US 10060867

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number, then cross-check against the full text provided.

Let me verify the claim set and check for any CAFC litigation.

Let me confirm the actual issued claim set, since the Justia snippet showed pump-cassette claims that I want to verify against this patent number.

Search scope and what I found

I ran targeted searches against patent databases (Google Patents-derived text via Justia, patent text aggregators) for the exact number 10060867 / "US 10,060,867", plus separate queries for CAFC/Federal Circuit 2026 dockets and litigation. I did not substitute or auto-correct any number.

Result of the docket search: no CAFC 2026 docket, appeal, or IPR involving US 10,060,867 surfaced. Two separate queries — one for "10060867" + CAFC 2026 docket, one for "10,060,867"/"10060867" + Federal Circuit 2026 appeal — returned either empty results or unrelated hits (e.g., a health-statistics table that coincidentally contains the digit string 10060867, and unrelated Baxter/Fresenius and Alcon/AMO claim-construction decisions that do not mention this patent). I cannot state affirmatively that no such proceeding exists; I can only report that my searches found none.

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Bibliographic summary — US 10,060,867 B2

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10060867/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/10060867 ; https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_10060867_Sensor_apparatus_systems%2C_devices_and_methods-VK4RW3V

Note a discrepancy: the priority story is internally inconsistent across the Google Patents record itself — it shows a 2007-02-27 "prior art date," a 2007-10-12 priority claim from US 11/871,821, and an adjusted expiration of 2027-11-01. The 2027 expiration implies a 2007 priority year, consistent with this being a continuation in a long family that also produced US 10,697,913 and US 11,885,758.

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Abstract (as published)

"A sensor apparatus and sensor apparatus system for use in conjunction with a cassette, including a disposable or replaceable cassette. In some embodiments, the cassette includes a thermal well for permitting the sensing of various properties of a subject media. The thermal well includes a hollow housing of a thermally conductive material. In other embodiments, the cassette includes sensor leads for sensing of various properties of a subject media. The thermal well has an inner surface shaped so as to form a mating relationship with a sensing probe. The mating thermally couples the inner surface with a sensing probe. In some embodiments, the thermal well is located on a disposable portion and the sensing probe on a reusable portion."

(Corroborated by the Justia page and the Golden wiki record. The abstract is sensor/thermal-well focused.)

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Independent claims — plain-language overview

The authoritative full text you supplied contains the specification and figure list but not the claims. The best claim text I could retrieve is from the Justia page for this exact patent number, which showed claims directed to a pump cassette (not directly to a thermal well/probe). I flag this as a genuine mismatch worth verifying against the USPTO's official claim set, because abstracts and claims in this family diverge.

Claim 1 — "pump cassette" (independent): A cassette built from three layers first plate / midplate / second plate, where:

• The first plate has a pump actuation chamber wall defining an actuation chamber with a port connectable to a fluidic/pneumatic pressure source, and a sensor housing that penetrates from the outer surface of the first plate to its inner surface (the surface facing the midplate).
• The second plate has the opposing pump fluid chamber wall, and defines fluid channels each formed by sealing a channel portion on the second plate's inner wall to a mating channel portion on the opposed second side of the midplate.
• The midplate has an aperture between the actuation chamber and the fluid chamber, with a perimeter that holds a pump diaphragm separating the two chambers.
• The midplate also has a sensor housing aperture communicating with a sensor fluid channel on the midplate's second side, whose perimeter sealingly holds the sensor housing so the housing's outer surface is exposed to the fluid channel and its inner surface can contact a sensor.

In plain terms: a layered diaphragm pump cassette in which one outer plate carries a sealed, fluid-wetted sensor well whose inner end is reachable by a sensor.

Claim 7 — "pump cassette" (independent): The same three-plate architecture, but reciting the valve structure alongside the pump: the first plate has both a pump actuation chamber and a valve actuation chamber with actuation ports for a pressure source, plus the penetrating sensor housing; the midplate has a valve fluid chamber with valve ports connected to fluid channels on the midplate's second side, the pump diaphragm aperture, and the valve diaphragm separating the valve actuation chamber from the valve fluid chamber.

Dependent claims (from the retrieved excerpt, claims 2–6 and 8–10):

• Cl. 2: the sensor housing's inner surface is exposed to the first plate's outer surface, so the sensor can be installed/removed from outside the cassette (field-serviceable/reusable sensor, disposable cassette).
• Cl. 3: first plate and second plate form the two walls of a mixing chamber, with the midplate providing the aperture between them and ports into a mixing-chamber channel.
• Cl. 4: adds a valve station — valve fluid chamber with ports to the second-side fluid channels, opposed by a valve actuation chamber with its own pressure port, separated by a valve diaphragm.
• Cl. 5: adds a second pump (second fluid chamber + second actuation chamber + second diaphragm) — i.e., a two-pod-pump cassette.
• Cl. 6: one or more fluid channels terminate in an inlet/outlet port that penetrates through the midplate and the first plate to a connection point on the first plate's outer surface.
• Cl. 8–10: additional dependent claims in the same vein; the excerpt was truncated. Claim 10 (depending from claim 7) adds a second pump fluid chamber on the first side of the midplate.

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Reconciliation with the specification you supplied

The specification is broad and supports both framings. It describes thermal wells 5100 mated with sensing probes 6000/5800 (FIGS. 8–20), wells installed in flexible-membrane cassettes (FIGS. 23A–28), three-plate rigid cassettes with a midplate between top and bottom plates (FIGS. 29–33C), and sensor blocks 1314/1316 holding conductivity and temperature sensors. The granted claims appear to have been drawn to the three-plate cassette with an integrated sensor housing/well, consistent with the "pump cassette" and "sensor housing penetrating from an outer surface of the first plate" language — but this is a claim-drafting focus that the published abstract does not reflect.

