US 9354069

I'll search for the patent and any related litigation.

Let me verify the granted claims and check for any 2026 litigation/appeal activity.

US 9,354,069 B2 — verification summary

Search scope caveat up front: I ran live web searches over Google Patents, Justia, uspto.report, Unified Patents, CourtListener/RECAP, dockets.justia and PACER Monitor mirrors. I did not have direct authenticated access to USPTO PatentCenter or the Federal Circuit's CM/ECF docket system in this session, so the litigation portion below is from third‑party mirrors, not from the official court docket itself. Where sources conflict, I flag it rather than smoothing it over.

Bibliographic data (as reported by the sources found)

Abstract (verbatim)

"The preferred embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for dynamic route estimation and prediction using discrete sampled location updates from various mobile devices for the purpose of providing a graphical representation of a mobile device's route along a known network path of map data. The embodiments also provide supplemental route metrics, such as traveled distance, elapsed time, etc., and the capability to assign destination points for the purpose of providing the ability to modify location update points in an application, such as a route planner, and/or to store the dynamically generated route based on various preferences for later retrieval."

Claims — ⚠️ conflicting claim sets in the sources

This is the one item I could not fully pin down, and I want to be explicit about it rather than present a single version as certain:

(a) The claim set I believe is the granted set (mirrored by uspto.report): 35 claims, with four independent claims — claim 1 (method), claim 11 (non‑transitory computer‑readable medium, "to perform the method of claim 1"), claim 12 (computing apparatus), and claim 22 (computing apparatus, differently worded). Dependent claims 32–35 add the predicted‑position/replacement‑on‑GPS‑update limitations.

(b) A different claim set appears on the Justia page for the pre‑grant publication US 2014/0058666, whose claim 1 is "A method for dynamically predicting routes between an original location and a destination location using a mobile communication device," with steps (a)–(i) including estimating a speed, generating a plurality of possible routes, calculating possible next positions, displaying them, and repeating until the updated location equals the destination.

The most likely explanation is that the application as published carried one set of claims and the granted patent issued with a different (amended) set — a normal occurrence in prosecution. But I cannot verify from the materials retrieved which text is the actual granted claim set. Anyone relying on this should confirm against the official USPTO full‑text/PatentCenter claim listing.

Plain‑language overview of the independent claims (using set (a))

• Claim 1 (method): Receive the mobile device's starting location and a desired destination; compute several possible routes between them from that location information; for each route, obtain travel metrics; as the device moves along one of those routes, compute a series of locations along it; cause the mobile device to display the possible routes, the metrics, and an indication of those locations; and iteratively update that display as the device travels toward the destination.
• Claim 11 (non‑transitory CRM): The same method implemented as instructions on a non‑transitory computer‑readable medium.
• Claim 12 (computing apparatus): A memory+processor apparatus programmed to do the same receive‑→‑compute routes‑→‑obtain metrics‑→‑compute locations‑→‑display‑→‑iteratively‑update sequence.
• Claim 22 (computing apparatus): A variant apparatus claim with the same core steps reworded around the device "traveling along" a route and "as the device travels" updating the routes, metrics and location indications.
• Notable dependents: metrics limited to shortest distance, estimated fuel usage, and/or estimated travel time (2, 13, 23); fuel usage based on recent MPG or passenger count (4–5, 14–15, 24–25); iterative updates removing a route based on updated location (3, 16, 26); updates at a predetermined/constant interval (6–7, 17–18, 27–28); server‑pushed route‑update information causing removal of a displayed route (8, 19, 29); destination modified at the device causing route recomputation (9, 20, 30); GPS‑derived start location (10, 21, 31); and predicted positions based on speed/heading/posted speed/turn restriction, replaced by the actual location on receipt of an update (32–35).

Litigation / CAFC 2026 check

• No 2026 Federal Circuit docket involving 9,354,069 was found. Searches for "'9354069' Federal Circuit appeal 2026 docket," and for the patent number paired with CAFC/Bluestone terms, returned nothing linking this patent to a 2026 appeal. I state this as "not found," not as "confirmed none exists."
• The live, closely related case is Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 7:25‑cv‑00569 (W.D. Tex., filed 2025‑12‑12), assigned to Judge David Counts and referred to Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland. Reported 2026 docket activity includes an answer (~2026‑03‑30), a scheduling order (2026‑04‑22), and a sealed motion / case‑transfer entry (2026‑04‑24) per CourtListener.
• The patents actually pleaded in that complaint appear to be the later same‑family continuations — '341, '337, '208, '608 and '513 — not '069. The complaint's technical background quotes the '208 specification and its claim‑eligibility arguments address the '341, '337, '208 and '608 patents. Given that '069's anticipated expiration date is 2023‑04‑10, its continued‑infringement value is limited (though past damages within the six‑year lookback could reach back to December 2019). I could not confirm from the retrieved materials that '069 is asserted in 7:25‑cv‑00569, nor could I confirm it is not (I saw only a partial document analysis of the 168‑page complaint, not the pleading itself).

Sources

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US9354069/en
• https://patents.justia.com/patent/9354069
• https://patents.justia.com/patent/20140058666
• https://uspto.report/patent/grant/9,354,069
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028521/bluestone-ventures-inc-v-google-llc/
• https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172879830/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172879830.1.0.pdf
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[10502583](/patent/10502583)-B2
• https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61786845/Bluestone_Ventures,_Inc_v_Google_LLC

Uncertainty statement: bibliographic data, abstract and priority chain are well corroborated across independent mirrors. The exact granted claim set (35 claims vs. the predictive‑route claim 1 shown for the pre‑grant publication) is the one element I could not authoritatively resolve, and the litigation detail on '069 specifically is inferential — please verify both against USPTO PatentCenter and the CAFC docket directly.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9354069 across patent litigation databases.

Let me dig deeper into specific cases and verify which patents were asserted.

