US 9015099

I'll search for this patent on the USPTO and related sources.

Let me check for any litigation or CAFC activity and confirm the claim structure.

Let me try to confirm the actual claim numbering.

US Patent 9,015,099 — Verification & Summary

Important scoping note up front: The searches for "9015099" also returned two unrelated documents where the digit string appears as a foreign priority application number, not as a US patent number:

• GB priority application 9015099, cited on the face of US 5,220,735 (Raoul-Duval, "Pointe Shoe").
• JP priority application 9015099, cited on EP 1 040 855 A3 (Square Co., Ltd., game apparatus).

These are not US 9,015,099 and I am excluding them. (Per the operating rule, I am not auto-correcting any of these identifiers — they are genuinely different identifiers that happen to share six digits.)

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1. Bibliographic data (confirmed)

Sources: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9015099/en), Justia Patents (https://patents.justia.com/patent/9015099), Golden wiki record, PatentLeaderboard (SRI International portfolio).

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A device, method and system for automatically inferring a mobile user's current context includes applying a user activity knowledge base to real-time inputs and stored user-specific information to determine a current situation. Automated reasoning is used to infer a user-specific context of the current situation. Automated candidate actions may be generated and performed in accordance with the current situation and user-specific context."

3. Independence / claim structure

The '099 patent has three independent claim families, all sharing the same core inference architecture:

• Claim 1 — method (device-side context inference + suggestion), with device/apparatus and medium counterparts at claims 8 and 9 ("computing device comprising at least one processor and computer circuitry…" and "at least one machine-accessible storage medium…"), each incorporating claim 1 by reference.
• Claim 10 — separate independent method for providing an automated suggestion in response to a location/position/movement situation.
• A further independent family appears in the specification's summary-as-claim language: a method for determining whether to present an automated suggestion (the "often-repeated vs. not-often-repeated situation" branch).

⚠️ Uncertainty flag: The full claim set is not reproduced verbatim in the material I retrieved. The independent-claim overview below is built from (a) the patent's own summary-of-invention text, which tracks the claim language, and (b) the Justia claim listing, which showed claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 10 and 21. I therefore cannot state with certainty the exact total number of claims or the precise independent-claim numbering beyond 1, 8, 9 and 10.

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4. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — "Infer the purpose, then suggest" (method)

A method performed on a mobile device by an automated inference engine:

1. The inference engine accesses real-time inputs (sensor data, app data, messages, etc.) and previously stored user-specific information.
2. From the combination, it generates a plurality of different user-specific contexts — each context being an inferred purpose for the user's physical activity (e.g., "at the mall buying a birthday present" vs. "just driving past the mall").
3. It algorithmically selects (scores/ranks) which context is most likely.
4. It generates an automated suggestion from the selected context.
5. It presents that suggestion through an output device of the mobile device (visual, textual, graphical, audible).

The inventive hook: the system does not just answer "where is the user?" — it reasons about why the user is there, unassisted, without the user asking.

Claims 8 and 9 — Apparatus and medium counterparts

• Claim 8: a computing device with at least one processor plus computer circuitry configured to carry out the claim 1 method.
• Claim 9: at least one machine-accessible storage medium holding instructions that, when executed, carry out the claim 1 method.
  These are conventional statutory-category counterparts rather than new technical content.

Claim 10 — "Provide a suggestion about where the person is/moved" (method)

Independent method for providing an automated suggestion in response to a current situation pertaining to the location, position, or movement of a person in relation to a physical environment. The device-side chain (claims 10+) then layers on:

• Executing an electronic transaction as the automated response (e.g., making a purchase).
• Sending a communication to another device, including determining recipients from the inferred context and sending over a network.
• Storing the inferred context in the knowledge base.
• Iterating — collecting further real-time inputs and repeating infer/respond; including activating a new input source (e.g., turning on GPS, camera, microphone) to raise confidence.
• Confidence-gated action selection: determine a confidence level for the inferred context / candidate action and, based on it, decide to present, autonomously execute, defer, or discard the candidate action.

Third independent family — "Whether to interrupt the user at all" (method)

A method for determining whether to present an automated suggestion at the mobile device:

1. Determine a current situation from real-time inputs + stored user-specific information.
2. Infer a user-specific context from a plurality of possible contexts.
3. Analyze that context against an activity knowledge base to decide whether to generate a suggestion at all.

The dependent claims here implement the "routine vs. anomaly" logic: possible contexts are tagged as often-repeated or not-often-repeated, and the system may deliberately suppress suggestions for routine situations (nothing novel to tell the user) while surfacing suggestions for non-routine ones — or vice versa depending on configuration, and may select the presentation modality accordingly.

Spec-level context worth noting

The specification (which informs claim construction) describes: a user-activity knowledge base with templates/rules/patterns; probabilistic, semantic, and contextual models (expressly citing Bui et al., US 2012/0307… / US 2009/0307162, a Logical Hidden Markov Model, and other Bui work on activity recognition); a machine-learning context-learning module; privacy and security policy stores; a body-position sensing technique using the human body's effect on RF antenna properties (to detect hand gestures/position without cameras); and a confidence/utility framework (cost-benefit analysis) governing whether to act autonomously.

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5. USPTO / CAFC docket check — result

No CAFC 2026 docket activity involving US 9,015,099 was found. My searches for the patent number paired with "Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit," litigation, and 2026 docket terms returned no hits for this patent. What the search did surface is SRI International, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (Fed. Cir. Nos. 2020-1685, -1704, Sept. 28, 2021; earlier panel decision 930 F.3d 1295 (Fed. Cir. 2019); cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 1108 (2020)), which clarified the willfulness/enhanced-damages standard. That case involved U.S. Patent Nos. 6,711,615 and 6,484,203 — network surveillance patents — not 9,015,099. I am flagging this explicitly so the two SRI matters are not conflated.

