US 10076376

I'll run searches against the specific patent number and any 2026 CAFC dockets, then cross-check against the authoritative patent text provided.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks on litigation/CAFC dockets and the family members.

US 10,076,376 B2 — Verified Summary

Important scope note up front: My searches were general web searches (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, and third-party aggregators), not a live PACER/CAFC docket query. I found no CAFC 2026 docket and no district-court litigation referencing this patent. That is a negative finding, not proof of absence — I could not query PACER or the CAFC docket system directly, so treat litigation status as unverified. I also note the identifier "10076376" produced unrelated false positives (a Georgia Secretary of State LLC control number 10076376; a Missouri unclaimed-property entry; an unrelated Mexican legal notice), which I did not treat as the patent.

Bibliographic data (per Google Patents / USPTO record, fetched 2026-10-01)

Literal-reading caution: the record lists both a 2015-05-27 prior-art date and a 2036-10-20 adjusted expiration. I am reporting both exactly as published rather than reconciling them; the ~21-year gap is atypical for a 2015 filing with no foreign priority and likely reflects post-grant term adjustment and/or record-keeping in the aggregator. I cannot confirm the term calculation from the sources retrieved.

Abstract (verbatim)

Devices and methods for bending or cutting implants are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, an instrument can include a rotatable drive shaft that urges first and second portions of a modular bending or cutting template toward one another to bend or cut an implant disposed between the template portions. A linkage assembly can be included to provide a mechanical advantage in urging the template portions toward one another. In some embodiments, an instrument can include a rotatable drive shaft that, depending on direction of rotation, pushes or pulls a first modular template portion with respect to a second modular template portion to bend an implant disposed between the template portions in one direction or another direction. In some embodiments, an instrument can include a worm drive that rotates a cutting wheel with respect to a cutting plate to cut an implant inserted through openings formed in the cutting wheel and the cutting plate.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

⚠️ Uncertainty flag: the Google Patents text I retrieved contained the abstract, summary of the invention, detailed description, and figure list — but not the issued claim set. The overview below is derived from the specification's "Summary of the Invention" embodiment paragraphs and the auto-generated "Definitions," which typically track claim categories but are not verbatim claim language. Do not rely on the wording below as claim language. Independent claim numbers and exact scope require confirmation from the USPTO full-text/PatentCenter claim listing, which I could not open.

Six claim families appear to be disclosed (five independent subject-matter groupings plus a boilerplate closer):

1. Bending/cutting instrument with pusher threaded on a rotating drive shaft. A template split into first and second portions; a body carrying the first portion; a pusher carrying the second portion; a drive shaft rotatably mounted in both the body and the pusher, such that turning the shaft pulls the pusher toward the body along the shaft's longitudinal axis, bending or cutting an implant held between the template portions. (Specification describes oppositely-threaded intermediate and distal shaft portions so one shaft rotation direction closes the gap and the other opens it.)

2. Dual-direction bending/cutting instrument with distally-extending arms. A body with first and second arms extending distally, each arm carrying proximal and distal template portions; a pusher carrying its own proximal and distal template portions; a drive shaft rotatably mounted in body and pusher, where one rotation direction moves the pusher toward the body (working against the arms' proximal template portions) and the opposite direction moves it away (working against the arms' distal template portions). This is the "bend proximally or distally without re-fixturing the instrument" concept.

3. Method of bending or cutting an implant. Position the implant between first and second template portions; rotate the drive shaft to draw those portions together along the shaft axis. Dependent concepts include actuating a scissor linkage for mechanical advantage, choosing shaft rotation direction to bend proximally vs. distally, and — notably — bending an implant that is already at least partially implanted in a patient.

4. Worm-drive implant cutter. A housing with a rotatably mounted drive shaft at least partly formed as a worm screw; a cutting wheel with an implant-receiving opening and a worm gear meshing with the worm screw; and a cutting plate with its own implant-receiving opening. Rotating the drive shaft spins the cutting wheel relative to the (rotationally fixed) cutting plate, shearing an implant threaded through both openings.

5. Method of cutting an implant. Insert the implant so it simultaneously passes through an opening in the cutting wheel and an opening in the cutting plate; rotate the drive shaft to rotate the wheel against the plate and apply shear to sever the implant. Dependent concepts include selecting among a plurality of wheel openings based on implant size or alignment with the plate opening, and coupling the housing to a power driver's non-rotating component while coupling the shaft to its rotating component.

6. Closer: "The present invention further provides devices and methods as claimed."

Representative dependent-claim concepts disclosed (also unverified as claim language): bending blocks with toroidal recesses matched to rod diameters (3.5/4.5/5.5/6.35 mm); negative-of-bend recess blocks; a cutting block with a lateral bore plus blade that retains the cut ends; scissor linkages and distal links for mechanical advantage; guide rails/rods/arm-tracks to stop the pusher rotating; modular and simultaneously-mounted multiple templates; telescoping and pivoting arms to change bend radius; worm-drive mechanical advantage; and proximal/distal race bearings.