Honest uncertainties

1. Claim set not verified against the official USPTO record. The claim text above comes from a third-party (Justia) rendering of this exact patent number; the authoritative full text you provided has no claims section. I could not independently confirm the total number of claims, the exact count of independent claims, or the full text of claims 8+.
2. No CAFC 2026 activity found. Absence of search results is not proof of absence of litigation; my search tools are not a docket system (e.g., PACER/CM-ECF or the Federal Circuit's own docket were not directly queryable here).
3. Priority-date inconsistency in the Google Patents bibliographic data (2007-02-27 vs. 2007-10-12 vs. the 2016-12-29 filing), which I have reported literally rather than corrected per your instruction.
4. Assignee naming varies across sources: "Deka Products LP" (Google Patents "current assignee") vs. "DEKA Products Limited Partnership" (assignment record, and the entity the inventors assigned to on 2017-07-21).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10060867.

Let me search more targeted sources for litigation involving this specific patent.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation portal and Google Patents' litigation section for this patent.

Search Results: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867

Bottom line: I found no known litigation — district court or PTAB — involving U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867.

I searched for this patent number across litigation-oriented sources (including the Unified Patents portal, PACER-derived databases such as Docket Alarm / PacerMonitor, CourtListener, and general web searches cross-referencing the patent number, its title, and its assignee DEKA Products Limited Partnership). I found no case in which U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867 is identified as an asserted patent, a patent-in-suit, or the subject of a post-grant challenge (IPR/PGR).

What the sources do show for this patent

• Patent identification (confirmed): U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867 B2, "Sensor apparatus systems, devices and methods," Application No. 15/393,994, filed December 29, 2016, granted August 28, 2018; assignee DEKA Products Limited Partnership (Manchester, NH); inventors Dean Kamen, N. Christopher Perry, Jason A. Demers, Brian D. Tracey, Arun D. Chawan, Kevin L. Grant. Priority claimed from U.S. App. Ser. No. 11/871,821 (filed 2007-10-12). Sources: Google Patents and Justia Patents pages for the patent.
• The Justia patent page for 10,060,867 shows only prosecution-history references (e.g., a JP office action) and cited references — no litigation section and no listed lawsuits.
• The Google Patents page lists assignee/legal-status events (assignment, priority continuations) but shows no litigation entries.

Related litigations that are NOT this patent (flagged to avoid confusion)

My search surfaced several DEKA/DEKA-related patent disputes, but none asserted U.S. 10,060,867:

1. Baxter Healthcare Corp. and DEKA Products LP v. Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc. — U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. C 07-01359 PJH. This 2007-era case asserted nine different patents (e.g., the '626 patent family) against the Fresenius Liberty Cycler and ended in a defense verdict. U.S. 10,060,867 did not exist at that time and was not asserted.
2. Segway Inc. v. Inventist, Inc. — D. Del. No. 15cv808-SLR — related to DEKA's personal-mobility patents (e.g., 6,302,230; 7,275,607), unrelated to the '867 patent.
3. Various Unified Patents / PTAB proceedings surfaced in search results involve entirely different patents and parties.

I did not find any record identifying U.S. 10,060,867 by number in any complaint, docket, judgment, or PTAB petition.

Important caveats

• A negative result from these sources is not conclusive. Patent litigation databases (Unified Patents Portal, Docket Alarm) are not fully comprehensive, and some district court dockets (particularly older or sealed matters) may not be indexed by the free sources I can access. A definitive answer would require a direct PACER / Docket Navigator / LexisNexis Patent Litigation query for "10,060,867."
• The patent's adjusted expiration date is listed as 2027-11-01 and its legal status is Active, so it remains enforceable and could be asserted in the future.

If you need a certified negative or a complete docket search, I recommend confirming directly against Docket Navigator or PACER using the exact number "10,060,867," since I cannot guarantee completeness from the available search results.

I'll start by checking for any PTAB proceedings involving this patent that may not be indexed in the ODP feed.

The first pass returned mostly unrelated patents (note: search engines conflated 10,688,067 — a Sage Products patent — with our 10,060,867). Let me run targeted checks.

Let me check for the well-known Deka/Fresenius dispute and any related PTAB filings, plus verify via docket aggregators.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 10,060,867: 0 (zero). No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition has ever been instituted, denied, settled, or decided against this patent according to the USPTO Open Data Portal feed supplied in this prompt, and my independent web searches (PTAB E2E/PTACTS, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents portal, general web) surfaced no proceeding naming US 10,060,867 as the challenged patent. The breakdown is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no claim-level invalidation to lean on and no estoppel to exploit — but also no favorable PTAB record for the patent owner to brandish. The patent is untested at the Board, not "hardened." The single most important practical fact is the clock: the structured record lists a legal status of Active with an adjusted expiration of 2027-11-01. An IPR filed today (2026-09-30) would reach a Final Written Decision roughly 18 months out — well after the patent expires. Any AIA-trial strategy has to be justified by damages exposure during the remaining ~13 months and by the patent's continuations, not by a race to kill the patent.

⚠️ False positive to flag. Web search repeatedly conflated this patent with a different number. IPR2021-01202, Becton, Dickinson and Company v. Sage Products, LLC is directed to U.S. Patent No. 10,688,067 (Sage Products), a surgical-prep patent — not US 10,060,867 (Deka). Petition: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1547727](/patent/1547727). Do not cite that proceeding against this patent; the digits are transposed.

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No proceedings to detail

Because the canonical ODP list is empty and no unindexed filing was found, there is no proceeding number, panel, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal to report for US 10,060,867. I will not invent one.

For completeness, here is what does show up in the record and why it is not an AIA trial:

• PTAB E2E / PTACTS hits returned by search were for unrelated patents (Nike 7,347,011, Intellectual Ventures 9,602,608, Netlist 10,268,608, Fortinet/Lionra '708). None names US 10,060,867.
• District-court, not PTAB, activity: the DEKA/Kamen patent family has a long litigation history (e.g., Baxter Healthcare v. Fresenius Medical Care, N.D. Cal., and Baxter v. Fresenius, No. 4:07-cv-01359), and Fresenius has repeatedly attacked DEKA-family patents on invalidity — but in court, not at the Board. That history does not appear to reach US 10,060,867, which issued 2018-08-28.
• I could not verify, and therefore do not assert, any IPR against the sibling family members discussed below.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. US 10,060,867 issued 2018-08-28 from application 15/393,994 with no PTAB proceeding having touched any claim. Nothing is canceled; nothing has been adjudicated patentable. Any statement that "claim X survived an IPR" or "claim 1 is dead" would be false for this patent. Claims 1–7 recite a pump cassette with a midplate sensor-housing aperture (see the claim text reproduced in the Justia/Google Patents copies), and those are the claims a plaintiff would assert — but they carry only the § 282 presumption of validity, no Board-tested narrowing.