The Uber case asserted different patents. Let me check what patents are asserted in the Bluestone v. Google case and search specifically for the '069 patent.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,354,069

Bottom line up front: Based on the searches I was able to complete, I did not find a confirmed case in which U.S. Patent No. 9,354,069 ("the '069 patent") is specifically identified as an asserted patent‑in‑suit. I did find litigation involving closely related patents from the same family (same specification, common priority), which I report separately below and flag clearly so they are not mistaken for '069 cases.

Because I hit my tool‑call limit mid‑investigation, I want to be explicit about what is confirmed versus what remains unverified, rather than overstate a match.

1. Directly confirmed litigation on the '069 patent: NONE FOUND

No case in the retrieved results names 9,354,069 as an asserted patent.

One important note of record: the Google Patents page for US 9,354,069 carries a Darts‑IP "Family has litigation — First worldwide family litigation filed" indicator (family ID 34395939). That banner signals that some member of the patent family has been litigated, but it is a family‑level flag, not proof that the '069 patent itself was asserted. I could not resolve that Darts‑IP family record to a specific '069 complaint within the available results.

2. Same‑family litigation (these do NOT literally involve the '069 patent)

I located two Bluestone Ventures enforcement actions that target the same family/specification. I list them because they are the most relevant context, but neither is confirmed to assert '069, and one is confirmed to assert different patent numbers.

(a) Bluestone Ventures Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc. — CONFIRMED different patents

Per the complaint, Bluestone asserted the '077 and '583 patents (both titled "Method and System for Dynamic Estimation and Predictive Route Generation," i.e., family members of '069), targeting Uber's driver–rider matching / ET A features. An RPX report and the Unified Patents litigation portal confirm the case number, parties, and closed status. Uber also filed IPR petitions against Bluestone patents.

Do not list this as an '069 case — the patents‑in‑suit were '077 and '583.

(b) Bluestone Ventures, Inc. v. Google LLC — asserted patents UNVERIFIED

Docket activity (via PACER/RECAP/CourtListener and RPX Insight) shows: complaint filed 12/12/2025; motion for extension to answer; answer to complaint (~Mar./Apr. 2026); Rule 26(f) discovery report (Apr. 13, 2026); scheduling order (Apr. 22, 2026); and a "Transfer Case" entry (Apr. 23, 2026). Plaintiff's counsel is associated with Raymond W. Mort, III (The Mort Law Firm), consistent with the Uber case.

Critical caveat: I could not verify from the available results whether '069 is among the patents asserted in this Google action. It is plausible given Bluestone's pattern, but I will not represent it as confirmed.

3. What remains unverified / recommended next steps

To close the gap with confidence, the following sources should be checked directly:

1. The complaint in Bluestone v. Google, 7:25‑cv‑00569 (Dkt. 1) — to confirm the asserted patent numbers and whether '069 is included.
2. Darts‑IP family record (family 34395939) referenced on the Google Patents page — to resolve the family‑level litigation flag to specific '069 cases.
3. RPX Insight and Unified Patents litigation portal case lists filtered on patent '069 — to capture any cases I did not surface.
4. PTAB/Patent Center — to check for IPR/PGR petitions (e.g., any Uber or Unified Patents challenges) directed at '069 specifically.

4. Summary table

Conclusion: I found no confirmed litigation asserting U.S. Patent No. 9,354,069 specifically. The family‑level litigation flag on the patent's Google Patents record and Bluestone Ventures' related enforcement activity against Uber and Google make it likely that the family has been litigated, but I cannot, on the present evidence, state that the '069 patent itself has been asserted. I recommend verifying the two open items above (the Google complaint and the Darts‑IP family record) before treating that question as settled.

Note: Prior‑art and case identifiers above are reported exactly as they appeared in the retrieved sources; I have not normalized or corrected any patent or case numbers.

I'll start from the canonical structured block (which reports no AIA proceedings on file) and then run web searches to check for any IPR/PGR/CBM activity the ODP ingest may have missed — especially given the Uber IPR activity flagged in the litigation summary.

The Uber petition excerpt references IPRs against a patent owner with "4 patents ... 64 claims" and primary references "Altman and Girerd." Let me pin down the specific IPR numbers and confirm whether any target the '069 patent.

I hit my tool‑call limit before I could exhaustively verify, so below I separate what the canonical record says, what my searches confirmed, and what remains open. I did not invent any proceeding numbers — there are none to report.

Proceedings overview

The canonical PTAB list (USPTO Open Data Portal) shows ZERO AIA trial proceedings on US 9,354,069, and my independent web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent — so no claims are canceled, none are sustained by a Final Written Decision, none settled, and no institution was denied; the patent is entirely untested at the PTAB.

The defensive posture this creates is unusual and, on balance, helpful to a defendant — but for a different reason than a clean IPR kill. There is no cancellation certificate to point to, but there is also no § 315(e)(2) estoppel wall blocking you: every prior‑art ground remains available, no petitioner has locked anything in, and the patent carries none of the "hardened by surviving two IPRs" patina that spooks defendants. The far more powerful fact is a terminal one, discussed below: the patent's own record shows it expired 2023‑04‑10.

Caveat on completeness: I was cut off mid‑research and could not run the final targeted queries against PTAB E2E or the PTAB API by patent number. The zero‑count is consistent across (a) the structured ODP block, and (b) every web query I ran, but I cannot claim with 100% certainty that no petition exists. Treat the verification steps in "Recommended next steps" as the way to close that last gap.

(No proceedings to list)

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} to template. For transparency, here is what I did find adjacent to this patent — none of it is an '069 proceeding, and I list it only so it is not mistaken for one:

Strategic summary

Claim status of '069: entirely UNTESTED. No claim has been canceled, held patentable, or construed by the Board. If you are being threatened today, you cannot wave an FWD at the plaintiff — but you also inherit a completely open § 102/§ 103/§ 112 sandbox at the PTAB. There is no SAS/General‑Plastic/Fintiv history on this patent and no serial‑petition baggage to overcome at the institution stage.

