US 10251650

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Let me check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity and current ownership/assignment records.

Summary — US 10,251,650 B2

Important caveat up front: I was able to confirm bibliographic data from authoritative/secondary sources, but the patent text I have does not reproduce the numbered claim set. Everything I say below about the claims is an inference from the specification and abstract, not a quotation of the claims. Treat the claim overview as provisional.

Bibliographic data

On the title — read literally: the record I fetched displays the title as "Tissue litigation devices and methods therefor," not "ligation." I am not auto-correcting this. Note that the abstract and body of the same document consistently describe devices for "ligating" tissue, and a closely related SentreHeart family member is titled "Tissue Ligation Devices and Methods Therefor." So the recorded title may be a typographical variant, but as recorded it reads "litigation." A USPTO PatentCenter check would be needed to confirm the title of record.

Assignment chain (from the record):

• 2017-01-11: assignment to SentreHEART, Inc. (inventors → company)
• 2019-09-13: merger/name change → SentreHEART LLC
• 2019-09-27 and 2019-10-03: security interest to Silicon Valley Bank
• 2024-01-10: release by secured party (Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company) recorded against AtriCure, Inc.; Endoscopic Technologies, LLC; nContact Surgical, LLC; SentreHeart LLC; AtriCure, LLC

This is consistent with AtriCure's August 2019 acquisition of SentreHEART, and explains why "Silicon Valley Bank Inc." still appears as the current assignee of record on aggregator sites while the beneficial interest sits with AtriCure.

Abstract (as recorded)

"Described here are closure devices and methods for ligating tissue, such as the left atrial appendage. The closure devices may comprise a snare loop assembly comprising a snare and a suture loop releasably attached thereto. The snare may be releasable from an elongate body of the closure device. In some instances, the closure device may comprise one or more markers to allow a user to determine whether the snare loop assembly is twisted."

Plain-language overview of the technology

The patent describes a surgical/ minimally-invasive instrument for closing off the left atrial appendage (LAA) to reduce stroke risk in atrial fibrillation patients. A snare loop is advanced around the appendage, cinched down, and a suture loop is then tightened and left in place to hold the tissue closed while the snare is withdrawn.

The disclosure's three main threads:

1. A releasable snare. Rather than the snare's fixed end being permanently anchored, the end is attached to a shuttle that sits in a recess in the device tip and is held there by a lock wire that passes through a lumen in the shuttle. Pulling the lock wire out releases the shuttle (and thus the snare), which lets a surgeon free the device if the movable part of the snare becomes stuck or snagged on tissue. Anti-rotation features (a projection riding in a track/channel) and lock-wire retention features (bends, coils, adhesive) are described to prevent the shuttle from rotating or the lock wire from being released prematurely.

2. Handle controls for releasing the snare. Various handle assemblies are described with a snare control (slides along a track to open/close the loop), a suture control (pulls the suture tail to cinch the suture loop), and a snare release (a pull-tab, or a recessed small-diameter button that is depressed by a prong on the suture control). Deliberate design choices — shielding the release under the suture control's grip, making the button too small for a finger, requiring the suture to be detached first — are aimed at preventing accidental snare release. Slack is deliberately built into the lock wire to accommodate elongation of the elongate body during use.

3. An alternative releasable-snare architecture and twist detection. One variation splits the snare into proximal and distal portions with interengaging ends (e.g., mating hooks, or a slug captured in a cup) held together by a restraining sheath; withdrawing the sheath disengages them. A separate handle uses two controls moved together (coupled by a magnetically-retained removable cover) so the sheath and snare move as one until the user deliberately retracts only the sheath. Finally, asymmetric radiopaque markers — one L-shaped marker on the tip, one arc-segment marker on the snare loop assembly — let the user tell from imaging whether the loop has twisted relative to the tip.

Independent claims — provisional

Uncertainty statement: I do not have the claim text in front of me. Based on the structure of the specification and abstract, I would expect roughly three or four independent claims, likely grouped as follows:

1. Closure device (shuttle/lock-wire claim) — an elongate body; a snare loop assembly extending from it and forming a loop; a snare whose first end is movable (advance = loop grows, retract = loop shrinks) and whose second end is connected to a shuttle; a locking element releasably coupling the shuttle to the elongate body. Likely dependent features: a recess in the side wall, a lock wire with a bend extending into a shuttle window, and a projection/channel pair resisting rotation.
2. Closure device (handle claim) — the device plus a handle having a suture control (to tighten the suture loop), a snare control, and a snare release configured to retract the lock wire; likely including the button, the prong, and the chamber-shielding features.
3. Closure device (two-portion snare claim) — a snare with proximal and distal portions each having an engagement portion (hooks, or slug/cup), plus a restraining sheath maintaining engagement; likely including the paired first/second controls and the magnetic removable cover.
4. Possible marker/twist-detection claim — first asymmetric marker on the tip and second marker on the snare loop assembly, positioned so that relative orientation indicates twist.

I cannot state the claim numbers, exact language, or which of these is genuinely independent with confidence. Anyone needing this for a validity, infringement, or FTO analysis should pull the claim set directly from USPTO PatentCenter or the granted patent PDF.

CAFC / litigation check

No 2026 CAFC docket activity for US 10,251,650 was found. My searches for a Federal Circuit appeal tied to this specific number returned nothing on point, and I found no result connecting this patent number to a 2026 appeal. I am not able to rule out a pending PTAB, district court, or ITC matter involving it, since my searches were general web searches rather than direct queries of the CAFC docket or PACER/RECAP.

One adjacent data point: AtriCure's financial-statement disclosure tagging includes a litigation case member labeled "SentreHEART v. AtriCure." I could not verify from the results available to me whether that matter involves US 10,251,650, what its current posture is, or whether it is even still active. I would treat that as a lead to check, not a finding.

Confidence summary

• High confidence: patent number, application number, filing date, issue date, priority date, inventor list, assignee history, abstract, adjusted expiration.
• Medium confidence: the technical overview (drawn directly from the fetched specification text, which is authoritative for disclosure content).
• Low confidence (flagged): the independent-claim overview — inferred, not read.
• Not established: any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Sources: Google Patents record for US10251650B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10251650/en); golden.com wiki entry for US Patent 10251650; Justia patent listings cross-citing "10251650 | April 9, 2019 | Clark et al."; AtriCure investor-relations and SEC-filing materials regarding the SentreHEART acquisition and litigation tagging.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10251650.

Let me dig deeper into specific litigation databases.

Let me check the litigation databases directly.

Bottom line

I found no litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent No. 10,251,650. Nothing in the sources I could reach identifies that patent as a patent-in-suit, an asserted patent, a subject of an IPR/PGR, or an appeal at the CAFC. I am reporting this as "no known litigation identified," not as a certified negative — see the caveats at the end.

What the record for '650 actually shows

The Google Patents "Legal Events" timeline for this patent contains only assignment/reassignment and security-interest entries — no litigation, no PTAB, no CAFC entries.

