US 9709403

I'll search for this specific patent number and check for any litigation.

Let me verify the litigation status and check for any 2026 CAFC activity specifically.

US Patent 9,709,403 — Summary

Note on identification: I searched specifically for patent number 9709403. One search returned "WO9709403A1," which is an unrelated 1996 PCT publication on a fabric-softening composition — a different identifier (a WO publication, not U.S. Patent 9,709,403), and I have not conflated the two. Everything below refers to U.S. Patent No. 9,709,403 B2.

Bibliographic data

Uncertainty flags: The Google Patents front page lists only Jari Raglund as inventor, while the recorded assignments name Tommi Opas, Jari Raglund, and Vesa Saynajakangas. The source record is internally inconsistent about inventorship/ownership; I cannot resolve this authoritatively from the fetched material. I also could not confirm a native USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search or a CAFC docket entry directly — see "Litigation" below.

Abstract (as published)

The invention relates to tracking and analyzing a trajectory of a moving object, such as sports equipment used in an exercise. It provides a solution in which trajectories can be analyzed and compared to reference data created for that purpose, in order to evaluate and score the movement of the object — including the performance of a person using the object.

Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 — Method. A method of tracking and analyzing a moving object's trajectory by measuring the object's acceleration and direction, producing a set of position data, and storing it in memory. The method:

1. defines at least one target trajectory the object should follow;
2. retrieves the stored position data from memory;
3. analyzes it to produce the object's actual trajectory;
4. compares that trajectory to the predefined target trajectory; and
5. produces a score indicating how closely the actual trajectory follows the target.
   The characterizing feature: the data set is compared to at least two predefined target trajectories; the length of the actual performance is scaled (time-scaled) to the length of each predefined trajectory; the closest matching predefined trajectory is selected by calculating the correlation between each candidate and the actual trajectory; and the score is produced based on that correlation.

Claim 4 — System. The apparatus counterpart of claim 1: sensors (e.g., accelerometers 10 for x/y/z and a gyroscope 11) that measure the object's acceleration and direction; means for producing and storing a position-data set; means for retrieving the data and producing a trajectory; means for comparing it to a predefined target trajectory; and means for producing a score. The same characterizing feature applies: comparison against at least two predefined target trajectories, scaling the actual performance's length to each predefined trajectory, correlation-based selection of the closest trajectory, and a score based on that correlation.

Dependent claims (brief)

• Claim 2 — The selected target trajectory is reported to the user as a recognized trick.
• Claim 3 — Instead of matching against many templates, the user pre-selects the target trick; the correlation calc is then run only against that one pre-selected trajectory (dispensing with the "find the best match" search).
• Claim 5 — The sensors and the means for measuring/producing/saving position data are integrated into the sports equipment, together with a wireless interface (13a).
• Claim 6 — The target trajectory is that of a predefined skateboard or snowboard trick (depends from claim 5).
• Claim 7 — Same as claim 6, but depends directly from claim 4.

Essence: The patent's stated point of novelty is that scoring a trick is reduced to a comparative/time-scaled correlation operation (rather than trying to precisely measure speed, height, and timing independently), which simplifies the required sensor hardware and software. Notably, claim 1's "at least two target trajectories + length scaling + correlation selection" step is what distinguishes it over the cited prior art (e.g., hang-timer/"airtime" systems such as EP 1846726 and WO 9854581, which measured only time/height).

Litigation / CAFC 2026 dockets

I found no CAFC (Federal Circuit) 2026 docket, appeal, IPR, or district-court litigation naming US 9,709,403. My searches returned only unrelated matters (e.g., Warsaw Orthopedic v. NuVasive, Realtime Data, LifeCore Fitness/Woodway, Astellas, Amgen/Regeneron), none of which involve this patent. Combined with the patent's status — expired in 2021 for non-payment of maintenance fees and held by individual assignees rather than an operating company — there is no indication of asserted litigation.

Caveat: I could not directly query the USPTO Patent Public Search/PatentCenter or the CAFC's own docket system in this session; the absence of litigation is based on web search results and may not be exhaustive. If you need a definitive litigation check, PACER/CAFC docket and Docket Navigator/CourtListener should be queried directly for "9,709,403" and "14/193,643."

I'll search dedicated patent-litigation sources for this specific patent number.

Initial results are all unrelated. Let me query dedicated patent-litigation databases and the specific assignee/title.

Litigation search — US Patent No. 9,709,403

Bottom line: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,709,403 was found in any of the sources searched. There are no identified district-court cases, no CAFC appeals, no IPR/PGR proceedings, no ITC investigations, and no Unified Patents litigation-record entries naming this patent.

What I searched

• General patent-litigation web queries for "9709403" and "9,709,403" plus terms like litigation, lawsuit, defendant.
• "14/193,643" (the application number) paired with patent litigation.
• The Unified Patents portal/PTAB case-list and PTAB petition documents (search-result coverage).
• CourtListener / Docket Alarm / Justia docket material.
• Patent title and inventor/assignee names (Raglund; Saynajakangas) paired with lawsuit.

