US 10292770

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

Let me check for any litigation or post-grant proceedings specifically involving this patent.

Let me try to retrieve the actual claim text.

US Patent 10,292,770 — Analyst Summary

Identifying Data (interpreted literally as "10292770" → 10,292,770)

Note on dates: the "anticipated expiration" field (2038-04-20) is inconsistent with a bare 20-years-from-11/06/2018 calculation, which is consistent with the patent being a continuation of an application filed on or about April 20/21, 2018 that itself claims the April 21, 2017 priority date. I am reporting the dates as listed rather than normalizing them.

Abstract (verbatim)

"The disclosure herein relate to systems, methods, and devices for developing patient-specific spinal treatments, operations, and procedures. In some embodiments, systems, methods, and devices described herein for developing patient-specific spinal treatments, operations, and procedures can comprise an iterative virtuous cycle. The iterative virtuous cycle can further comprise pre-operative, intra-operative, and post-operative techniques or processes. For example, the iterative virtuous cycle can comprise imaging analysis, case simulation, implant production, case support, data collection, machine learning, and/or predictive modeling. One or more techniques or processes of the iterative virtuous cycle can be repeated."

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Important caveat: the full claim set was not returned in the authoritative text I was given (the fetch truncates at the end of the description, in the cage-design discussion). The following is reconstructed from Google Patents' machine-extracted "Definitions" block, which is auto-generated from the claims, plus a same-family Japanese member (JP7165668B2). I could not independently confirm claim numbers (e.g., whether these are claims 1, 12, 20, 30, etc.), so treat the numbering as unverified.

The patent appears to claim four independent claim families:

1. Rod-planning system (the "flagship" independent claim). A computer system (memory + processors) that:

• accesses medical image(s) of a patient's spine (sagittal x-ray, frontal x-ray, flexion/extension x-ray, MRI, CT — and can calibrate 2-D x-rays to build a composite 3-D image);
• simulates implanting a spinal rod by identifying reference points along the vertebral segment of interest and rotating portions of the image around those reference points to reach a desired surgical output curvature — i.e., the classic Medicrea "pivot the x-ray at the osteotomy level" approach;
• from that simulation, determines the patient-specific rod's diameter and curvature; and
• outputs spinal-rod manufacturing/selection data instructions to a production or selection apparatus (produce or pick from a pre-existing range).

2. Cage-planning system driven by ligament length (ALL/PLL). A system that:

• determines the anterior longitudinal ligament (ALL) and posterior longitudinal ligament (PLL) lengths for the segment of interest (e.g., measured on MRI, or estimated orthogonally: PLL from a flexion film, ALL from an extension film);
• determines the length of the anterior curve (AC) and posterior curve (PC) along the anterior/posterior vertebral corners;
• simulates cage implantation by (i) increasing each cage's posterior height until PC ≈ PLL and (ii) increasing lordosis while keeping AC ≤ ALL (the flexion/extension films serve as a "not-to-exceed" mechanical check to avoid over-distraction);
• determines anterior and posterior cage heights; and
• outputs cage manufacturing/selection instructions.

3. Cage-planning system based on disc-height/angulation distribution. A system that determines each disc's height on the segment, computes each disc's height as a percentage of the total segment disc height and/or its angulation as a percentage of total segment angulation, then compares those percentages against a statistical model derived from a population database (the description refers to statistical/normative distributions of asymptomatic subjects) to select or design the patient-specific cage.

4. Intraoperative-tracking system. A system with:

• two or more active sensors, each having accelerometer(s) and/or gyroscope(s) (the description cites 6- or 9-DOF inertial measurement units);
• two or more attachment devices (vertebral anchor, screw — mono-axial or poly-axial — or surgical tool) each containing an active sensor, a power source, and a wireless transmitter;
• the attachment devices are mounted so that two of three position axes lie in a plane parallel (or at a determinate angle) to the patient's sagittal plane;
• the sensors stream position/orientation data (6-DOF, including translation and rotation) in real time to a computer that compares the live spinal geometry against the pre-operative plan and issues guidance/alerts (e.g., within 1–25% of the planned angulation).

The specification also describes other independent/subject-matter-adjacent claims, including screw planning (projected screw insertion axis on the sagittal plane, vertebral body width, assumed screw/endplate angulation, pedicle axis angle, screw length : insertion-axis length ratio, body width : pedicle width ratio → desired screw lengths), and a predictive-modeling element (dataset of prior patients and surgical strategies, categorized by spinal-surgery domain knowledge, standardized and used to predict post-operative variables such as PI, PT, LL, TK, SVA, UIL/LIL). A counterpart same-family Japanese claim (JP7165668B2) combines the rod-rotation simulation and the ALL/PLL cage steps into a single independent system claim, which suggests at least one U.S. independent claim may similarly combine both — I cannot confirm that for the U.S. claim set from the material available.

Litigation / Post-Grant Status

I searched for USPTO proceedings and Federal Circuit 2026 dockets keyed to this patent number and found no litigation, IPR/PGR, or CAFC appeal specifically naming US 10,292,770. Search hits for "Medicrea" + "Globus" returned unrelated matters (a Globus v. Life Spine case about U.S. 11,065,128; NuVasive/ATEC; and Globus/Nevro spinal-cord-stimulator product-liability suits) — none involved this patent. Absence of a hit is not proof that no such proceeding exists; docket coverage is incomplete, and I could not reach a PACER/Docket Alarm query for this number within this session.

Family / Related Patents (from search results)

• US 10,413,365 B1 (Mosnier et al.) — Methods, systems, and devices for designing and manufacturing a spinal rod
• US 11,877,801 B2 (Mosnier et al.) — Systems, methods, and devices for developing patient-specific spinal implants, treatments, operations, and/or procedures
• JP 7165668 B2 — Japanese counterpart with a combined rod + cage independent claim
• Later continuations include published applications US 2024/0206976 and US 2025/0152249 (adds frequency-domain/Fourier transforms of spinopelvic parameters and GAN/CNN/RNN predictive models).

Uncertainty Flags

1. Claim text not authoritative here — the claim set is reconstructed from a machine-generated definitions block and a foreign-family claim; exact independent-claim numbering and count are unverified.
2. Assignee currentness — the source lists Medicrea International SA as current assignee; I did not verify any post-2019 ownership change (industry reporting indicates Medicrea was acquired, but I could not confirm this within the searches run, so I am not asserting it).
3. Expiration date inconsistency noted above; report as listed.
4. No CAFC 2026 docket entry or USPTO proceeding for US 10,292,770 was located.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 10292770 across patent litigation databases.

Let me check patent litigation-specific databases and IPR records.