Caveats on the docket check: I relied on general web search rather than a direct, docketed query of the CAFC's PACER/CM-ECF or the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) API. Absence of hits in my searches is not affirmative proof of no 2026 proceedings (e.g., a sealed action, a very recently filed appeal, or a reexamination/IPR not yet indexed). If a definitive docket confirmation matters, it should be run directly against PACER and the USPTO PTAB/PatentCenter dockets for application 13/585,008 and patent 9,015,099.

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6. Bottom line

US 9,015,099 (SRI International; filed Aug. 14, 2012; issued Apr. 21, 2015; app. 13/585,008) claims an automated inference engine on a mobile device that fuses real-time sensor/app inputs with stored user-specific data to infer not merely location but the user's likely purpose, then generates and presents — or autonomously executes, defers, or suppresses — a tailored suggestion. Its independent claims divide into (i) a generate-and-present-suggestion method with device/medium counterparts, (ii) a location/position/movement-response method including confidence-gated autonomous action, and (iii) a decide-whether-to-suggest-at-all method keyed to routine vs. non-routine situations. Two things I could not verify authoritatively and am marking as open: the complete verbatim claim set and any 2026 CAFC docket activity — I found no evidence of the latter.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9015099. Let me run several searches across patent litigation sources.

The first result concerns a different "’509 patent" (the Constellation Designs v. LG case involves unrelated patents). Let me search more precisely for US 9,015,099 itself.

No litigation hits yet — the results so far involve different patents (e.g., 8,842,761; 7,249,099; 8,225,099). Let me check litigation databases directly.

Litigation Summary — U.S. Patent No. 9,015,099

Bottom line: I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,015,099. No district court complaint, CAFC appeal, or PTAB proceeding asserting or challenging this specific patent surfaced in my searches. As of today (April 26, 2026), the patent appears to be litigation-free.

What I searched

Key traps I ruled out (please note these, since they are easy to conflate)

These all surfaced in searches but involve different patents and must not be attributed to US 9,015,099:

• Constellation Designs, LLC v. LG Electronics (E.D. Tex., No. 2:21-cv-00448-JRG; final judgment Apr. 2024). The briefing in that case repeatedly refers to a "’509 Patent" (and the ’761 Patent). That ’509 is a Constellation Designs patent in the non-uniform-constellation family — not US 9,015,099 (SRI International). Different owner, different technology, different number.
• Blue Spike v. Nielsen/Arbitron — asserted a ’099 patent, but that is U.S. 8,225,099 (digital watermarks).
• Actus v. Enable — ’099 patent there is U.S. 7,249,099.
• Muniauction v. Thomson — "’099 Patent" is yet another unrelated number.
• Aptiv v. Microchip (D. Del. 2023) — patent list includes 10,545,899, not our number.

Adjacent SRI International litigation (context only — none involve the ’099 patent)

SRI International is an active litigant, but the cases I located assert other patents:

• SRI International, Inc. v. Internet Security Systems, Inc. / Symantec Corp. (D. Del., No. 1:04-cv-01199; Fed. Cir. 2009-1562, 2009-1575, 2010-1010). Intrusion-detection patents. Judgment and appeal activity through 2009–2011.
• SRI International, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (D. Del., No. 1:13-cv-01534; Fed. Cir. 2020-1685, 2020-1704). Final judgment in 2020 (fees of $8,038,848.25 to SRI; willfulness finding for Cisco); post-judgment interest motion granted.

Neither docket reflects assertion of US 9,015,099.

Patent status notes (bibliographic, from the authoritative text)

• Assignee/applicant: SRI International (SRI International Inc.), Menlo Park, CA.
• Inventors: Kenneth C. Nitz, Patrick D. Lincoln, Karen L. Myers, Hung H. Bui, Rukman Senanayake, Grit Denker, William S. Mark, Norman D. Winarsky, Steven S. Weiner.
• Appl. No. 13/585,008, filed Aug. 14, 2012; granted Apr. 21, 2015.
• Google Patents lists legal status Active, adjusted expiration May 4, 2033 — consistent with no litigation-driven invalidation or disclaimer.
• There is also a family member, U.S. 10,163,058, with the same title (granted Dec. 25, 2018), which likewise showed no litigation in my search.

Caveats on confidence

• I could not open the Unified Patents litigation caselist (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) or query PACER directly; my searching was via indexed public web results. The search tool returned a "maximum steps" notice before I could exhaust additional queries.
• Because Unified, CourtListener, and Docket Alarm coverage is generally excellent for C.D. Cal., D. Del., E.D. Tex., W.D. Tex., and N.D. Cal. patent suits, the absence of any hit gives me high but not absolute confidence that no suit has been filed. A negative PACER / Docket Navigator / Lex Machina party search on "9,015,099" would be the definitive confirmation.
• Per the strict instruction, I have not "corrected" any identifier. If a source appears to reference "9,015,099," verify the digits — my searches surfaced numerous look-alike "’099"/"’509" patents from unrelated portfolios, which is the single most likely source of any mistaken litigation attribution.

I'll start by verifying the canonical list and hunting for any proceedings the ODP may not have indexed.

The generic searches are noise. Let me target the patent's own litigation/PTAB record and the owner's assertion history.

Let me confirm via the patent's litigation/PTAB record pages and petitioner-side searches.

PTAB Proceedings on US 9,015,099

Bottom line up front: I found no AIA trial proceedings on US 9,015,099 — none in the structured ODP block, and none surfaced by targeted web searching (patent number, owner, petitioner-side, and title searches). The proceeding-by-proceeding template below is therefore mostly empty, and I am flagging that as a factual finding rather than filling it with speculation. I do not invent proceeding numbers.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. Breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

The defensive posture this gives a defendant is neither of the two scenarios in the prompt. The patent is not "hardened" by surviving IPRs, and no claims have been canceled, so there is no free kill-shot. What you have is an untested patent: no PTAB estoppel binds anyone, no claim has been construed in a Final Written Decision, and there is no public Board record of how the claims fare against prior art. That cuts both ways — the patent owner has no PTAB win to lean on, and you have no roadmap. Any IPR you file would be a first impression.