Estoppel landscape: empty. Because no petitioner has been through an AIA trial, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel barring anyone. A defendant today can file an IPR on any § 102/§ 103 ground without worrying that a privy burned it. Conversely, the patent owner has no IPR win to argue to a jury, and no PTAB claim-construction record to leverage. The validity fight, if any, starts from scratch.

Pattern signals — the real battleground is the family, not this patent. US 10,060,867 sits in a very large DEKA hemodialysis/sensor family with a 2007-02-27 priority date and a shared specification. Per the structured record, the same family generated:

• US 10,697,913 (from app 16/112,375), and
• US 11,885,758 (from app 16/916,039),

both claiming priority off this chain, plus earlier siblings including US 7,794,141 ("Thermal and Conductivity Sensing Systems, Devices and Methods," app 11/787,112) and US 9,535,021 (a terminal-disclaimer-linked continuation). No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain — the Unified Patents portal only lists DEKA family patents as assignee metadata, with no litigation/PTAB tab indicating a challenge. If a defendant is being asserted against this family, the more likely IPR targets (and the more likely places DEKA will file new continuations) are the later-issuing siblings, which have a longer remaining term than US 10,060,867.

Term economics dominate. With adjusted expiration listed as 2027-11-01, this patent has roughly 13 months of life left. An IPR petition filed now would consume six figures in attorney and expert fees and would not produce an FWD until after expiration — the Board may even deny institution as moot or the parties may simply let it lapse. Any validity challenge is better aimed at the continuations, which extend the family's leverage well past 2027.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant receiving an assertion letter on US 10,060,867:

1. Do not claim a PTAB win you don't have. There is no FWD to cite. The honest posture is: no AIA trial has ever been filed on this patent (verified against the ODP feed and cross-checked on PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ and Docket Alarm). Your invalidity story must be built from scratch in district court or in a new petition.
2. Prioritize the family. Pull the continuity data on the patent's face (a 2007-02-27 priority chain) and inventory the live continuations — notably US 10,697,913 and US 11,885,758, and confirm their current status and expiration. A challenge that ignores the siblings solves half the problem.
3. Run the term math before filing anything. With expiration at 2027-11-01, model whether an IPR could realistically deliver a decision in time to matter, and whether a § 315(b) one-year bar (if you've been served) is even in play.
4. If you do file, note there is no estoppel risk from others and no stay record to work with — but also no Fintiv-style prior-institution history. Because the patent has never been before the Board, a well-supported § 103 petition starting from the family's own 2007-era prior art (the DEKA/WO 2007/120812 line that examiners have cited against family members) is the natural starting point, not a re-run of anything.
5. Watch for new filings. The absence of PTAB activity is a snapshot; well-asserted, long-lived medical-device families eventually attract petitions. Set a docket alert on US 10,060,867 and its continuations for any new IPR/PGR, and re-check the ODP feed as it ingests late filings.

If no PTAB activity ever appears and the patent expires in 2027, say so plainly to the client: the absence of proceedings here is a signal that the patent has not been a high-value assertion target on its own, which itself informs how aggressively a plaintiff is likely to litigate it.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10060867 before reconstructing the chain.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 10060867 B2

Up-front limitation (please read before relying on this): I could not retrieve the USPTO Patent Assignment Search (Assignment Center) record directly — the environment available to me supports open web search only, not direct queries against assignmentcenter.uspto.gov or its API. What follows is built from the Google Patents legal-events tab for US 10060867 B2, the patent front page, and INPADOC/Espacenet data. No reel/frame number for this patent was retrievable, and I will not invent one. Anywhere below where a reel/frame would normally appear, I say so explicitly.

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Inventors

All six named inventors, with residences as recorded on the patent:

Pattern notes:

• Every inventor address is in the Manchester/Bedford/Litchfield NH cluster — i.e., the DEKA campus. This is a captive inventor team, not an assembled group.
• The same names recur across the DEKA thermal-sensing/dialysis family (e.g., N. Christopher Perry is the lead named inventor on US 7,794,141, Thermal and Conductivity Sensing Systems, Devices and Methods, cited on the front page of this patent; Jason A. Demers appears on US 8,357,298). That is an internal, long-running engineering team, not a group of independent inventors.
• No evidence of inventor departure within 12 months of filing. The assignment recorded in 2017 was executed by all six inventors in favor of DEKA, which is inconsistent with a pre-fire-sale departure pattern. (I could not verify execution dates from the Assignment Center, so I flag this as "no evidence of," not "proven negative.")

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Original assignee

DEKA Products Limited Partnership (Manchester, NH) — listed on the patent as both Original Assignee and Current Assignee ("Deka Products LP") in the Google Patents record. Note that the 2017-07-21 legal event names the fuller form DEKA PRODUCTS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP.

• Relationship to the better-known name: DEKA Products LP is the affiliated entity of DEKA Research & Development Corp., Dean Kamen's Manchester, NH R&D house. The LP is the IP-holding/contracting arm; it is an operating-company affiliate, not a licensing shell.
• Primary line of business: contract and internal research, development, and manufacture of medical devices (peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis systems), fluid-handling pumps, and consumer/industrial products (the Segway, the iBOT mobility device, the Coca-Cola Freestyle dispenser, and water-purification products all trace to DEKA).
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, on the record before me: the patent is directed to a cassette with a thermal well mating with a reusable sensing probe for temperature/conductivity sensing — the architecture of DEKA's disposable cassette-based dialysis systems. The disclosure explicitly describes the thermal well on a "disposable portion" and the sensing probe on a "reusable portion" (col. describing FIGS. 17, 28). DEKA is a genuine operating developer in this space.
• Current status: Operating. Google Patents legal status shows Active, with an adjusted expiration of 2027-11-01 (consistent with the 2007-02-27 priority and a terminal-disclaimer-shortened term). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition event appears in the legal events.
• Commercial-relationship caveat: I believe DEKA has had a partnership/licensing arrangement with Baxter Healthcare relating to DEKA's home hemodialysis program. I cannot confirm that from the sources I was able to retrieve in this session, and I am not relying on it for any conclusion below. Treat it as unverified background.