Why the results are negative (and an identifier caution)

Every hit that surfaced was unrelated to this patent. In particular, results for the string "9709403" repeatedly returned WO9709403A1, a 1996 PCT publication for a fabric-softening composition — a different identifier (a WO publication, not U.S. Patent 9,709,403). Consistent with the operating rule to interpret identifiers literally, I have not conflated the two; neither that WO publication nor the other returned patents (e.g., the Network-1 '930 "Remote Power" patent, U.S. 8,605,794, U.S. 9,421,713) have anything to do with U.S. 9,709,403.

The result showing the patent itself at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/.../US9709403.pdf and the FreePatentsOnline/Espacenet bibliographic records confirm the patent's identity but contain no litigation information.

Case table

Corroborating context

Nothing in the patent's own record suggests active assertion:

• Ownership: held by individuals (Vesa Saynajakangas; and per assignment records Tommi Opas and Jari Raglund) — not an operating company or a known patent-assertion entity.
• Status: Expired – Fee Related, lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2021-07-18 (Google Patents lists an adjusted expiration of 2035-12-25). A patent that lapsed in 2021 would be an unlikely subject of 2025–2026 assertion activity.
• The only "cited by" document is US 10,567,975 (Hoffberg Family Trust 2), a citation relationship, not litigation.

Confidence and caveats

• Confidence that no litigation exists: moderate-to-high, based on the balance of evidence (individual ownership + lapsed status + absence of any docket hit). However, this is a web-search-based finding, not a definitive docket query.
• I could not directly run the Unified Patents case-list, PACER, or the CAFC docket API in this session; PTAB/docket pages surfaced only via general search snippets. If a definitive check is required, query directly:
  • Unified Patents Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/search — search "9709403".
  • PACER / CourtListener: search both "9,709,403" and application no. "14/193,643".
  • CAFC docket and USPTO PTAB (PTActs) for any IPR/PGR naming the patent.
  • USPTO Assignment records (already reflected above) to confirm no transfer to an asserting entity.

Per the strict rule: I am reporting the literal, identifier-matched result — no litigation found for U.S. Patent No. 9,709,403 — rather than substituting results for any similarly-numbered patent.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 9,709,403 B2

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: zero (0) — the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, so there are no claims invalidated, none sustained, nothing settled, and no institution denied; the bottom-line defensive posture is the inverse of the usual PTAB story: there is no cancellation record to wield, but the patent expired on 2021-07-18 for non-payment of maintenance fees, was never asserted in any litigation or agency proceeding I can find, and its two independent claims (1 and 4) are therefore untested rather than validated — a defendant facing a demand should attack the lapse and the art directly, not look for a Board win that does not exist.

Source of record (authoritative for this section, per the structured block): "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest."

Proceedings

None to enumerate. There is no proceeding number to report, and I will not invent one. Specifically, per the constraint against fabrication:

• No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition has been identified against US 9,709,403.
• No Trial Practice Guide-style institution decision, Final Written Decision, adverse judgment, or settlement exists for this patent.
• No Federal Circuit appeal exists — an appeal presupposes an FWD or adverse judgment, and there is none. (This is consistent with the earlier section's finding of no CAFC 2026 docket naming 9,709,403.)
• No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX/IPR-for-hire, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain; the patent is held by individuals (Vesa Säynäjäkangas; Tommi Opas; Jari Råglund), which is itself why no IPR ever materialized.

Web-search verification

I ran targeted searches for PTAB activity rather than relying solely on the ODP block:

• The only 9709403 hits were US 9,709,403 itself and the unrelated WO9709403A1 (1996 fabric-softening composition) — a different identifier that must not be conflated (flagged in the earlier section and confirmed again here).
• Hits from portal.unifiedpatents.com's PTAB case lists and ptacts.uspto.gov returned proceedings on other patents (e.g. IPR2024-01225 on 7,089,443; IPR2023-00697 on 10,129,825; IPR2025-00372 on 9,917,563), none on 9,709,403.
• Caveat: I could not directly query USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) or the PTAB Decisions site by patent number in this session. The zero count rests on (a) the ODP structured block and (b) web search that surfaced nothing. Treat it as high-confidence but not docket-certified; a direct PTAB E2E "patent number" search is the one-step confirmation if you need it.

Contradiction / correction flag (cross-reference)

The earlier section flagged internal inconsistency about inventorship. Espacenet resolves part of it and contradicts the Google Patents front page:

The Google Patents single-inventor listing appears to be an artifact; the Espacenet and GB records agree on Opas + Råglund as inventors, Säynäjäkangas as applicant, matching the USPTO assignment records (assignors Opas, Raglund; assignee Säynäjäkangas). This matters for naming the real party-in-interest if you ever litigate or negotiate — and for confirming there is no corporate Patent Owner with an IPR war chest.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all of 1–7 are UNTESTED. No PTAB panel has ever construed a term, evaluated a ground, or canceled a claim. Claims 1 and 4 (independent method/system claims with the "at least two target trajectories + length scaling + correlation selection" characterizing clause) and claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 (dependent: recognized-trick reporting; user pre-selection; on-board integration with wireless interface 13a; skateboard/snowboard trick target trajectories) stand exactly as granted on 2017-07-18 — not because they survived a challenge, but because no challenge was ever filed. Do not let anyone describe this as "hardened." It is untested.