Embodiments described (useful context)

• Instrument 100 (FIGS. 1–9): adapter + drive shaft + body + pusher + scissor-linkage assembly; FIGS. 6–7 show an alternative recessed-block bending template; FIGS. 8–9 show a blade-and-bore cutting template.
• Instrument 200 (FIGS. 10–19): dual-direction bender; anti-rotation via the implant itself, a guide rail with struts, an arm-integrated rail, or an offset guide rod; multiple simultaneous templates; articulating/telescoping arms.
• Instrument 300 (FIGS. 20–24): worm-drive cutter; concentric rings of bean-shaped wheel openings with radial dimensions noted as R1 ≈ 6.35 mm, R2 ≈ 5.5 mm, R3 ≈ 4.5 mm.
• Driver tool 400 (FIG. 25): battery-powered handle, dual direction buttons, non-rotating mating portion and rotating output; mentions the DePuy Synthes Colibri II system by name.

Related family documents surfaced in search (flagged as third-party-sourced, not verified)

• US 2016/0346026 A1 — the pre-grant publication of this application.
• US 11,033,314 B2 — listed as claiming priority from US 16/100,958 (filed 2018-08-10).
• US 11,937,861 B2 — listed as claiming priority from US 17/321,397 (filed 2021-05-14).
• US 2019/0038332 A1 and US 2024/0024000 A1 — later publications with similar titles and overlapping disclosure (the latter describing gear/orbiting-roller rod holders and half-pipe holders).
• A search hit showed US 10,070,909 B2 bearing the same abstract and substantial description text as US 10,076,376. I am not asserting a family relationship — the strict-ID rule means I treat 10,070,909 as a distinct, separately-numbered document; its relationship to this patent is unverified.

Bottom line on the litigation question

No CAFC 2026 docket, ITC action, or district-court case tied to US 10,076,376 was returned by the searches available to me. Given that I could not query docket systems directly, this should be read as "nothing found," not "confirmed clean." If you need a defensible litigation-clearance statement, that requires a direct PACER and CAFC docket check plus a USPTO PatentCenter claims download — the latter is also required to replace my claim overview above with actual claim language.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10076376.

The initial results conflated different "076" patents. Let me refine my search specifically for this Medos/DePuy Synthes patent.

The results so far are conflating different patents (a semiconductor '076 and a pharma '076). Let me search targeted litigation databases.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 10,076,376

Bottom line: I did not find any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,076,376.

What I searched and what I found

I searched for the specific patent number across sources that index patent litigation, including Unified Patents' litigation portal, PTAB/PTACTS filings, Docket Alarm, Justia, CourtListener, and general web sources. The searches returned no case in which US 10,076,376 ("Devices and methods for bending or cutting implants," assigned to Medos International SARL / DePuy Synthes, priority date 2015‑05‑27) was asserted as a patent‑in‑suit.

Important caveat — search noise for "076"

Several results contained a "'076 patent," but these are different patents and should not be attributed to US 10,076,376:

1. A semiconductor patent referenced in PTAB papers (IPR petitions involving TSMC and UMC, consolidated in the Eastern District of Texas before Judge Rodney Gilstrap, with trial set for June 2026). That '076 concerns transistor active regions in a silicon wafer/substrate — unrelated to medical devices. (ptacts.uspto.gov petition 1557691)
2. A pharmaceutical patent in Nivagen v. Sun parallel litigation (prior art references to the '608 Publication) — also unrelated. (ptacts.uspto.gov petition 1557773)
3. US 6,199,076 (Personal Audio LLC) — an audio-player patent, again unrelated.

None of these involve the Medos/DePuy Synthes implant-bending patent at issue here.

Limitations on this conclusion

• My tool access was cut off before I could complete a full sweep of PACER, Docket Alarm, and the Unified Patents caselist for this exact number. This is a negative search result from the sources reached, not a certified absence of litigation.
• A negative finding should be verified directly against PACER (all district courts), the Federal Circuit docket, the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), and PTAB/PTACTS for any IPR, PGR, or reexamination tied to 10,076,376.
• The Google Patents record for this patent shows a 2017 assignment chain (Synthes USA Products → Medos International SARL → DePuy Synthes Products) and continuations (US 11,033,314; US 11,937,861), but no litigation or PTAB "related matters" section, which is consistent with the absence of known assertions.

If you can point me to a specific court or docket, or if you'd like me to re‑run the PACER/Docket Alarm/Unified searches (tool limits interrupted them here), I can attempt to confirm or retrieve any case details.

Recommendation: Treat this as "no litigation identified as of the search date," and re‑verify against PACER and the Unified Patents caselist before relying on it for a clearance or FTO opinion.

I'll start by verifying the canonical (empty) PTAB list against live sources before writing anything.

The first-pass results mix in unrelated "'076 patents." Let me disambiguate by patent number and look for any litigation that would spawn PTAB activity.

Confirmed an important disambiguation: the Sun/Nivagen "’076 patent" is U.S. 11,878,076 (phenobarbital), not this patent. Let me now search hard for any proceeding actually naming 10,076,376.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10,076,376: zero (0). The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my live searching surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal naming U.S. 10,076,376 (patent number check, not the far more common truncated "’076" shorthand — see the disambiguation warning below). The defensive posture is therefore untested, not hardened and not weakened: no claim of this patent has been canceled, and no claim has been upheld. A defendant today faces a patent whose validity has never been adjudicated by the Board, and — just as importantly — has no § 315(e)(2) estoppel record to work with.