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Assignment timeline

There is exactly one post-filing ownership event in the record I could retrieve — and it is the routine inventor-to-company assignment, not a transfer to a third party.

Recorded 2017-07-21 (execution date not retrievable) — Reel/Frame: not retrievable from the sources available to me. Do not cite a reel/frame for this patent without pulling it from the Assignment Center.

• Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)."
• Assignor: Dean Kamen; N. Christopher Perry; Jason A. Demers; Brian D. Tracey; Arun D. Chawan; Kevin L. Grant (all six joint inventors)
• Assignee: DEKA PRODUCTS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP (New Hampshire)
• Correspondent of record: Not determinable. Google Patents legal events do not carry the correspondent field, and I could not reach the Assignment Center record. I will not guess an attorney or firm.
• Context: Internal perfecting assignment — inventors conveying their rights to their employer. This is the standard front-of-chain link, not an acquisition, fire-sale, or transfer-to-asserter.

Related but NOT this patent (comparator only — do not attribute to US 10060867): INPADOC shows a DEKA assignment recorded 2017-10-13 at Reel 043859 / Frame 0569, new owner "DEKA PRODUCTS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, NEW HAMPSHIRE," assignors "KAMEN, DEAN; BEAVIS, RUSSELL H.; KANE, DEREK G.; AND OTHERS," signing dates 2013-08-12 to 2013-10-08, on application 15/012,007 (publication US2016144114A1). This is the same recording pattern — inventor → DEKA Products LP, recorded ~4 years after execution — but it belongs to a different application. It tells you DEKA files these routinely. It is not a link in the 10060867 chain.

Chain-of-title note: This patent (app 15/393,994, filed 2016-12-29) claims priority from US 11/871,821 (filed 2007-10-12), and Google Patents also books the 2007-02-27 provisional priority. Any earlier assignment records would sit in the parent applications' files, not in this patent's own record. I did not retrieve those.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10060867
    2007 : Priority date 27 Feb 2007
         : Parent app 11 871 821 filed
    2016 : Continuation app 15 393 994 filed
    2017 : Inventors assign to DEKA Products LP
    2018 : Patent US 10060867 granted
    2027 : Adjusted expiration

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggregate: zero of eight signals present; one unassessable (correspondent recurrence). This is a clean single-link chain terminating at the original operating-company assignee.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — only the original assignment is on record.

Under the rubric this is the correct box: the assignment record consists solely of the inventor-to-employer assignment (recorded 2017-07-21, reel/frame not retrievable), and there is no post-issuance transfer to evaluate. I want to be precise about what that does and does not mean — it is not an NPE finding in disguise, but it is also not an affirmatively "operating-company assertion" finding, because "Operating-company assertion" under this rubric requires both that the current assignee ships products embodying the claims and that it is suing actual competitors on them, and I have no litigation evidence for US 10060867. What the record does establish is NPE-negative on every checkable dimension: the chain never leaves the DEKA entity family, there is no shell-LLC transferee, no asserter name, no cascading transfers, no bankruptcy, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent number 10060867): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy assignment search mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10060867B2](/patent/US10060867B2)/en

Two things to do to close this out: (1) pull the reel/frame, execution date, and correspondent for the 2017-07-21 recording directly from the Assignment Center, since I could not; and (2) run the same query on the parents US 11/871,821 and the 2007-02-27 provisional's non-provisional, where any earlier DEKA assignments would live.

I'll research the prior art references cited for US 10060867, building on the litigation and identification sections already produced.

I've located the citation list. Let me dig deeper to get the full "References Cited" and the actual claims of US 10060867 for mapping.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867 B2

0. Scope, source, and a required caveat up front

Patent searched (confirmed, exact number): U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867 B2, "Sensor apparatus systems, devices and methods," Application No. 15/393,994, filed December 29, 2016, granted August 28, 2018, assignee DEKA Products Limited Partnership; inventors Kamen, Perry, Demers, Tracey, Chawan, Grant. Consolidated with the previously generated identification/litigation sections.

Two limitations you need to know before relying on the mapping below:

1. I could not retrieve the full, verified "References Cited" list from the actual USPTO front page in this session. What I have is the Referenced Cited block as mirrored by Justia Patents (patents.justia.com/patent/10060867) plus cross-checks from Google Patents and third-party patent databases. The Justia block I recovered lists four U.S. patent documents and one foreign patent document. It is possible the mirrored list is truncated. I flag this explicitly rather than pretend the list is complete.
2. I could not retrieve the verbatim text of claims 1–N in this session. The full patent text supplied to me contains the abstract, summary, definitions and description but not the claims. Accordingly, the claim-mapping below is provisional and keyed to the claim families disclosed in the specification's own summary (apparatus claims to a sensor apparatus/sensor manifold/cassette with thermal well; method claims to temperature + conductivity determination; method claims to air/bubble detection via differential conductivity). Specific claim numbers should be verified against the printed claims before any § 102 assertion is made.

Both points are material: a § 102 anticipation mapping that does not quote the full claim is a screening opinion, not a validity opinion.

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1. Prior art cited on the face of U.S. 10,060,867

(a) U.S. Patent Documents

(b) Foreign Patent Documents

(c) Additional references appearing in the prosecution history / specification (not necessarily on the face)

• JP Application No. 2016-133116, Office Action dated May 15, 2018 (listed in the patent's file-history section — a counterpart-JP prosecution action, not prior art per se).

Note on the list's size. For a 2016-filed continuation this is a short cited-art list. That is consistent with the front-page art having been carried over from the parent (U.S. App. Ser. No. 11/871,821, filed Oct. 12, 2007 / US 2008/0240929 A1), but it is also the pattern I would expect to see if the mirror I recovered is incomplete. Treat items 1–5 as "most relevant cited art," not as "the complete list."

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2. Per-reference analysis

Because the '867 patent's effective priority is Oct. 12, 2007 (claimed from Ser. No. 11/871,821; Google Patents also records a prior-art date of Feb. 27, 2007), this is a pre-AIA case. Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies. Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every element of a claim arranged as in the claim.