The real dispositive fact is the fee lapse, not the PTAB docket. Per the legal-events record and the earlier section: maintenance fees went unpaid, the patent expired effective 2021-07-18 under 37 C.F.R. § 1.362, and the status remains "Expired – Fee Related." Consequences for a defendant:

• No injunctive relief is available; the patent cannot be enforced going forward.
• Damages exposure, if any, is confined to the six-year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286 ending at expiry — i.e., acts before 2021-07-18, and further limited by the patent's 2014-02-28 priority date.
• Reinstatement would require a petition showing the delay was unintentional (37 C.F.R. § 1.378). Nothing in the record shows such a petition, and roughly five years post-lapse makes revival a practical long shot. Flag: the front-page line "Adjusted expiration 2035-12-25" is a term-calculation artifact (it exceeds the nominal 20-year term from 2014-02-28 of 2034-02-28, implying ~1.83 years of adjustment). It does not mean the patent is alive. Do not rely on that line either way without pulling a current fee-status record from Patent Center.

Estoppel landscape: no estoppel exists. Because there is no AIA trial, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is inapplicable — no petitioner or privy is barred from anything. Symmetrically, a would-be petitioner is unconstrained. If a client want to build a defensive record, the only statutory limit is § 311(b): IPR grounds are confined to patents and printed publications under § 102/§ 103. Note that the file already contains ready-made § 102/§ 103 material cited by the examiner, which a challenger would start from: WO 98/54581 (Phatrat), EP 1846726 / US 7,379,842 / US 8,108,177 / US 2006/0167623 (Drop Zone "hang timer"), US 7,739,076 (Nike), WO 2012/018914 A2 and US 2013/0085713 A1 (Intellisys Group — "Signature-based trick determination systems and methods"). The Intellisys references in particular are the closest art on trick recognition by signature/correlation and were cited but not made the basis of a rejection on the merits; that is exactly the ground an IPR would press.

Pattern signals: none of the usual ones. No repeat petitioner, no serial filings, no Patent Owner appeals to the Federal Circuit, no aggregator. The patent's own family is thin and, in one case, already dead: the UK counterpart GB 2505417 A is "Not in force" (terminated 2017-03-01 per the UK IPO record at https://www.search-for-intellectual-property.service.gov.uk/GB1215242.7), and the EP counterpart published as EP 2913815 A1. A Patent Owner that let both the US maintenance fee and the GB case lapse is not a litigant — which is the single strongest inference in this whole analysis.

Recommended next steps

1. Start with the lapse, not the Board. If you receive a demand letter citing US 9,709,403, the first response is that the patent expired 2021-07-18 for failure to pay maintenance fees and is unenforceable going forward. Verify current status in USPTO Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) using application 14/193,643 before responding, and check the fee record for any § 1.378 reinstatement petition.
2. Confirm the zero PTAB count at the source. Run a patent-number search on PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the USPTO PTAB Decisions site for "9,709,403." If both return nothing (as expected), you can state affirmatively that claims 1–7 have never been challenged in an AIA trial.
3. Preserve the §§ 102/103/112 record while it is cheap. Because there is no estoppel and the patent is expired, a defensive IPR is likely unnecessary — a validity opinion grounded in WO 98/54581, the Drop Zone hang-timer family, Nike US 7,739,076, and the Intellisys WO 2012/018914 / US 2013/0085713 art is the proportionate spend. If the Patent Owner shows signs of reviving and asserting, the Intellisys "signature-based trick determination" art is the ground to lead with.
4. Do not cite a Final Written Decision that does not exist. There is no FWD link to provide, no claims-cancellation table to quote, and no CAFC docket number to cite. Any demand letter or pleading from the other side implying otherwise should be met with the record above.
5. Absence is the signal. A patent that was never asserted in a decade and that its owners abandoned in 2021 has no offensive traction; treat it as a paper risk unless and until a reinstatement appears in Patent Center.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9,709,403 using the USPTO assignment records and associated sources.

The generic searches returned unrelated documents. Let me query the USPTO assignment records more directly and research the parties.

Let me try to verify the specific reel/frame records cited in the Google Patents legal events, and check the recorded correspondents.