No proceedings to report

I could not identify a single IPR, PGR, or CBM involving this patent. Specifically:

• The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest. That is the canonical source and it is empty.
• My searches for IPR / PTAB / petitioner-side filings tied to the patent number, the patent title, and assignee SRI International Inc returned no matching trial. Results that looked promising were false positives — e.g., IPR2020-00335 concerns U.S. Patent No. 6,651,099, and PTAB filings on U.S. Patent No. 8,489,599 (\u2019599) belong to a different patent family owned by a different party. I did not auto-correct any number.
• The broad SRI litigation record I did find (e.g., SRI International Inc. v. [Cisco Systems Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Cisco%20Systems%20Inc.), D. Del. 1:13-cv-01534, and SRI International v. Internet Security Systems, D. Del. 1:04-cv-01199) concerns SRI's network-intrusion-detection patents, not the '099 patent. I found no evidence the '099 patent has been asserted, and therefore no litigation-triggered IPR.

Caveat on confidence: ODP ingest can lag, and a recently filed petition (within the last few months) may not yet be indexed. But the patent issued on 2015-04-21 with a 2012-08-14 priority date. If it had been asserted and challenged, an IPR would almost certainly appear in public records by now. The absence is meaningful, not merely a data gap.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of US 9,015,099 is UNTESTED by the PTAB. That means no claims are CANCELED and no claims are SUSTAINED by the Board — those labels don't attach because no FWD issued. I do not have the '099 claim set in the authoritative text supplied to me (it is truncated before the claims), so I am not going to state which claims are independent or dependent. One caution for anyone building a chart off secondary sources: US 10,163,058 (application 13/585,003) is a sibling in this family with a claims 1–23 set including a "usual/unusual temporal pattern" limitation — do not attribute that claim language to the '099 patent. The two are different grants off related applications, and the ODP record also shows a continuation (US 14/677,525 → US 9,501,745). Chart the correct patent.

Estoppel landscape. There is zero § 315(e)(2) estoppel in play. No petitioner has been through an institution decision or FWD, so no party (or its privies/real parties in interest) is barred from raising any ground. For a defendant currently being asserted against, the entire prior-art universe remains available — § 102 and § 103 grounds, on any reference, in any combination, in either IPR or district court. Conversely, you get no benefit from someone else's work: you cannot piggyback on a prior petitioner's invalidity theory because none exists.

Procedural avenues. For this patent, IPR is effectively the only AIA vehicle:

• PGR is unavailable — PGR applies only to patents with an effective filing date on/after 2013-03-16; the '099 patent's priority date is 2012-08-14.
• CBM is unavailable — the transitional CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16, and the claims (mobile context inference / user activity modeling) are not directed to a "financial product or service" in any event.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner (no petitioner at all). No evidence of aggressive PTAB-appeal practice by SRI on this patent — no FWD means no CAFC appeal from a Board decision on the '099 patent. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) appears anywhere in the chain. This is a clean, uncontested prosecution-to-grant history.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant. Treat the empty PTAB docket as a strategic opening, not a comfort. The patent owner has never been forced to defend these claims in an adversarial AIA forum, so there may be low-hanging § 103 art that no one has bothered to run. Concretely:

1. Commission your own invalidity search now. Ignore secondary-source claim sets; pull the actual granted claims of US 9,015,099 from the Google Patents record or USPTO PatentCenter, and treat the patent family (US 10,163,058, US 9,501,745) as separate targets — each may have different exposure.
2. Watch your § 315(b) clock. You have one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement to file an IPR. Missing it forfeits the forum. If a demand letter has arrived but no complaint has been served, that clock has not started.
3. Budget the PTAB timeline if you file. Institution decision is due within 6 months of the petition's filing date; if instituted, the Final Written Decision is due within 12 months of the institution date (extendable to 18 for good cause). Link your filings and any decision to the Board's own record at USPTO PTAB E2E — a proceeding opened here will get its own case number at that point, and I can then give you a claim-level, decision-by-decision analysis.
4. Do not cite PTAB outcomes for this patent in briefing. There are none. Any reference to claims being "invalidated" or "upheld" in an AIA trial on US 9,015,099 would be a misrepresentation.

If you are the patent owner. The absence of IPRs after more than a decade is a genuine signal of perceived strength — or of a patent that has simply never been asserted against a well-funded defendant. If you plan to assert it, expect your first serious defendant to file an IPR and expect the claims to face their first real prior-art test.

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Sources and confidence. Canonical proceeding list: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO ODP, no AIA trials). Patent bibliographic/authoritative text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9015099/en. Family/related-grant cross-check: uspto.report/patent/grant/10163058. Litigation cross-check (other SRI patents, for negative evidence only): CourtListener, SRI v. Cisco, 1:13-cv-01534 and CourtListener, SRI v. Internet Security, 1:04-cv-01199. I have high confidence that no PTAB proceeding is currently indexed for this patent; moderate confidence that none exists at all, limited by possible ODP ingest lag on very recent filings.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9015099 across multiple sources.

Inventors

US 9,015,099 (application 13/585,008, filed 2012-08-14; granted 2015-04-21) names nine inventors:

Unusual patterns observed:

• No mass-departure pattern. There is no evidence in the sources I could reach of all (or most) inventors leaving SRI within 12 months of the 2012-08-14 filing. The same nine-person team is named on the sibling case US 10,163,058 (application 13/585,003; granted 2018-12-25), which was still filed by/assigned to SRI — i.e., the team persisted on the family for at least six years. That is the opposite of the pre-fire-sale signal the brief asks about.
• One geographic outlier. Steven S. Weiner is listed at Merion Station, Pennsylvania, not California. SRI absorbed Sarnoff Corporation (Princeton, NJ) in 2011, one year before this filing, and SRI–Sarnoff assignments are on record (e.g., Sarnoff → SRI International, executed 2011-02-04, recorded 2013-09-30, per PlainSite/Assignment 31308/208). A Sarnoff-legacy inventor is plausible but I cannot confirm it from the record — treat as unresolved, not a finding.
• Large inventor count (9) on an R&D-institute filing is normal for SRI's AI programs and is not itself a signal.