Critical disambiguation — do not conflate these. A large volume of web results for "the ’076 patent" in an IPR context refers to U.S. Patent No. 11,878,076 (Nivagen Pharmaceuticals, lyophilized phenobarbital), challenged by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in IPR2025-00893. That petition was denied institution on discretionary grounds (Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart; conflicting claim-construction positions between the IPR and the parallel E.D. Tex. case, Nivagen, Inc. v. Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00036). Decision: https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IPR2025-00893.pdf · case summary: https://cases.arcticinvent.com/us/patent/us/petition-for-inter-partes-review-of-us-patent-no-11878076/ipr2025-00893/ — That is a different patent owned by a different party in a different technology. Any docket research or AI summary that cites "’076" must be checked against the full 8-digit number before being used. Similarly, the IPRs referencing "claims 1–20 of the ’076 patent" in the Sun/Nivagen papers are not this patent.

No proceedings to report

Because the count is zero, there is no claims-invalidated proceeding, no FWD, no appeal, and no settlement to list. I am explicitly not manufacturing proceeding numbers to fill this section.

For completeness, the constraints on my verification, stated plainly:

• What I checked: the canonical ODP-derived proceedings block in this prompt (authoritative, empty); targeted web searches on "10,076,376" + IPR/PTAB, and on Medos International / DePuy Synthes as patent owner in AIA contexts.
• What I could not conclusively rule out: a very recently filed petition that predates PTAB E2E indexing, or one whose public-facing documents truncate the patent number to "’076" and therefore does not match a full-number search. The ODP block's statement that ingest is current is my primary basis for the zero-count, and I'm treating it as controlling. If a defendant has received a complaint touching this patent family, a manual PTAB E2E party-name search on "Medos International Sarl" and "DePuy Synthes Products" is the appropriate confirmatory step — full-number search alone can miss a truncated docket.
• No Federal Circuit activity found for this patent. Nothing on CourtListener or CAFC dockets tied to a PTAB appeal from a 10,076,376 proceeding (there is nothing to appeal from).

There is one family-adjacent fact worth knowing, from the patent's own face: this patent issued on a single 2015-05-27 filing (US 14/723,263, priority 2015-05-27, adjusted expiration 2036-10-20), and it has two continuation family members generated from it per the Google Patents event record — US 11,033,314 B2 (from US 16/100,958, filed 2018-08-10) and US 11,937,861 B2 (from US 17/321,397, filed 2021-05-14). Those continuations were also not found in PTAB proceedings in my searches, but they are the more likely vehicle for future assertions on this disclosure because their later priority chains push expiry well past 2036. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10076376/en

Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of US 10,076,376 — including the independent bending/cutting instrument claims and the worm-drive cutting instrument claims recited in the specification's summary — is UNTESTED in an AIA trial. None is canceled; none is sustained. There is no narrowing through IPR, so the full claim set as issued remains available to the patent owner. The specification describes at least three distinct instrument embodiments (the linkage/scissor-driven instrument 100, the push/pull instrument 200 with articulating and telescoping arms, and the worm-drive cutting instrument 300 with a cutting wheel and cutting plate), plus modular template variants, so the issued claim set plausibly spans more than one independent instrument architecture. A defendant cannot rely on any administrative cancellation to narrow the asserted scope.

Estoppel landscape. This is the clearest consequence of the empty docket: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is entirely absent. No petitioner has been estopped, because no petitioner has been through institution. A defendant contemplating an IPR is not competing with a prior petitioner's record and faces no argument-by-argument estoppel map. Conversely, and this cuts against the defendant: a first-filed IPR starts from a clean slate with no earlier Board construction to leverage, no earlier FWD claim-construction rulings, and no prior panel's credibility findings on the patent owner's expert. Every prior-art ground — § 102 and § 103 — remains presumptively available, including art the patent owner may believe was already vetted during prosecution. The only timing gate is the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent (or a real-party-in-interest/privy complaint). If a defendant has already been served more than a year ago and did not file, IPR is off the table and the defendant is limited to § 282 district-court invalidity defenses.

Pattern signals. No repeated-petitioner pattern, because there is no petitioner at all. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain — the only assignments of record are intra-family transfers: SYNTHES USA PRODUCTS, LLC and MEDOS INTERNATIONAL SARL, both recorded 2017-08-03, with DePuy Synthes Products, Inc. as an assignee party in that same reassignment cluster (per the Google Patents assignment record). The patent owner has not pursued any PTAB appeal regarding this patent, since there is nothing to appeal. The absence of PTAB activity on a 2018-issued, currently-Active patent that has been in force for roughly eight years is itself the signal: this patent does not appear to have been asserted in a way that invited an IPR challenge, or assertions have resolved before the one-year § 315(b) window was used. That is mild evidence the patent owner is not an aggressive serial enforcer of this patent — but it is weak evidence, and it provides a defendant no defensive benefit.

Recommended next steps

• No PTAB activity exists — say so plainly in any defense memo. There is no FWD to link to, no canceled claim to quote, and no institution decision to distinguish. Do not let a vendor's "’076 patent" docket summary import the Sun/Nivagen IPR2025-00893 materials onto this patent; the two patents share only a truncated number. Verify at PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) by party name, and at https://patents.google.com/patent/US10076376/en for claim set and family.
• Compute your § 315(b) clock now. The single most consequential date is the service date of the first complaint asserting this patent (or a privy's complaint). If you are inside the one-year window, an IPR remains available and the empty estoppel field is an advantage. If you are outside it, plan around § 282 invalidity and focus on claim construction and non-infringement.
• Identify the independent claims before doing anything else. Because no PTAB proceeding has construed any term in this patent, you have no free construction record. Pull the issued claims from the patent text (the specification summarizes instrument claims directed to the drive-shaft/pusher/template arrangement, the worm-screw/worm-gear/cutting-plate cutting instrument, and corresponding method claims) and chart your product against each independent claim's actual limitations — particularly the structural relationships among the drive shaft, pusher, body, and template portions, and the worm-drive elements.
• Watch the continuation family, not just this patent. US 11,033,314 and US 11,937,861 claim priority through this disclosure and carry later expirations than 2036-10-20. If you are litigating this patent, expect the patent owner to seek to assert the continuations; check their claim sets and, if you are timely, consider whether a single IPR on the family is worth the investment.
• If you do file, be the first mover deliberately. With no prior petitioner record, your petition defines the estoppel boundary under § 315(e)(2) — grounds you raise (or reasonably could have raised) will be closed to you in the district court thereafter. Scope the grounds accordingly rather than filing a narrow first petition you cannot amend.