What I searched

• General web searches for "10251650" combined with litigation/ infringement terms.
• unifiedpatents.com litigation-related results; the Unified Patents portal surfaced a '650-assignee listing (Silicon Valley Bank / "Tissue Litigation Devices and Methods Therefor") but returned no litigation caselist entry for this patent.
• CourtListener / Justia and general docket-aggregator results for the patent number.
• Assignee-side sources (AtriCure investor filings and M&A materials) for disputes concerning the SentreHeart/AtriCure LAA portfolio.

Results returned for "10251650" were overwhelmingly false positives on the numeral itself and not the patent: a Canadian corporate registration number, a Brazilian commercial registry entry, a UK Companies House number, a Lehman Brothers creditor ID, and — most notably — US application 10/251,650, a different application that issued as US 7,194,047 ("Receiver for robust data extension for 8VSB signaling"). None of these is US 10,251,650.

Case-level leads I could NOT tie to '650

Two items in the record are family-adjacent but do not name this patent, so I am flagging them as unconfirmed leads only:

1. AtriCure Q1 2023 settlement. AtriCure's 10-K discloses a $7.5 million legal settlement gain recorded in Q1 2023 "in connection with the settlement of claims filed against a competitor," credited to SG&A. The relevant product space (left atrial appendage closure) overlaps this patent's subject matter, but the filing does not identify any patent number, and I cannot confirm '650 was involved. (Source: AtriCure, Inc. 10-K, Feb. 14, 2025, via seekingalpha.com/filing/9554992.)
2. A 2023 cross-portfolio patent peace. A trade-press summary describes a settlement dismissing all pending court and patent-office cases between two companies and barring litigation over "current portfolios of transcatheter aortic valves, certain mitral valve repair devices, and left atrial appendage closure devices." This is the kind of agreement that would remove LAA-closure patents from litigation; however, I could not verify from the retrieved text which parties are involved, and again no patent number is named. I am not treating this as litigation of '650.

Neither of these supports a case entry with plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, and status as you requested.

Related-family context (not litigation of '650)

US 10,251,650 sits in the SentreHeart/AtriCure LAA-closure family (including US 10,130,369; US 9,408,608; US 11,826,570; US 11,950,784; and others). SentreHeart was acquired by AtriCure (announced Aug. 2019), which is consistent with the 2024 release-of-security assignment recorded against '650.

Caveats — please read before relying on this

• My search session was cut short by a tool limit before I could run exhaustive PACER, CourtListener/RECAP, and Unified Patents caselist queries. This is not a complete clearance or FTO search, and a negative result here is not proof that no suit exists.
• Docket aggregators often index patents as "10,251,650," "10251650," or "'650" — the last form is unreliable for disambiguation, so a suit asserting this patent could be indexed under a form my queries missed.
• Recommended next steps to confirm: (a) PACER/Unified Patents caselist filtered to assignees SentreHeart, LLC, SentreHeart, Inc., and AtriCure, Inc.; (b) CourtListener RECAP full-text search for "10,251,650" in complaint documents; (c) USPTO PTAB Patent Trial & Appeal Board API for proceedings against application 15/203,652 and patent 10,251,650; (d) CAFC docket search using the same assignee names.
• Finally, consistent with your STRICT RULE, I have not auto-corrected anything: the issued title reads "Tissue litigation devices," which I have reproduced literally rather than changing to "ligation."

PTAB / AIA Trial Landscape — US 10,251,650 B2

"Tissue litigation devices and methods therefor" (Clark et al.) — Original assignee: Sentreheart LLC; current assignee sidebar lists Silicon Valley Bank Inc. (security interest), with the 2024-01-10 release running to AtriCure, Inc. and affiliates. Priority date 2013-03-12; filed 2016-07-06; granted 2019-04-09; adjusted expiration 2034-06-12.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. Zero active, zero claims invalidated, zero claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials. The structured USPTO Open Data Portal block in this prompt — the canonical list — returns no AIA trial proceedings, and none of my targeted web searches surfaced a petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit opinion referencing US 10,251,650. The bottom-line defensive posture: this patent has never been tested at the PTAB, so it is neither "hardened" nor "narrowed" by PTAB proceedings — it is untested, and all invalidity grounds remain open to you.

(No proceedings to list)

Because the count is zero, the per-proceeding template is intentionally not filled out. Filling it would require me to invent a proceeding number, a petitioner, a panel, or an FWD disposition, and I will not do that. Dates, claim numbers, and judge names below would all be fabricated, and the instruction set forbids it.

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What I actually checked (and what came back)

Evidence I did find that is relevant context but not a PTAB proceeding: AtriCure, Inc. completed its acquisition of SentreHEART, Inc. on 2019-08-13 (~$208.8M total consideration, with up to $260M contingent consideration tied to PMA and CPT-code milestones) — AtriCure press release, AtriCure pro forma/10-K disclosures. The 2019–2024 assignment records on the patent's face (SentreHEART, Inc. → SentreHEART LLC → Silicon Valley Bank security interest → 2024 release to AtriCure entities) are assignments and security interests, not trials. Do not read the AtriCure acquisition as evidence of a PTAB fight; the deal closed without one on this patent.

One caution on the assignee field: Google's "Current Assignee" line says Silicon Valley Bank Inc because the last-recorded security-interest assignment is prominent in the data, but the 2024-01-10 release by secured party and the AtriCure acquisition make AtriCure the practical owner today. Confirm via USPTO Assignment before addressing a demand letter to the right entity.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: entirely UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,251,650 has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. Every claim that issued on 2019-04-09 is presumptively valid and enforceable. For a defendant, that cuts both ways: you have no "the patent is already dead" argument, but you also face no FWD reasoning to distinguish and no claim-construction record to work around. Note that this patent is a continuation in the SentreHEART closure-device family — the record shows a further priority chain to US 16/269,435, which issued as US 11,207,073 B2 — so any invalidity or design-around work should be scoped across the family, not just this one document, because the patentee can assert sibling claims with materially similar scope.

Estoppel landscape: none has attached. Because no petition was ever filed on this patent, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no § 315(b) one-year bar triggered against anyone. All grounds remain available in an IPR/PGR: § 102 and § 103 on patents and printed publications, § 112 written description / enablement / indefiniteness in a PGR (and § 112 in an IPR only to the extent it underpins an IPR-eligible ground). Practically, this means you retain the full menu — you are not limited to art that "could not reasonably have been raised" in some prior trial, since there was none. The trade-off is the § 315(b) clock: once you are served with a complaint alleging infringement, you have one year to petition.

Pattern signals: none detectable. No repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or similar filing appears), and no patent-owner PTAB appeal history for this patent. The closest thing to a pattern is corporate: SentreHEART was absorbed by AtriCure in 2019-08-13, and AtriCure is a public, revenue-generating competitor in the same LAA space (AtriClip / LARIAT) — i.e., the practical patent owner is an operating company with the means to litigate and to fund PTAB appeals, not a shell. My searches found no evidence either way as to whether this family has been asserted in district court; I could not confirm a litigation docket for this patent, so treat any assertion history as an open question to verify.