Findings: Litigation involving US Patent No. 10,292,770

Bottom line: I found no litigation (district court actions, CAFC appeals, ITC investigations, or PTAB/IPR proceedings) involving US Patent No. 10,292,770 in the sources I was able to search.

I want to be explicit about both what I verified and the limits of the search, because "no results found" is not the same as "confirmed none exists."

What I confirmed about the patent itself

• Patent: US 10,292,770 B2 — "Systems, methods, and devices for developing patient-specific spinal treatments, operations, and procedures"
• Assignee: Medicrea International SA (original and current)
• Inventors: David Nicholas Ryan; Denys Sournac; Thomas Mosnier; Christophe Xavier Guillaume Javelot; Agathe Senac; Céline Augagneur
• Application: US 16/182,466; filed 2018-11-06; granted 2019-05-21; priority date 2017-04-21; anticipated expiration 2038-04-20; legal status "Active"
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10292770/en

The Google Patents page for this patent does not list any "Litigation" or "IPR/PTAB" events, which is itself a (weak) negative indicator — though Google Patents' litigation data is incomplete for recent or foreign-entity cases.

Cases I ruled out (same/similar numbers — NOT this patent)

Exercising the strict-number rule, the following are different patents and must not be attributed to US 10,292,770:

• Route 92 Medical, Inc. v. Balt USA, LLC, D. Del. Case No. 1:25-cv-00986 (filed Aug. 6, 2025) — asserts US 11,229,770; 11,793,972; 11,806,032; 11,925,770; 12,262,911. None is 10,292,770. (Source: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2025cv00986/90225)
• A longstanding line of Warsaw Orthopedic / Medtronic Sofamor Danek v. NuVasive cases (e.g., S.D. Cal. No. 3:08-cv-01512, No. 3:12-cv-02738) — these involve patents such as the '973, '933, '236, '430, '146, '997 patents, not 10,292,770.
• A 1980s "770 patent" infringement opinion surfaced in searching — a different, unrelated patent.

Searches performed and their limits

• I searched Google Patents, general web/legal dockets, and litigation-oriented query strings for the literal strings 10292770, 10,292,770, and "10292770" Medicrea.
• I was unable to directly query the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), PACER, Docket Alarm, or the CAFC docket, which require accounts/subscriptions or were not retrievable in this session. I also could not complete additional follow-up searches (search-step limit reached).
• No docket, complaint, judgment, or IPR petition naming US 10,292,770 appeared in any retrievable result.

Relevant context worth verifying independently

• The patent's owner, Medicrea International SA, is a French spinal-implant company; publicly available sources (e.g., its own investor reports) describe its UNiD® patient-specific rod/cage technology as "protected by ... about ten patents, particularly in the preoperative planning approach." Whether any of those has been asserted has not been confirmed here.
• Training-data note (flagged, not search-confirmed): My background knowledge is that NuVasive, Inc. acquired Medicrea (announced 2020), which could later implicate the patent in any NuVasive/Globus/Medtronic spinal disputes. I did not find search confirmation of any case asserting 10,292,770, so I am not representing that such litigation exists.

Recommendation

To reach a definitive answer, confirm against sources I could not access:

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
2. PACER / Docket Alarm / Justia Dockets — search party "Medicrea International"; search patent "10,292,770"
3. USPTO PTAB (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and USPTO PatentCenter "Litigation" tab for application 16/182,466
4. CAFC docket for any appeal naming the '770 patent

Conclusion: Based on the sources available to me, there is no known litigation involving US Patent No. 10,292,770. I state this as "no known/confirmed litigation" rather than "none exists," given the database-access limitations noted above.

I'll start by checking the structured data in the prompt (which says no AIA trials indexed) against live web sources, since the ODP ingest may lag or miss older proceedings.

The initial results show no AIA trial hits — and note that the "770 patent" appearing in a PTAB petition excerpt is a different patent (storage-area-network/vHBA art), not this spinal patent. Let me probe further, including assignee litigation history and family-member PTAB activity.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10,292,770: zero (0). The USPTO Open Data Portal's structured trial-proceeding block for this patent returns no AIA trial records, and no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming US 10,292,770 as the challenged patent surfaced in independent web searching of PTAB decision repositories, dockets, or the patent owner's public record — giving a breakdown of 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. The defensive posture this yields is unusual and worth stating plainly: the patent has never been tested at the PTAB, so there is no invalidation roadmap to inherit — but equally, there is no cancellation to hide behind. A defendant here faces an intact patent with all claims untested, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel working against it (because no third party has run an IPR), and a clean slate on which to be the first petitioner.

No proceedings to report

There are therefore no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} sections to write. I will not manufacture proceeding numbers, petitioner names, panels, or claim-level dispositions — none exist on this record.

Verification note / methodology caveat. The canonical list in the "PTAB proceedings on file" block is derived from the USPTO ODP API. That feed is generally reliable but indexing lags, and a petition filed within roughly the last few months may not yet appear. My web searches were run against (a) the patent number, (b) the patent owner ("Medicrea International"), and (c) PTAB/Federal Circuit decision sources. All returned null. The one apparent hit — a PTAB trial-document excerpt referencing "the '770 patent" and rejecting "claims 1-4, 8-14, and 17" over Begemann/Matsubara — is a false positive on the number, not this patent: that document concerns storage-area-network/vHBA subject matter (Mehrotra, virtual storage node identifiers), which has nothing in common with this spinal-planning patent. It also appears to be a reexamination request (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–317 / 37 C.F.R. § 1.915), not an AIA trial. Do not conflate the two.

Patent bibliographic anchors from the authoritative text:

• Granted: 2019-05-21 (US10292770B2), application US 16/182,466, filed 2018-11-06
• Earliest priority: 2017-04-21 (continuation practice off App. 15/958,409)
• Current assignee: Medicrea International SA; anticipated expiration 2038-04-20; status Active
• Pre-grant publication: US20190069956A1 (2019-03-07)

Important portfolio point for a defendant: this patent sits in a family that keeps issuing. A related continuation family member, US 11,612,436 B2 ("Systems, methods, and devices for developing patient-specific medical treatments, operations, and procedures," App. 16/404,276, filed 2019-05-06, Medicrea International), claims ligament-length/elasticity modeling and patient-specific implant kit generation — i.e., the same PLL/ALL-driven cage-sizing disclosure that appears in the 10,292,770 specification. A defendant who invalidates only the '770 may simply face a sibling. The 510(k) record also shows Medicrea International branded as "(MEDTRONIC)" in a 2024 submission (K241164), consistent with Medtronic's acquisition of Medicrea — relevant because enforcement posture and litigation budget change with corporate ownership.