Estoppel landscape — wide open. Section 315(e)(2) estops only petitioners (and their privies/real parties in interest) who obtained an FWD. Because no IPR on '069 ever reached an FWD, no ground is estopped for anyone. A defendant may raise any prior‑art ground, in the district court or in a fresh IPR, free of PTAB estoppel. (Standard district‑court invalidity practices and the § 315(b) one‑year bar — triggered by service of a complaint on you — still apply.)

The decisive fact is expiration, not PTAB history. The patent's own bibliographic record states "2023‑04‑10 Anticipated expiration" with legal status "Expired – Lifetime" (term running 20 years from the 2003‑04‑10 non‑provisional filing, per 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2)). Two consequences:

1. No prospective infringement. An expired patent cannot be infringed going forward; any assertion is limited to past damages within the six‑year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286, i.e., roughly the window back to late 2019.
2. IPR is still theoretically available against an expired patent, but claim construction would proceed under Phillips (as for expired claims), and amendment is unavailable — and given expiration, the strategic value of an IPR is usually lower than just deploying the expiration defense in court.

Pattern signals. Bluestone's enforcement has targeted the '077/'583 siblings, not '069 — so far. Its Uber suit died in ~90 days (consistent with an early license/settlement), and its 2025 Google action (7:25‑cv‑00569, per the previous litigation section) has unverified asserted patents. No defensive aggregator appears to have petitioned on any member of the '069 family. Uber is a prolific IPR filer generally, but I found no Uber (or Unified) petition naming '069.

Recommended next steps

1. Close the verification gap by patent number. Run 9,354,069 through PTAB E2E / the PTAB API (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the USPTO Patent Center "Proceedings" tab. The ODP ingest says zero; a direct per‑patent query confirms it. If a petition surfaces, pull the institution decision, FWD, and any Notice of Appeal (then check the Federal Circuit docket and CourtListener for the disposition).
2. Resolve the Bluestone v. Google asserted patents (the open item flagged in the litigation section). If '069 is among them, expect the defense to shift almost entirely to the expiration + § 286 past‑damages point rather than PTAB invalidity.
3. Resolve the "4 patents / Altman & Girerd" petition lead (petitions/1549556). It looks like a non‑Bluestone matter, but confirm the patent owner/patent numbers so it is not mistakenly folded into an '069 analysis.
4. Bank the expiration point now. Pull the face of the '069 (and each asserted sibling) to confirm the term and any Patent Term Adjustment / Terminal Disclaimer. If '069 indeed expired 2023‑04‑10, a demand letter premised on ongoing infringement is defective on its face, and any damages theory is capped to the § 286 lookback window.
5. If you nevertheless want PTAB cover, note there is no estoppel to worry about and no adverse FWD to distinguish — a petition would be a first‑bite proceeding, and the Board's current discretionary‑denial practice (settled‑expectations/"length of time in force") would weigh against institution for a long‑expired patent, which further argues for handling validity in the district court.

Bottom line: On the present record, there is no PTAB story on US 9,354,069 — none was ever filed. The absence is itself the signal: this is not a patent that has been hardened or killed at the Board, and the real defensive leverage comes from its expiration on 2023‑04‑10, which reduces any live dispute to past damages within the six‑year § 286 window. Verify the two open items above before treating the "no proceedings" conclusion as final.

(Sources: canonical USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block for the zero‑count; the '069 Google Patents bibliographic record at https://patents.google.com/patent/US9354069/en for the expiration status and Darts‑IP family flag; Docket Alarm/Unified Patents/RPX records for Bluestone v. Uber 6:21‑cv‑00685; ptacts.uspto.gov petition excerpts for adjacent Uber IPR activity. Proceeding and case numbers are quoted exactly as retrieved; none have been auto‑corrected.)

I'll research the assignment records and cross-references for US 9354069.

Good leads. Let me dig for reel/frame data, the TCS→Bluestone sale context, and Bluestone's entity profile.

I hit the tool-call ceiling mid-investigation, so I'm reporting what is confirmed versus what remains open. Two things up front: (1) the Google Patents legal-events block does contain assignment records for this patent, but it omits reel/frame numbers and correspondents, and (2) my targeted searches for reel/frame returned nothing. I flag that gap rather than invent numbers.

Inventors

Employer at filing: The assignment of record (recorded 2013-10-30, same day as the continuation filing) conveys the four inventors' rights to Networks In Motion, Inc. That identifies NIM as the intended owner of the inventors' rights. NIM was a Laguna Niguel/Irvine, CA mobile-navigation software company. I could not independently confirm that all four were NIM employees at the 2002–2003 priority/filing dates (Michael Sheha's listed city matches NIM's locale, consistent with founder/employee status, but that is inference, not record evidence).

Unusual-pattern check — "all inventors departing within 12 months": No evidence found. I have no record of inventor departures, and the 2013 assignment is a single confirmatory conveyance to the then-parent-company owner, not a set of correlated resignations. Unclear / not determinable on the available record.

Original assignee

There is a record conflict worth flagging explicitly. The Google Patents header for US 9,354,069 lists:

• Original Assignee: Bluestone Ventures Inc
• Current Assignee: BLUESTONE VENTURES Inc

But the recorded assignment chain shows Bluestone was not the original owner. The filing-time owner was Networks In Motion, Inc. (inventors → NIM, recorded 2013-10-30; NIM merged into TeleCommunication Systems, Inc., recorded 2013-10-30; TCS then sold to Bluestone, recorded 2015-07-29). Bluestone appears as "original assignee" in Google's field only because it held title by the time the patent issued (2016-05-31). Treat "Original Assignee = Bluestone" as an artifact of Google's field derivation, not as ownership history.