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Recommended next steps

1. Verify the zero directly, today. Run US 10,251,650 through the PTAB Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End system and the PatentCenter "PTAB" tab, plus the USPTO Open Data Portal "Proceedings" endpoint. If ODP still returns nothing, the emptiness is confirmed at the source of truth. Also run the patent number through CourtListener/RECAP to check for a CAFC appeal that would exist only if a trial or district case had happened.
2. Do not treat this as a "hardened" patent, and do not treat it as testable-by-record either. With no FWD, there is no dispositive claim-level ruling to lean on. Budget for a fresh prior-art search against the granted claims (the specification's own prior-art discussion and the family's extensive reference lists are a useful starting point) and for the § 112 issues that plague mechanical/snare claims with functional language (the patent describes "the snare may comprise an engaging portion configured to…," "configured to resist rotation," etc.).
3. Watch the family and the § 315(b) clock. A continuation (US 11,207,073 B2, per the priority data) means assertion could come on a sibling. On the date you are served with an infringement complaint covering this patent or its family, the one-year § 315(b) window starts — pre-commit a petition decision (IPR vs. stay-and-defend vs. design-around) before that date.
4. In a demand-letter response, say what is true and nothing more. You can state that US 10,251,650 has no PTAB proceedings on file and that all claims remain presumptively valid and untested. That is a procedural posture, not a merits win — do not characterize the patent as narrowed or weak on the strength of the void. If claim numbers (e.g., 1–5) appear in the demand, they are live and unadjudicated; a validity challenge must be built from scratch.

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Confidence and limitations. I am highly confident that the structured ODP list is empty and that no AIA trial on this patent appears in public sources I could reach. I am not able to rule out (a) a very recent, unindexed petition, (b) an ex parte reexamination or district-court/ITC invalidity challenge (outside AIA-trial scope), or (c) a proceeding that my final search, which hit the step limit, would have found. If you need a negative-clearance-grade answer, the PTAB E2E and ODP checks in item 1 are the definitive ones.

I'll reconstruct the chain from the authoritative patent text first, then verify the corporate events with search.

Now let me check for litigation involving this patent and any assignment-record details.

Let me try to pin down the recorded-assignment details and any litigation.

Inventors

Notes and caveats:

• Employer is inferred from the recorded inventor-to-company assignment (all five inventors convey to SentreHEART, Inc.) and from the fact that application 15/203,652 was filed 2016‑07‑06 by SentreHEART. I could not retrieve the execution date of that assignment from the sources searched; only the recording date (2017‑01‑11) appears in the legal-event record.
• This is a continuation-type filing, not a new 2016 invention: Google Patents lists a priority/prior-art date of 2013‑03‑12 and the application was filed 2016‑07‑06. The 2013 priority filing and the 2016 continuation were both made by SentreHEART, so no intervening ownership change exists inside the priority chain for this patent.
• No inventor-departure pattern is determinable from public records. The one datapoint that bears on it: AtriCure stated on its 2019 M&A call that it planned to "maintain most business operations in Redwood City" and retained most SentreHEART employees (aMAZE call, Aug 12, 2019). I have no evidence of inventors leaving within 12 months of filing, and I am not going to assert one.

Original assignee

SentreHEART, Inc. (converted by merger to SentreHEART LLC, a Delaware LLC), Redwood City, California. Founded 2005; raised roughly $69–79M across Series A–D (US Venture Partners, Prospect Venture Partners, Pinnacle Ventures, Deerfield, Decheng).

• Product shipped? Yes. The LARIAT Suture Delivery Device — a percutaneous endo-epicardial suture delivery system that cinches a pre-tied suture loop around the left atrial appendage. FDA 510(k) cleared June 2006 for soft-tissue approximation/ligation; used off-label for LAA exclusion; the LAA-closure indication was pursued via the aMAZE IDE trial (NCT02513797, up to 600 patients). SentreHEART's entire 2018 revenue was ~$4M, mostly aMAZE trial accounts (Silicon Valley Business Journal, Aug 2019).
• Primary line of business: venture-backed single-product medical device developer (percutaneous LAA management).
• Current status: Acquired, not dissolved. AtriCure, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATRC) agreed on 2019‑08‑12/13 to acquire SentreHEART for an upfront ~$40M in cash + AtriCure stock plus up to $260M contingent consideration ($140M aMAZE/PMA milestone, $120M CPT reimbursement milestone); merger agreement dated 2019‑08‑11, effective 2019‑08‑13. Total consideration was preliminarily booked at $210.5M (AtriCure 10‑Q, 9/30/2019). SentreHEART survives as SentreHEART LLC, a wholly owned AtriCure subsidiary and co-borrower under AtriCure's Silicon Valley Bank credit facility. This was not a bankruptcy, assignment-for-the-benefit-of-creditors, or §363 sale — it was a stock merger.

Assignment timeline

Note on sourcing: Google Patents' legal-event record for US 10,251,650 shows the recording dates and parties below but not reel/frame. Reel/frame values are confirmed via INPADOC for the same-portfolio sibling US 10,130,369 B2, which was recorded under the identical SentreHEART documents; because these were portfolio recordings with the SentreHEART/AtriCure patent schedules attached, the same reel/frame applies to US 10,251,650. I flag where that inference is doing work.

• (execution date not shown) / recorded 2017‑01‑11 — Reel not retrieved (same-family equivalent recorded at 038988/0948 on 2016‑06‑22)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Robert L. Clark III; Gregory W. Fung; Russell Pong; Arnold M. Escano; Greg Liu
  • Assignee: SentreHEART, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from the sources searched (Assignment Center correspondent field not exposed in indexed mirrors)
  • Context: routine founder/inventor-to-company assignment consolidating title in the operating company.

• 2019‑08‑13 (effective) / recorded 2019‑09‑13 — Reel 050374/0687

  • Conveyance: Merger and Change of Name
  • Assignor: SentreHEART, Inc.; Second Stetson Merger Sub, LLC
  • Assignee: SENTREHEART LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (deal counsel to SentreHEART was Goodwin Procter LLP; not confirmed as the recording correspondent)
  • Context: internal reorg — AtriCure's merger subsidiary merged into SentreHEART, Inc., which converted to an LLC; title stayed in the acquired entity, no asset transfer to AtriCure, Inc. itself.

• 2019‑09‑27 / recorded 2019‑09‑27 — Reel 050575/0223

  • Conveyance: Security Interest (patent collateral, not a title transfer)
  • Assignor: SENTREHEART LLC
  • Assignee: SILICON VALLEY BANK (Colorado)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization — SentreHEART LLC joined AtriCure's Feb 23, 2018 SVB Loan and Security Agreement as a co-borrower via the Joinder and Third Amendment dated 2019‑09‑27 (filed as Ex. 10.1 to AtriCure's 10‑Q), pledging its IP as collateral.

• 2019‑10‑03 / recorded 2019‑10‑03 — Reel 050759/0322

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment
  • Assignor: SENTREHEART LLC
  • Assignee: SILICON VALLEY BANK
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: clerical correction of the assignor name previously recorded at reel 050575/0223 (the "SentreHeart, LLC" vs "SentreHEART LLC" formatting defect).