Reference 1 — US 7,794,141 B2

• Full citation: US 7,794,141 B2, "Thermal and conductivity sensing systems, devices and methods," Perry, N. Christopher, et al.; issued Sep. 14, 2010. Application Ser. No. 11/787,112, filed Apr. 13, 2007; assignee DEKA Products LP.
• Dates: Filed 2007-04-13 (before the '867 priority date of 2007-10-12); issued 2010-09-14.
• Why it is on this list: This is the sibling/parent-family reference. The '867 specification expressly names it: "…patent application Ser. No. 11/787,112 entitled Thermal and Conductivity Sensing Systems, Devices and Methods which was filed on Apr. 13, 2007 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,794,141…"
• Brief description: Discloses the combined thermal-well + sensing-probe architecture — a thermally conductive well in a fluid line/cassette, a probe with a thermally conductive tip mating with the well's inner surface, a thermistor/thermocouple, and a third lead/contact enabling conductivity sensing alongside temperature. This is functionally the core subject matter of the '867 patent.
• Potential § 102 basis and claims it could reach:
  • § 102(e) (US patent granted on an application filed before the applicant's invention/priority date) — its Apr. 13, 2007 filing date precedes the '867 priority date, so it is a prima facie § 102(e) reference provided it is "by another." Its inventive entity includes at least one common inventor (Perry); because the '867 inventive entity (Kamen, Perry, Demers, Tracey, Chawan, Grant) differs, it is technically a different inventive entity and thus potentially "another."
  • Commensurate caveat (important): Because it is commonly owned by DEKA and shares inventors, it is disqualified as § 103(c) art for obviousness; it remains a § 102 candidate only if its disclosure is truly anticipatory.
  • Claim families it could reach (provisional): the thermal-well apparatus claims; the "at least three leads" temperature + conductivity claims; the method-of-determining-temperature-and-conductivity claims. It is the single most relevant cited reference.
• Anticipation strength: High as a § 102(e) candidate on the thermal-well/combined-sensing claims — but this is precisely the reference for which you would expect a priority/continuation-family challenge. Verify the priority chain of Ser. No. 11/871,821 against 11/787,112.

Reference 2 — US 8,357,298 B2

• Full citation: US 8,357,298 B2, Demers, Jason A., et al.; issued Jan. 22, 2013; assignee DEKA Products LP.
• Dates: Issued 2013-01-22. Filing date not recovered in this session (flag: verify — a § 102(e) analysis turns entirely on the filing/priority date).
• Brief description: A DEKA fluid-handling/pumping-cassette family patent to Demers et al. Its relevance here is the cassette architecture (rigid plates + flexible diaphragm, pump pods, valving) into which the '867 thermal wells and sensor leads are installed — i.e., the "cassette" recited in the '867 apparatus claims.
• Potential § 102 basis and claims it could reach:
  • § 102(e) if its filing date precedes Oct. 12, 2007 (likely, given the 2007-era DEKA cassette filings, but unverified).
  • § 103(c) caveat: commonly owned by DEKA → not combinable for obviousness; § 102 only.
  • Claim families it could reach (provisional): the "pump cassette with pod pump(s) and a well" and "fluid pumping apparatus" claims; the sensor-manifold-with-cassette claims. It is unlikely by itself to anticipate claims that positively recite the thermal-well/sensing-probe mating geometry, since that is the '867's point of novelty.

Reference 3 — US 2004/0019313 A1

• Full citation: US 2004/0019313 A1, "Systems, methods and apparatuses for pumping cassette-based therapies," Childers, Robert W., et al.; published Jan. 29, 2004. Application Ser. No. 10/335,646.
• Dates: Published 2004-01-29 — more than one year before the Oct. 12, 2007 priority date.
• Brief description: Cassette-based therapy pumping systems — a disposable pump cassette with sensors/electrodes used to monitor fluid and detect conditions (including conductivity/air-related monitoring) in a cassette-based medical pump.
• Potential § 102 basis and claims it could reach:
  • § 102(b) — printed publication more than one year before the filing/priority date. This is a clean statutory bar reference.
  • Claim families it could reach (provisional): the broad cassette + sensor-in-fluid-path apparatus claims, and possibly the conductivity/bubble-detection method claims if it discloses differential-conductivity air detection. Its weakness is that it does not, on its face, disclose the thermal well with an inner surface shaped for mating with a sensing probe tip — so a full § 102 anticipation of the thermal-well claims is unlikely; it is better characterized as § 103 background (though § 103 combination with a DEKA-family reference is blocked by § 103(c) if commonly owned).
• Note: This citation is significant because it is by a third party (Baxter/Childers) and is not subject to the common-ownership disqualification — making it the most "neutral" cited reference on the list.

Reference 4 — US 2014/0194820 A1

• Full citation: US 2014/0194820 A1, Gray, et al.; published Jul. 10, 2014.
• Dates: Published 2014-07-10 — after the '867 priority date (2007-10-12).
• Brief description: A fluid-handling/sensor publication (Gray et al.). Not recovered in full this session.
• Potential § 102 basis and claims it could reach:
  • § 102(b) is unavailable — it published after the priority date.
  • § 102(e) only — i.e., usable only if its underlying U.S. application was filed (or validly claims priority to a date) before Oct. 12, 2007. If Gray et al. is itself a DEKA continuation claiming the 2007 family priority, its § 102(e) date could reach back; if it is an unrelated 2012-era filing, it is not prior art at all.
  • Recommendation: This is the entry most in need of date verification. Do not treat it as prior art until its filing/priority date is confirmed.
  • Claim families (if it qualifies): likely secondary — sensor/handling features, not the thermal-well mating geometry.

Reference 5 — JP 2004-016413 A

• Full citation: Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. JP 2004-016413 A, published January 2004.
• Dates: Published Jan. 2004 — more than one year before the priority date.
• Brief description: Not recovered in this session (title/subject-matter unverified). Given its date and the '867's field, it is presumably a thermal-conductivity/thermal-sensing or fluid-sensor reference.
• Potential § 102 basis and claims it could reach:
  • § 102(b) — foreign printed publication more than one year before filing.
  • Claim families (provisional): likely the thermal-conductivity sensing (G01N 25/18) aspects. I cannot responsibly map this reference to specific '867 claims without its disclosure, and I will not guess. Confirm the document and, if it is non-English, obtain a certified translation.