Original assignee

SRI International (officially listed as "Sri International"), Menlo Park, CA — the assignee named on the face of the issued patent and the "current assignee" shown by Google Patents.

• Primary line of business: independent, nonprofit contract research and development institute (founded 1946 as Stanford Research Institute). SRI is not a product company; it performs government- and industry-funded R&D and commercializes outputs through licensing and venture spinouts (its best-known spinout being Siri, Inc., acquired by Apple in 2010).
• Product embodying the claims? No evidence that SRI itself shipped a commercial product practicing claims 1–18. The specification describes a "personal mobile adviser" / inference engine as an R&D system, not a branded SKU. SRI's commercialization model here is licensing and spinout, not product sales.
• Current status: operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition found. Related family members (US 9,501,745; US 10,163,058; US 2015/0213371) remain attributed to SRI International.

Assignment timeline

Chronological record for US 9,015,099:

• 2012-08-14 (executed) / recorded 2012-10-05 — Reel/Frame not retrieved; see caveat below
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (inventor → company)
  • Assignor: Bui, Hung H.; Denker, Grit; Lincoln, Patrick D.; Mark, William S.; Myers, Karen L.; Nitz, Kenneth C.; Senanayake, Rukman; Weiner, Steven S.; Winarsky, Norman D. (all nine inventors, as listed in the Google Patents legal-events entry)
  • Assignee: SRI International (Menlo Park, CA)
  • Correspondent: Not determined. The attorney/agent of record on the family during prosecution is Hickman Palermo Becker Bingham LLP (stated on the face of sibling US 10,163,058), but prosecution counsel is not the same field as the assignment-recording correspondent, and I could not confirm who filed the 2012 recording.
  • Context: Ordinary employer-take assignment of employee-inventor rights to the R&D institute that employed them — not a sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Caveat — no fabricated reel/frame. The Google Patents legal-events block surfaces the 2012-10-05 recording and the full assignor list, but the USPTO Assignment Center / Assignments-on-the-Web record (reel/frame, correspondent) was not retrievable from the sources I could reach in this session. I am therefore reporting the event but not inventing a reel and frame number for it. Verify directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 9015099 / 13/585,008).

No other recorded post-issuance assignment was found. There is no recorded transfer of US 9,015,099 from SRI International to any third party in the material I retrieved. Per Google Patents, the only ownership events are:

• 2012-08-14 — application filed by SRI International
• 2012-10-05 — inventor assignment to SRI International (the event above)
• 2014-02-20 — publication of US 2014/0052681 A1
• 2015-04-02 — priority claim to continuation 14/677,525 (→ US 9,501,745) — a familial link, not an assignment
• 2015-04-21 — grant
• Adjusted expiration 2033-05-04

Because the assignment record is essentially only the original inventor→assignee link, the practical reading is: SRI International still owns the patent. I could find no litigation naming US 9,015,099, and no RPX/Unified Patents listing of SRI International as an NPE or high-frequency plaintiff.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9015099
    2012 : Application filed by nine inventors
         : Assigned to SRI International
    2014 : Application published as US 20140052681
    2015 : Patent granted
    2015 : Continuation filed by SRI

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — under the brief's own definition ("no records, or only the original assignment"). The complete record I could substantiate for US 9,015,099 is a single inventor→employer assignment to SRI International recorded 2012-10-05, with no subsequent recorded transfer; the patent has been held continuously by the original operating-assignee research institute and no litigation or asserter listing was found. In substance this is a non-asserting, original-assignee-retained patent rather than a genuine "insufficient data" gap, but it cannot be scored as an NPE chain of any confidence level because the chain never leaves SRI.

Caveats to carry forward: (a) the reel/frame and correspondent for the 2012-10-05 recording were not retrieved and must be pulled directly from https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ before this ownership summary is treated as verified; (b) Steven S. Weiner's Merion Station, PA residence and possible Sarnoff lineage is unresolved; (c) the family (US 9,501,745, US 10,163,058, US 2015/0213371) should be checked in the same Assignment Center query in case a bundled transfer exists that does not name 9,015,099 explicitly.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9015099; mirror index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

I'll research US 9,015,099's cited prior art. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific citation tables for US 9,015,099.

Let me pull the citation tables from Justia and FreePatentsOnline for this specific patent.

I attempted to open the USPTO/Google Patents citation tables directly, but the search tool hit its step limit. Below is what I could positively verify, with confidence levels and explicit gaps flagged. No identifier has been auto-corrected, and I have restricted results to U.S. Patent No. 9,015,099 itself.

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1. Positive identification of the patent (exact match confirmed)

Because the application was filed before 16 March 2013, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102/§ 103 governs.

Traps I explicitly excluded (so no "similar number" contamination): an unrelated European search report lists a Japanese priority number "JP 9015099" (EP 1040855); several "’099" patents (US 8,225,099; US 7,249,099) and "’509" patents (Constellation Designs) are different documents. None are US 9,015,099.

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2. Important limitation on the citation list (please read before relying on it)

Google Patents/Justia show that the patent-document citation count for this family is unusually small — roughly one examiner-cited U.S. patent, US 6,262,730 B1. The bulk of the citation substance is in the "References Cited in the Description" (applicant-cited), which are fully reproduced in the authoritative patent text and which I can therefore state with high confidence. I could not open the raw USPTO PTO-892 / "References Cited" pane to independently confirm the complete examiner list before the tool limit was reached. Treat Section 3 (high confidence) and Section 4 (medium confidence) accordingly.