Strategic summary

Claim landscape — everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,292,770 has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed in a PTAB final written decision. The patent is intact. As the authoritative text shows, the disclosure supports a family of independent claims covering, e.g.: (i) a system that simulates spinal-rod implantation by rotating portions of a medical image about identified reference points and outputs patient-specific rod diameter and curvature, plus patient-specific screw lengths derived from sagittal screw-insertion-axis projected length and vertebral body width; (ii) a system that measures anterior longitudinal ligament (ALL) and posterior longitudinal ligament (PLL) lengths for a vertebral segment, measures anterior curve (AC) and posterior curve (PC) lengths, and increases cage posterior height until PC equals PLL (with lordosis then increased while keeping AC ≤ ALL); (iii) a system analyzing disc height and disc angulation as percentages of segment totals; and (iv) an intraoperative-tracking system using two or more active sensors (accelerometers/gyroscopes) in attachment devices mounted to vertebrae so that two of three positional axes lie in a sagittal-parallel plane. Dependent aspects include screws and surgical tools carrying sensors that deliver real-time position/orientation tracking, and two-dimensional X-ray calibration into a composite 3D image. None of this has been adjudicated. Because I have not been given the issued claim text, I will not state which specific claim numbers are independent vs. dependent — that should be confirmed from the granted claims before any petition is drafted.

Estoppel landscape — a blank field. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is petitioner-specific and attaches only after a final written decision. With zero IPRs, no estoppel bars anyone. That is a double-edged sword: it means the full universe of prior art is available to a first petitioner (patents, printed publications, and — in a district-court or ITC invalidity posture — system art and public-use art that § 311(b) excludes from IPR). It also means there is no prior PTAB record, no adopted claim construction in the patent owner's disfavor, and no panel reasoning to pressure the patent owner with. Every ground is still open. Conversely, there is no IPR certificate to rely on defensively, and a defendant who files first forfeits the ability to file again on grounds it raised or reasonably could have raised.

Pattern signals. (1) No repeat-petitioner pattern — there is no petitioner at all. (2) No patent owner PTAB-appeal aggressiveness — Medicrea/Medtronic has never defended this patent at the Board, so there is no track record of how it briefs or settles. (3) No defensive aggregator in the chain — no Unified Patents or similar filing appears against the '770 (Unified's portal surfaces a sibling Medicrea patent, US 10,314,657 B2, in its patent database, but that is a data record, not a challenge). (4) The patent's expiration runs to 2038-04-20, so roughly twelve years of remaining term give both the patent owner and any petitioner ample runway; IPR is not a moot exercise on duration grounds. (5) The most likely IPR trigger, if it comes, is district-court or ITC assertion against a large spine incumbent (Medtronic, Stryker, Globus, NuVasive, DePuy, Zimmer Biomet), which is the classic fact pattern that produces the first petition in a case like this.

Recommended next steps

Framed for a defendant currently facing, or anticipating, assertion of US 10,292,770:

1. Treat the absence of PTAB activity as the headline, and verify it once more before you rely on it. Two independent confirmations beat one. Run a manual check on USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) for application 16/182,466 and for the patent number, and query the Unified Patents patent portal entry family for any newly docketed challenge (e.g., https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[10314657](/patent/10314657)-B2 shows the portal's format for related Medicrea assets). If ODP's feed lags a recently filed petition, E2E will show it as soon as it is docketed.

2. Because there is no FWD, there is no disposition to quote — and you should say exactly that internally. Do not let anyone on the team assert that "the PTAB already invalidated claim 1" or that any claim is "hardened by two IPRs." Neither is true. There is no IPR certificate, no Federal Circuit mandate, and no cancellation to cite. Any such statement would be a fabrication risk of the first order.

3. If you are going to file the first petition, do it before you file district-court invalidity contentions and mind § 315(b). The one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent. Filing an IPR and then relying on the same grounds in court is barred by § 315(e)(2) estoppel once an FWD issues; conversely, a slow defendant risks losing the IPR window entirely. Sequence the validity workstreams deliberately, and note that § 311(b) limits IPR to patents and printed publications, so any system-art or public-use theory must live in the district-court or ITC case.

4. Scout the priority chain for § 112 and § 102 ammunition. The '770 is a 2018 continuation with a 2017-04-21 priority claim off App. 15/958,409, and it claims a genuinely broad mix of diagnostics (ALL/PLL measurement, disc-height percentage analysis) and hardware (sensor-bearing screws, accelerometer attachment devices). That breadth invites written-description and enablement attacks (§ 112) for the sensor/tracking claims and prior-art attacks (§ 102/§ 103) against the image-rotation rod-simulation claims — the classic target being the older Medicrea/UNiD planning disclosures and the McAfee patents Medicrea publicly acquired in 2017 for interbody height planning. Note that § 112 written-description/enablement is a PGR-eligible ground but not available in IPR — a factor if the patent owner has any post-AIA continuation claims whose priority you can attack. Confirm claim-by-claim priority before choosing the vehicle.

5. Do not forget the sibling family. If the current assertion involves US 10,314,657 B2, US 11,612,436 B2, US20190069956A1, or another Medicrea continuation, an IPR strategy aimed only at the '770 may be piecemeal. Map the family tree and consider whether a single, well-constructed petition against the earliest shared priority specification does more defensive work than several narrow petitions.

6. If instead you are the patent owner (Medicrea/Medtronic), the untested status is an asset: no estoppel, no adverse claim construction, no cancellation. The cost is that you have no PTAB win to point to in a stay motion. Expect the first assertion against a large incumbent to draw an IPR petition within the § 315(b) window; prepare a POPR-heavy, expert-supported preliminary response strategy now.

Bottom line: No PTAB activity exists on US 10,292,770 as of the ODP ingest and as of my search. All claims are unchallenged and presumed valid. There is no FWD, no settlement, no appeal, and no estoppel. The defensive playbook is not "inherit the invalidation" — it is "be the first petitioner, verify the docket manually, and choose your vehicle with § 311(b) and § 315(b)/(e)(2) firmly in mind."

I'll research the assignment record for US 10292770 using the sources available.

Let me dig into the corporate history and any assignment/litigation records.

Let me look for the specific assignment records and any litigation.

I was able to establish the corporate ownership story with high confidence, but I must flag a limitation up front: the search tools available to me did not return the USPTO Assignment Center record images for US 10292770, so I could not verify reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record for this specific patent. I will not invent them. Everything below is grounded in what I did retrieve, with explicit flags where data is missing.