Bottom line for a defendant: the patent has neither been hardened nor weakened by the PTAB — it is a blank slate. Treat it as an unadjudicated validity case with full § 102/§ 103 theories available, subject only to the § 315(b) clock, and do not rely on any "’076 patent" IPR literature without full-number verification.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10076376, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-references.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 10076376

Sourcing note / limitation. I could not execute a live query against assignmentcenter.uspto.gov from this environment. The chain below is reconstructed from (a) the Google Patents Legal Events block for US 10076376, which is reproduced in the authoritative patent text supplied to me, and (b) USPTO legacy assignment cover sheets and INPADOC legal-status feeds surfaced via search. Where a reel/frame is not exposed in those sources, I say so rather than inventing one. Treat individual reel/frame numbers below as candidates pending direct Assignment Center verification.

Inventors

Pattern note: All seven inventors are co-located with DePuy Synthes' spine-instrument group (Raynham, MA / Le Locle, CH), and five of the seven assigned their rights directly to Medos International SARL, the Swiss J&J IP-holding entity, while the other two assigned to Synthes USA Products, LLC and DePuy Synthes Products, Inc. There is no evidence of inventor departure or a subsequent fire-sale; the inventor-to-employer assignments are ordinary employment confirmations. This is a normal in-house R&D group, not a distressed-asset scenario.

Original assignee

Medos International SARL, Chemin-Blanc 38, 2400 Le Locle, Switzerland (corporate reg. no. CH-645.4.097.076-6 per the recorded cover sheet; U.S. operations via DePuy Synthes at 325 Paramount Drive, Raynham, MA 02767).

• Relationship to operating business: Medos International SARL is a Johnson & Johnson / DePuy Synthes entity that holds and commercializes spine hardware. FDA 510(k) records list Medos International SARL as the manufacturer for the EXPEDIUM®, VIPER®, and VIPER2® spine systems and numerous DePuy Synthes instruments.
• Product practice: The claimed subject matter — powered instruments that bend or cut spinal rods — reads on DePuy Synthes' rod-bending/cutting instrumentation used with the EXPEDIUM/VIPER construct systems. The instrument is expressly described as drivable by the Colibri II DePuy Synthes power tool (FIG. 25 discussion).
• Status: Operating (no bankruptcy, no dissolution). Current assignee of record per Google Patents legal events remains Medos International SARL; legal status Active, adjusted expiration 2036-10-20.

Assignment timeline

The Google Patents Legal Events block for US 10076376 lists five recorded transactions, all bearing the 2017-08-03 date, moving title among Johnson & Johnson family entities. Reel/frame are not exposed in the source text I was given, and I have not fabricated them.

• 2017-08-03 (executed/recorded) — Reel/frame not exposed in source

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Zoher Bootwala (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: Synthes USA Products, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — could not confirm the recording agent from available sources.
  • Context: Internal reorg — inventor-to-employer title confirmation.

• 2017-08-03 (executed/recorded)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Synthes USA Products, LLC
  • Assignee: DePuy Synthes Products, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg — subsidiary-to-subsidiary transfer inside J&J.

• 2017-08-03 (executed/recorded)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Michael J. O'Neil (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: DePuy Synthes Products, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg — inventor-to-employer title confirmation.

• 2017-08-03 (executed/recorded)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Joseph Caulfield; Thibault Chandanson; Daniel Lyness; Renaud Rouge; Henri Defossez (individual inventors)
  • Assignee: Medos International SARL
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg — inventor-to-employer title confirmation.

• 2017-08-03 (executed) / recorded 2018-07-19 — Reel 046402/0207 (candidate — see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: DePuy Synthes Products, Inc.
  • Assignee: Medos International SARL
  • Correspondent: cover sheet carries the DePuy Synthes and Medos International corporate signatures; individual recording attorney not retrieved.
  • Context: Internal reorg — consolidation of U.S. title into the Swiss IP-holding entity. Caveat: the legacy cover sheet at Reel 046402/0207 documents a DePuy Synthes Products, Inc. → Medos International SARL assignment executed 2017-08-03 and recorded 2018-07-19, which matches this chain's assignor/assignee pattern, but the cover sheet's internal identifying number (505011746) does not match US 10076376, so I cannot confirm this exact frame is the record for this patent.

Related-family note (not assignments): Priority/continuation filings — US 16/100,958 (filed 2018-08-10 → US 11033314 B2) and US 17/321,397 (filed 2021-05-14 → US 11937861 B2) — extend the family but are prosecution continuations, not ownership transfers.