Networks In Motion, Inc. (true original owner):

• Product/line of business: Wireless/GPS navigation software — it supplied white-label mobile navigation (the kind of product the '069 specification is written around, e.g. turn-by-turn navigation for GPS-enabled phones). The specification's reference to a "Map Messenger™" client is consistent with an operating navigation product.
• Status: Acquired by TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS). Per the TCS 8-K dated December 15, 2009, TCS completed its acquisition of NIM under a Nov. 25, 2009 merger agreement for an aggregate ~$170 million ($110M cash, ~2.24M TCS Class A shares, and $40M in promissory notes); NIM survived as a wholly-owned TCS subsidiary. (capedge TCS 8-K)

TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (the assignor to Bluestone):

• Line of business: Wireless communications (E911, location-based services, messaging, navigation). Operating, publicly traded (NASDAQ: TSYS) at the relevant time.
• Status: Later acquired by Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (~2016). I did not retrieve the closing 8-K in this session, so treat the Comtech acquisition date as not independently verified here.
• Known divestiture pattern: The same SEC record set shows TCS selling patents to an NPE — a Sept. 26, 2013 Patent Purchase Agreement and License Agreement conveying patents to CRFD Research, Inc. (a Marathon Patent Group entity), with a license-back to TCS. (Marathon SEC filing, Law Insider TCS assignment) This is context for TCS's monetization posture — it is not a record for the '069 patent.

Bluestone Ventures, Inc. (current owner):

• Primary line of business: Per RPX Insight, Bluestone described itself to the W.D. Tex. court as a "patent licensing and enforcement company" (Virginia plaintiff; Reston, VA per patents-review.com). (RPX news)
• Product: None identified in commerce.
• Status: Operating as an assertion vehicle; two known patent suits (Uber 2021, Google 2025) — see the litigation section already generated.

Assignment timeline

Data-integrity caveat (read first): I was unable to retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondent names for any recorded event. The Google Patents legal-events block (my authoritative source here) reproduces the conveyance type, parties, and dates but strips reel/frame and correspondent. The USPTO Assignment Center is a dynamic application that did not surface in retrievable index form, and direct searches for the reel/frame came back empty. Every "Reel/Frame" and "Correspondent" field below is therefore blank-by-limitation, not blank-by-absence. Pull them directly at USPTO Assignment Center and Google Patents US9354069.

Five events are recorded, in this order:

1. 2013-10-30 (recorded 2013-10-30) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
• Assignor: Yarlagadda, Arun; Petilli, Stephen; Sheha, Angie; Sheha, Michael (the four inventors)
• Assignee: Networks In Motion, Inc.
• Correspondent: Not retrieved
• Context: Clean-up/confirmatory assignment of inventor rights to the operating parent that owned the patent family, executed contemporaneously with the continuation filing.

2. 2013-10-30 (recorded 2013-10-30) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Merger
• Assignor: Networks In Motion, Inc.
• Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.
• Correspondent: Not retrieved
• Context: Internal corporate reorganization — effectuation of the NIM→TCS merger (the underlying merger closed Dec. 15, 2009; this recording is a title catch-up tied to the new continuation).

3. 2015-07-20 (recorded 2015-07-20) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: Silicon Valley Bank, as Agent
• Assignee/beneficiaries: MicroData GIS, Inc.; Solvern Innovations, Inc.; TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.; MicroData, LLC; Networks In Motion, Inc.; Olive Acquisition, LLC; NextGen Communications, Inc. (the TCS-family borrowers)
• Correspondent: Not retrieved
• Context: Securitization/lien discharge — SVB released its blanket IP security interest across the TCS borrower group. Timing note: this release lands 9 days before the TCS→Bluestone sale (event 4), the classic "clear the liens before closing" sequence.

4. 2015-07-29 (recorded 2015-07-29) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
• Assignor: TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.
• Assignee: Bluestone Ventures Inc.
• Correspondent: Not retrieved
• Context: Divestiture to an asserter — TCS conveyed title to a Virginia "patent licensing and enforcement company," nine days after its SVB lien was released.

5. 2018-11-16 (recorded 2018-11-16) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: Angels Acquisition Corp.; Armer Communications Engineering Services, Inc.; Comtech AeroAstro, Inc.; Comtech Antenna Systems, Inc.; Comtech Communications Corp.; Comtech Comstream, Inc.; Comtech CPI Electron Devices Corp.; Comtech CPI Microwave Corp.; Comtech EF Data Corp.; Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp.; Comtech PST Corp.; Comtech Systems International, Inc.; Comtech Systems, Inc.; Comtech Telecommunications Corp.; Comtech Tolt Technologies, Inc.; Comtech Xicom Technology, Inc.; Maple Acquisition LLC; MicroData GIS, Inc.; MicroData, LLC; Networks In Motion, Inc.; NextGen Communications, Inc. (MD); NextGen Communications, Inc. (VA); Olive Acquisition LLC; Solvern Innovations, Inc.; TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.; Tiernan Radyne Comstream, Inc.
• Assignee: Citibank, N.A.
• Correspondent: Not retrieved
• Context: Securitization (Comtech group credit facility). Flagged anomaly: this lien is recorded against '069 in 2018, three years after Bluestone acquired the patent (2015). Either the security agreement swept in patents the TCS family no longer owned, or the USPTO recordation captured '069 via the prior owner-of-record. I cannot resolve which from available sources — the lien's actual reach over '069 is uncertain.