Inventors

All six are listed on the Google Patents record for US 10292770 as inventors with original assignee Medicrea International SA. The manufacturing/engineering-heavy inventor set (four to five engineers plus the CEO) is consistent with an in-house corporate R&D effort, not an inventor-owned portfolio that was later brokered out.

Unusual patterns: none observed. This was a normal employee-inventor group. Sournac remained founder/CEO through the 2020 Medtronic tender offer (he signed a share-tender commitment, per Medtronic's 2020-07-15 release), i.e. no pre-sale inventor exodus. I found no evidence any inventor left Medicrea within 12 months of the 2018-11-06 filing.

Original assignee

Medicrea International S.A. (record shows "MEDICREA INTERNATIONAL"; the patent front page lists "Medicrea International SA"), headquartered at 5389 route de Strasbourg, Vancia, 69140 Rillieux-la-Pape, France (earlier recorded address on Medicrea assignments: 24 Porte du Grand Lyon, Neyron 01700, France).

• Primary line of business: spine surgery — design, integrated manufacture and distribution of spinal implants plus the UNiD™ ASI (Adaptive Spine Intelligence) surgical-planning / predictive-modelling platform and patient-specific 3D-printed titanium rods and interbody cages.
• Did they ship products embodying the claims? Yes. Medicrea reported 30+ FDA 510(k)-cleared / CE-marked implant families used in >175,000 spinal surgeries, and >1,850 personalized-implant surgeries in 2019 alone. The patent's claims (patient-specific rod dimensioning, cage sizing bounded by ALL/PLL length, intraoperative sensor tracking, predictive modelling) map directly onto the UNiD ASI workflow described in Medicrea's own investor materials and FDA clearances (e.g. UNiD Spine Analyzer K212005 / K251629, continued by Medtronic).
• Current status: Operating, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Medtronic plc. Medtronic announced the friendly all-cash tender at €7.00/share on 2020-07-15 and completed the acquisition on 2020-11-16, then ran a French squeeze-out. Medicrea International still appears in Medtronic's FY25 Irish Financial Report as a "Holding Company" at the same Rillieux-la-Pape address. Not dissolved and never in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center reflects two recorded assignment documents against US 10292770 (application 16/182,466), both dated/recorded 2018-12-05, splitting the six inventors across two cover sheets. The reel/frame numbers and the correspondent of record are not retrievable with the tools I have — I am reporting that gap rather than guessing:

• 2018-12-05 (recorded) / execution date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved/Frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (employment/confirmation assignment)
  • Assignor: Mosnier, Thomas; Javelot, Christophe Xavier Guillaume; Ryan, David Nicholas; Sournac, Denys
  • Assignee: Medicrea International
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (see note below)
  • Context: ordinary inventor-to-employer title capture, ~1 month after the 2018-11-06 filing.

• 2018-12-05 (recorded) / execution date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved/Frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Augagneur, Céline; Senac, Agathe
  • Assignee: Medicrea International
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: same as above — second cover sheet for the remaining two inventors.

No post-issuance assignment is recorded. There is no assignment to Medtronic plc or to any Medtronic entity, no security agreement, and no change-of-name record on this patent after grant (2019-05-21). That is expected and is itself a finding: Medtronic bought Medicrea's shares via a tender offer, not the patent assets, so legal title to US 10292770 never moved — it remains with Medicrea International (now a Medtronic subsidiary). Anticipated expiration per Google Patents: 2038-04-20.

Correspondent note (context only — not evidence for this chain): Medicrea has used at least two outside firms of record on other assignments in its portfolio — Defillo & Associates, Inc. (Clearwater, FL; correspondent Evelyn A. Defillo) on reel 051196/0823 (a rod-curvature family, executed 2016-02-16, recorded 2019-12-05), and Young & Thompson (Alexandria, VA) on a corrective assignment for US 9,320,612 (reel 037963/0507). Neither is an NPE-specialist firm; both are conventional prosecution shops. Because I cannot confirm which firm filed the 2018-12-05 recordings for this patent, I make no recurrence finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10292770
    2017 : Priority date 21 Apr
    2018 : Application filed 6 Nov
         : Inventors assign to Medicrea
    2019 : Patent issued 21 May
    2020 : Medtronic completes Medicrea deal
    2038 : Anticipated expiry 20 Apr

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No licensing-only LLC ever appears. The only recorded assignee is Medicrea International, a French operating company at a real manufacturing address (5389 route de Strasbourg, Rillieux-la-Pape) that was shipping FDA-cleared implants and software. No reels/frames show a transfer to an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither Medicrea International nor Medtronic plc appears on the NPE rosters named (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.). Both are established device manufacturers. The two 2018-12-05 records run inventors → Medicrea only.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. With only the two same-day, same-assignee recordings in this chain, there is no recurrence to measure regardless. I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for either 2018-12-05 entry (Google Patents does not surface it and the Assignment Center pages did not load through my tools), so no positive or negative call is possible.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Two recordings, same day, same assignee, same transaction — that is one title capture split across two cover sheets, not a cascade of chained LLCs. No subsequent transfers exist at all.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present / unclear. I identified no infringement suit naming US 10292770, so there is no first-suit date against which to measure a transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Medicrea was loss-making (2019 net loss €15.6M; $36M 11% convertible bond) but went out via a premium friendly tender offer (€7.00/share; 22% premium to prior close, 56% to 3-month VWAP), not a Chapter 7/11 sale. No bankruptcy record surfaced.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company → NPE transfer occurred; the direction of travel is the reverse of privateering (an operating company was absorbed by a larger operating company). Note for completeness: Medicrea itself was the asserting party in a dispute with K2M Spine, Inc. (disclosed in Medicrea's 2017 management report) — the behavior of an operating company defending its market, the inverse of an NPE. I could not confirm that suit implicated this patent, which issued only in 2019.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents or OIN. It terminates in-house at a Medtronic subsidiary.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with the caveat that the "assertion" prong is only partially evidenced for this specific patent.

Justification: the entire recorded chain consists of two 2018-12-05 inventor-to-Medicrea International assignments (Google Patents legal events; reel/frame not retrievable) with no post-issuance transfer and no licensing-entity ever in the chain. The record owner is a French operating company that shipped 30+ cleared implant families and the UNiD ASI platform (i.e., products embodying the claims), and that is now a wholly-owned Medtronic subsidiary following the 2020-11-16 tender offer — which means no assignment to Medtronic was required and none was recorded. Zero of the eight NPE signals is present; Medicrea's own history is that of an operating-company plaintiff (K2M Spine, 2017). The only reason I do not call this a clean "operating-company assertion of this patent" is that no suit naming US 10292770 was located.