No records found for: any post-issuance assignment out of the J&J family. No asserter, aggregator, or licensing LLC appears anywhere in the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10076376
    2015 : Filed 27 May by Medos International SARL
    2017 : Inventor rights assigned to Synthes USA
         : Title moved to DePuy Synthes Products
         : Title consolidated in Medos International SARL
    2018 : Patent issued 18 Sep
         : Continuation US11033314 filed
    2021 : Continuation US11937861 filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only recorded transferees are Synthes USA Products, LLC, DePuy Synthes Products, Inc., and Medos International SARL — all Johnson & Johnson operating subsidiaries. No licensing-only LLC, no registered-agent-service address; Medos International SARL is a Swiss operating entity with a physical Chemin-Blanc address and a DePuy Synthes FDA/510(k) presence.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee matches any listed NPE (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, etc.). The chain terminates at a J&J/DePuy Synthes entity.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not established. I could not retrieve the recording correspondent for this patent's 2017-08-03 entries. A name surfaced via search — "Engstrom, Connor", associated with Reel 045033/0205 on a different Medos application (15/589,209) — but I cannot tie that correspondent to US 10076376, and a single appearance is in any event not a finding. Flagged only so a follow-up analyst can check whether one in-house/docketing attorney recurs across the Medos family.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. The transfers are a single-round intra-group cleanup on one date (2017-08-03) among related J&J entities, all sharing the 325 Paramount Drive / Chemin-Blanc corporate addresses. No chained unrelated LLCs, no <24-month cascade of distinct owners.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No record of any infringement suit naming this patent was surfaced, and the last assignment (2017) predates issuance (2018), so it cannot be a standing-clean-up transfer made shortly before filing suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceedings involving Medos International SARL, DePuy Synthes Products, Inc., or Synthes USA Products, LLC; J&J is a solvent NYSE-listed parent. The patent remains inside the J&J family.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer to an NPE asserting on J&J's behalf; no SEC/Press coverage of such a transfer surfaced.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with the caveat that no active assertion was evidenced. The chain is a clean, single-date intra-Johnson & Johnson restructuring: five assignments dated 2017-08-03 moving title from the named inventors to Synthes USA Products, LLC / DePuy Synthes Products, Inc. and finally consolidating it in Medos International SARL, the J&J/DePuy Synthes entity that manufactures the EXPEDIUM/VIPER spine systems and practices rod bending/cutting with the corresponding instrumentation. Zero NPE signals are present — no shell LLC, no known asserter, no cascade, no bankruptcy, no defensive-aggregator termination. I emphasize that the "assertion" prong of this verdict (suing actual competitors) is not evidenced by anything I retrieved; strictly read, this is an operating-company ownership chain with no observable assertion activity.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 10076376), cross-checked against Google Patents legal events for US 10076376 and the legacy cover sheet at Reel 046402/0207.

Confidence caveat: the Assignment Center was not queried directly, and the individual reel/frame numbers for the five 2017-08-03 entries were not exposed in the sources I could reach. The pattern and parties are well-supported; the specific reel/frame pairings should be confirmed before being relied on as record citations.

I'll search the USPTO database and patent citation sources for US 10,076,376 and its cited prior art references.

Let me pull the actual "References Cited" list from the patent's front page and Google Patents record.

Let me confirm the exact front-page "References Cited" list for US 10,076,376 specifically (from Justia / Google Patents).

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,076,376 ("Devices and methods for bending or cutting implants")

0. Scope, provenance, and an important caveat

Sources reached: the Google Patents record and PDF for the patent itself (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10076376/en; PDF https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c2/b9/73/220878e175ff96/US10076376.pdf), the co-filed sibling patent US 10,070,909 B2 front page (its "References Cited" box is reproduced in the same examiner group, https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/22/fd/92/896e026661ba5d/US10070909.pdf), and the Justia/FreePatentsOnline family listings.

Two honesty flags before the list:

1. I could not retrieve the verbatim granted claim set of US 10,076,376 from the sources reached. The text supplied for this patent is the abstract/description only, with no claim section. The § 102 mapping below is therefore keyed to the claim categories as they appear in the patent's own SUMMARY section (which in this patent reads verbatim like claim language) and to the family's later grants (US 11,033,314 / US 11,937,861). Treat the "claim" references as indicative, not as confirmed claim numbers. Anyone relying on this for an invalidity/FTO opinion must pull the actual granted claims from USPTO Patent Center.

2. The front-page "References Cited" list I reproduce is the one on the co-filed sibling US 10,070,909 B2, which is the closest reliably-fetched facsimile available. Because both patents were filed 2015-05-27, share a title and specification, and were examined together, the citation lists substantially overlap — but the US 10,070,909 list is likely a superset (it contains post-2015 items, e.g. US 2016/0346026 A1 and US 2017/0325854 A1, that could only have been added during later prosecution of that sibling). Do not treat the list below as a certified copy of the US 10,076,376 face.

Contradiction check vs. the earlier section: none. The prior litigation summary found no litigation; nothing in the prior-art record contradicts that (the Google Patents record likewise shows no "related matters"/litigation section).

1. U.S. patent documents cited (front page, "(56) References Cited")

U.S. published applications cited:

2. Foreign patent documents cited

3. Non-patent literature cited

• "Expedium® 5.5 Titanium Spine System," Product Catalog, 2013, DePuy Synthes Spine (34 pages). Applicant's own commercial catalog. Relevant as evidence of the state of spinal-rod contouring practice, and potentially as a § 102(b) printed publication for any claim limitation it discloses (e.g., rod diameters, contouring technique). Not anticipatory of the drive-shaft/pusher architecture.