• 2024‑01‑10 / recorded 2024‑01‑10 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party (termination of security interest)
  • Assignor: SILICON VALLEY BANK, a division of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company
  • Released parties: ATRICURE, INC.; ATRICURE, LLC; ENDOSCOPIC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC; nCONTACT SURGICAL, LLC; SENTREHEART LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (lender-side)
  • Context: the SVB/First-Citizens collateral lien was discharged; this is the terminal event in the chain and confirms SentreHEART LLC remains record owner.

Key negative finding: there is no recorded assignment of this patent to AtriCure, Inc. The Google Patents "Current Assignee: Silicon Valley Bank Inc" field is an artifact of the 2019 security-interest record being the last-recorded documents in the data feed — not an ownership transfer. No payout/royalty/license conveyance to any third party appears at all.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10251650
    2013 : Priority filing in SentreHEART family
    2016 : Application 15 203 652 filed by SentreHEART
    2017 : Inventor assignment to SentreHEART recorded
    2019 : Patent issued 09 Apr
         : AtriCure merger closes 13 Aug
         : Merger and name change recorded to SentreHEART LLC
         : SVB security interest recorded 27 Sep
    2024 : SVB security interest released 10 Jan
    2025 : Delaware earnout suit not a patent case

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only change-of-ownership event is reel 050374/0687 (recorded 2019‑09‑13, effective 2019‑08‑13): SentreHEART, Inc. + Second Stetson Merger Sub, LLC → SentreHEART LLC. That is a merger/change-of-name of a company that manufactured and shipped the LARIAT device into a wholly owned subsidiary of a listed operating company (AtriCure, Nasdaq: ATRC). SentreHEART LLC is not licensing-only: it is a co-borrower under AtriCure's SVB Loan and Security Agreement (Joinder and Third Amendment, 2019‑09‑27) and holds the LARIAT IPR&D and developed-technology intangibles booked at $82.6M in AtriCure's purchase accounting.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. No assignee or assignor matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, or any Spangenberg-linked entity. The only "unusual" name is Silicon Valley Bank, which is a secured lender, not an owner, per reels 050575/0223 and 050759/0322, both released 2024‑01‑10. I found no RPX or Unified Patents designation of this patent or its owners as a high-frequency plaintiff; the Unified Patents portal entry for US‑10,251,650‑B2 simply mirrors the erroneous "Silicon Valley Bank Inc" assignee.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT RETRIEVABLE. I could not obtain the recorded correspondent (attorney of record) field for any link: the USPTO Assignment Center and its indexed mirrors do not expose it in the crawlable material I could reach for this patent. I am therefore not making a repeat-correspondent finding. Flagging this as a genuine gap rather than a negative.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Exactly one ownership-transfer document exists in the chain (reel 050374/0687), and it is a merger/change-of-name, not a chained-LLC hop. The two other substantive records (050575/0223 and its correction 050759/0322) are security interests, and the 2024‑01‑10 record is their release. No sub-24-month multi-LLC cascade exists.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No infringement action naming US 10,251,650 was surfaced in any source searched, so there is no transfer-to-assertion pairing to evaluate. The only litigation touching the asset is not a patent case: on 2025‑02‑07 the representative for former securityholders of SentreHEART, Inc. filed a complaint in the Delaware Court of Chancery against AtriCure (first amended complaint 2025‑05‑23), alleging breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing for failing to use commercially reasonable efforts to obtain FDA premarket approval of the LARIAT system, seeking up to the original PMA and CPT reimbursement milestones (~$260M max). That is an M&A earnout dispute, not patent assertion — and it is evidence of the opposite posture: the family was bought for product exclusivity, not for a licensing campaign.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. SentreHEART was sold in a negotiated stock merger (agreement dated 2019‑08‑11) for ~$40M upfront and up to $300M total; no Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no §363 sale, no creditor-driven patent auction appears in any source.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer from an operating company to an NPE asserting on its behalf. To the contrary, the acquiring operating company (AtriCure) kept the patents inside its own wholly owned subsidiary, SentreHEART LLC, and continues to develop the LARIAT product (aMAZE continued-access protocol approved; PMA submission contemplated per the 2019/2020 disclosures and later disputed in the 2025 Chancery earnout suit).

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — with the caveat that the chain terminates in an operating-company subsidiary rather than a defensive aggregator, which is the closest fit among the five defined categories.

Justification: the ownership record contains precisely one transfer of title (reel 050374/0687, effective 2019‑08‑13, SentreHEART, Inc. → SentreHEART LLC via the AtriCure merger), and every other recorded document is a lender-side encumbrance or its discharge (reel 050575/0223 recorded 2019‑09‑27; correction at 050759/0322; release recorded 2024‑01‑10). The patent sits inside AtriCure, Inc.'s corporate family, protecting a device that was actually manufactured and sold (LARIAT), and no assertion of this patent appears anywhere; the only dispute involving the SentreHEART asset is a 2025 Delaware Chancery earnout claim by former securityholders, which is a contract fight rather than a licensing or patent-enforcement campaign. Note the important data-quality trap this case exposes: the "Silicon Valley Bank Inc" current-assignee entry on Google Patents (and mirrored on the Unified Patents portal) is a security-interest record misread as a title transfer, and an automated NPE screen that trusts that field would misclassify this patent.

Verify the record at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent-number search for 10251650), with the public mirror at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Reel/frame confirmations for the portfolio-level recordings were cross-checked via Espacenet INPADOC legal-status for sibling US 10,130,369 B2 (reels 038988/0948, 050374/0687, 050575/0223, 050759/0322).

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 10,251,650. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me search more specifically for the citation data.

Let me get the citation tables from the Justia and Google Patents records.

Prior Art Analysis — US 10,251,650 B2

Status of my data: my search session hit its step limit before I could retrieve the complete (56) References Cited list for this patent from USPTO PatentCenter or the Google Patents front page. I therefore cannot give you a complete, itemized citation list with per-reference §102 mappings. I will not fabricate that list. Below is (a) what I verified, (b) what I could partially recover, (c) a candid §102 framework, and (d) the exact retrieval steps to close the gap.

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0. Cross-reference to the earlier sections (one correction/update)

The earlier "Patent summary" section flagged the independent-claim overview as low-confidence / inferred, because the claim text was not in hand. That gap is now partly closed. The Justia record for 10251650 reproduces the claim set, and the opening of the claim set reads:

1. A device for closing a target tissue comprising:

• an elongate body comprising a recess in a sidewall thereof;
• a snare loop assembly extending at least partially from the elongate body, wherein the snare loop assembly comprises a snare comprising a snare loop and a suture loop releasably attached to the snare loop, wherein the snare comprises a first end and a second end, and wherein advancement of the first end of the snare relative to the elongate body increases the diameter of the snare loop and wherein retraction of the first end of the snare relative to the elongate body decreases the diameter of the snare loop;
• a shuttle, wherein the second end of the snare is connected to the shuttle; and
• a locking element, wherein the locking element is configured to releasably couple the shuttle to the elongate body and is further configured to release the shuttle from the elongate body, and
• wherein the shuttle is positioned in the recess when the shuttle is releasably coupled to the elongate body.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the locking element comprises a lock wire…

This confirms the earlier prediction that the shuttle/lock-wire device is the first independent claim, and it adds a material limitation the earlier summary did not flag: claim 1 expressly requires the recess to be in a sidewall and the shuttle to sit in that recess. Any §102 analysis must therefore find that sidewall-recess + releasable-locking-element combination in a single reference.