On reel/frame: because these are the values the task most wants and I could not obtain them, this is the single highest-priority gap to close before relying on the timeline for anything adversarial.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9354069
    2002 : Priority date
    2003 : Parent application filed
    2009 : Networks In Motion acquired by TCS
    2013 : Continuation application filed
         : Inventors assign to Networks In Motion
         : NIM merger into TCS recorded
    2015 : Silicon Valley Bank lien released
         : TCS sells patent to Bluestone Ventures
    2016 : Patent issued
         : TCS acquired by Comtech
    2018 : Citibank security interest recorded
    2021 : Bluestone sues Uber on family patents
    2025 : Bluestone sues Google

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The patent moved from an operating assignee (TeleCommunication Systems, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed wireless/LBS company) to Bluestone Ventures Inc. on the 2015-07-29 assignment, nine days after the 2015-07-20 SVB release. This is not a naming-only call: RPX reports Bluestone's own characterization as a "patent licensing and enforcement company," and Unified Patents classifies it as an NPE (Patent Assertion Entity). No products in commerce were identified. The "Ventures" suffix plus the self-description supplies the concrete evidence the naming alone would not.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Bluestone Ventures Inc. is on Unified Patents' public NPE list (plaintiff entity type "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)" in Bluestone Ventures Inc v. Uber Technologies Inc, 6:21-cv-00685), and the family has been a Unified Patents Patroll target ("The patent is owned by Bluestone Ventures Inc., an NPE"). (Unified Patents case list, Patroll contest) Bluestone does not match the enumerated named lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, etc.) by name, and it is a low-volume filer (two known suits), so this signal rests on the RPX/Unified classification rather than on high filing frequency.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT DETERMINABLE.
The USPTO correspondent of record is exactly the datum I could not retrieve for any of the five events. I cannot make this call. Related-but-distinct observation (clearly labeled as litigation counsel, not recording correspondent): Raymond W. Mort, III (The Mort Law Firm) signed the complaints in both Bluestone suits — Uber (6:21-cv-00685, 2021-06-29) and Google (7:25-cv-00569, 2025-12-12) — a single repeat player running enforcement for the same owner. That is a genuine recurrence pattern, but it is a litigation-firm pattern, not an assignment-recording one, so I am not scoring it as signal #3.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
There are only two ownership-changing events beyond the merger, and they are separated by ~21 months (2013-10-30 merger, 2015-07-29 sale). There is no chain of successive anonymous LLCs sharing a correspondent or principals. The 2013 events are one assignment and one merger-recording of a 2009 deal, not a constructed cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (for '069).
The only transfer-to-asserter is dated 2015-07-29. Bluestone's first known suit asserting this family was filed 2021-06-29, roughly 5.9 years later — far outside the 6-month window. Moreover, the already-generated litigation section found no confirmed suit naming '069 itself, so there is no assertion event to measure against. On the present record, this is a long-held asset, not a fast flip.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
TCS was solvent and publicly traded; it was later acquired by Comtech. The 2015-07-20 SVB "Release by Secured Party" indicates a loan payoff/lien discharge, not a Chapter 7/11 proceeding. No bankruptcy docket for TCS/NIM was found.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
There is a pattern worth noting: TCS sold patents to an NPE (CRFD Research, a Marathon entity, Sept. 2013) with a license-back to TCS in that unrelated transaction, and later sold this family to Bluestone. But for '069 specifically, I found no license-back, no revenue-share, and no SEC-disclosed arrangement showing TCS profiting from Bluestone's assertions. The comparator is suggestive, not probative.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Bluestone Ventures Inc., an active asserter. It does not end at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. No neutralization.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Justification: two strong signals are documented. First, the 2015-07-29 assignment conveyed the patent from the operating, publicly traded assignor TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. to Bluestone Ventures Inc., an entity that RPX records describing itself as a "patent licensing and enforcement company" and that Unified Patents classifies as an NPE (Patent Assertion Entity) — a shell/licensing-only transfer with no product evidence. Second, Bluestone appears on public NPE lists (Unified Patents' litigation portal and Patroll program). The 2015-07-20 SVB release nine days ahead of the sale shows the chain was cleaned of liens in preparation for transfer, and the later 2018-11-16 Citibank security interest recorded against an already-divested patent is an unresolved anomaly that should be checked against the underlying security agreement. The transfer-to-asserter predates litigation by years, so this is a genuine NPE ownership chain, not a manufactured pre-suit flip — and no suit has been confirmed naming '069 itself.

Verification: USPTO Assignment Center · assignment.uspto.gov index · Google Patents US9354069 legal events

Open items to close (in priority order): (1) pull reel/frame + correspondent for all five events — the correspondent recurrence question (#3) is unresolved without them; (2) obtain the 2018-11-16 Citibank security agreement's patent schedule to see whether '069 is properly encumbered; (3) confirm the Comtech/TCS acquisition date via the closing 8-K.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 9,354,069. Let me start with targeted searches.

Let me try to retrieve the actual "References Cited" section for this patent.

Let me try to access the patent's cited references more directly.

I hit my tool-call limit before I could retrieve the patent's actual "[56] References Cited" list. I'll give you an honest accounting of what I could and could not verify, then provide the analytical framework you need — with every unverified item flagged as such.

Prior-Art Analysis: U.S. Patent No. 9,354,069 ("the '069 patent")

⚠️ Critical methodological caveat — please read first

I was unable to retrieve the "[56] References Cited" list for US 9,354,069 from the USPTO or Google Patents within my available searches. The "full patent text" supplied to me (the Google Patents rendering at https://patents.google.com/patent/US9354069/en) contains classifications, the abstract, the description body, the family/prosecution timeline, and "prior art keywords," but the References Cited section (the examiner-cited U.S. patent documents and non-patent literature) is truncated from the supplied text, and the description itself cuts off mid-sentence ("The server system's 125 positioning device gateway 113 is also c…"), so the claims are not present either.

Because your instruction explicitly forbids fabricating identifiers, I will not invent or guess patent numbers, dates, or claim mappings. Doing so would produce a §102 analysis with no evidentiary basis. What follows distinguishes (A) what is verified from the authoritative record, from (B) what could not be verified and must be pulled directly.

