Invalidity dossier
US 9365223
System and method for monitoring railcar performance
Current assignee: Amsted Rail Co Inc
Added 10/23/2026, 12:01:12 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US9365223B2
Title: System and method for monitoring railcar performance
Patent number: US9365223B2 (application US13/842,427; pre-grant publication US20130342362A1)
Assignee (per source): Amsted Rail Co Inc (original and current assignee; the source notes these listings "may be inaccurate")
Inventors: Andrew H. Martin, William D. LeFebvre, Brent M. Wilson
Key dates (source flags these as assumptions, not legal conclusions):
- Priority date: 2010-08-23 (claimed from US12/861,713, which issued as US9026281B2)
- Filing date: 2013-03-15
- Publication date: 2016-06-14
- Adjusted expiration: 2030-09-18; status listed as Active
Purpose: The excerpt's definitions section states the invention "relates to a real-time monitoring and analysis system for railcars, and, more particularly, to a system that gathers data regarding various operating parameters and conditions from remote sensors and applies heuris[tic]…" (text truncated in the supplied excerpt). In plain terms, the patent is directed to collecting sensor data from railcars and analyzing it — consistent with the title's focus on monitoring railcar performance.
Plain-language scope (limited by the excerpt): The supplied text contains no claims and no full abstract or description. The classification data suggests subject matter spanning on-board communication with or on the vehicle/train (B61L15/0018), radio-based communication such as GSM-R (B61L15/0027), on-board diagnosis or maintenance (B61L15/0081), monitoring/checking brake systems for railway vehicles (B60T17/228), detecting overheating of axle bearings (B61K9/04), temperature measurement using thermocouples (G01K7/02, G01K7/023), absolute localization/GPS (B61L25/025, B61L2205/04), and trackside diagnosis or maintenance (B61L27/50, B61L27/57). The "prior art keywords" listed are sensor, temperature, railcar, data, and communication. These classifications and keywords are indicative only and are not a definitive statement of claim scope.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the claims, the full abstract, the detailed description, any prior-art references, or the specific heuristic/analysis methods referenced in the truncated definitions sentence. It therefore cannot support a reliable statement of the patented invention's precise scope or novelty.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9365223](/patent/US9365223)/en
Generated 10/23/2026, 12:10:49 AM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.