US 9,709,403 B2 — Ownership Chain Reconstruction

Search basis: Google Patents legal-events record (authoritative text supplied), cross-checked against the USPTO assignment-record data it reproduces. I was unable to open the USPTO Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov result pages for this patent in-session (the assignment-database result pages did not render in the search returns), so the reel/frame, execution dates, and conveyance data below are taken from the Google Patents legal-events entries, which reproduce the recorded USPTO assignment data verbatim. The "correspondent of record" field — the attorney/agent who filed each recording — is NOT reproduced in the Google Patents record and I could not retrieve it. I am stating that plainly rather than guessing; it is the single most material gap in this reconstruction.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — search 9709403 or 14/193,643. Indexed mirror: assignment.uspto.gov/patent.

Inventors

Internal inconsistency (flagged, consistent with the prior section): the front page names only Jari Raglund as inventor, Espacenet names Opas Tommi + Raglund Jari as inventors, and the assignment records treat Opas, Raglund, and Saynajakangas all as parties. Saynajakangas appears in the applicant/owner role but not consistently on the inventor side. I cannot resolve genuine inventorship from the fetched record — it is contradictory on its face.

Employer at time of filing: Not determinable from the fetched material. There is a suggestive but unconfirmed thread: co-inventor Tommi Opas is the named inventor on a contemporaneous Finland-origin PCT family (WO 2014/177763 and WO 2014/177764, "Heart rate and activity monitor arrangement" / "Data transfer of a heart rate and activity monitor arrangement"), filed in the same 2014 window, and Seppo J. Säynajakangas (Kempele, FI) is the founder of Polar Electro (heart-rate monitors). A shared Finland heart-rate/activity-monitoring lineage is plausible, but I have no record tying any of the three named persons to a common employer at the 2014 filing date. Do not treat this as established.

Unusual pattern check: No evidence that "all inventors departed the original assignee within 12 months" — because there never was a corporate original assignee to depart from. The owner set was individuals from the start, which changes the significance of every downstream signal.

Original assignee

There is no corporate original assignee. The application was filed 2014-02-28 by Vesa Saynajakangas as an individual applicant, and the patent was accordingly held by natural persons (Vesa Saynajakangas, Tommi Opas, Jari Raglund), not by a company.

• Product embodying the claims: No product identifying itself with this patent surfaced. The specification describes a standalone/commercial conceptual unit (snowboard unit 3, skateboard sensing element 8, smartphone app), but no commercial embodiment was found in any search.
• Primary line of business of "assignee": Not applicable — individual private owners.
• Current status: Co-owners are private individuals; no company to be operating, acquired, dissolved, or in bankruptcy. The patent itself expired 2021-07-18 for non-payment of maintenance fees (legal events LAPS/STCH 2021-08-23; FP effective 2021-07-18).

Assignment timeline

Two assignments are recorded. Executed dates are as stated in the recorded free-format text (signing-date ranges).

• 2014-03-28 → 2014-04-02 (executed) / recorded 2014-04-16 — Reel 032696/0457

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Tommi Opas; Jari Raglund
  • Assignee: Vesa Saynajakangas; Tommi Opas; Jari Raglund (as listed — see note)
  • Correspondent: Not available — not reproduced in the Google Patents legal-events record, and not retrievable in-session; cannot flag recurrence.
  • Context: Ownership establishment/confirmation at the filing stage — co-ownership of the application is being settled among the three individuals roughly one month after the 2014-02-28 filing. (Note: an assignor-listed-as-assignee combination is present in the record; this reads as a joint-ownership/confirmatory instrument rather than a clean inbound transfer, but I cannot verify the underlying document.)

• 2017-06-16 → 2017-08-07 (executed) / recorded 2017-12-28 — Reel 044497/0418

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Tommi Opas; Jari Raglund; Vesa Saynajakangas
  • Assignee: Jari Raglund; Vesa Saynajakangas
  • Correspondent: Not available — not reproduced in the record; cannot flag recurrence.
  • Context: Internal ownership consolidation — Tommi Opas exits; Raglund and Saynajakangas remain as the two co-owners. Executed just before grant (grant 2017-07-18) and recorded ~5 months after grant.

Refinement to the prior section (not a contradiction, a change over time): the earlier summary listed the assignees as "Vesa Saynajakangas; Tommi Opas; Jari Raglund." That is correct for the 2014 record but stale after 2017: per Reel 044497/0418, Opas is no longer a co-owner. The live ownership set from late 2017 onward is Raglund + Saynajakangas only — and it terminated by expiry in 2021.

No third assignment, security agreement, merger, license, name change, or release is recorded.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9709403
    2014 : Filed by Vesa Saynajakangas
         : Assignment recorded reel 032696 frame 0457
    2017 : Patent issued
         : Tommi Opas exits via assignment
         : Recorded reel 044497 frame 0418
    2021 : Patent lapses for unpaid fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Net: zero NPE-typical signals present; one signal (repeat correspondent) is simply unevaluable because the field is absent from the source.

Verdict

Insufficient data.

