Defendant
3 cases as defendant.
The Foundry, LLC (commonly "The Foundry") is a privately held medical-device incubator headquartered at 4040 Campbell Avenue, Suite 110, Menlo Park, California. Founded in 1998 by Allan Will and Hanson S. Gifford III, it is run by managing partners including Gifford and Mark Deem. It is venture-backed (New Enterprise Associates, Morgenthaler, Lightstone Ventures, among others) and small — roughly 20–25 employees per Crustdata; PitchBook reports about $5M raised, and no public revenue figure is available.
Operations. The Foundry does not sell its own products; it invents and develops new medical-device companies, providing product development, prototyping, regulatory affairs, intellectual property, and early funding. Since 1998 it has formed 20+ startups, including Evalve (MitraClip, acquired by Abbott), Ardian (renal denervation, acquired by Medtronic), Concentric Medical (Stryker), Cierra (Terumo), Emphasys Medical (Pulmonx), Twelve (Medtronic's Intrepid valve), Half Moon Medical, FIRE1, and Aerin Medical, which markets the VivAer and RhinAer devices for nasal airway obstruction and chronic rhinitis. Aerin is the exclusive licensee of the Foundry-owned patents at issue in the tracked cases.
Patent-litigation posture. The Foundry is an active two-way litigant in a single dispute. It appears as co-plaintiff (with Aerin) in Aerin Medical Inc. et al. v. Neurent Medical Inc. et al., filed July 11, 2023, in the District of Delaware, asserting eight patents covering RF-energy devices for treating nasal airways against Neurent's Neuromark system for chronic rhinitis. It appears as patent-owner defendant in two PTAB inter partes reviews (IPR2024-00279, IPR2024-00280, filed January 18, 2024) that Neurent brought against Foundry-owned patents in the same family.
Notable context. The PTAB instituted review of essentially all asserted patents, and the district court action was stayed pending the IPRs. Final written decisions in July 2025 found certain Foundry-owned claims unpatentable as obvious (e.g., U.S. Patent No. 10,610,675), and the patent owner filed a notice of appeal in September 2025. Aerin also statutorily disclaimed the '597 and '194 patents. The case centers on technology developed by Foundry inventors (including Deem and Gifford) with priority dating to the mid-2000s.
Neurent petitioned for inter partes review of the '077 patent. The Board granted Neurent's opposed motion to withdraw the petition and dismissed the proceeding prior to institution.
Neurent Medical Inc. petitioned for inter partes review challenging U.S. Patent No. 10,894,011. The PTAB instituted review on July 23, 2024, and issued a Final Written Decision on July 21, 2025, which has been appealed.
Neurent Medical Inc. and Neurent Medical Ltd. filed an IPR challenging claims 1–3, 7, 9–10, and 17–25 of US 10,610,675 on four grounds. The PTAB issued a Final Written Decision on July 21, 2025.