Verification: USPTO Assignment Center search page — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search "10292770". Caveat: I could not load the reel/frame images through my available tools; the reel/frame numbers and correspondent of record above are explicitly marked as unretrieved rather than estimated.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 10,292,770, focusing on the examiner-cited references on its face and during prosecution.

The overview search didn't surface the "References Cited" section. Let me target the citation data directly.

Let me look at the Justia and FreePatentsOnline pages, which typically reproduce the "References Cited" section, and try to access the full-text PDF.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,292,770 B2

Bottom line up front

I was not able to retrieve the definitive front-face "References Cited" list or the USPTO file wrapper (prosecution history) for US 10,292,770 within this session. The authoritative full-text I was given (the Google Patents HTML fetch) reproduces the abstract, description, figures list and CPC classifications but omits the (56) References Cited block, and my searches for that block returned only forward citations (other patents citing the '770) and the machine-generated "Definitions" excerpt. I am therefore not going to fabricate a list of § 102 references and present them as if they were the examiner's citations.

What I can do — and do below — is: (1) state exactly what I verified, with URLs; (2) flag the references that appear in the family/adjacent prosecution record and explain why they matter; (3) map the prior-art categories that govern each of the four claim families, with candidate references labeled by confidence; and (4) tell you precisely where to pull the authoritative list.

Note on the requested date: the task states "April 26, 2026," while the system clock reads 2026-10-01. This does not affect the analysis, but I report it as inconsistent rather than normalizing it.

1. What I verified (with sources)

Why the McAfee acquisition matters: those three McAfee patents are, by Medicrea's own description, directed to interbody-cage sizing/planning based on measured anatomical height — the same subject matter as the '770's cage claims (claim families 2 and 3 in the prior summary). This is exactly the kind of reference a competent examiner would have cited against the cage claims — or that the applicant would have listed in an IDS. I could not confirm the specific patent numbers of the three McAfee patents, so I am not naming them; that is a concrete, resolvable gap you can close via the file wrapper.

Important distinction (do not conflate): the EP/Justia hits showing "US 10,292,770" are the '770 being used as prior art against later patents — the inverse of this task. Under the strict-number rule I did not attribute those to the '770's own citation list.

2. Why an exact § 102 list is not honestly obtainable from what I have

• The § 102 analysis must be run against the correct critical date. Per the page, the '770 has a priority date of 2017-04-21 and was filed 2018-11-06. Under the AIA, anticipation requires the reference to be (a)(1) publicly available before 2017-04-21, or (a)(2) a U.S. patent/application "effectively filed" before that date. Anything on the '770 face with a 2017 or 2018 date is likely an (a)(2) reference or an applicant IDS entry, not an (a)(1) printed publication.
• Same-family references are not § 102 art against the '770 absent a different inventive entity/priority chain. Several named Medicrea/Mosnier items that surface in searches (e.g., US 9,782,228, US 10,413,365, US 11,877,801) are family members, not anticipation art — they'd be IDS material, not § 102 rejections.
• I could not reach PatentCenter / the '770 file wrapper, PACER, or the PTAB to pull the actual examiner citations. That is where the authoritative list lives.

3. Prior-art landscape mapped to the four claim families (candidates labeled)

Because I cannot give you the verified front-face citations, here is the analytical framework you asked for — the categories and candidate references that would bear on each independent-claim family. Confidence flags are explicit.

Caveat that governs the whole table: because the '770's actual (56) block was not retrieved, the "candidate" entries are the reference classes and specific items I could connect to this technology domain and family record — not a representation that any of them appears on the '770's face or was applied by the examiner. Treat them as a starting hypothesis to check against the file wrapper.

4. What I can and cannot assert under § 102

• I can assert: the '770's critical date is 2017-04-21; a reference must predate that to be (a)(1) art. The four claim families span rod simulation, ligament-constrained cage sizing, population-model cage sizing, and inertial intraoperative tracking.
• I cannot assert which specific patents were cited on the '770 face or in prosecution, nor assign specific claim numbers to specific references under § 102 — because I did not retrieve the reference list or the file wrapper. Any such per-claim § 102 mapping I produced now would be speculative, and the task's own rule ("say so explicitly rather than fabricating") applies.

5. To close the gap definitively (sources I could not access)

1. USPTO PatentCenter — application 16/182,466, "Documents & Transactions" → the IDS/IDS-transmittal forms and any Form PTO-892 (examiner-cited references). This is the single authoritative source for the § 102 list.
2. USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) — full-text record including the (56) block.
3. Justia Patents / FreePatentsOnline pages for 10292770 — both reproduce the "U.S. Patent Documents" cited list verbatim; I attempted these but hit the search-step limit before obtaining the extracted (56) text.
4. Espacenet / Global Dossier — "Cited documents" and "Citing documents" separated, which cleanly distinguishes the '770's prior art from its forward citations.
5. Medicrea 2017 annual report (URL above) — resolve the three McAfee patent numbers; these are the highest-value cage-claim prior art to check.

Uncertainty summary

• Verified: patent bibliographic data; that the '770 is a forward-cited reference in later EP filings; Medicrea's stated portfolio composition; the existence of the three acquired McAfee interbody-planning patents.
• Not verified / not retrievable this session: the '770's own (56) References Cited list; the examiner's applied references; the McAfee patent numbers; the per-claim § 102 mapping.
• No fabrication: I have deliberately not listed specific patent numbers as "citations of the '770" that I could not confirm, because doing so would misrepresent the record.

I'll research the prior art cited against this patent and the relevant field, since the prior-art section wasn't included in the material provided to me.

Let me gather the specific prior-art references relevant to each claim family.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,292,770 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold disclosure (read before the analysis)

The "Prior Art section of this page" was not included in the material I was given. The patent text supplied to me contains a Google‑Patents "Prior art keywords" list (patient; interest; data; length; operative; implant; simulation; longitudinal ligament; surgical procedure; implantation; insertion; lordosis; thoracic cavity; kyphosis; calculation algorithm; storage…) and a full CPC classification table, but no cited patent references, no "References Cited" list, and no examiner's § 102/§ 103 rejections from the file history. The fetch also truncates inside the cage-design description.

Consequently I have reconstructed a prior-art set by independent searching, not by reading the page section the task refers to. Everything below is grounded in the sources I actually retrieved and cited by URL. Where I could not find art, I say so rather than inventing it. This limitation should be stated on the face of the deliverable.

I also carry forward, and do not repeat, the earlier sections' caveats: the independent-claim numbering is reconstructed from Google's machine-generated Definitions block and a foreign-family claim, not from an authoritative claim set.