Justification: this is not an NPE chain — there is no shell LLC, no known asserter, no litigation, no cascading transfers, and no defensive aggregator in the chain. The two recorded instruments (Reel 032696/0457, recorded 2014-04-16, executed 2014-03-28→2014-04-02; and Reel 044497/0418, recorded 2017-12-28, executed 2017-06-16→2017-08-07) are both assignments between the same private individuals, ending in co-ownership by Jari Raglund and Vesa Saynajakangas alone after Tommi Opas exited in 2017 — with the patent then simply lapsing for unpaid maintenance fees (eff. 2021-07-18). I chose "Insufficient data" as the closest mandated category because none of the other three labels fit: it is not NPE, not operating-company assertion (no products, no suits), and not a defensive aggregation — but I note explicitly that my reason is the absence of assertion/licensing/product activity by private individual owners, not an absence of records (two assignments are on file). The one unresolved gap that would most sharpen this call is the correspondent of record, which I could not retrieve; if a repeat-player attorney appears on both reels, signal #3 would move from "unclear" toward "present," though even then the other seven signals would remain absent and the verdict would not reach NPE confidence.

Confidence and caveats: I could not directly query USPTO Assignment Center / PatentCenter for the correspondent fields, so the reel/frame and dates are relied upon from the reproduced legal-events record, and the correspondent analysis is a documented non-finding. A definitive check should pull the assignment abstracts (reel/frame 032696/0457 and 044497/0418) directly from assignmentcenter.uspto.gov and confirm there is no third recording.

I'll verify the patent record and examine each cited reference. Let me run a set of searches.

Let me examine the remaining cited references in parallel.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,709,403 B2

0. Verification of the target patent (done first, per instructions)

I searched for the specific number 9709403 (not "09709403" and not the similarly-formatted "WO9709403A1," which is an unrelated 1996 PCT fabric-softener publication). Search results confirm the target:

• US 9,709,403 B2, "Method and a system for tracking and analyzing a trajectory of a moving object, and for providing a score of such a trajectory," App. No. 14/193,643, filed/priority 2014-02-28, granted 2017-07-18.
• Espacenet record (title, app. no. US201414193643, inventor Opas/Raglund, applicant Saynajakangas) corroborates the Google Patents page: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=[9709403B2](/patent/9709403B2)&KC=B2&FT=D
• Pre-grant publication US 2015/0247727 A1; family publication EP 2913815 A1; similar document GB 2505417 A.

I note one internal inconsistency already flagged in the summary: search results list inventors as Opas Tommi; Raglund Jari (Espacenet) while the Google Patents front page lists only Jari Raglund and the assignment records name Opas, Raglund and Saynajakangas. I do not resolve this; it does not affect the prior-art analysis.

No litigation/CAFC 2026 docket found (consistent with the earlier section). The only forward citation traceable is US 10,567,975 B2 (Hoffberg Family Trust 2), which is later art and therefore not prior art to the '403 patent.

1. Legal framework (important caveat before the mapping)

Because App. 14/193,643 was filed 2014-02-28 (after 2013-03-16), the AIA §102 regime applies:

• §102(a)(1) — patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use/on sale before the effective filing date. All 14 cited references and 2 of the non-patent citations qualify on their face.
• §102(a)(2) — U.S. patents / U.S. application publications / WIPO publications that were "effectively filed" before the critical date. This catches the Intellisys references (priority 2010-08-03) and Phatrat/Vock (1997–1999). Note a foreign (EP/JP/GB) publication is not §102(a)(2) art; it is only §102(a)(1) art if it actually published before 2014-02-28 (all cited EP/JP/GB items did, so they count under (a)(1)).

Anticipation under §102 requires every element and limitation of a claim in a single reference, arranged as in the claim. The critical limitation is the characterizing clause of claims 1/4:

"...compared to at least two data sets of predefined target trajectories, whereby the length of the actual performance is scaled to the length of each of the predefined trajectories, and the selection ... is done by calculating the correlation ... and producing a score based on said correlation."

This is the point of novelty over the cited art (and matches the earlier summary's conclusion). Consequently, no cited reference appears to anticipate independent claim 1 or claim 4 in full — but several map to dependent claims and to the preambles. The mapping below distinguishes these honestly.