4. Overall § 102 assessment (against the disclosed claim categories)

Because the section asks for anticipation specifically, note the legal standard: a § 102 reference must disclose every element of a claim, arranged as claimed.

• Independent instrument claims (body + pusher + drive shaft rotatably mounted in both, rotation urging pusher toward body to bend/cut, and — in the primary embodiment — a linkage assembly / scissor linkage providing mechanical advantage, and/or the worm-drive cutting wheel + cutting plate): No cited reference appears to disclose this combination. The cited benders (Ralph 6,644,087; Butscher 6,755,064; Riemeier 8,266,940; Strippgen 2004/0144149; Trieu and Paris publications) are hand/manually-actuated contouring tools, and the cited cutters (May 5,243,760; Sullivan 2006/0037198; Crainich 8,933,974) are shear/guillotine cutters without a worm-screw driving a rotating cutting wheel against a fixed cutting plate. So the principal independent claims look novel on the face of this record.
• The most exposed claims are the narrower bending-block/roller and negative-recess dependent claims: US 6,644,087 (Ralph), US 6,755,064 (Butscher), and US 2004/0144149 (Strippgen) are the closest single-reference threats there.
• Cutting-template dependent claims (lateral bore + blade intersecting) are most exposed to US 5,243,760 (May) and US 2006/0037198 (Sullivan).
• Worm-drive cutting claims (worm screw → worm gear → cutting wheel vs. cutting plate; bean-shaped openings; concentric rings of openings; race bearings): no cited reference appears to disclose the worm-drive architecture, so novelty here rests on that architecture rather than on the "bend/cut an implant" concept.

Practical read: This citation list looks like a routine "bending and cutting tool" background set assembled by the examiner; none of the listed documents reads on the distinctive structural core of the '376 patent (the co-acting threaded body/pusher drive shaft, the scissor/linkage mechanical advantage, or the worm-drive rotating cutting wheel). The strongest argument for the applicant's novelty is architectural, not conceptual.

5. Verification gaps / recommended re-runs (do not rely on the above as a certified record)

1. Pull the actual face of US 10,076,376 (USPTO Patent Center → "References Cited") and diff it against the sibling US 10,070,909 list above; entries 28–30 are the ones most likely to be list artifacts.
2. Pull the verbatim granted claims — the § 102 mapping cannot be finalized without them.
3. Pull the fully developed U.S. patent citation list and any Form PCT/ISA/210 international search report for the family's PCT counterpart(s) (the family traces to a 2015 US priority; check whether a PCT was filed and, if so, which "X" and "Y" references the ISA cited — those are frequently more on-point than the US face).
4. If you want to be exhaustive, run the cited references above through Google Patents "Cited By" to see downstream art that the examiner did not have.

If you can supply the granted claim text (or the USPTO "References Cited" screenshot) I can convert the table above into a literal element-by-element § 102 chart.

I'll research the actual claims of US 10,076,376 and its cited prior art to build a grounded obviousness analysis.

Let me retrieve the actual granted claims and the key cited reference (Strippgen).

I have the sibling '909 claims. Now I need the actual granted claims of US 10,076,376 itself.

Obviousness Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — U.S. Patent No. 10,076,376 ("Devices and Methods for Bending or Cutting Implants")

0. Critical scope caveat (read first)

I was unable to retrieve the verbatim granted claim set of U.S. 10,076,376 before my tool budget was exhausted. Google Patents and Justia pages surfaced for this family returned the specification and the claims of sibling U.S. 10,070,909 B2 (the worm-drive cutting claims) and of continuation U.S. 11,033,314 / 11,937,861, but not the literal claims of the '376 patent. Accordingly, the analysis below is keyed to:

1. The claim language the '376 patent itself recites in its "Summary" and "Definitions" sections (authoritative text supplied in this matter), which mirrors the issued claim set; and
2. The confirmed claim language of the same-family '909 patent (worm-drive cutting instrument), reproduced from patentimages US10070909.

Every ground below must be re-run against the literal claim text of the '376 grant before it is relied upon. Where claim scope is uncertain, I say so.

1. Governing framework and level of ordinary skill

• Graham v. John Deere factors: scope/content of prior art, differences, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a combination is obvious where the elements are known, the improvement is a predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions, and there is a "known need or problem" and "design incentive" to combine. "[I]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."
• PHOSITA for the '376 field (orthopedic spinal instrumentation / mechanical rod-shaping tools): a mechanical/design engineer with a bachelor's degree plus ~2–3 years' experience in surgical instrument or mechanical linkage design, familiar with lead-screws, worm drives, linkages, and spinal-rod bending practice.

The '376 patent's own Background section supplies the strongest "motivation to combine" evidence: it expressly states the known problems (tools too large, not usable on an at-least-partially implanted rod, require high input force, lack precision, repeated bending degrades rod fatigue strength). These stated problems are legally usable as the "known need" for KSR purposes.

2. Primary prior art identified

Because the '376 art unit classified the disclosure in B21D7/00 Bending rods, profiles, or tubes and A61B17/8863 ("Apparatus for shaping or cutting osteosynthesis equipment"), mechanical metal-bending art is squarely analogous.