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3. Applicant-cited references (HIGH confidence — from the authoritative patent text)

These are the references the patent itself identifies in the Detailed Description. Dates/publication numbers for the two full patent numbers are from my knowledge of the documents and should be re-verified in USPTO/West; where the patent text truncated a number, I say so rather than guessing.

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4. Examiner-cited U.S. patent document (MEDIUM confidence)

Secondary / lower-confidence item (flag as unverified): In the same Google Patents citation data I saw U.S. Pat. No. 8,886,211 B2 (Qualcomm, "Notification adjustment for computing devices," filed 2008-05-27, granted 2014-11-11). Its 2008 priority predates the '099 filing, so it would qualify as § 102(e) art if it is actually cited in the '099. I could not confirm whether it attaches to US 9,015,099 or to its continuation US 9,501,745, so I flag it rather than assert it.

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5. Non-patent literature cited (from the authoritative text)

• Bui et al. research papers: a Hidden Permutation Model for learning/recognizing high-level activity routines; a Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model for recognizing human behaviors; and a Coxian duration model for learning/recognizing human activities of daily living.
• These are § 102(b) printed publications (all pre-2011) directed to activity modeling only. They are supporting § 103 art for the "activity knowledge base"/"automated reasoning" limitations, not anticipatory of the mobile/location claims.

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6. NOT prior art — do not cite these as § 102 references

The following are later documents that cite the '099 (i.e., "Cited By"), not prior art against it: US 9,501,745 B2 (2015-04-02 continuation of 13/585,008), US 10,163,058 B2 (2018-12-25, same family/title), and other citing patents such as US 10,332,015 (Adobe), US 10,902,349 (SRI), US 11,030,673 / US 11,222,270 (IBM). A sibling pre-grant publication US 2014/0052680 A1 (same title, SRI) also appeared; it is family, not prior art.

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7. Bottom-line § 102 assessment (with the required caveats)

1. No cited reference, alone, appears to anticipate the independent method claims (the claims requiring monitoring real-time sensor inputs at a mobile electronic device, applying an activity knowledge base to determine a current location-related situation, and using automated reasoning to infer a user-specific context from a plurality of possible contexts). The cited art is either (a) activity/inference-only (Bui '162, Horvitz '730) or (b) data-analysis-only (Cheng '578), and neither combination-of-elements is disclosed in a single reference.
2. Best single-reference candidates at the dependent-claim level: Horvitz '730 (automated proactive assistance, confidence/threshold, profiling) and Bui '162 (activity knowledge base + automated reasoning) — but each would most naturally be used in a § 103 combination, not as § 102 anticipation.
3. Statutory nuance (pre-AIA): Because the '099 was filed 2012-08-14, references sharing the original SRI inventive entity/common ownership (Nitz '020; the Senanayake applications) are generally not "by another" under § 102(a)/(e) and may be disqualified from § 103 via § 103(c) — whereas Cheng '578 and Bui '162 qualify under § 102(b) regardless of inventorship.

Caveats I must state plainly

• I could not open the raw USPTO PTO-892 to enumerate every examiner citation; the confirmed patent citation count appears to be ~1 (US 6,262,730 B1).
• The Hanna et al. patent number is truncated in the authoritative text; I have not guessed it.
• The exact granted claim numbering was not fully recoverable from the sources available, so the claim mapping above is stated by claim category (independent vs. dependent, by recited subject matter). A definitive element-by-element § 102 chart requires the full issued claim set plus the complete PTO-892, which should be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter / Global Dossier for application 13/585,008.

Sources: patents.google.com/patent/US9015099/en; freepatentsonline.com; patents.google.com/patent/US6262730B1; portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6262730-B1; idiyas.com/patent/badge/9015099; wiki.golden.com.

I'll research prior art relevant to US 9,015,099, building on the litigation summary already produced. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me pull the full claim set and identify the strongest prior-art references with dates.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,015,099 ("the '099 patent")

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA, given the Aug. 14, 2012 filing date)

Note on scope and cross‑reference. This section builds on, and does not repeat, the earlier Litigation Summary. Two things from that summary frame this analysis: (1) the '099 patent has no identified litigation, so there is no litigation record of claim construction, no IPR estoppel, and no adjudicated validity to rely on; and (2) the patent's legal status is Active with an adjusted expiration of May 4, 2033. Absent litigation or an IPR, the § 103 question here is purely an ex ante paper exercise — there is no Patent Owner preliminary response, institution decision, or final written decision for the '099 patent to anchor the analysis. Everything below is therefore an independent, first‑principles obviousness assessment.

⚠️ Contradiction check (flagged per instruction). I found no source contradicting the Litigation Summary. However, I did find a new, adjacent fact not in that summary: the '099 family's disclosure appears to have been used as prior art in PTAB invalidity contentions against a different patent, U.S. 9,208,439 (exhibit "Nitz" — charts quoting the '099 specification verbatim, e.g. "the monitoring module 112 may continuously monitor and analyze the real‑time inputs 116 … and post current situation data to the knowledge base 130"). See https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1548254](/patent/1548254)/download-documents. This does not contradict the "no litigation" finding (9,208,439 is not the '099 patent), but it is relevant to § 103: it shows the '099 family's techniques were being treated as known art in the field by the relevant time. Flagging so it is not conflated with litigation against the '099 patent itself.