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1. What I verified from the '650 record itself

1a. Bibliographic anchors that fix the §102 window

1b. Prior-art references I could actually see on the '650 front page

The only (56) content my retrieval surfaced was the first rows of the "U.S." column and the beginning of the foreign column, shown as "(Continued)":

The list is truncated as "(Continued)" in every snapshot I could reach, so the middle and end of both columns are missing. I have no verified titles or disclosure content for the Prisk and Stipek references, and I am not going to guess at them.

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2. Family members included in the earlier "cited by" result — and why they are not §102 art

The Google Patents "family / cited-by" table I recovered lists the following alongside '650, all with the same 2013-03-12 priority:

• US 9,408,608 B2 (issued 2016-08-09) — the '650's immediate parent ("Tissue ligation devices and methods therefor")
• US 2016/0310145 A1 (published 2016-10-27) — the '650's own pre-grant publication
• US 11,207,073 B2 (priority to 16/269,435) — later continuation in the same family
• US 2014/0336676 A1 (Pong et al., App. 14/272,478, filed 2014-05-07, priority to provisional 61/821,153 filed 2013-05-08)

Analysis: none of these can anticipate '650 under §102. The parent and the pre-grant publication share the '650's priority and inventive entity (a continuation is not prior art to its own parent under pre-AIA §102, and a patent is not prior art to itself). Note the important timing check on US 2014/0336676 A1: its earliest priority (2013-05-08) is later than the '650's recorded priority (2013-03-12), so it would not even qualify as §102(e) art against '650. (This is worth verifying against the actual priority chain, since '650's recorded priority predates the '676 filing by only ~two months.)

Also closely bound up in the specification is U.S. application Ser. No. 13/490,919, "Tissue Ligation Devices and Tensioning Devices Therefor," filed June 7, 2012 — expressly incorporated by reference in the '650 specification (see the "closure devices described here may include any suitable elements… such as those described in…" passages). It is not prior art (it is applicant's own earlier work incorporated as part of the disclosure), but it is the single most relevant background document for construing '650's claims.

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3. The closest thing I found to an examiner's-screening of this family

I recovered the EPO search report on EP 3 391 834 A3 (divisional of EP 2 717 791 / App. 12797543.1, filed June 7, 2012 — i.e., the '919 family, not the '650 family, but the same SentreHeart/LAA-closure subject matter and overlapping inventors Fung/Escano/Clark):

Caveat, stated plainly: this search report is against a different patent family, so it is not a finding about '650's claims. I include it only because it identifies the type of art that examiners have treated as anticipating/X-relevant in this technology space — US 5,449,361 (Preissman) and US 2008/0154260 (Hoof) are the two strongest named candidates and are the first references I would pull when the '650 (56) list is in hand.

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4. §102 framework — which subsection even applies

This is a genuinely important threshold question that the earlier sections did not address:

• The AIA first-inventor-to-file regime applies to applications having an effective filing date on or after March 16, 2013.
• The '650's recorded priority date is March 12, 2013 — four days before that line. Its actual application (15/203,652) was filed July 6, 2016, and its parent (14/195,797) on March 3, 2014.
• Consequence: if all claims of '650 are entitled to the March 12, 2013 priority, then pre-AIA §102(a)/(b)/(e)/(g) governs, not AIA §102(a)(1)/(a)(2). Under that regime the operative categories are: §102(b) (printed publication/patent more than one year before, i.e., before ~March 12, 2012), §102(e) (U.S. patent/application publication with an earlier effective filing date), §102(a), and §102(g) (prior invention).
• I flag this because a small date change (a provisional actually filed March 13–16, 2013) would flip the statute, and the Google Patents "priority date" field is expressly labelled an assumption. Verify the actual provisional(s) in the 14/195,797 file wrapper.

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5. Candid anticipation mapping

For the two references I verified (US 3,496,932 Prisk; US 3,677,597 Stipek): both issue in 1970/1972, decades before any possible priority date, so each qualifies as §102(b) art on its face. However:

• I do not have verified disclosure content for either, and
• on their face — early ligature/suture-instrument patents — they appear directed to mechanical ligature applicators. To anticipate claim 1 of '650 they would each have to disclose, in a single document: (i) an elongate body with a recess in its sidewall; (ii) a snare loop assembly with a snare and a suture loop releasably attached; (iii) a shuttle attached to the snare's second end; and (iv) a releasing locking element holding the shuttle in that recess.

That specific combination (shuttle-in-sidewall-recess + releasable lock wire) is the point of novelty of '650 and is unlikely to be met by a 1970s ligature gun. My honest preliminary read: these are §102(b) background art, not anticipatory art for claim 1 — but I have not read them and I am not asserting that.

For US 5,449,361 (Preissman) and US 2008/0154260 (Hoof): the EPO rated both X against a SentreHeart snare/suture-loop claim set and Hoof X against claims that read on a loop-plus-restraining-suture combination. These are the most plausible anticipatory candidates for claim 1 (or for a §103 combination against it) in the '650 family, but the EPO's X-rating was against a different claim set, so the mapping does not transfer automatically. They need element-by-element treatment against claim 1 as quoted in §0 above.

No reference I have in hand is, as of this writing, established to anticipate any specific claim of '650. Anyone needing that conclusion must complete the retrieval in §6.

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6. To close this properly — exact steps

1. USPTO PatentCenter → Patent No. 10251650 → "References Cited" and "Referenced By"; export the full (56) list.
2. Google Patents page for US10251650B2 → "Patent Citations" and "Patent Citations (…)" tables (the front page I reached was truncated at "(Continued)").
3. File wrapper of parent 14/195,797 (now US 9,408,608) — the examiner's rejections and cited art there are the most likely source of the operative art for the continuation.
4. PTAB / IPR check for any proceeding where the '650 family's claims were construed (note: I found IPR2020-01454 in my searches, but it concerns US 9,125,739 — a heart-valve patent, entirely unrelated; the "650 Application" referenced there is App. 14/253,650, not 15/203,652. This is exactly the numeral-collision false positive the earlier section warned about).
5. Cross-check the EP 2 717 791 / EP 3 391 834 prosecution files, which already contain named X-art for this technology.

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Confidence summary

• High: '650 continuity (continuation of 14/195,797/US 9,408,608), filing/grant dates, recorded priority 2013-03-12, verified claim 1 text, the four front-page references named in §1b.
• Medium: the pre-AIA-vs-AIA threshold point (depends on the unverified provisional date); the non-prior-art status of the family members.
• Low / flagged: everything about content and §102 anticipation mapping — I do not have the full (56) list or the disclosure text of the listed references, and I am explicitly not asserting any reference anticipates any claim of US 10,251,650.

I'll build on the prior-art section and try to close the key gaps — the full claim set and the top anticipatory candidates.

Let me try to pull the full claim set and the remaining cited references.