1. Verified identification of the patent (matches the authoritative text)

Continuation chain (verified from the CROSS-REFERENCE section):
14/067,415 ← continuation of 13/346,265 (now US 8,577,390) ← continuation of 12/929,458 (now US 8,095,152) ← continuation of 12/484,091 (now US 7,881,730) ← division of 10/410,740 (now US 7,565,155), filed 2003-04-10 ← provisional 60/371,941, filed 2002-04-10.

Analytical consequence for §102: Because '069 is a continuation claiming the 2002-04-10 priority, the effective critical date for prior art is 2002-04-10 (subject to the provisional's §112 support for any given claim). The most probative art is therefore that published/filed before 2002-04-10 — not the 2013 filing date and not the 2002–2003 art that merely post-dates the provisional. This is the single most important framing point for your §102 work.

2. What I could NOT verify (and must be pulled)

I could not confirm any specific reference cited on the face of the '069 patent. In particular I was unable to retrieve:

• the examiner-cited U.S. patent documents ("References Cited");
• the cited foreign patent documents;
• the cited Other Publications (non-patent literature);
• the claims of '069, without which no per-claim §102 mapping is possible.

Recommended sources to retrieve the list directly:

1. USPTO Patent Center → Application 14/067,415 → "References Cited" / the issued patent's front page ("[56] References Cited").
2. USPTO PTAB case documents, if any IPR/PGR was filed against '069 or a family member (the prior-art exhibits filed there are often the most rigorous §102/§103 mapping available).
3. Google Patents page, "(56) References Cited" section by scrolling the '069 page (the rendering I received omitted it).
4. The parent US 7,565,155 front page, which will enumerate the examiner citations considered during the original 2002-era prosecution — highly relevant since the '069 claims are continuations of that disclosure.
5. Espacenet / Global Dossier for the same application's search report.

3. What the searches DID surface (labeled accurately — mostly forward citations, not prior art)

Several results I retrieved involve this family, but almost all are "cited by" (forward) references that post-date the priority and are therefore NOT §102 prior art against '069. Listing them so you do not mistake them:

• US 8,219,316 ("System and method for storing and providing routes") — its Google Patents page lists US 7,565,155 B2 (the '069 parent) as a document it cites, i.e., a forward citation, not prior art.
• US 2008/0201074 and related pages likewise show US 7,565,155 B2 (2002-04-10 / 2009-07-21, Networks In Motion) in a "cited by"-style list.
• Documents such as US 6,727,651 B1 (Garmin), US 6,859,723 B2 (Alpine), US 6,807,483 B1 (Televigation), US 7,233,861 B2 (GM — "Prediction of vehicle operator destinations"), and Japanese/Korean items appeared only as later documents citing the family, i.e., not §102 art against '069 (most are post-2002 anyway).

Do not use any of the above as anticipatory references for '069. They are forward citations.

• The Google Patents record also carries a Darts-IP family-litigation flag (family 34395939) and a prosecution timeline showing numerous continuation filings (2016–2023). Consistent with the litigation section generated earlier, the Uber action (W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00685) asserted '077 and '583 — not '069 — and the Bluestone v. Google action (7:25-cv-00569) is unconfirmed as to '069.

4. §102 framework for when the citation list is obtained

When you have the front-page citations, map each reference as follows (this is the structure to populate — I am not asserting any specific reference fits):

Test 1 — Does the reference qualify as prior art against the 2002-04-10 critical date?

• §102(a)/(b) (pre-AIA): was it patented/published/on sale/publicly used before 2002-04-10, or more than one year before the 2003-04-10 non-provisional filing? (Note '069's priority is pre-AIA; apply pre-AIA §§102/103.)
• §102(e): a U.S. patent/publication by another, effectively filed before 2002-04-10 — check the reference's own priority chain, since the '069 examiner's near-contemporaneous art may itself carry earlier provisionals.

Test 2 — §102 novelty mapping must be element-by-element (33 AWA §102 requires a single reference disclosing every limitation).
The '069 disclosure teaches a specific combination; a reference anticipates only if it discloses all of the following as claimed (drawing from the specification so you know what to look for):

• receiving discrete sampled location updates from a mobile communication device;
• snapping each location to the nearest point/segment on a map database network (the "snap-to" circle-intersection method of FIG. 4A);
• dynamically calculating an estimated route between two location points along the network;
• generating a predictive route based on vector/aiding info (heading, speed) when destination is known or unknown (FIGS. 8–10);
• displaying the estimated/predictive route and computing route metrics (total distance, elapsed time);
• route preferences (driving speeds, optimization goal, road preferences);
• assigning/modifying destination point types (origin/via/stop/destination) in a route planner;
• multi-device ranking/closest-vehicle routing to a central point (FIGS. 25–26).

References that typically recur in this art (to check against the actual citation list, not to assume) fall in these classes: map-matching/snap-to-road systems, AVL/breadcrumb systems, predictive/destination-inference routing, and server-based dispatch/rendezvous routing. The patent's own listed prior-art keywords (communication device, mobile communication, location, route, information) suggest the examiner focused on exactly the mobile-comm-device + location + route combination.

Test 3 — §103 fallback. Given the crowded 1990s art in GPS vehicle navigation, expect most examiner rejections (and most IPR grounds) to be §103 combinations rather than clean §102 anticipation. Note from my searches that IPR petitions in this technology space frequently pair older navigation references (e.g., server-based route computation with in-vehicle map reconstruction) — the '069 family's commercial value has historically turned on §112/derivation and damages, not on unassailable novelty.

5. Honest bottom line

• I could not retrieve any specific patent citation for US 9,354,069 in the searches available to me. Therefore I cannot truthfully provide "for each reference: full citation, date, description, and the anticipated claim(s)."
• What I can confirm from the authoritative record is the patent's identity, its 2002-04-10 priority, and its continuation lineage — which fixes the §102 critical date and directs you to pre-2002-04-10 art.
• The only family-related references I surfaced are forward citations ("cited by") or other asserted family members, and are not §102 prior art for '069.
• Next action: pull the "[56] References Cited" and the claim set from USPTO Patent Center (App. 14/067,415) or the parent US 7,565,155 front page, then re-run the element-by-element §102 mapping in Section 4. I'd also check PTAB for any IPR/PGR on the family for pre-built prior-art mappings.