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1. Materials used / assumptions

The instruction was to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." Because the retrieved page content mixes the Google Patents Patent Citations / Cited By listings for the '099 family with the references named in the '099 specification itself, I treat the prior‑art universe as the union of:

(a) References cited on the face of / in the family of the '099 patent (Google Patents citation listings, e.g. https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9501745](/patent/US9501745)):

• US 6,262,730 B1 (Microsoft — "Intelligent user assistance facility") — the single U.S. patent citation surfaced for the family.
• US 8,886,211 B2 (Qualcomm — "Notification adjustment for computing devices," priority 2008‑05‑27).
• US 8,694,355 B2 / US 9,904,681 B2 (SRI International — automated task assistance; assembling documents for a triggering item).
• US 8,626,141 B2 (Qualcomm — customizing a user interface menu).
• US 2011/0145051 A1 (AisleBuyer LLC — suggesting products for purchase from a retail establishment using a mobile device).
• US 8,719,198 B2 (Microsoft — "Collaborative location and activity recommendations," 2010‑05‑04).
• WO 2011/161674 A1 (Wiener — "Real‑time automatic user status recognition and broadcasting service").
• Non‑patent: Xu, The Context‑Aware Middleware in Ambient Intelligence (2013).

(b) References named in the '099 specification (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9015099/en):

• Nitz et al., US 2012/0131020 (SRI) — techniques for identifying/assembling stored user info.
• Bui et al., US 2009/0307162 (Logical Hidden Markov Model for activity modeling).
• Cheng et al., US 7,835,578; Hanna et al.; Senanayake et al., application Ser. Nos. 13/158,109; 13/399,210; 13/534,155.

(c) References I located independently as highly material:

• Nykanen, US 6,714,778 B2 ("Context Sensitive Web Services") — a context inference engine in a wireless device/server fed by multiple on‑device sensors. (Verified via PTAB exhibits citing it, e.g. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1548254.)
• Kuhn, Nanda, Narayanan (Qualcomm), US 2012/0185419 A1 / US 8,719,188 B2 — "Determining a dynamic user profile indicative of a user behavior context with a mobile device," filed Oct. 7, 2011, published Jul. 19, 2012, granted May 6, 2014 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8719188](/patent/8719188); PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ce/fd/39/04de5bdcfcd521/US20120185419A1.pdf).
• Horvitz et al., US 7,454,393 B2 (Microsoft — cost‑benefit question answering with a user context input and utility model).
• US 7,529,854 B2 (Microsoft — "Master/Secondary Worlds": context‑aware computing via a context service module driven by context providers).

Assumptions / caveats (please read as qualifications, not hedging for its own sake):

• I could not retrieve the granted claim set of US 9,015,099 verbatim. Claim scope below is reconstructed from the patent's own Summary/Definitions text and the published application's claims as shown at RPX Insight (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US20140052681A1) and FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2015/0213371.html). Claim numbering in the granted patent may differ from the published application. Where I say "claim family," that is deliberate.
• Prior‑art dates are taken from Google Patents / aggregator listings and should be confirmed against each reference's face. The statutory‑basis column below states the expected basis, subject to that confirmation.
• The '099 patent has no prosecution‑history estoppel or IPR record to mine; I flag where a limitation is thin on evidence.

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2. Governing standard

Pre‑AIA § 103(a): a claim is obvious if the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. The Graham v. John Deere factors control: (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) the level of ordinary skill; and (4) secondary considerations. Under KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the analysis is expansive, "any need or problem known in the field" can supply the motivation, and predictable variation, design incentives, market forces, and the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" all support obviousness. The claimed invention here is a system‑integration invention — sensor fusion + a knowledge base + automated reasoning + proactive user‑facing action — which is exactly the kind of "combination of familiar elements according to known methods" that KSR holds obvious when the result is predictable.

Key structural observation for the § 103 analysis: every independent claim of the '099 patent is a three‑step pipeline — (i) passively monitor real‑time inputs; (ii) apply a knowledge base to derive a situation; (iii) use "automated reasoning" to derive a context and then act/suggest. Nothing in the claims recites a specific algorithm, data structure, sensor modality, or measured value that would distinguish the claims from the general architecture. That is the single most important fact for obviousness: broad functional claim language over a known field is highly vulnerable under KSR.

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

I would propose: a bachelor's degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience) plus 2–5 years of experience in one or more of mobile/embedded computing, sensor data processing, context‑aware or location‑based computing, human‑computer interaction, and applied AI/machine learning (Bayesian networks, HMMs, probabilistic inference). A POSITA would also be familiar with:

• mobile sensors (GPS, accelerometers, compass, microphones, cameras) and the concept of a "sensor metadata vector";
• context‑inference architectures (on‑device and client/server split);
• user modeling / preference stores and rule‑based expert systems;
• notification/alert presentation and interruption‑management design (e.g., the Microsoft attention‑sensitive‑alerting line of work).

Given the '099 patent names nine inventors and cites SRI's own AI research (Bui's Logical HMM work), the inventors themselves are plainly above this level; the question is what the hypothetical POSITA knew, and the field was mature by 2012.

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4. The claims at issue

Representative dependents: presenting a suggestion (textual/graphical/visual/audible); selecting a method of presenting based on context; communicating the suggestion to another device; comparing sensor inputs to a stored pattern of user activity; modifying a stored pattern; determining whether the situation is an "often‑repeated" vs. "not‑often‑repeated" pattern and gating suggestions on that; learning a user‑specific pattern over time; auto‑generating the plurality of possible contexts; input sources being social media/IM/voice/feeds; degree of urgency of public information; deriving info from a digital image; executing an electronic transaction; sending a communication and determining recipients; storing inferred context in the knowledge base; activating a new sensor source; confidence levels for the context and for candidate actions; and the present / execute / defer / discard decision.

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5. Prior‑art inventory

Note on PA‑2 dates: this is a very narrow margin — Kuhn was filed Oct. 7, 2011 and published Jul. 19, 2012, both within ~10 months of the '099 priority date (Aug. 14, 2012). If the '099 inventors cannot swear behind it (they likely cannot, since the '099 application was filed later), Kuhn is squarely §102(a)/(e) art and, in my view, is the single most dangerous reference in the set.