3. Proposed § 103 grounds

Ground 1 — Base instrument (body + pusher + threaded drive shaft urging template portions along the drive-shaft axis)

Claims directed to: an instrument comprising a bending template with first and second portions, a body coupled to the first portion, a pusher coupled to the second portion, and a drive shaft rotatably mounted in the body and the pusher such that rotation urges the pusher toward the body along the drive-shaft longitudinal axis.

Combination: Strippgen (US 2004/0144149) in view of a conventional lead-screw/turnbuckle actuator, e.g., the threaded advance screw of US 4,416,062.

Why obvious:

• Strippgen already discloses opposed rod-contacting elements (a driving roller between two counter-rollers) and a threaded, adjustable shaft that moves a roller relative to the rod (Strippgen claims 10-11, 23-25; ¶[0066]). Converting Strippgen's manual adjuster to a rotatable threaded drive shaft threadably received in two spaced bodies is the straightforward substitution of a known manual screw for a known power-driven screw — a predictable mechanical expedient.
• Strippgen's own stated purpose — applying bending "substantially continuously" and reducing the abrupt, stress-inducing discrete bends that cause rod fatigue (Strippgen ¶[0004]-[0005]) — supplies the motivation. The '376 patent recites that exact problem in its Background (reduced rod fatigue strength, iterative bending).
• Spread of the two threaded bodies along the common axis is the ordinary function of a lead screw; no new result is obtained.

Secondary references: Strippgen claim 31 (gear-ratio reduction) evidences the known desire for mechanical advantage — supporting the linkage and worm-drive dependent claims.

Ground 2 — Mechanical-advantage linkage (scissor/linkage arms, opposite-hand threads)

Claims directed to: a linkage assembly providing mechanical advantage; first/second arms coupled to body and adapter by scissor linkages; distal links urging the pusher; and a drive shaft with a threaded distal portion in the pusher and a threaded intermediate portion in the body threaded in opposite directions.

Combination: Strippgen (or Ground 1 base) in view of US 4,416,062, and in further view of a standard turnbuckle/differential-screw teaching.

Why obvious:

• Providing mechanical advantage in a rod bender is expressly taught by Strippgen (claim 31, "reducing a gear ratio between said crank and said first rod contacting portion").
• Opposite-hand threads on one shaft is the classic turnbuckle/differential-screw concept (US 4,416,062 claim 5: "each side of said advance screw having an opposing thread orientation ... adapted to cause converging or diverging movement"). The result — one rotational input driving two members together or apart — is precisely the result US 4,416,062 achieves. Substituting that known double-thread arrangement into a rod bender is a predictable use of a known element for its known function (KSR).
• A scissor linkage is a ubiquitous mechanical-advantage device; using it to amplify the lead-screw force (thereby lowering the surgeon input-force problem stated in the '376 Background) is an obvious engineering choice with a predictable benefit.
• Anti-rotation of the pusher (achieved by the linkage itself, per the '376 spec) is an inherent/expected result of the linkage pivot geometry and, independently, of any guide rail.

Ground 3 — Modular, interchangeable, and dual/bidirectional templates

Claims directed to: modular/interchangeable templates; multiple templates differing in size/shape; first and second templates simultaneously coupled; flipping template portions between body and pusher; bend blocks with recesses that are "negatives" of the inside/outside bend; distal and proximal bend blocks enabling bending in either direction depending on drive-shaft rotation.

Combination: Strippgen in view of routine design choice / the general surgical-kit practice.

Why obvious:

• Strippgen itself discloses interchangeable, rotatable rollers with channels/contours matched to the rod (claims 4, 23-25) and notes rod surface marring concerns — i.e., the known need for differently-configured rod-contacting elements.
• Providing a kit of differently sized templates for 3.5/4.5/5.5/6.35 mm rods is routine optimization of a known parameter to a known result (fitting different rod diameters) — obvious under KSR and In re Aller.
• Symmetry (bend left or right by reversing rotation) is an obvious exploitation of a bidirectional lead screw: where opposite-hand threads are used, reversing the input reverses the output. A PHOSITA would recognize the bidirectional capability falls out of the Ground-2 structure.
• The "negative of the bend" recess in a bending block is the natural shape for a bending die and is disclosed in substance by Strippgen's contoured roller channels (a roller channel that mates with the rod contour).

Ground 4 — Cutting template (cutting block with lateral bore + intersecting blade)

Claims directed to: first template portion = cutting block with a lateral bore receiving the implant; second portion = cutting blade configured to intersect the lateral bore to sever the implant when the portions are urged together; and the cutting block retains the cut portions of the implant.

Combination: Ground 1/2 base instrument in view of a surgical rod cutter (e.g., the guillotine-style rod cutters and the threaded-actuator cutting devices in US 4,416,062 / US 9,302,402).

Why obvious:

• Rod cutting is expressly named in the '376 patent's own field and in the parallel '909 patent; rod-cutting instruments with an aperture through which a rod passes and a blade that travels to shear it were long known in spinal surgery. Combining a known rod cutter head onto the known screw-actuated body/pusher (Ground 1) is the predictable substitution of working ends on a common actuator — a classic obvious combination.
• Retaining the cut ends (so the rod doesn't spring/recoil and injure tissue) is an obvious safety-motivated design choice taught by the '376 Background's concern for the surgical site and by Strippgen's marring/control concerns. A retention feature (ball plunger, circlip, clamp) is a routine expedient.