1. Legal framework applied

• Governing law: AIA § 102/§ 103 (application 16/182,466 was filed Nov 6, 2018, after Mar 16, 2013).
• Critical date: the earlier section lists the priority date as April 21, 2017. I use 2017-04-21 as the conservative critical date. Any claim not enabled/supported by that priority filing is entitled only to 2018-11-06.
• PHOSITA: an engineer/medical-device developer (medical image processing, CAD, orthopaedic biomechanics) working with a spine surgeon — at least a bachelor's in biomedical/mechanical engineering or computer science plus ~3–5 years in surgical planning software, or a surgeon with equivalent software experience. Familiar with screw–rod instrumentation, PSO/SPO osteotomies, spinopelvic parameters (PI, PT, SS, LL, TK, SVA), and with 2-D/3-D radiographic reconstruction.
• KSR v. Teleflex (2007) rationales I apply explicitly: (A) known elements combined to yield predictable results; (B) simple substitution of one known element for another; (C) known technique improving a similar device in the same way; (D) applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; (E) "obvious to try" with a finite number of identified, predictable solutions; (F) design incentive / market pressure. In re Keller: a reference need not be physically combinable with another in a single apparatus; it need only be combinable with the claimed subject matter (relevant to the software-vs-hardware families below).

2. Reference table (dates verified from the retrieved sources)

Expressly excluded as post-dating the critical date (not prior art): US 10,456,211 B2 (granted Oct 29, 2019); US 10,413,365 B1 (granted 2019); US 2021/0290315 A1 (INS tool-tracker; published 2021); EP 4 193 933 A1; EP 4 108 201; US 2025/0152249 A1; US 2024/0206976; US 10,456,211's 2020-era continuations; Badmus et al., Port Harcourt Med J 14(1) 2020; Peeters PhD thesis 2023; PLOS ONE 2024 (paediatric/lumbar pedicle morphometry); IJSS CT-vs-MRI pedicle measurement (2020). These are useful context for what was "known" but cannot be cited against the '770. (I list them because a common error in § 103 write-ups is to cite these; they are unavailing here.)

3. Family 1 — Rod-planning system ("rotate image portions about reference points → rod diameter & curvature → manufacture/select")

3.1 What must be shown

(a) access medical images; (b) identify reference point(s) along the vertebral segment; (c) rotate image portion(s) around those points to obtain a desired surgical output curvature; (d) determine rod diameter and curvature; (e) output manufacturing/selection instructions (produce, or pick from a pre-existing range).

3.2 Primary combination — R1 + R2 + R3 (with R4/R6 for the "diameter" sub-step)

3.3 Motivation to combine

1. R3 itself supplies the S‑S‑M ("teaching, suggestion, motivation"): it teaches both the pivoting simulation and the step of deriving and producing the rod from that simulation. Nothing in the '770 claim requires a different simulation mechanism than R3's pivot-at-osteotomy.
2. R2 supplies the missing mechanical formalization (where, exactly, is the pivot? → midpoint between vertebral reference frames, bisector direction). R2 and R3 address the same problem (predicting post-osteotomy sagittal geometry) and come from the same French spine-modelling community; KSR rationale (C): a known technique (rotation of a body about a defined axis in a rigid-body pose model) applied to improve a similar device in the same way.
3. R1 supplies the clinical target and the validation habit (planned vs. achieved spinopelvic parameters) — rationale (A)/(F): the design incentive to make the rod reproduce the simulated curve rather than a hand-bent guess is the whole point of computer-assisted planning.
4. Rationale (C)/(D): the '770's own specification frames the invention against the acknowledged difficulty of bending a rod (it states that bending a rod in even one direction with tools during surgery is difficult), which is the classic "known device ready for improvement."

3.4 Anticipation warning — R3 may be a § 102 problem, not a § 103 problem

On the record I have, R3 (the FR 1358988 / PCT‑IB2014‑064586 family) discloses a) taking a pre-operative sagittal x-ray, b) identifying points and drawing curved segments, e) identifying osteotomies, f) pivoting x-ray portions relative to one another according to the osteotomies, g) displacing the sagittal curvature segment, h) producing the rod curvature from a straight rod, i) defining the rod diameter, j) two/three-dimensional rod model, k) cold-bending production, plus transfer of rod data to a producer. That maps with uncomfortable completeness onto the flagship independent claim. Two consequences:

• Priority is the battleground. If the '770 is a continuation claiming benefit of that same family, R3 is not prior art at all. The earlier section recorded the '770's priority as 2017‑04‑21 and anticipated expiration 2038‑04‑20, which is consistent with a separate chain (continuation of an April‑2018 application claiming an April‑2017 provisional), i.e., distinct from the 2013 FR priority family. I could not verify the '770's priority chain in this session. This is the single highest-value thing to verify.
• Even if common ownership exists, § 102(b)(2)(C) would not save the patent: that exception applies only to § 102(a)(2) art. R3 became publicly available (FR application published ~2015; PCT published 2015; US national-stage application published ~2016) more than one year before 2017‑04‑21, so it is § 102(a)(1) art, and the § 102(b)(1)(A) grace-period exception is unavailable because the disclosure was not made "1 year or less" before the effective filing date. The applicant's own earlier publication is therefore fair game. (Corollary: the earlier section's note that later Medicrea continuations "build on" this family is context, but the 2013 family is affirmatively damaging.)

4. Family 2 — Cage planning bounded by ALL/PLL length vs. AC/PC length

Claimed steps: measure/estimate ALL and PLL lengths for the segment; determine anterior curve (AC) and posterior curve (PC) lengths along the vertebral corners; simulate cage implantation by (i) increasing cage posterior height until PC ≈ PLL and (ii) increasing lordosis while keeping AC ≤ ALL; derive anterior/posterior cage heights; output cage manufacture/selection instructions.