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6. Grounds of rejection (proposed combinations)

Ground 1 — Family A: obvious over Nykanen (PA‑1) in view of Kuhn (PA‑2)

• A1 (monitor real‑time sensor inputs): Nykanen's positioning/touch/audio/compass/light/temperature/accelerometer sensors sampled into a metadata vector; Kuhn's sensed indicators (wireless signals, inertial movement, environmental measurements, encoded audio/images).
• A2 (activity knowledge base → location‑related situation from inputs + stored user‑specific info): Nykanen's context inference engine applied to composite sensor signals, with a personal profile; Kuhn's comparison of sensed indicators against stored patterns/models of behavior and its use of user schedule/communication files. Motivation: Nykanen's model is generic; a POSITA would look to Kuhn to personalize the inference with user‑specific behavioral patterns — a routine, predictable improvement.
• A3 (automated reasoning → user‑specific context from a plurality of possible contexts): Nykanen's Hidden Markov Modeling recognition of composite events (i.e., selecting among candidate states) combined with Kuhn's "current inferable user behavior context" with state transitions. Kuhn expressly contemplates transitioning between states including a previously unknown state, which supplies the "plurality of possible contexts" concept.

Assessment: strong. Independently, Nykanen may anticipate much of family A; Kuhn fills the "user‑specific / plurality of contexts / personal pattern" gaps. The combination is a textbook KSR "combination of familiar elements yielding predictable results."

Ground 2 — Family B: obvious over Nykanen + Kuhn + ('854 Master/Secondary Worlds PA‑5), optionally AisleBuyer (PA‑7) / Wiener (PA‑8)

• B1 (inputs from a plurality of source types): Nykanen's sensors; '854's context providers (network/social/embedded sources); Kuhn's user schedule and communication files; the '099's own family‑cited art (Qualcomm '211 at the OS/notification layer; Wiener's broadcasting service) confirms that network/social/embedded input sources were known.
• B2 (user‑specific information from a plurality of software applications): Nykanen's server‑side personal profile + Kuhn's schedule/communication files + '854's multiple context providers. A POSITA would combine application‑level data sources (calendar, contacts, messaging) — the '099 specification itself characterizes this as conventional ("Many types and sources of stored information… calendar information, meetings and appointments, contacts information…").
• B3: as in Ground 1.

Assessment: strong. The "plurality of software applications" phrasing is a source‑registration detail, not an inventive concept.

Ground 3 — Family C ("whether to present an automated suggestion"): obvious over Nykanen + Kuhn + Horvitz '730 (PA‑3) [and, for presentation mode, Qualcomm '211 (PA‑9)]

This is the family where the § 103 case is strongest, because PA‑3 is on the face of the patent.

• C1/C2: as above.
• C3 ("analyze the user‑specific context with an activity knowledge base to determine whether to generate an automated suggestion"): Horvitz '730 is precisely an "intelligent user assistance facility" that decides whether and when to proactively present assistance, using a user model and stored preferences — and it is cited on the face of the '099 family, meaning the Examiner already treated it as art. Horvitz '393 (PA‑4) adds the explicit cost/benefit calculus for the decision (which the '099 specification itself recites almost verbatim: "a cost/benefit analysis augmented with a default set of rules… combined with one or more of the user‑specific preferences and/or policies").
• Presentation‑mode dependent claims: Qualcomm '211 (notification adjustment) discloses tailoring how a notification is presented based on device state — squarely the "selecting a method of presenting" dependent claim.

Assessment: strong. The motivation is the same problem both references address — when is it appropriate to interrupt a mobile user — and the combination yields the predictable result of a context‑gated notifier.

Ground 4 — Family D ("automatically responding"): obvious over Nykanen + Kuhn + Horvitz '730/'393 + AisleBuyer (PA‑7) / Wiener (PA‑8)

• D4 (automatic response): Nykanen's "provide useful information to the user in response to the current context result"; Kuhn's "affect one or more functions performed… by the mobile device" (LBS, navigation, network communication, user output). The response thus encompasses both informational output and functional device actions.
• Electronic‑transaction dependent: AisleBuyer '051 (mobile purchase suggestions at retail).
• Communication-to-another-device / recipients dependent: Wiener WO '674 and Qualcomm '211 (device‑to‑device notification).
• Confidence‑level and present/execute/defer/discard dependents: Horvitz '393's utility model (cost vs. expected value) and Horvitz '730's interruption management; Bui '162 (PA‑10) for the probabilistic/learning layer.

Assessment: strong to very strong. The "auto‑execute vs. defer vs. discard" logic is a direct application of PA‑4's cost‑benefit model; the '099 specification's own description of this logic ("if the confidence level… is not very high, the method 300 may conclude that it has insufficient information") is essentially a restatement of the prior‑art design pattern.

Ground 5 — Dependent "learning / pattern" claims: add Bui '162 (PA‑10) and/or Microsoft '198 (PA‑6)

Dependents reciting "comparing the real‑time sensor inputs to at least one stored pattern of user activity," "modifying at least one stored pattern," "automatically learning a user‑specific pattern over time," and "automatically generating the plurality of possible contexts" are met by Kuhn (PA‑2) alone (stored patterns/models, establishing new patterns for unknown states) and by Bui '162 (PA‑10), which is admitted art in the '099 specification. MS '198 (PA‑6) supplies "often‑repeated vs not‑often‑repeated" logic (routine vs. novel recommendations).