2. The 14 patent citations — reference-by-reference

3. Non-patent citations (also cited before the examiner)

4. Most relevant prior art — ranking

1. US 2013/0085713 A1 (IntelliSysGroup / Witmer) — highest relevance. Discloses the compare-to-multiple-trick-templates-then-pick-best-match-and-name-the-trick arc that is the heart of claims 1–2 and 6/7. Its only apparent shortfall versus claim 1 is the specific time-scaling + correlation step (it uses signature/coefficient matching and smallest-deviation selection). Combined with WO 2012/018914 and US 9,285,241, this family is the most dangerous art for claim 1/4 (as §103 combinations and, arguably, for dependent claims 2/3).
2. JP 2009-153856 A (Panasonic, golf improvement) and JP 2012-006485 A (Toyota, driving evaluation) — the closest art on the generic idea of scoring a measured motion against a reference. Potentially significant, but I could not retrieve their full text/translations in this session — confidence is low, and the field/pipeline differences mean they likely do not anticipate claim 1/4. These should be pulled and read in the examiner's cited translations before any conclusion.
3. Phatrat/Vock family (WO 98/54581; US 7,739,076; US 2007/0110278) — strongest on the hardware side: sensors on sports equipment, wireless link, memory, display (claim 5, and claim 4/claim 1 preambles). Weak on the scoring/trajectory-comparison core.
4. Drop Zone hang-timer family (US 2006/0167623; US 2008/0275670; EP 1846726; US 7,379,842; WO 2006/081317; US 8,108,177) — the art the '403 patent expressly distinguishes in its Background; measure only time-of-flight (2 dimensions, time + height) and therefore do not disclose a 3-D trajectory, a target trajectory, or scoring by comparison. Non-anticipatory.

5. Bottom line on §102

• No cited reference fully anticipates independent claim 1 or claim 4, because none discloses the combination of (i) comparing to at least two predefined target trajectories, (ii) time-scaling the actual performance length to each, and (iii) selecting by correlation to produce the score.
• The art that comes closest is the IntelliSysGroup family (US 2013/0085713 A1; WO 2012/018914 A2; US 9,285,241 B2), which is better characterized as a §103 challenge and as §102 evidence against dependent claims 2 and 6/7 than as full anticipation of claim 1.
• Dependent claims are where cited art maps most cleanly: claim 5 (sensors + processing on equipment + wireless interface, per WO 98/54581 / US 7,739,076 / US 2013/0085713); claims 6–7 (skateboard/snowboard-trick target, per the IntelliSys refs); claim 3 (user-prompted/selected target, per US 9,285,241 / US 2013/0083941). Even these are limited by their dependence on claim 1/4, so a standalone anticipation holding requires that the primary claim also be met.

6. Caveats / recommended next steps

• The JP references (#10, #11) and the Harding papers are the items I could least fully verify here; pull the examiner's cited computer-generated translations of JP 2009-153856 and JP 2012-006485 and the two Harding articles before finalizing any anticipation position.
• GB 2505417 A ("Snowboard/skateboard trajectory tracking and evaluation," pub. 2014-03-05) is flagged in the file as a "similar document." Because it published after the 2014-02-28 priority date, it is not §102(a)(1) art, and as a foreign publication it is not §102(a)(2) art; it does not add prior art, though its earlier GB filing/search-report history (search report dated 2013-01-21) should be checked for a possible earlier US/WIPO counterpart that would qualify.
• Forward citations — US 9,977,953 B2 (Intel, "Sensor network for trick classification") and the Moyerman applications US 2018/0005129 A1 and US 2018/0001139 A1 ("Predictive classification in action sports"; "Accelerated pattern recognition in action sports") — are later art (they cite '403), so they are not prior art; they are useful only to show subsequent development of the same concept.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9709403/en ; https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=9709403B2&KC=B2&FT=D ; https://patents.google.com/patent/WO1998054581A9/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US7739076 ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[7,739,076](/patent/7739076) ; https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1846726A4/en ; http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/20/55/5a/78427e5dd24d63/US8108177.pdf ; https://www.patentsencyclopedia.com/app/20130085713 ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0083941.html ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US9977953 (forward citation).

I'll analyze the prior art references cited on the patent page to build an obviousness analysis. Let me gather details on the key references.

Let me gather details on the remaining key references (Phatrat airtime system and the Moyerman post-filing applications).

Let me characterize the remaining cited references (golf/driving evaluation systems and the Harding non-patent literature).

Obviousness Analysis of U.S. Patent No. 9,709,403 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on scope: This analysis builds on the previously generated summary (claim breakdown, bibliographic data, litigation check) and does not repeat it. Per the strict-instruction rule, all identifiers are read literally. I use only the references listed in the patent page's Prior Art section — i.e., the 14 patent citations and 5 non-patent citations. I flag confidence levels where I relied on titles/translations rather than full text.

1. Legal framework and the dispositive issue

Application US 14/193,643 was filed 2014-02-28, after the AIA's 2013-03-16 cutoff, so AIA § 102(a)(1) (publicly available/patented/published before the effective filing date) and § 102(a)(2) (U.S. patents/applications with earlier effective filing dates) govern, and AIA § 103 applies. The claim 1 priority date is 2014-02-28.

Claim 1 (method) and claim 4 (system) are the independents. As noted in the prior summary, the stated point of novelty is the characterizing step common to both:

"(a) the data set of position data is compared to at least two data sets of predefined target trajectories, (b) whereby the length of the actual performance is scaled to the length of each of the predefined trajectories, and (c) the selection of the predefined trajectory closest to the trajectory of the moving object is done by calculating the correlation between each of the predefined trajectories and said trajectory… (d) and producing a score based on said correlation."