Honest gap: I did not locate, in the sources retrieved, a third-party reference that discloses using pre-operative ALL/PLL length as a not-to-exceed mechanical bound on achieved AC/PC length for patient-specific cage sizing. I will not invent one. What I can offer is the obviousness architecture and the specific places to search:

1. The flexion/extension decomposition step is squarely conventional. The '770's own approach — estimate PLL from a flexion film, ALL from an extension film — presumes dynamic radiographs as the metrology for ligament excursion. R1/Aurouer and R3 both operate on dynamic/postural films; the "range of motion of one vertebra against another" concept is standard kinematics. § 103 rationale (A): using dynamic films to bound the achievable correction is a predictable application of known radiographic technique.
2. "Not-to-exceed" correction limits were already a documented design constraint. R1 expressly quantifies the correction gain per SPO level as a function of pre-operative intervertebral angle (< −10° → −5°; [−10°,0] → −10°; ≥ 0 → −15°) and imposes the constraint that simulated parameters "cannot always be reached," i.e., planning is bounded by technical/physiological feasibility. R6 notes the 80 %-of-vertebral-body length convention. So the concept of a hard physiological cap on the correction was known; what the '770 adds is the choice of the ligament as the cap. Under KSR, choosing a specific known anatomical constraint out of a finite set (ligament laxity, disc height, pedicle width, bone density — all recited in the '770's own specification as planning inputs) is the paradigm of an "obvious to try" selection where the solution is predictable.
3. The cage-design art itself (interbody cages with specified anterior height, posterior height and lordotic angle, chosen from a pre-existing range) is unquestionably old and is admitted as background in the specification. Once the cap is fixed, "increase Hpost until PC = PLL; then increase lordosis while AC ≤ ALL" is arithmetic on measured lengths, i.e., rationale (A): combining known elements with predictable results.
4. A strong secondary-efficiency motivation is on the face of the spec: the patent states that patient-specific sizing "reduce[s] related costs by decreasing the necessary inventory … sterilisation costs" and "decrease[s] surgery time." That is the KSR (F) design-incentive/market-pressure rationale, taken from the applicant's own words.
5. Where to search next (I could not complete these queries): pre-2017 interbody cage sizing literature keyed to ligamentotaxis and disc-space distraction limits; Medtronic/Synthes/NuVasive cage-sizing patents (e.g., classification A61F 2/44–2/46 with "anatomic" fitting); and the '770's own file-history references — which, again, I do not have.

Net assessment for Family 2: I can establish motivation and predictability convincingly, but on the retrieved record I cannot yet name the single-reference or two-reference combination that discloses the ALL/PLL-as-cap limitation. That limitation is the most defensible feature in the patent on the present record, not the rod-rotation claim.

5. Family 3 — Disc height/angulation percentage of segment total compared against a statistical population model

Claimed steps: height of each disc in the segment; each disc's height as a % of total segment disc height and/or angulation as a % of total segment angulation; compare against a statistical model to select/design the cage.

Status of the art on my record: weak. What is available supplies the methodology, not the specific metric:

• R1 establishes that normative, population-derived reference values keyed to the patient's morphotype are the standard planning target (tPT = 0.37·PI − 7; tL1S1 = 0.54·PI + 32.56; CAM overhang −2 to +2 cm) and classification into four sagittal morphotypes with an apex at L5/L4/L4/L3 as sacral slope increases.
• R3 codifies the morphotype taxonomy and drives the correction from it.
• Excluded: the PLOS ONE 2024 and Peeters 2023 morphometry studies — both post-date; several retrieved clinical papers that give level-by-level disc/vertebral measurements are 2020+.

Argument available: that one may (i) normalize a patient's segmental measurement by the segment total and (ii) compare the resulting distribution to a population norm is a textbook statistical device, and R1's morphotype/normal-value framework supplies the population-norm step with a stated clinical purpose (choosing the surgical strategy). Motivation: KSR (A)/(F) — the desire to make the number of levels instrumented and the per-level correction "data-driven."

Argument I will not make: I found no reference to a normalized per-disc height/angulation distribution compared to a normative statistical model. This claim family therefore appears the least likely to be invalidated on the retrieved art, and the obviousness case here would have to rest on the general knowledge of the PHOSITA plus a statistical-modelling reference I have not yet identified. Flagging this as an evidence gap, not as a conclusion.

6. Family 4 — Screw planning (projected screw insertion axis; vertebral body width; assumed ratios)

Claimed steps: from the images, for each vertebra, the screw insertion axis projected length on the sagittal plane and vertebral body width; from predetermined anatomical data/literature/surgeon preference, an assumed screw–endplate angulation, an assumed vertebra-axis/pedicle-axis angle on the transverse plane, an assumed screw-length : insertion-axis-length ratio, and an assumed vertebral-body-width : pedicle-width ratio; then generate desired screw lengths.

This is the strongest § 103 family in the patent, because every element is a textbook step already reduced to tabulated practice:

Motivation: (i) R5 and R4 were both built to eliminate intra-operative trial-and-error and fluoroscopy time — the same benefit the '770 recites; (ii) substituting a literature-derived assumed ratio for a direct measurement is rationale (B), a simple substitution of one known element (a normative anatomical value) for another (a patient-specific measurement), with predictable results, and it is expressly motivated by the patent's own inventory/sterilisation/surgery-time arguments; (iii) rationale (F): the "personalised caddie" of a narrowed screw set is a direct efficiency incentive.

Anticipation warning: R5 (Pacheco / AU 2010219346 B2) and R4 (EP 1 631 931 B1) each appear to disclose deriving screw diameter and length per vertebra from imaged anatomy with an endplate reference. Whether they also recite the four assumed/predetermined ratios the '770 claims depends on claim construction (are the "assumed" values a positive limitation, or an admission that the ratios are conventional?). If the latter, the screw claims look anticipated or at minimum obvious over R4/R5 alone or R4 + R6.

7. Family 5 — Intraoperative tracking (active sensors + attachment devices + sagittal-plane axis constraint)

Claimed combination: ≥2 active sensors (accelerometer/gyroscope; IMU 6-DOF or 9-DOF); ≥2 attachment devices (vertebral anchor / screw / mono-axial / poly-axial / surgical tool) each with sensor + power source + wireless transmitter; mounted so that two of three position axes lie on a plane parallel — or at a determinate angle — to the sagittal plane; stream position/orientation of each attached vertebra; compare to the plan and issue guidance/alerts (the earlier section notes thresholds of 1–25 %).

Crucial admission in the specification: the '770's own background characterizes the problem as: intra-operative fluoroscopy/CT "only provide[s] instantaneous vision/assessment of spinal curvatures," and existing live-tracking devices ("typically … optoelectronic passive sensors") "disturb the surgeon's workflow as many additional steps may be required." That is a judicial admission that live spinal-curvature tracking was known and that the invention is an improvement in (a) continuity and (b) workflow footprint. Under KSR, that admission does most of the work: the remaining question is whether the inertial-sensor-on-the-implant implementation was obvious.

Combination: (optically-tracked spinal navigation + IMU/accelerometer sensor principles) + (pedicle screw as the anchor), with the sagittal-axis alignment solved by the sensor/implant interface.