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3. Reference incorporated by reference without being "cited" on the face

The '867 specification expressly incorporates the following, which are separately relevant prior art / § 102 references:

• US 5,350,357 (issued Sep. 27, 1994) — "Peritoneal Dialysis Systems And Methods Employing A Liquid Distribution And Pumping Cassette That Emulates Gravity Flow." (Flexible-membrane cassette + diaphragm-actuated pumping — the cassette architecture recited in the '867 apparatus claims.)
• US 5,755,683 (issued May 26, 1998) — "Cassette For Intravenous-Line Flow-Control System."
• US 6,223,130 (issued Apr. 24, 2001) — "Apparatus And Method For Detection Of A Leak In A Membrane Of A Fluid Flow Control System."
• US 6,234,997 (issued May 22, 2001) — "System And Method For Mixing And Delivering Intravenous Drugs."
• US 7,794,141 — see Reference 1.
• Ser. Nos. 11/787,213; 11/787,212; 11/787,112 (all filed Apr. 13, 2007) — heat-exchange, fluid-pumping, and thermal/conductivity-sensing applications (11/787,112 → US 7,794,141).

All of US 5,350,357; 5,755,683; 6,223,130; 6,234,997 are § 102(b) art (issued well over one year before Oct. 2007). They are strong for the cassette/diaphragm/pump-chamber claims and for the leak-detection-by-conductivity subject matter, but they do not disclose the '867 thermal-well/sensing-probe mating architecture.

Priority document: US 11/871,821, filed Oct. 12, 2007, published as US 2008/0240929 A1 — the parent application from which the '867 patent claims priority (per Google Patents' "Priority claimed from US11/871,821" entry).

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4. Bottom-line § 102 assessment

Overall: No single cited reference appears, on the recovered evidence, to disclose all elements of the '867 patent's principal apparatus claims — namely a cassette-installed thermal well having a hollow, thermally conductive housing whose inner surface is shaped to mate with, and thermally couple to, a sensing-probe tip, with the well on a disposable portion and the probe on a reusable portion. The realistic § 102 threats are (i) US 7,794,141 via § 102(e), and (ii) US 2004/0019313 via § 102(b) against the broader cassette/sensor claims. The remainder are, on present information, stronger as § 103 background than as anticipatory art — subject to the § 103(c) common-ownership bar in the DEKA-family references.

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5. What I could not confirm (and how to close the gaps)

1. Complete front-page reference list — I recovered four US documents + one JP document from a mirrored source; obtain the printed "References Cited" from the granted patent (or Patent Center / Global Dossier) to confirm no entries were dropped.
2. Full claim text — required before any claim-number-specific § 102 mapping; quote claims 1, the method claims, and the air-detection method claim.
3. Filing dates for US 8,357,298 B2 and US 2014/0194820 A1 — § 102(e) rises or falls on these.
4. JP 2004-016413 A disclosure — obtain the document and a translation.
5. Priority-chain verification — confirm whether Ser. No. 11/871,821 (and its own parents) give the '867 patent a § 102(e) date that predates US 7,794,141's Apr. 13, 2007 filing; this is the linchpin of the Reference-1 analysis.

Caveat restated: I did not directly query USPTO Patent Center in this session, and I did not obtain the granted claims. The above is a screening-level analysis grounded in dated citations from the patent's own face; it is not a certified validity or invalidity opinion.

I'll research the prior art references cited against this patent, then build the §103 analysis.

Let me pull the actual cited-references list for this specific patent and check its claim set.

Obviousness Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

U.S. Patent No. 10,060,867 B2 — "Sensor apparatus systems, devices and methods"

Note on scope: Because the authoritative full text you supplied contains the specification and figure list but not the claims, and because the "Prior Art" results available to me consist of (a) the Google Patents prior-art keyword set (pump, fluid, sensor, chamber, cassette), (b) the references cited within the '867 specification itself, and (c) the cited-references listings for sibling patents in the same family ('184, '758), I have built the analysis on claim 1 and claims 2–10 as reproduced in the previously generated section (sourced from Justia), and on the references identified in the Prior Art results. I flag plainly where this is inference rather than verified record. See §VIII for the caveats.

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I. Framework

The § 103 inquiry follows Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; and (4) secondary considerations. Because the asserted claims are directed to a cassette architecture, the KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), rationales are especially applicable: a cassette designer faces a finite, identified, predictable set of design options when deciding where in a three-plate cassette to place a sensor well and how to seal it.

II. Which § 103 applies — this is outcome-determinative

Practical consequence. Under Scenario A, the DEKA-internal references that map most cleanly onto the claimed sensor housing — US 7,794,141 (Perry et al., filed 2007-04-13, pub. US 2007/0253463 A1 on 2007-11-01) — are § 102(e) art at best and are vulnerable to a § 103(c) disqualification because they and the '867 share DEKA ownership. An invalidity theory therefore must anchor on § 102(b) references and third-party art. Under Scenario B, the entire DEKA family is fair game and the analysis becomes considerably easier for a challenger.

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

A person of ordinary skill as of the critical date would have: a bachelor's degree in mechanical or biomedical engineering (or equivalent), plus about 3–5 years of experience designing disposable, pressure-actuated fluid-handling cassettes for medical applications (peritoneal dialysis, hemodialysis), including familiarity with (i) flexible-diaphragm pump/valve cassettes, (ii) medical-grade sealing (O-rings, ultrasonic welding), and (iii) disposable/reusable device partitioning. This is a mature, crowded art — a point that cuts toward obviousness.

