework

• Because the application was filed 2008‑06‑20 as a divisional of a 2005 application, pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs. Prior art under pre‑AIA §§ 102(a), (b), and (e) is available, with the critical date being the 2005‑08‑10 priority date (there is no evidence on the page of an earlier provisional).
• The patent's own Background contains a material admission of the state of the art: "It is now well-know that mobile devices of all types, such as cell phones PDAs, computers and even motor vehicles, have GPS and other navigational systems built into them… it is possible for such mobile devices to transmit their current location to remotely located devices… trucking companies install GPS… in vehicles and have those vehicles continually report their position to a central location. It is also known to plant a tracking device in a car (or on a person)…" This is an admission that the core building blocks (mobile GPS, position reporting to a remote location, tracking a group/asset) were known.
• Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the combination of known elements to achieve a predictable result — and a mere "predictable variation" or "obvious to try" in a finite set of identified, predictable solutions — is obvious. The references below are all in the single, crowded field of wireless position reporting / navigation, which strongly supports combinability.

2. Claim element map (independent claims)

Literal-identifier observation: claims 9 and 10 recite identical text as shown on the page. Taken literally, claim 10 adds no limitation over claim 9 — a duplication that would typically be a drafting/typo issue, but it also means claim 10 rises or falls with claim 9's obviousness.

3. Principal § 103 combinations

Combination A (primary): Intel '503 + HighwayMaster '243 + Minorplanet '543

This trio, alone, discloses or suggests every element of claims 1, 4, 6, 8, and (with '543's segmented directions) claim 7.

• '503 supplies group creation, position establishing from multiple portable devices, display of the group's positions on a device, and the alternative third-party/server position source of claims 3/9/10. Its "buddy list" explicitly "lists the position of various other pre-selected devices" — i.e., a select group tracked at a master device.
• '543 supplies the "navigation instructions" sent to a remote portable unit and the turn-by-turn/segmented limitation of claim 7.
• '243 supplies ETA generation ("In response to the destination information received from the dispatch (20) and the vehicle position, the mobile unit (42) determines the expected time of arrival") and continuous ETA updating, matching claims 1(e) and 7's "continuously generates an ETA."

Motivation / why a POSITA would combine:

1. All three are in the same field (wireless position reporting + navigation over a mobile communications network) and cite overlapping art. In KSR, "[i]f 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."
2. Each reference solves a closely related problem: '503 answers "where are the members of my group?", '543 answers "how do I get from here to there?", and '243 answers "when will I arrive?". The '968 claim simply asks for all three at once for a converging pair — an aggregation of known, complementary capabilities with a predictable result.
3. Convergence is a predictable use of '543. '543 computes directions from an "origination location" to a "destination location." Using the master/target device's own reported position as the destination is the ordinary, anticipated operation of that system; nothing in '543 excludes a moving destination. The patent's own specification describes this as routine.
4. ETA is a conventional companion to route guidance. '243 explicitly supplies an ETA for exactly this kind of position-reporting system, and calculating an ETA from current position, destination and speed is a mechanical step. There is thus a reasonable expectation of success in bolting '243's ETA to a '543-style guidance path.

Combination B (group/leader architecture): Lepkofker '569 + Minorplanet '543 + HighwayMaster '243 (optionally with Intel '503)

• Lepkofker '569 discloses a Master Control Station (MCS) that receives location data from multiple personal tracking units worn by persons, and an MCS display showing the location of tracked personnel — i.e., the claim 1/4 "master tracks a group of individuals and displays their positions," and it pre-dates the priority date (published 2004‑02‑05).
• Adding '543 (guidance to each tracked person) and '243 (ETA) completes claims 1 and 4.
• Motivation: Lepkofker expressly frames the MCS as a supervisor/monitor ("Master Control Station") comparable to the patent's own "group leader… much as an air traffic controller keeps track of a plurality of airplanes." A supervisor who can already see each unit's position would obviously want (i) to direct a unit to the supervisor/destination and (ii) to know when each will arrive — the exact improvements the '968 claims recite. This is predictable, and driven by the same operational need (managing a group).