Let me try to retrieve the actual claim set and the front-page references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,251,650 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note, carried forward from the Prior Art section: I still do not have the complete numbered claim set of '650, nor the full disclosure text of the cited references. What I do have is (a) verified claim 1 text (quoted in the Prior Art section from the Justia record), (b) claim 2 as a lock-wire limitation, (c) the specification's own description of the disclosed subject matter, and (d) a set of named references with dates. I will build the §103 grounds from those, and I will mark every place where a reference's disclosure content is asserted-but-unverified as [VERIFY DISCLOSURE]. I will not invent element mappings.

Two data-integrity flags up front:

1. Contradiction between sections — cited-reference list. The Prior Art section reported the '650 front page (56) list as beginning with US 3,496,932 (Prisk, Feb. 1970) and US 3,677,597 (Stipek, Jul. 1972), plus CN 101242785 A and CN 101262823 B. My subsequent search of the CN 105263425 A family page returned a 4-item citation table for this family: US 5,788,715 A, CN 101242785 A, US 2012/0209300 A1, and WO 2012/170652 A1. The two lists overlap only on CN 101242785 A. I cannot reconcile them from the sources I reached. Treat both as candidate (56) contents and verify at PatentCenter. This matters because the identity of the primary reference determines the whole §103 ground.
2. I found no evidence anywhere of an obviousness rejection on the merits during prosecution of this application. Nothing in the record I reached shows an examiner's §103 rejection, an appeal, or a PTAB decision. That is a gap, not a finding — see §11.

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1. The threshold question that controls everything: which §103 applies

This is the single most consequential issue and the prior-art section correctly flagged it. Building on that:

If all claims of '650 are entitled to a 2013-03-12 effective filing date, pre-AIA §103(a) governs. If any claim is not so entitled, AIA §103 governs. Four days separate these regimes, and the practical consequences are large:

Why this is decisive for the obviousness case. Two of the most on-point references are applicant-adjacent:

• WO 2012/170652 A1 (SentreHeart, published 2012-12-13) — the PCT counterpart of the Ser. No. 13/490,919 application that the '650 specification expressly incorporates by reference. Named inventors overlap with '650's inventive entity.

• US 2011/0087247 A1 (Fung et al., published 2011-04-14) — Fung is a named '650 inventor.

• Under pre-AIA rules, neither is §102(e) art if the inventive entity is the same or overlapping ("by another" fails), and both are subject to §1.131 swear-behind as §102(a)/(e) art.

• Under AIA rules, WO 2012/170652 (published 2012-12-13) falls within one year of a 2013-03-12 effective filing date, so §102(b)(1)(A) may except it as a disclosure by joint inventors — but only if the effective filing date really is 2013-03-12.

Analyst's takeaway: a competent §103 ground must be built to survive both regimes. The safest primary references are true third-party §102(b) art — published or patented more than one year before the critical date (i.e., before roughly 2012-03-12). From the candidate lists, those are:

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2. Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

Proposed articulation (the patentee will argue for a higher, narrower level; the defendant for a lower, more general one):

A person of ordinary skill in the art as of March 2013 would have a B.S. in mechanical or biomedical engineering (or equivalent) and 3–5 years of experience designing minimally invasive surgical devices, catheters, or endoscopic instrumentation, including at least some familiarity with suture/ligature-based tissue approximation, snare and loop delivery systems, and catheter tip/handle actuation mechanisms — or alternatively an M.D. with surgical experience in minimally invasive cardiac or laparoscopic procedures working in collaboration with such an engineer.

Why the definition matters. The broader the field, the more cross-disciplinary art becomes "analogous." The relevant field here is not merely "LAA closure devices" — it is at minimum minimally invasive tissue ligation and snare delivery, which spans endoscopic variceal band ligation (Bard's telescoping ligator), laparoscopic endoloop/pre-tied suture loop deployment, orthopedic cable tensioners (Preissman), arthroscopic suture management (Hoof), and surgical knot applicators (Sutura). All of these deal with the identical mechanical problem: deploying a loop around tissue, cinching it, and then getting the instrument off the tissue without snagging. That is the rationale for treating them as analogous art (per In re Bigio, the field of endeavor and the problem to be solved both control).

State of the art circa March 2013 — what was already routine:

• Percutaneous/epicardial and endovascular LAA management was a crowded, well-funded space (PLAATO, Watchman, AtriClip, LARIAT; SentreHeart's own 2003-priority family).
• Snares with a cinching loop were decades old (polypectomy snares, endoloops, band ligators).
• Releasable couplings retained by a removable pin/wire through a bore is one of the oldest mechanical retention schemes in existence.
• Flush-mounting a component in a sidewall recess to create an atraumatic profile is a standard catheter-design technique.
• Anti-rotation keys/tracks (projection riding in a channel) are ubiquitous in mechanical design.
• Two-step or guarded actuator interlocks to prevent accidental actuation are ubiquitous in medical device design (syringe guards, firing interlocks, safety covers).

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3. Claim 1 decomposed — the novelty core

Claim 1, as quoted in the Prior Art section, limits to:

The only genuinely non-anticipatory combination is 1.1 + 1.4 + 1.5 + 1.6 — a shuttle that sits in a sidewall recess and is releasably held there by a locking element that can also release it. Elements 1.2 and 1.3 are the base LAA ligation device, which the patent's own specification treats as known and which SentreHeart itself had in the prior art (the incorporated Ser. No. 13/490,919 / WO 2012/170652).

This is the correct framing of the §103 question. The claim is not to a novel LAA ligation device. It is to a specific mounting architecture for the fixed end of the snare.

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4. Ground A — The primary §103 combination

4.1 Reference set

Primary reference — a loop-and-suture ligation device on an elongate body.
Best candidates, in order of preferability for a §102(b)-clean attack:

• US 5,788,715 A (C.R. Bard, Telescoping serial elastic band ligator, 1998-08-04) — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE]. A ligation instrument with an elongate body that deploys a restricting element around tissue and then must be withdrawn. If it discloses an elongate body, a tissue-encircling loop, and a separately-carried tissue-restricting band, it maps to 1.2. Its "telescoping" aspect is also directly relevant to the '650's own disclosure of straightening/sheathing mechanisms.
• CN 101242785 A (Sutura, 2008-08-13) — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE], titled Method and apparatus for applying a knot to a suture. Relevant at minimum to the "suture loop with knot, releasably carried, then deployed" concept.
• US 5,855,586 — Medical ligature enabling reliable ligation irrespective of operator's expertise — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE]. On its title alone this is directed to the reliability problem, and it is independently notable because it cites '650 (as a later-added citation on the Google Patents record), meaning it is in the same citation neighborhood.
• US 3,496,932 (Prisk) and US 3,677,597 (Stipek) — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE]. 1970s ligature instruments. My prior-art section flagged these as likely background, not anticipatory for claim 1, and I stand by that — but they are useful as evidence of the antiquity and predictability of the elongate-body + ligature-loop combination, which supports the KSR "predictable art" rationale.

Secondary reference — a component releasably retained in a body by a removable lock element.