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7. Motivation to combine — articulated per KSR

1. Same field / same problem. All primary and secondary references sit in context‑aware and proactive‑assistance computing for mobile/wireless devices. Nykanen, Kuhn, Horvitz, and '854 each identify the same problem the '099 Background identifies: existing systems require the user to take overt action to request information, and users "may not recognize the need for, or remember to request, information or services." A known problem in the field supplies the motivation. (KSR; In re Kahn.)
2. Combination of familiar elements → predictable result. Passive sensor monitoring + a knowledge base + a probabilistic/user‑model reasoning layer + a notification/action layer were each known (Nykanen; Horvitz '730/'393; Kuhn). Combining them to yield a context‑gated proactive assistant is the predictable aggregation of known functions.
3. Simple substitution of a known element. Replacing Nykanen's generic context result with Kuhn's user‑specific behavioral pattern/model is a substitution of one known personalization technique for another, with no change in the device's principle of operation.
4. "Known technique improves a similar device in the same way." Horvitz '730/'393 refine when to interrupt — improving a mobile assistant in exactly the way the '099 specification describes.
5. Market/design incentives and finite predictable solutions. By 2012 there were only a handful of well‑known architectures for on‑device context inference (on‑device vs. client/server; HMM/Bayesian vs. rule‑based; push vs. pull). Choosing among them was "obvious to try."
6. Explicit cross‑teaching / art recognized the combination. Kuhn itself builds on the sensor‑fusion/user‑modeling literature; Nykanen provides the sensor→context engine; '854 provides the multi‑provider context framework. Efficient engineering, not inventing a new principle, drives the combination.

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8. Representative claim‑limitation mapping (illustrative, not exhaustive)

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9. Secondary considerations (objective indicia)

Because there is no litigation or IPR record, there is no developed evidence of secondary considerations (no nexus evidence, no commercial‑success showing, no copying/licensing record). On the face of the documents I reviewed, I see no evidence of:

• unexpected results (the claims are broad functional recitations; the specification asserts benefits like "timely and useful assistance" without comparative or measured data);
• long‑felt but unmet need (the need was identified and partially solved by Nykanen/Horvitz/Kuhn years earlier);
• industry praise / licensing / copying.

Absent such evidence, secondary considerations do not outweigh the strong prima facie case.

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10. Where the patent could survive (point of novelty the analysis should not gloss over)

To be balanced, these are the places the '099 patent has the best (though I think still imperfect) § 103 defenses:

1. "User‑specific context relating to the current location‑related situation." Properly construed, this may require inferring the user's purpose/objective ("why") from the location ("where") — e.g., *going to the store to buy a birthday present rather than merely being at the store. Kuhn infers a behavior context; Horvitz infers when to assist; neither reference, on the excerpts I reviewed, expressly describes deriving a user's intent/objective by combining a physical situation with calendar/social/messaging evidence. A well‑drafted infringement position would push claim construction toward this "purpose inference." (Counter: the specification's own example — checking the calendar for upcoming birthdays — is a trivial rule a POSITA would apply, and AisleBuyer '051 discloses context‑based purchase suggestions.)
2. "Often‑repeated" vs. "not‑often‑repeated" gating of whether to present a suggestion (present for novelty, suppress for routine, or vice versa). This is a more specific decision rule than I found expressly disclosed in the primary references, though Kuhn's known‑vs‑unknown‑state comparison and MS '198's routine‑vs‑novel recommendation logic come close. This is the dependent‑claim cluster most likely to survive a prima facie case at the margin.
3. The specification's body‑capacitance/antenna‑detection technique for sensing body position without video — genuinely distinctive subject matter. However, on the record I have, this is not recited in the claims; it therefore cannot support patentability of the claims under § 103, though it strongly supports written‑description/enablement and could matter if broader claims were ever sought in a continuation.

I would also note two non‑§103 vulnerabilities the /owner should weigh (outside this task's scope but relevant to overall strength): (i) §101/Alice exposure, given the abstract‑idea‑plus‑generic‑computer framing typical of this claim style and the USPTO's treatment of comparable "compare new and stored information using rules" claims; and (ii) §112(b) exposure for the functional terms "activity knowledge base," "automated reasoning," and "user‑specific context," which are arguably means‑plus‑function‑like recitations of result rather than structure.

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11. Bottom line and confidence

• Most likely combination to invalidate: Nykanen (US 6,714,778) + Kuhn (US 2012/0185419 / US 8,719,188), optionally with Horvitz (US 6,262,730 and/or US 7,454,393) for the suggestion‑generation and confidence/defer/discard limitations, and AisleBuyer (US 2011/0145051) and Wiener (WO 2011/161674) for the commerce and device‑to‑device dependents. Adding Bui (US 2009/0307162) covers the learning/pattern dependents.
• Strength: I assess this as a strong prima facie § 103 case against the four independent claim families and against most dependents, driven by (a) the broad, functional claim language; (b) near‑architectural identity with Nykanen; (c) Kuhn's remarkably on‑point "inferable user behavior context" disclosure filed ~10 months before the '099 priority date; and (d) Horvitz '730/'393 being on the face of the patent and disclosing the "whether/when to assist" and cost‑benefit logic.
• Weak point: the "purpose/objective inference" reading of "user‑specific context relating to the current location‑related situation," and the "often‑repeated vs not‑often‑repeated" gating dependents.

Confidence and limitations (stated plainly):

• High confidence in the existence and disclosure of PA‑1, PA‑2, PA‑3, PA‑4, PA‑5 and in their relevance — these are grounded in the sources cited above (Justia/Google Patents PDFs, PTAB exhibits).
• Medium confidence in the exact granted claim set and claim numbering of US 9,015,099, and in the precise statutory dates for PA‑2, PA‑6 and PA‑8 — these should be confirmed against the face of each document and via USPTO PatentCenter before any rejection is finalized. I was unable to retrieve the granted claims verbatim, and I hit the tool's step limit before verifying every date.
• I did not fabricate any claim text, reference, or quotation. Where I quote the '099 specification, the quote is from the authoritative patent text provided. Where I could not verify something (e.g., the exact '188 filing date), I said so.
• Per the standing instruction, no patent number or identifier has been "corrected." If any source appears to reference "9,015,099," verify the digits — as the Litigation Summary notes, the field contains numerous look‑alike ’099/’509 patents.