1. Element-level mapping: an "active sensor comprising an accelerometer and/or gyroscope" is the definition of an IMU — a 6-DOF or 9-DOF IMU is an off-the-shelf component (rationale (A)). The "attachment device comprising a sensor, a power source and a wireless transmitter" is the ordinary architecture of any telemetric implant or instrument tracker. R7 (Raab; Cinquin) is cited in Medicrea's own later patents as position-sensing/CAS art, confirming that intra-operative sensing of instrument position was a crowded, well-known field — though I did not retrieve those texts and do not assert their specific disclosures.
2. "Applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement" (KSR (D)): the known device is a pedicle screw (or a screwdriver/nut-driver used to place it) — already described in the same specification as the anchor. The known technique is attaching an IMU to a tracked object. The improvement (continuous, radiation-free angular feedback) is the very benefit the background announces. No reference needs to suggest putting an IMU in a screw if the substitution is a predictable use of the components' known functions.
3. The "two of three axes parallel to the sagittal plane" limitation is the only numerically specific feature here, and it is disclosed as being obtained mechanically, through the sensor/implant interface — i.e., by designing the mounting geometry. KSR (A): a predictable, deterministic design choice, and the specification itself concedes it can be "assumed" — a claim term ("assumed to be parallel") that weakens the limitation as a patentable distinction, since an assumption is not a structural difference from the prior art.
4. Common-reference-frame step: using the gravity vector as the common frame when fusing multiple independent sensor streams is the standard method of dead-reckoning fusion; KSR (E) — an identified, finite set of known options with predictable results.
5. Structural cautions for the patent owner: every dependent hardware variant (mono-axial with one sensor; poly-axial; sensor in a screwdriver shaft/handle; break-off top portion) is expressly recited in Medicrea's own sibling publications — US 2018/0303552 A1 (published Oct 25, 2018) and JP 2020518312 A — which are cumulative of the '770 rather than distinct from it, and which raise a § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership question rather than adding inventive weight.

8. Family 6 — Predictive modelling of post-operative parameters (UIL, LIL, age, PI, PT, LL, TK, SVA; dataset categorised by spinal-surgery domain knowledge; standardisation; model)

Status: not established on my record. The relevant searching step was cut off before I retrieved a result. I will not fabricate a reference.

What is available and how far it reaches:

• R1 already demonstrates empirical prediction of post-operative spinopelvic parameters from pre-operative ones, and even reports concordance statistics (8 of 11 plans) and the regression relationships tPT = 0.37·PI − 7 and tL1S1 = 0.54·PI + 32.56 fitted from normative data. That is a statistical model generated from a dataset of prior subjects, categorised by morphotype (a spinal-surgery domain classification), and used to predict post-operative variables. If the claim's "predictive model" is construed to cover regression models and normative-curve morphotype classification rather than requiring a machine-learning algorithm, R1 alone or R1 + R3 is a serious § 103 combination — rationale (A), plus KSR (F) given the spec's cost/success-rate incentives (it expressly contemplates plans selected on "success rates, over 90 % for example").
• If the claim requires machine learning specifically (the earlier section notes later continuations recite GAN/CNN/RNN and Fourier-domain filtering — those later claims are not in the '770), then R1 is insufficient and I have no retrieved reference. Note that "machine learning applied to a curated clinical dataset to predict an outcome" was, by April 2017, a well-trodden general technique; KSR (C) ("use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way") plus the In re Kollar/KSR line on applying a known technique in a new but analogous field would support an obviousness position — but that argument needs a verified ML-prediction reference in the surgical/outcome domain, which I do not have.

9. Cross-cutting observations that matter to a final § 103 opinion

1. The patent's own specification is its worst enemy. It repeatedly describes the state of the art in a way that supplies the motivation element for nearly every family: manual rod bending is hard; surgeons bend by trial and error; fluoroscopy gives only instantaneous assessment; existing live trackers burden the workflow; patient-specific sizing saves inventory, sterilisation and OR time. Each of these is a KSR (D)/(F) design incentive stated in the applicant's own words.
2. The "output manufacturing or selection instructions" step is not a saving limitation. R3 produces a rod from a model and transfers data to a producer; R5/R4 output tables of ideal screw sizes per vertebra — the "instructions" limitation is a conventional output step.
3. The strongest claims are the ones with the weakest documentation in this analysis: the ALL/PLL cap (Family 2), and the disc-percentage-vs-population-model (Family 3). This is the reverse of the intuitive ordering — the "flagship" rod claim looks the most exposed, chiefly because of the applicant's own 2013 family (R3).
4. Two of the four or five families are pre-emptively disclosed by the applicant's own earlier publications (R3 for the rod method; US 2018/0303552 A1 / JP 2020518312 A for the intraoperative tracking hardware variants), which also creates a double-patenting/juxtaposed-claims vulnerability independent of § 103.
5. § 101, though out of scope, is worth flagging: several independent claims are drafted as functional results ("simulate … to obtain a desired surgical output curvature"; "determine … one or more dimensions") implemented on a generic "one or more hardware computer processors." A Mayo/Alice step-two attack (well-understood, routine, conventional activity; no inventive concept in the ordered combination beyond the abstract planning idea) is a plausible parallel line of attack on the same claims — I mention it because it changes how much weight to place on the § 103 fight.

10. What I could not establish (stated plainly, not fabricated)

1. The Prior Art section the task instructed me to use was not present in my inputs. My reference set is search-derived, and may differ from the references the examiner actually cited or from the art the patent owner would distinguish. The authoritative set must be re-run against the actual page/file history.
2. No verified single- or two-reference combination for the ALL/PLL cage-cap limitation (Family 2) or the disc-percentage statistical-model limitation (Family 3).
3. No verified reference for machine-learning-based outcome prediction (Family 6 element).
4. The '770's priority chain is unverified. Everything about R3's status as § 102(a)(1) art versus same-family non-art turns on this. The 2017‑04‑21 priority and 2038‑04‑20 expiration as listed by Google Patents are consistent with a separate chain from the FR 1358988/PCT‑IB2014‑064586 family, but I could not confirm it.
5. Publication dates for R2 (Steffen) and the effective filing dates for US 10,456,211 and US 2018/0303552 A1 were not verifiable in-session; I therefore treated only the explicitly dated references as § 102(a)(1) art.
6. File history, examiner's rejections, and any § 103 record are unknown to me. No post-grant proceeding or litigation was located (per the earlier Litigation section, which I do not repeat).

Bottom line: on the retrieved art, the rod-planning and screw-planning claim families look, at best, marginally novel — and the rod family is potentially anticipated by the applicant's own 2013 family (R3) once the priority chain is confirmed. The intraoperative-tracking family is vulnerable to a predictable-components combination that the specification's own background essentially invites. The ALL/PLL cage and disc-percentage statistical-model families are the ones I cannot yet invalidate on the present record, and they are where additional searching should be concentrated.