Combination C (group-formation/awareness + guidance): MIT '283 (US 7,443,283) or Aware '040 (US 7,280,040) + Intel '503 + '543 + '243

• US 7,443,283 B2 (MIT) discloses connecting an "intimate group" of devices by exchanging awareness cues; US 7,280,040 B2 (Aware Technologies) discloses distributed multi‑nodal voice/data communication among nodes. Either supplies the "select group… in association with a master" concept in mobile peer devices. Both are properly pre‑date the 2005‑08‑10 priority (filed 2004‑02‑19 and 2004‑03‑21 respectively; available as pre‑AIA § 102(e) art).
• Motivation: combining a group-awareness/messaging layer with the position and guidance layers of '503/'543/'243 is the aggregation of art addressing the same goal (coordinating a group of mobile users), producing only the predictable result of a leader seeing and guiding members.

Combination D (for claim 2/5 — "cell phones") and claim 7's client/server split: + '365 / '365's server and '359 / '509

• US 6,314,365 B1 (Navigation Technologies, 2001) — "providing navigation services to cellular phone devices from a server" — and US 6,633,809 B1 / US 6,347,278 B2 explicitly place navigation computation on a remote server for mobile/handheld devices.
• Motivation: claim 2/5's "cell phone" limitation is a design choice among a small, identified set of portable devices, and '503 itself names the cellular phone. That is the paradigm of an obvious limitation under KSR.

4. Reference-specific notes and caveats

• Same-family art is NOT prior art: US 7,412,325 (parent) and US 7,701,360 (sibling divisional) are the applicant's own family members and cannot be used against '968. The page lists them under "Family Applications."
• References that post-date the 2005‑08‑10 priority date must be excluded from the § 103 combination. In particular US 7,831,264 B2 / US 2008/0096519 A1 (Sony Ericsson, Miegel — "Tracking a group of mobile terminals") and US 2008/0036610 A1 (Garmin) are cited by '968 but have 2006+ priority dates; they are useful only as evidence of what the field later found natural, not as § 103 prior art. (Notably, Miegel's "leader mobile terminal" + group display + directions-to-destination is remarkably close to claims 1–7 — an indication that this subject matter was, in fact, an obvious development of the prior art.)
• § 102(e)‑type references: US 7,443,283 (filed 2004‑02‑19), US 7,280,040 (filed 2004‑03‑21), US 7,397,368 (Otto, filed 2004‑09‑22), and US 7,463,973 (Xanavi, filed 2005‑06‑02) all have U.S. filing dates before 2005‑08‑10 and are therefore available under pre‑AIA § 102(e). I verified dates for '283/'040/'368 only from their listing; treat the exact applicability of each as needing confirmation from the full documents.
• WO 2005/001386 A2 (Harman Becker, published 2005‑01‑06) — "Navigation method and system" — is available as a § 102(a)/(b) printed publication and adds further support for the "send navigation data to a mobile device" element (claim 7), but I could confirm only its bibliographic entry.
• Uncertainty flagged: I could not retrieve the reexamination determination for '968 (request effective 2024‑12‑13). If the reexam resulted in amended or confirmed claims, the claim scope analyzed above may differ from what is currently in force. Also, my element-by-element mapping of '543 and '569 is based on abstracts/specification snippets, not full-text claim charts; each of the above combinations should be reduced to a detailed claim chart against the reference's own disclosure before being relied upon.

5. Bottom line

• Independent claims 1 and 4 appear obvious over Intel '503 + Minorplanet '543 + HighwayMaster '243, and independently over Lepkofker '569 + '543 + '243, with the group-formation element further supported by MIT '283 or Aware '040.
• Independent claim 7 appears obvious over the same combinations, because each recited limitation (receive plurality of positions; display; send convergence geo-data; turn-by-turn; continuous ETA) is separately and expressly disclosed by '503, '543, and '243 respectively, and combining them is a predictable aggregation of known, complementary navigation functions.
• Dependent claims 2, 5, 6, 8 (cell phone; GPS senders) are obvious over '503 and '365/'359.
• Dependent claims 3, 9, and 10 (alternative position sources: target GPS, third-party server, user input) are obvious over '503 (device GPS vs. central server/web service), '365 (server), Lepkofker (check-in/user input), and '516 (user-entered address). Claim 10's text is identical to claim 9's, so it cannot be patentably distinct.
• The strongest motivations to combine are (i) the shared field and overlapping purposes of the references, (ii) the patent's own admission that mobile GPS position-reporting and group/asset tracking were well known, and (iii) the complementary, predictable nature of the three capabilities (locate the group → guide a member to converge → estimate when they arrive), which is squarely the KSR "predictable result" scenario.