Ground 5 — Worm-drive cutting wheel + cutting plate (the '909-style cutting claims)

Claims directed to: a housing with a drive shaft bearing a worm screw; a cutting wheel with an opening and a worm gear engaging the worm screw; and a cutting plate with an opening, wherein rotating the drive shaft rotates the wheel relative to the plate to shear the implant; and dependent features — bean-shaped openings, concentric rings of openings with differing radial dimensions, plural circular plate openings of differing diameters, plate integral with housing, proximal and distal race bearings.

Combination: a rod/implant cutter head in view of US 4,416,062 (worm-gear drive, claim 6; opposite-thread advance screw, claim 5) and US 9,302,402 / US 2013/0008031 (worm screw driving a cutting wheel carriage).

Why obvious:

• Worm drives were a notorious mechanism for (a) large speed reduction/mechanical advantage and (b) quiet, high-torque rotary motion — exactly the stated advantages in the '376/'909 specification ("the worm screw and the worm gear can provide a mechanical advantage"). Using a known worm drive to rotate a known rotary cutter is a predictable combination.
• Shear cutting by rotating a wheel opening past a plate opening is the standard scissor/shear geometry; the '376 patent does not claim a new cutting principle — only its application to a surgical rod.
• Multiple/elongated openings and rings of differently-sized openings are directed to (i) accommodating different rod diameters and (ii) increasing the number of rotational positions at which an opening aligns — both routine optimization of a known selection/alignment problem. Bean-shaped/elongated openings are an obvious shape choice to maximize the "window" during rotation.
• Integral cutting plate / housing and race bearings are ordinary design and bearing selections (predictable result, no unexpected benefit).

4. Motivation to combine — synthesized

The record supports a strong KSR motivation narrative independent of any single reference:

1. Identified problem, known solution: The '376 Background identifies precise problems (oversized, back-table-only benders; high surgeon force; imprecision; rod fatigue from iterative bending). Every disclosed solution — powered screw drive, mechanical-advantage linkage, worm drive, size-matched dies — is a known answer to those exact problems in analogous mechanical art.
2. Predictable results: Each combination (lead screw → linear motion; turnbuckle thread → bidirectional motion; worm gear → high-ratio rotation; scissor → force amplification) achieves the same, expected result it achieves in its art of origin. Nothing "unexpected" is claimed.
3. Design incentive / market pressure: The Background demonstrates a long-recognized need for a compact, power-drivable, patient-side bender/cutter. KSR holds that a known need supplies the reason to combine.
4. Interchangeability / kit: The claimed modularity and multi-template features are obvious extensions of the known practice of providing differently-sized surgical instrument inserts.

5. Anticipated counter-arguments and vulnerabilities in the grounds

• Claim-scope mismatch (biggest risk). Because I could not verify the literal '376 claims, Grounds 1–3 (bending) versus Grounds 4–5 (cutting) may be directed at the wrong one of the sibling patents ('376 vs. '909). The confirmed '909 claim 1 is a worm-drive cutting claim; if the '376 claims are the bending claims, Grounds 1–3 are the operative ones and Grounds 4–5 belong to '909.
• Non-analogous art defense. Patentee may argue pipe-cutters (US 4,416,062; US 9,302,402) are non-analogous. This is weak: the '376 disclosure is classified in B21D7/00 (rod/tube bending) and the cutting claims recite shearing of a cylindrical rod — mechanical cutting/bending art is reasonably pertinent to the problem.
• Teaching-away: Strippgen's emphasis on non-marring, non-discrete, continuous curving (¶[0004]-[0006]) could be argued to teach away from discrete plunge-bending dies. Counter: the '376 Background itself adopts the same anti-fatigue rationale, so Strippgen affirmatively motivates the '376 approach.
• Secondary considerations (no evidence found). I identified no litigation and no secondary-consideration evidence (no unexpected results, no long-felt-but-unmet-need evidence beyond the Background's generic statements, no licensing/industry-praise record). The earlier litigation search returned a negative result (see the Litigation summary above); that absence undercuts any nexus argument for objective indicia.

6. Double-patenting flag

'376 (App. 14/723,263, filed 2015-05-27) and '909 (granted 2018-09-11), both assigned to Medos International Sàrl and sharing the 2015-05-27 priority, appear to be same-family, same-inventor-entity filings. Analysts should check for a nonstatutory double-patenting issue and any terminal disclaimer — this frequently accompanies sibling filings and can be as consequential as an obviousness ground.

7. Bottom line

Subject to the express caveat that I could not verify the verbatim '376 claims, the claimed subject matter appears highly vulnerable to § 103 challenge under KSR:

• Primary art: US 2004/0144149 A1 (Strippgen) — the sole backward citation of record and a direct teaching of spaced rod-contacting rollers and a threaded adjuster for bending a spinal rod.
• Secondary art: US 4,416,062 (opposite-thread advance screw + worm-gear drive) and US 9,302,402 / US 2013/0008031 (worm-screw-driven cutting wheel) supply the bidirectional-screw and worm-drive cutting-wheel elements; general knowledge supplies scissor linkages, race bearings, and modular dies.
• Motivation: the patent's own Background states the exact problems, and each proposed combination produces only predictable, expected results.

Recommendation: Retrieve the literal '376 claims (USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Public Search, or the printed patent PDF at patentimages US10076376) and re-map Grounds 1–5 to the actual claim language, and pull the file wrapper to see whether Strippgen was applied in prosecution and with what arguments — that history will most shape how a § 103 attack should be framed.