• This is the element that requires the least invention. Any reference disclosing a bore-and-pin/socket-and-wire retention where a pin is withdrawn to free a captive part supports 1.5. The '650 specification itself frames the lock wire as a retention element whose only unusual feature (the bend/window) exists to raise the withdrawal force — i.e., the applicants describe the lock wire as a known structure needing only anti-backout refinement.
• US 5,449,361 A (Preissman, 1995-09-12, Orthopedic cable tensioner) — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE]. The EPO rated this reference X against claims 1–11 of EP 3 391 834 (the '919 family), meaning an examiner found it individually to disclose a suture/cable-loop tightening device with a force-limited tensioning mechanism. For the '650, its relevance is on the suture-loop tensioning/retention side (the release-force behavior of the suture loop) and as evidence that loop-tensioning instrumentation on an elongate body was long known.

Secondary/tertiary reference — suture management and tensioning in an instrument.

• US 2008/0154260 A1 (Hoof, 2008-06-26, Biomet Sports Medicine) — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE]. The EPO rated this X against claims 1, 4–11 of EP 3 391 834. Its title (Suture management and tensioning devices) and the retrieved abstract snippet (a "sliding suture cleat/force gauge," tension range 0–30 lbf) confirm it discloses sliding suture-management hardware with a force gauge on a hand-held instrument. Relevant to the suture-loop control elements.

Optional — anti-rotation and anti-backout refinements.
Anti-rotation keys and detent/retainer features are so pervasive in mechanical art that in most §103 grounds they can be supported by any suitable mechanical reference plus the applicant's own admitted problem statement. I do not need a named reference to make the legal point; I do need one to make an evidentiary point.

4.2 The mapping, and where it fails

Where Ground A is weak: the obviousness case depends on getting 1.1 + 1.5 + 1.6 from art rather than from "design choice" rhetoric. A well-pleaded §103 ground needs a reference that puts a captive component in a sidewall recess with a removable retainer, or must rely on judicial notice of these as conventional. Expect the patentee to attack exactly here: that no single reference or combination discloses a snare-loop assembly whose fixed end is mounted in a sidewall recess and held by a releasable lock wire.

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5. Ground B — Alternative combination, built on the recognized problem

This ground is more attractive because it flows from an express problem statement in the art, which is the cleanest KSR motivation available.

The problem: the '650 specification states, in terms — "Configuring the fixed end of the snare to be releasable may allow for release of tissue ensnared by the snare in instances where temporary or permanent device failure results in the moveable portion of the snare becoming stuck or caught." The spec also states that portions of the snare loop assembly "may become caught on or otherwise stuck around one or more tissue structures during advancement or manipulation of the snare loop assembly."

That is an admission that the problem was known and that the solution direction (make the fixed end releasable) was known. The claim therefore reduces to: given the known solution direction, how to implement it. The '650 itself discloses two different implementations in the same specification — the hub/release-component of FIGS. 4A–4B and the shuttle/lock-wire of FIGS. 5A–7J. When a specification discloses two interchangeable ways of doing the same thing, that is powerful intrinsic evidence that the choice between them was within the ordinary skill level (In re Rosselet; cf. KSR on "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions").

Ground B reference set:

1. Base device: the applicant's own incorporated Ser. No. 13/490,919 / WO 2012/170652 A1 — usable as prior art only if it qualifies (see §1); if it doesn't qualify as art, it still functions as the admitted background against which claim 1's differences are measured.
2. Releasable-end implementation #1 (hub + release component): disclosed in '650's own FIGS. 4A–4B. Treated as within the skill level, per the specification's own presentation.
3. Releasable-end implementation #2 (captive part + removable retainer): US 5,449,361 (Preissman) and/or US 5,855,586 — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE] — to the extent either discloses a loop/cable-end component seated on a body and held by a retain/release mechanism.
4. Suture-loop retention/tensioning: US 2008/0154260 A1 (Hoof) and/or CN 101242785 A (Sutura) — [VERIFY DISCLOSURE].

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6. Dependent-claim obviousness

I only have claim 2 verbatim ("the locking element comprises a lock wire…"). For the rest I am reasoning from the specification's described embodiments, which map to the dependent claims. Treat the claim numbers below as provisional — I am identifying subject matter, not asserting claim-number correspondence.

Cluster A — Lock-wire refinements (claims depending from claim 2)

Cluster B — Handle claims

Cluster C — Two-portion snare + restraining sheath

Cluster D — Markers / twist detection

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7. Motivation to combine — the rationales actually available

I want to be specific here rather than recite KSR boilerplate, because the motivation analysis is where this case is won or lost.

Rationale 1 — The problem is expressly identified in the art, and the solution direction is too

The '650 specification admits that snares become stuck on tissue and admits that making the fixed end releasable addresses it. An admitted problem in the specification is the strongest possible motivation evidence, because it cannot be characterized as hindsight — it comes from the patentee's own mouth (In re Kahn; MPEP 2144(II)). The claim's remaining content is how to implement a releasable fixed end.

Rationale 2 — The applicant's own specification discloses two implementations for one purpose

'650 discloses (i) a hub + release component + aperture (FIGS. 4A–4B) and (ii) a shuttle + recess + lock wire (FIGS. 5A–7J), both serving identically to releasably fix the snare's second end. When a patentee presents two interchangeable structures for one function, the Federal Circuit and the Board routinely treat the substitution as within the skill level. This is intrinsic evidence and it is nearly impossible for the patentee to disown.

Rationale 3 — The anti-rotation feature is a functional necessity, not a design choice

The shuttle's lock lumen must align with the elongate body's lock wire lumen for the device to function at all. A reviewer should press hard here: the claimed projection/channel anti-rotation feature is not an optional improvement; it answers a failure mode that any engineer would identify immediately upon reading claim 2. KSR ("design need and market demand"). This makes the Cluster A "resist rotation" claims very vulnerable.

Rationale 4 — Predictable mechanical arts, finite solutions

Each of the claimed sub-mechanisms is drawn from a short, well-populated menu:

• hold a part on a body → recess + retainer (pin, wire, latch, detent, snap-fit);
• prevent a retainer from backing out → bend, crimp, coil, adhesive, detent, thread-lock;
• prevent rotation → key/spline/D-flat/track;
• keep a two-part joint closed → sleeve/sheath;
• guard a destructive control → recess it, shrink it, cover it, interlock it, require two actions;
• detect orientation in imaging → asymmetric radiopaque marker.
  A "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" with a reasonable expectation of success is the KSR fact pattern.

Rationale 5 — Analogous arts share the identical problem

Endoscopic band ligation (Bard 5,788,715), arthroscopic suture management (Hoof 2008/0154260), orthopedic cable tensioning (Preissman 5,449,361), and surgical knot application (Sutura CN 101242785 A) all confront the same mechanical question the challenged claims answer: how does the instrument let go of the tissue cleanly? That shared problem makes these references reasonably pertinent, supporting their use for §103 even if not all are in "LAA closure."

Rationale 6 — Explicit design trade-off disclosure

For the two lock-wire attachment topologies (FIGS. 17 vs. 18), the specification states both ends of the trade-off (travel vs. force). Where a patent states a trade-off and claims each endpoint, the endpoints are obvious.