Everything else in claim 1/claim 4 — measuring acceleration and direction of a moving sports object, generating position data, storing it, retrieving it, deriving a trajectory, comparing to a target, and outputting a score — is a classic sensor-plus-processor combination. The obviousness question therefore turns on whether elements (a)–(d) are taught or suggested by the listed art, singly or in combination.

The patent's own Description concedes the framing: "[b]ecause the process of evaluating the trajectory is reduced to a comparative operation, the hardware and software setup needed is greatly simplified" — i.e., the inventor characterizes the advance as a software/data-processing choice layered on known sensors. That characterization itself cuts toward obviousness under KSR (a predictable application of a known technique).

2. Prior-art inventory (only references listed on the page, all pre-2014-02-28)

References that must NOT be treated as prior art (important flag). The page's "Families Citing this family" list includes US 2018/0005139 A1 and US 2018/0001139 A1 (Moyerman), US 9,977,953 B2 (Intel), and NO 340837 B1. These have effective filing dates of 2016-06-29, 2015-12-22, and 2015-11-30 respectively — after the 2014-02-28 priority date — and therefore are not prior art to claim 1. Likewise the CN publications (2021, 2022) are not prior art. I exclude them from the combinations below. (This is a correction to any temptation to cite them as "the closest art"; they are later art and only evidence of the field's subsequent development.)

Confidence flags: The IntelliSys references I retrieved in substantial full text (quotes verified). For JP 2009-153856 A and JP 2012-006485 A I relied on their listing titles and the page's English translations of the abstracts (per the Non-Patent Citations entries); I did not retrieve the full Japanese specifications, so my mapping of their disclosures is medium confidence. The Drop Zone hang-timer family is characterized from the art known to be airtime-focused; the specific content of each member was not individually verified.

3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1 (representative)

Reading: The IntelliSys family alone maps every element of claim 1 except the literal wording of (b) length-scaling and (c) "correlation." It expressly discloses multiple target signatures, a best-match selection (min. root-mean deviation), and a score. The residual gap is the specific similarity metric (normalized, time-scaled correlation).

4. Combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination 1 (primary): IntelliSys US 2013/0085713 A1 in view of IntelliSys US 2012/0116714 A1 — renders claim 1 obvious

The two IntelliSys publications are commonly owned, share a specification, and expressly cross-reference each other ('713 at [0004]–[0005]). Combining them is not even a true "combination" — they are the same inventive family.

• '713 supplies the multi-trick signature table ([0022], [0115], [0136]–[0141]) → element (a).
• '713's ambiguity-resolution step — selecting the table entry with the smallest root-mean deviation ([0141]) — is a best-match selection using a numeric distance metric → the genus of element (c).
• '714/''713 supply the score/rating → element (d).

Motivation to combine: identical field (skateboard sensor systems), overlapping disclosure, common goal ("if you can't measure it, you can't improve it" — '713 [0047]), and the '713 reference expressly contemplates competition and rating ([0049]). Under KSR and MPEP 2144.1, using a known quantitative distance metric to pick the closest of several stored reference signatures is "a predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions."

Combination 2: IntelliSys (any of '713 / '714 / WO '914 / '241) + PhatRat WO 98/54581 + Drop Zone hang-timer family

• PhatRat and the Drop Zone family supply the trajectory/airtime framework and the explicit notion of comparing/ranking participants over the Internet (WO 98/54581, p. 1, "gaming aspects… quantitative comparison between two or more participants").
• IntelliSys supplies multi-signature identification + rating.

Motivation: Both address the same problem (quantifying a jump/trick on skiing/snowboarding/skateboarding equipment with on-board accelerometers). The secondary references teach that trajectory duration is a meaningful measurement — which supplies the reason to time-normalize the performance (element (b)). A POSITA seeking to compare a performed trajectory of arbitrary duration against stored templates of different durations would naturally scale for length/duration before comparing — this is inherent in comparing signals of unequal length. Combined result: claim 1.

Combination 3: IntelliSys + JP 2009-153856 A (Panasonic golf) and/or JP 2012-006485 A (Toyota driving evaluation)

The JP references are cited on the page precisely because they disclose comparing a measured motion/actual course to a reference/model and outputting an evaluation — i.e., a "score indicative of how closely the [measured] trajectory follows the target trajectory." (Medium confidence: based on titles/translated abstracts.)

Motivation: JP 2009-153856's golf-swing-improvement problem is analogous (sensor-measured human motion compared to a stored model to grade performance). A POSITA in sports instrumentation would look to the golf/driving evaluation arts for scoring methodologies, because the underlying computation (compare measured motion to reference, quantify closeness) is the same. Under MPEP 2144.1(III)/(IV), applying a known scoring technique from an analogous motion-evaluation field to the skateboard/snowboard sensing system yields a predictable result.

Combination 4: Any of the above + Harding et al. (2008, 2010)

Harding's papers on "Automated scoring for elite half-pipe snowboard competition" are cited as printed publications and directly address producing an automated score for snowboard competition from motion data — the same objective and field as claim 1's score element.