IV. Scope and content of the prior art of record

A. References cited inside the '867 specification (self-admitted prior art — highly probative)

The specification expressly incorporates and describes as known:

• US 5,350,357 (issued Sep. 27, 1994) — a rigid cassette body whose interior cavities form fluid paths, pump chambers and valve stations, overlaid with flexible diaphragms, actuated by locally applied positive and negative pressure.
• US 5,755,683 (issued May 26, 1998) — cassette for IV-line flow control.
• US 6,223,130 (issued Apr. 24, 2001) — leak detection in a membrane of a fluid-flow control system.
• US 6,234,997 (issued May 22, 2001) — mixing and delivering fluids.
• The three-plate pod-pump cassette (top plate / midplate / bottom plate with membranes between midplate and bottom plate) is attributed to Ser. Nos. 11/787,213; 11/787,212; and 11/787,112 (the last issuing as US 7,794,141).

The '867 specification states of its own cassette embodiment: "the sensor block 1314, 1316 is included as an area on the cassette for a sensor(s) … two of the sensor housings … accommodate a conductivity sensor and the third sensor housing … accommodates a temperature sensor." And of the thermal well: "the well may be coupled to the cassette, e.g., using at least one of press fit connection, flexible tabs, adhesive, ultrasonic weld, and a retaining plate and fastener," and "An o-ring may be disposed between the well and the fluid conduit."

Why this matters. These statements are Applicant admissions of what the art already contained. They dispose of the "plate/diaphragm/fluid-channel/actuation-chamber" elements of claim 1 and of the "sealingly held sensor housing" element.

B. Primary prior-art reference for the sensor-well element

US 7,794,141 B2 (Perry, Demers, Tracey; filed 2007-04-13; issued Sep. 14, 2010; DEKA Products LP), Thermal and conductivity sensing systems, devices and methods — https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[7794141](/patent/7794141).html. Its abstract states:

"…Also included is a thermal well. The thermal well includes a hollow housing of a thermally conductive material. The housing has an outer surface and an inner surface. The inner surface is a predetermined shape so as to form a mating relationship with a sensing probe. The mating thermally couples the inner surface with a sensing probe. In some embodiments, the thermal well is located on a disposable portion and the sensing probe on a reusable portion."

That is a near-verbatim recitation of the sensor-housing element and of the disposable/reusable rationale behind claim 2.

C. Third-party art (unaffected by § 103(c))

(I have not read the full texts of the third-party references; titles, dates and citation placement are from the Justia/Google/FPO reference listings surfaced in the Prior Art results. Treat § IV.C as leads to be confirmed against the reference PDFs, not as verified disclosures.)

V. Claim-by-claim § 103 analysis

Claim 1 — layered pump cassette with integrated, fluid-wetted sensor housing

Element mapping:

Ground 1 (primary): US 5,350,357 in view of US 7,794,141, further in view of US 6,223,130.

Differences. The only element not squarely in '357 is [1.2]/[1.6] — situating a thermally conductive, sensor-mating well so that it penetrates a cassette plate and is sealed into an aperture, with its wetted face exposed to a fluid channel.

Motivation. (i) '141 is the same assignee's own solution to the identical problem identified in the '867 specification — measuring temperature and conductivity of a subject media without contaminating the fluid and while reusing the sensor; it expressly teaches locating the well on a disposable portion and the probe on a reusable portion. (ii) The '867 specification itself states that the well "may be installed in the cassette by … adhesive, welding (ultrasonic and otherwise), o-ring, retaining plate, and otherwise" — an admission that sealing a well into a cassette aperture was a known, routine coupling step. (iii) Placing a well in a rigid plate of a cassette rather than in a port of a flexible-membrane cassette is the substitution of one known element for another, yielding predictable results (KSR, 550 U.S. at 416), because both configurations place the well's outer wall in the fluid path and its inner wall at the sensor interface.

Ground 2 (alternative, third-party-anchored): US 5,350,357 in view of US 2006/0093531 A1 in view of US 7,168,334, further in view of US 6,223,130.
Tremoulet teaches mounting a thermal sensor connector into a pressure vessel wall so the sensing element is accessible from outside; Drott teaches measuring a fluid property through a tube wall. Neither is commonly owned with the '867, so § 103(c) is no obstacle. The motivation is the same: adapt a vessel-wall sensor mount to a cassette wall so that a single cassette plate carries a sealed, replaceable sensor well.

Ground 3 (KSR "finite number of predictable solutions"). Given a three-plate cassette (plate / midplate / plate), the designer has exactly three candidate plates and two possible insertion directions for the well. The claim itself supplies the selection rule in claim 2: the sensor must be installable and removable from outside the cassette, which (a) mandates the outer-surface penetration recited in [1.2] and (b) forecloses the alternatives. Where the claim's own architecture dictates the answer, the choice is not inventive.

Claim 2 — sensor installable/removable from outside the cassette

This is the express teaching of '141 ("the thermal well is located on a disposable portion and the sensing probe on a reusable portion") and is an obvious design choice once disposability of the cassette is assumed. The cassette in '357 ('867 ¶ re: FIGS. 23A–C and 28) is expressly "intended to be disposable."

Claim 3 — first and second plates forming the two walls of a mixing chamber

US 6,234,997 (Kamen et al., "System and Method for Mixing and Delivering Intravenous Drugs," issued May 22, 2001) is cited in the '867 specification and is directed to mixing in a cassette-based fluid system. Combined with '357 + '141, the addition of a mixing chamber between the plate halves is the combination of two known cassette functions (pumping + mixing) in a known manner. The '867 specification's own text ("the mixing chamber 818 mixes liquid and therefore, does not include a membrane nor an air/actuation path") shows the mixing chamber is a conventional cassette cavity.

Claim 4 — valve station (valve fluid chamber, ports to the second-side channels, opposed valve actuation chamber with its own pressure port, valve diaphragm)

'357 discloses multiple valve stations interconnecting liquid paths with the pump chambers — the '867 specification says so directly: "the valve stations, such as valve station 2304, interconnect the multiple liquid paths … with pump chambers 2301 and 2302 and with each other." Adding a valve to the claimed cassette is not a patentable difference; it is the disclosed purpose of the incorporated '357 cassette.

Claim 5 — a second pump (second fluid chamber, second actuation chamber, second diaphragm)

Two-pod-pump cassettes are admitted art: '867 FIGS. 30A–33C show pod pumps 820 and 828 side by side, and the specification attributes the pod-pump cassette to the 11/787,xxx family and to '357. US 7,632,080 (Tracey et al., "pumping" cassette, Dec. 15, 2009) and US 7,632,078 (Demers et al., Dec. 15, 2009) are further DEKA references describing plural pod pumps. A second, identical pump is the paradigm case of "the duplication of parts … [with] an improvement in the art" that the Federal Circuit has long treated as obvious.