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8. The patentee's strongest non-obviousness positions (stress-test the ground)

Be realistic — these are genuine defenses:

1. No reference discloses the complete combination. The patentee will argue that the cited art discloses loop ligation or releasable couplings, but nothing shows a snare whose fixed end is carried by a discrete shuttle seated in a sidewall recess of a snare-delivery instrument and held by a withdrawable lock wire, and that the asserted motivation is reconstructed with hindsight from the '650 disclosure itself.
2. Hindsight challenge to the motivation. Defense counsel will argue that Rationales 1 and 2 rest on the '650 specification, which is exactly the ex post reasoning KSR forbids. This is the most serious attack on Ground A and Ground B as I've framed them. The response is that the problem was independently known in the art (the stuck-snare problem in endoscopic and laparoscopic loop deployment) — which must be proved with art, not with '650's text. This is where a real prior-art search effort must be spent.
3. "Design choice" is not a substitute for evidence of record. Reciting that recesses, keys, magnets, and guards are "well known" is not enough; In re the Board's practice and KSR still require some record evidence (a reference, or an admission) that the technique was known and applicable. Expect the patentee to demand that evidence for each dependent claim.
4. Cluster D (markers) has a real insight component. Using the relative orientation of an asymmetric tip marker and an asymmetric loop marker to detect twisting of the snare loop is arguably a non-obvious perceptual scheme even if markers themselves are old. This is the one cluster where I would expect a §103 ground to be weakest.
5. The 0.20-inch button dimension. If the patentee can produce any evidence of a criticality or an unexpected result at that dimension (e.g., an inadvertent-actuation study), the range claim becomes non-obvious. The specification as I have it discloses no such result.

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9. Objective indicia to investigate (secondary considerations)

Graham factor four. The record I reached gives me only leads, not findings:

• Commercial success. The LARIAT Suture Delivery Device shipped and generated revenue (~$4M in 2018, mostly aMAZE trial accounts). But nexus is the problem: the commercial device predates the '650 claims, and the success is attributable to the LAA-closure concept and the aMAZE trial, not to the sidewall-recess/lock-wire architecture. Weak nexus.
• Long-felt but unmet need. Potentially strong — the difficulty of releasing a snared LAA without converting to open surgery is a genuine clinical need predating 2013. But the need was already met by the '919 family device, which undercuts the argument that '650's architecture met it.
• Failure of others. Requires evidence that competitors tried and failed to solve the snare-release problem. None in the record I reached.
• Copying. AtriCure's AtriClip is a fundamentally different (clip, not snare) approach — no evidence of copying this architecture. Negative.
• Skepticism. None located.
• Licensing. No license or royalty conveyance appears anywhere in the assignment chain (see Assignment History section). Negative for nexus.

Net: the objective-indicia record appears thin, which helps a §103 challenger. But nexus would be litigated hard.

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10. Parallel attack worth pre-positioning: obviousness-type double patenting across the family

Not §103 strictly, but it belongs in the same analysis and should be run concurrently.

'650 (Appl. 15/203,652, filed 2016-07-06) is a continuation of 14/195,797, filed 2014-03-03, which issued as US 9,408,608 B2. It shares the specification. A further continuation (Appl. 16/269,435) issued as US 11,207,073 B2.

• If any claim of '650 is not patentably distinct from a claim of '608 (or of '073), it is invalid for obviousness-type double patenting — a judge-made doctrine that needs no prior art at all. For same-family continuations sharing a specification, this is often the cleanest invalidity theory available.
• The critical question: was a terminal disclaimer filed during prosecution of '650? If yes, that is an admission by the applicant that the claims are not patentably distinct from an earlier family member, and it is close to dispositive on ODP. If no terminal disclaimer was required, the examiner must have found the claims patentably distinct — which is itself a useful data point (and the examiner's reasons would be in the file wrapper).
• Because '650 shares a specification with '608, an ODP challenge can be built entirely from the two claim sets — no new art, no reference disclosures, no §102 date fights. This is likely the highest-yield line of attack and should be checked first.

Cross-reference: the Prior Art section noted the adjusted expiration as 2034-06-12, consistent with a 20-year term running from the 2014-03-03 parent filing plus ~101 days of PTA. That term structure is itself evidence of a same-family continuation for ODP purposes.

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11. To make any of this actionable — verification plan

Nothing above is a §103 ground until the following are in hand. In priority order:

1. Pull the complete claim set of '650 (PatentCenter → Claims, or the granted PDF). My claim-1 text is second-hand from an aggregator; confirm against the face of the patent before relying on it. Everything in §3, §4, and §6 depends on this.
2. Pull the full (56) References Cited list and resolve the Prisk/Stipek vs. Bard/Smith&Nephew contradiction flagged in the header.
3. Read the actual disclosures of: US 5,788,715; US 5,449,361; US 5,855,586; US 2008/0154260; CN 101242785 A; US 2012/0209300 A1; US 3,496,932; US 3,677,597. Every mapping marked [VERIFY DISCLOSURE] stands or falls here.
4. Pull the file wrappers of 15/203,652 and 14/195,797 for (a) terminal disclaimers (ODP), (b) any §103 rejection and the applicant's response, (c) the examiner's reasons for allowance — which will tell you what the Office thought was the point of novelty, (d) evidence of any §1.131 swear-behind, and (e) whether the March 12, 2013 provisional actually exists and actually supports claim 1.
5. Resolve the AIA/pre-AIA question definitively. This is the highest-leverage single fact in the case. Confirm the earliest provisional filing date; if it is 2013-03-13 or later on any claim, the AIA regime applies and the whole art-status table in §1 changes.
6. Commission a problem-focused search, not a device search. The §103 ground I've sketched is only as strong as the independent evidence that the stuck-snare problem and the guard/interlock problem were known in the art before March 2013. Search laparoscopic endoloop deployment, endoscopic variceal band ligation failure modes, snare-release instrumentation, and medical-device safety interlocks.

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12. Confidence summary

• High confidence: the claim-1 element decomposition (§3); that the anti-rotation, anti-backout, guard/interlock, magnet-cover, and slack elements are vulnerable under KSR (§6, Clusters A–C); that the AIA/pre-AIA threshold is case-determinative (§1); that ODP across the '608/'650/'073 family is a distinct and potentially stronger attack (§10).
• Medium confidence: Ground A and Ground B as articulated combinations (§4–5) — the framework is sound, but they rest on [VERIFY DISCLOSURE] mappings.
• Low confidence / flagged: the mark "resist rotation," the specific 0.20-inch dimension, and the marker/twist-detection subject matter, all of which have plausible non-obviousness arguments (§8, items 4–5).
• Not established: whether any of these references discloses the sidewall-recess-plus-releasable-lock-wire architecture in the required combination; whether an ODP terminal disclaimer exists; whether a §103 rejection was ever made during prosecution.
• Methodological caveat: this analysis is built on a claim-1 text taken from an aggregator, not the patent itself. If that text is inaccurate, parts of §3–§6 are inapplicable. Verify at the source before using this in a validity opinion, an IPR petition, or an invalidity contention.