I'd rather hand you this verified-but-incomplete result than a fabricated citation table. If you can supply the front-page citation list (or grant more search steps), I will produce the full per-reference §102 mapping immediately.

I'll research the prior art landscape and the specific claims of US 9,354,069 before building the obviousness analysis.

Let me pull the specific prior art cited on the patent's face and any PTAB challenges to the family.

Let me confirm the key prior-art references and their dates so my citations are grounded.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,354,069 ("the '069 patent") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on the previously generated litigation summary (which established that no case is confirmed to have asserted '069 specifically, and that Bluestone's enforcement to date has targeted family members '077 and '583). This section does not repeat that content.

0. Scope and evidentiary caveats (read first)

Two limitations materially constrain this analysis, and I flag them rather than paper over them:

1. The "Prior Art section" referenced in the task instructions was not included in the material provided to me. The only prior-art results I have are (a) the '069 specification itself (full text provided), (b) the independent-claim text retrieved from an RPX Insight record for US 9,354,069 B2, and (c) prior-art references surfaced in my own searches this session. I have therefore built the analysis from those sources and explicitly labeled every reference by my confidence in its identity and date.
2. I do not have the full 35-claim set. The claim text I could retrieve covers independent claims 1, 12, and 22 and the numbers of the dependent claims (2–11 and 32–33 depend from claim 1; 13–21 and 34–35 depend from claim 12; 23–31 from claim 22). Dependent-claim limitations (e.g., the specific "route preferences," "metrics," or "snap-to-road" features) could not be read and are analyzed only by inference from the specification.

Any statement below about a specific reference's filing/issue date that I could not confirm this session is marked [unverified].

1. Governing law and effective filing date

• The '069 patent claims priority to provisional application 60/371,941, filed April 10, 2002, through parent application 10/410,740 (filed April 10, 2003, now U.S. 7,565,155). The '069 application (14/067,415) was filed October 30, 2013 as a continuation.
• Because the priority chain predates March 16, 2013, the pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) framework governs, and the critical date for prior art is on or about April 10, 2002 (with 102(e) reaching earlier-filed U.S. applications/patents).
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) controls: the inquiry is whether the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art ("POSITA"), and a combination of known elements is obvious where it yields only predictable results and amounts to the use of known techniques to solve a known problem. Aritmetic TSM "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" is no longer required; the POSITA's creativity, common sense, and market forces may supply the rationale.
• POSITA definition (proposed): a bachelor's degree in computer science/electrical engineering or equivalent, with ~2 years' experience in GPS/navigation or telematics systems, or equivalent experience. [analyst construction, not from the record]

2. What the '069 claims actually cover

The issued independent claims are notably broader than the specification's alleged point of novelty. The specification's stated contribution is generating an estimated/predicted route between discrete, asynchronous location updates using a snap-to-road correlation (the "time-space" problem). But the issued claims recite ordinary route-guidance functionality:

Claim 1 (method):

• receiving location information for a starting point associated with a mobile communication device;
• receiving a desired destination location;
• determining a plurality of possible routes from the starting point to the destination based on the location information;
• for each of said plurality of routes, obtaining one or more metrics associated with traveling along the route;
• in response to the device traveling along one of the routes, calculating a plurality of locations of the device along that route;
• causing the device to display the plurality of possible routes, the associated metrics, and an indication of the plurality of locations; and
• causing the device to iteratively update the display as the device travels toward the destination.

Claim 12: apparatus counterpart — memory + processor to perform the same steps.
Claim 22: apparatus counterpart, with the location-calculating step phrased "as the mobile communication device travels along one of the possible routes."

Analyst observation: None of claims 1/12/22 recites (i) discrete/asynchronous location updates, (ii) snap-to-road/map-matching, or (iii) the "predicted route between updates" that the specification touts. The independent claims reduce to: plan multiple routes → score them → show them with the vehicle's tracked positions → refresh as it drives. That framing makes the § 103 case substantially easier to make than it would be against the narrower family members.

3. The person of ordinary skill's knowledge base as of April 2002

By the 2002 priority date, the following were well-known, commercially deployed techniques — a POSITA is presumed to know all of them:

• Route planning with alternatives: computing more than one candidate route (shortest / fastest / avoid-highways) and presenting them with distance/time metrics. (Deployed in in-vehicle systems and PC mapping software well before 2002.)
• Turn-by-turn guidance with real-time position display: the "you-are-here" map marker advancing along the highlighted route.
• Network/server-assisted routing: the mobile unit sends origin/destination to a server, the server computes the route and returns it, and the mobile unit renders/updates it.
• Map-matching / "snap-to-road": correlating a noisy GPS fix to the nearest road segment (long-standing, with published algorithms since the early-to-mid 1990s).

4. Candidate prior art, by claim element

Additional references surfaced that are usable only if their dates confirm:

• EP 1 056 063 A1 — traffic-state estimation (Kalman filter) and computation of travel times "and/or optimal traffic routes" [verified text; publication date unverified].
• EP 0 921 509 A (Navigation Technologies), published June 9, 1999 — cited as "Y,D" in the EP 1 081 666 search report [verified as cited art].
• US 2002/0030698 A1 (Reinhold Baur et al.), publ. Mar. 14, 2002 and US 2002/0082771 A1 (Andrew V. Anderson), publ. June 27, 2002 — cited as "A" (background) in a PCT search report [verified as cited art; Anderson's publication date is after the Apr. 10, 2002 provisional, so it would only qualify via 102(e) if its own filing date precedes].
• US 7,894,980 (end-to-end travel-time estimation) — NOT usable: its 2005-era filing postdates the priority date.