Claim 6 — fluid channel terminating in a port penetrating through the midplate and the first plate to a connection point on the first plate's outer surface

Routine manifold porting in a multi-plate cassette; taught by '357 and by third-party cassette patents (e.g., US 6,261,065 Nayak; US 6,497,676 Childers). No new result attends routing an outlet through one additional plate.

Claims 7–10

Claim 7 is claim 1 with valve structure recited at the independent-claim level; the analysis under Claim 4 applies a fortiori, and the "sensor housing penetrating from the outer surface" element is again supplied by '141 or Tremoulet. Claim 10 (second pump fluid chamber on the first side of the midplate) is covered by the Claim 5 analysis.

If method claims are present (bubble/air detection)

The '867 specification recites a method of detecting air by comparing conductivity at two sensor locations and alarming when the difference exceeds a threshold. If such claims issued, the concept was conventional: US 6,223,130 (Gray) is expressly directed to detecting anomalies (including leaks) in a fluid-flow control system, and conductivity/resistivity differential detection across a fluid column was well known in dialysis. I could not verify whether the '867 claim set includes such method claims; flag as unverified.

VI. Motivation-to-combine synthesis (KSR factors)

1. Same field, same problem, same assignee. '141 and the '867 target the identical problem statement: temperature and conductivity measurement of a subject media in a cassette without contaminating the media and without discarding the sensor. Combining is not analogous-art stretching; it is using a reference for what it says.
2. Known technique, predictable result. O-ring grooves, ultrasonic welds, press fits, retention plates, and thermal grease are all recited in the '867 specification as known coupling/thermal-interface techniques.
3. Finite number of identified, predictable solutions. Single plate insertion point among three plates; the claim's own reuse requirement picks one.
4. Design need / market pressure. Cost pressure to reuse expensive thermal/conductivity instrumentation across a single-use disposable (the '867 specification's stated rationale, at ¶ re: "such that part or all of the sensor apparatus can be reused and need not be disposed of along with the disposable component").
5. Duplication of parts. The second pump of claim 5 and the second pump chamber of claim 10.
6. Self-admission. The "Background/Definitions" and cassette sections of the '867 specification concede the plate-cassette, pod-pump, valve-station, mixing-chamber, and well-coupling features to the art.

VII. Secondary considerations

No evidence of secondary considerations is of record in the material available to me. Notably, the strongest pro-patent argument — that the "reusable probe / disposable well" concept was a non-obvious insight — is undercut by the fact that DEKA itself patented that concept years earlier in US 7,794,141 (2010). A long-felt-need argument is likewise weakened by the crowded field (Baxter/Childers, Bowman, Nayak; Gambro/Fresenius; NxStage/Gura) occupying the same problem space. Nexus between any commercial success and the specific claim limitations (rather than to the DEKA hemodialysis system generally) would be the key battleground.

VIII. Procedural and evidentiary caveats (please read before relying on this)

1. Claim set unverified. The claim text I analyzed is the third-party rendering reproduced in the earlier section. The published abstract — and the '867 specification given to me — are thermal-well/probe-centric, whereas the retrieved claims are pump-cassette-centric. That divergence is plausible for a DA-family continuation but is not confirmed against the official USPTO claim set. If the claims in fact issue/issued as probe-and-well claims (as the abstract suggests), the obviousness analysis shifts materially: '141 would then be the closest prior art and would raise a same-assignee § 102(e)/§ 103(c) problem rather than a combination problem.
2. Effective filing date is contested. The Google Patents record shows a 2007-02-27 "prior art date," a 2007-10-12 priority claim from US 11/871,821, and a 2027-11-01 adjusted expiration. I have not auto-corrected these; I note only that they are mutually inconsistent and that the entire § 103 regime turns on the outcome.
3. § 103(c) is a real obstacle under Scenario A. The most on-point sensor reference ('141) and the pod-pump references ('078, '080) are DEKA-owned; a pre-AIA rejection built on them as § 102(e) art would need to survive common-ownership disqualification. Hence my emphasis on the § 102(b) references ('357, '683, '130, '997, and the 2006-05-04 Tremoulet publication).
4. References not read end-to-end. I have quoted '141's abstract (freepatentsonline) and the '867 specification (authoritative text supplied). The third-party references in § IV.C are characterized from citation listings and titles only; a formal opinion would require reading each reference and building a citation-level claim chart.
5. Prosecution history not retrieved. The Examiner's actual rejections, the reasons for allowance, and any 37 C.F.R. § 1.132 evidence are unknown to me; those frequently contain the most useful admissions and would need to be pulled from Patent Center.

Bottom line

Under either § 103 regime, the structural elements of the independent claims (plate stack, actuation chamber, fluid chamber, diaphragm, fluid channels, valve stations, mixing chamber, plural pumps) are Applicant-admitted prior art ('357, '683, '130, '997 and the 11/787,xxx family). The only plausible point of novelty — a thermally conductive sensor housing sealed into an aperture in a cassette plate, wetted on the outside and sensor-matable on the inside — is squarely taught by US 7,794,141 and by third-party vessel-wall/tube-wall sensor mounts (US 2006/0093531 A1; US 7,168,334). A '357 + '141 (+ '130) combination, or the third-party-anchored '357 + 2006/0093531 + 7,168,334 combination, would support a prima facie § 103 rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10; claims 3 and 6 are further supported by US 6,234,997 and the routine-porting art. The principal non-obviousness defenses available to the patentee are (i) a successful priority/claim-scope showing that narrows the claims to a specific well geometry with unexpected thermal performance, and (ii) objective evidence of unexpected results or industry skepticism with a proven nexus — neither of which appears in the material I have.

Confidence: moderate-to-high on the framework and on the characterization of the '867 specification and '141; low on the precise claim text of US 10,060,867 and on the content of the third-party references, both of which I recommend verifying against the official USPTO record and the reference PDFs before relying on this analysis.