5. Motivation-to-combine analysis (MPEP 2143 / KSR)

A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) — e.g., an engineer with MEMS/inertial-sensor experience in sports electronics (the skill level reflected by the patents' own references to MEMS accelerometers/gyroscopes) — would have been motivated because:

1. Same field / same problem. All the primary references are directed to instrumenting skating/snowboarding/skiing equipment to objectively measure and compare tricks (IntelliSys '713 [0007]–[0010], [0049]; PhatRat p. 1; Drop Zone hang timers). No field-of-invention barrier exists.
2. Predictable result. Adding a numeric comparison metric and a score to a system that already stores trick signatures and already computes a deviation ([0141]) is "the mere application of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result." KSR, 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007).
3. Design incentive / market pressure. The references themselves state the incentive: automate the judgment of tricks for competition ('713 [0049]; WO 98/54581 gaming/internet competition; Harding 2008 automated competition scoring). Reducing subjective human judging to a computed score is the express goal.
4. The metric is conventional. Time-scaling (length normalization) and correlation (e.g., normalized cross-correlation or dynamic time warping) are standard, well-known techniques for comparing time series of unequal length as of the 2014 priority date. A POSITA comparing a variable-length measured trajectory to several stored reference trajectories would have found it obvious to time-normalize and correlate. That ordinary-knowledge element is the only real gap left by the written references, and it is precisely the kind of "known technique" KSR allows to be supplied.

6. Dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 7

Claim 3 is notable: it removes the need to run the multi-candidate correlation search at all, yet claim 6/7 recites nothing more than a skateboard/snowboard trick — the very subject matter of the IntelliSys and PhatRat art.

7. Counterarguments and weaknesses (balanced assessment)

To be candid, the combination case is strong but not airtight, and the examiner's allowance should be understood:

1. No express "correlation" or "length-scaling" in the listed art. I could not verify a reference in the list that uses the words "correlation" or time/length scaling of a trajectory. IntelliSys uses thresholding, n-tuples, and root-mean deviation ([0115], [0141]); it does not disclose a correlation coefficient. The patent's advocates would argue that "scaling the length… to the length of each predefined trajectory" and "calculating the correlation" are specific, non-conventional limitations that distinguish it — a § 103 argument that the metric itself is not taught. A patent owner would also argue KSR does not permit using "ordinary creativity" to supply a finishing claim element that changes how the comparison works. This is the strongest non-obviousness position.
2. Reasonable expectation of success could be contested: a POSITA might question whether time-scaling a jump trajectory preserves the rotational/airtime information that distinguishes tricks, since tricks differ in duration as well as shape.
3. No evidence of secondary considerations (long-felt need, unexpected results, commercial success) is present in the record as supplied; conversely, the patent's own rapid lapse (fee non-payment, effective 2021-07-18) and individual ownership provide no commercial-success evidence either way.
4. Best mode / enablement of the correlation and scaling is only described at a high level ("correlation between the two sets of data"), which cuts both ways: it is narrow enough that prior art + ordinary skill plausibly covers it.

Net: Claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 are readily obvious over the IntelliSys family alone (indeed, arguably anticipated). Claims 1 and 4 are obvious over IntelliSys '713 / '714 in view of PhatRat WO 98/54581 (and/or the JP golf/driving references) plus the ordinary skill in time-series correlation — with the residual risk that a fact finder accepts the patentee's argument that "length-scaling + correlation" is a non-conventional metric not expressly taught by the listed art.

8. Conclusion

• Claim 1 / Claim 4: Obvious under AIA § 103 over US 2013/0085713 A1 (multi-trick signature table + best-match selection + score) in view of US 2012/0116714 A1 (rating computation; comparing motion-orientation over time), and further in view of WO 98/54581 A2 (trajectory duration/airtime; comparative scoring) and/or JP 2009-153856 A / JP 2012-006485 A (evaluate a measured motion against a stored model/reference to output a score), the time-scaling-plus-correlation step being supplied by the ordinary skill in the art of comparing time series of unequal length. Motivation: same field, common objective of automated competition scoring, predictable result, express design incentive.
• Claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 7: Obvious (some arguably anticipated) over the IntelliSys family, with PhatRat/Drop Zone for the skate/snowboard trick context.
• Excluded as non-prior-art: the Moyerman 2018 applications, Intel US 9,977,953, and NO 340837 — all post-date the 2014-02-28 priority date and should not be cited against these claims.
• Residual uncertainty: the express words "correlation" and "length scaling" do not appear in the listed references, and the two JP references were assessed from titles/translated abstracts only (medium confidence). These two points are where an obviousness rejection would most likely draw a patentee rebuttal.

If a formal § 103 rejection is desired, the cleanest two-reference combination is IntelliSys '713 as the primary reference, with PhatRat WO 98/54581 as secondary for trajectory/scoring context, supplemented by a KSR ordinary-knowledge rationale (or the JP golf/driving references) for the correlation/time-scaling limitation.