5. Proposed § 103 combinations

Ground 1 — Knockeart (or Behr) in view of U.S. 5,878,368 and/or WO 98/26253

Covers: all of claim 1 (and claims 12/22 as apparatus counterparts).

• Knockeart/Behr supply: receiving start + destination, computing the route (plural, if configured for alternatives), displaying the route with turn-by-turn/spot-map guidance, and automatically updating the displayed map as the vehicle approaches each maneuver — i.e., the "iteratively update … as the device travels toward the destination" limitation.
• U.S. 5,878,368 supplies: computing routes according to user-definable cost values, which inherently yields different routes with different metrics (distance/time/cost) — the "plurality of possible routes" + "metrics" limitations. WO 98/26253 independently supplies first- and second-route computation with per-segment travel times and estimated time savings.
• Position tracking /Croyle/Navigation Technologies EP 1 081 666 supplies the "calculate a plurality of locations … along said route" limitation (successive map-matched device positions).

Motivation to combine (KSR): All references are in the same field (vehicle/GPS route guidance) and address the same problem — helping a driver choose and follow a route. A POSITA would readily integrate an alternatives-and-cost display into a server-based or in-vehicle guidance system because (i) both operate on the same road-network map data and the same GPS position stream; (ii) the combination yields the predictable benefit of letting the driver compare routes and monitor progress; and (iii) no reference teaches away. This is the "familiar elements according to known methods / predictable result" scenario KSR approves.

Ground 2 — Behr in view of Fowler, further in view of WO 98/26253

Covers: claims 1/12/22 with emphasis on mobile-device display and server↔device division of labor.

• Behr supplies the server-side route calculation + map database + natural-language route formatting and the client-side reconstruction/display.
• Fowler supplies a route-guidance module explicitly portable across different devices/platforms (multiple mobile devices), supporting "causing said mobile communication device to display."
• WO 98/26253 supplies the multiple-route/metrics and dynamic (congestion-triggered) second-route elements, i.e., iterative update/re-route.

Motivation: the references are analogous art in mobile navigation; Fowler expressly identifies and solves the cross-device portability problem, and a POSITA would apply it to Behr's system for the predictable benefit of serving heterogeneous mobile clients.

Ground 3 — Route-planning-with-alternatives reference (e.g., US 5,878,368 / WO 98/26253 / US 5,428,545) in view of a GPS tracking-and-display reference (Croyle; Navigation Technologies EP 1 081 666)

Covers: the display/iterative-update core of claim 1 if a primary server-based reference is deemed weaker.

Motivation: combining a planner that already outputs candidate routes + metrics with a tracker that already advances a position marker along the road network produces exactly the claimed output; each element performs its known function, and the combination is a predictable aggregation (KSR; Perfect Web Techs. v. InfoUSA — repeating/linking known steps as conditions change).

6. Why these disclosures read on the claims (limitation-by-limitation, claim 1)

The single most important takeaway: every limitation maps to a reference that predates April 10, 2002, and the combination yields only the predictable aggregation of two well-known capabilities (route comparison and live tracking).

7. Secondary considerations

I found no evidence of record of unexpected results, long-felt-but-unmet need, industry praise, or copying that would rebut the prima facie case for claims 1/12/22. If a patent owner were to assert commercial success, the known nexus problems and the crowded prior-art field would weaken it. (The '069 specification itself frames its contribution narrowly around snap-to-road estimation between discrete updates — features that the issued independent claims do not recite, so any secondary-considerations argument tied to those features would lack a nexus to the claimed scope.)

8. Weak points / open questions that could change the outcome

1. The dependent claims are unread. If any of claims 2–11 / 13–21 / 23–31 recites specific snap-to-road, asynchronous-update, or predicted-route limitations with claimed detail, those claims present a materially harder § 103 target and would need element-specific art.
2. The on-face "References Cited" were not retrievable. The prosecution-cited art on the '069 cover page (and its parent 10/410,740) is the most efficient starting set; where the examiner already considered a reference, the patent owner will argue it was overcome. This should be pulled from the USPTO file wrapper before a validity opinion is finalized.
3. Reference-date verification. The strongest dates I verified this session are Knockeart (filed 8/19/1998; issued 1/20/2004), Behr and Fowler (as cited in a Google IPR of U.S. 6,292,743), McGrath (filed 4/25/1996; issued 4/6/1999), and U.S. 5,878,368 (filed 9/13/1996). The dates of US 6,356,838, US 5,428,545, and EP 1 056 063 A1 are [unverified] and must be confirmed against their face before being relied upon.
4. Priority/§ 112 exposure. Because '069 issued from a long continuation chain off a 2002 provisional, a validity challenge could also attack whether the broad, generic route-guidance claims find written-description support in a specification directed to discrete-update estimation — a separate § 112(a) theory independent of § 103.
5. Unresolved from the prior section: the Darts-IP family-level litigation flag on the '069 Google Patents record (family 34395939) and whether the '069 patent is among those asserted in Bluestone Ventures v. Google, 7:25-cv-00569, remain unverified. That matters here because PTAB institution/claim-construction outcomes in any co-pending or prior challenge to the family would inform the § 103 analysis.

9. Bottom line

On the independent claims actually issued — 1, 12, and 22 — a strong prima facie § 103(a) case exists. The claims recite the predictable combination of (a) multiple-route planning with travel metrics, (b) live GPS position tracking on a road network, and (c) iterative display refresh during travel — each of which was independently known and deployed before April 10, 2002, and all of which sit in the same field and serve the same purpose. Under KSR, a POSITA would have been motivated to combine them and would have had a reasonable expectation of success. The principal risk to this conclusion is evidentiary, not conceptual: the specific reference dates and the dependent-claim text must be confirmed from the primary documents, and the on-face prior art considered during prosecution must be reviewed for already-overcome references. I could not complete those verifications within the available research budget, and I have not assumed their outcomes.