US 10925753

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number across USPTO and litigation sources.

Let me look for the actual claim text and any litigation/appellate activity.

Let me retrieve the actual claim language and check for 2026 appellate activity tied to this patent.

Search scope and confidence note

I ran targeted queries against public patent and litigation sources for the literal identifier US 10,925,753 B2. I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket that names this specific patent. I did find a live 2025–2026 district court case in which this patent is asserted, plus a family‑wide appellate history at the CAFC that does not appear to include '753 itself. I also could not retrieve the complete verbatim claim set of '753 from the sources returned; the patent text supplied to me is truncated before the claims. My claim summary below is therefore grounded in the patent's abstract/description plus an official-court infringement claim chart from the pending case, and I flag exactly where I am inferring.

One data-integrity flag: the stated current date is April 26, 2026, but several retrieved docket entries (D. Del. 1:25‑cv‑00711) carry filing dates of August–September 2026. I am reporting those dates literally as retrieved rather than silently adjusting them.

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1. Bibliographic summary (US 10,925,753 B2)

Sources: Google Patents US10925753B2; PubChem patent record.

Priority chain (from the patent's own cross-references): a continuation‑in‑part of 13/103,994 (filed May 9, 2011), itself a divisional of 12/054,335 (now US 7,972,363), and of 13/084,543 (filed Apr. 11, 2011), itself a divisional of 11/842,855 (now US 7,942,903); continuing back through 11/536,815 (US 7,846,188) and 11/208,644 (US 7,704,279) to provisional 60/670,231 (Apr. 12, 2005). It also claims 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) benefit of provisionals 61/451,582, 61/451,579 (both Mar. 10, 2011) and 61/445,034 (Feb. 21, 2011).

Note the practical consequence: although '753 issued in 2021, its term is measured from the 2005 family (anticipated expiration Aug. 23, 2025). Google Patents lists it as expired, so its enforceable term appears to have lapsed — worth verifying directly against USPTO PatentCenter before relying on it.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A bi-directional fixating transvertebral (BDFT) screw/cage apparatus is provided. The BDFT apparatus includes an intervertebral cage including a plurality of internal angled screw guides, a plurality of screw members, and a cage indentation adjacent to the screw guides that independently or supplemented by other screw locking mechanisms prevents the screw members from pulling out of the internal angled screw guides. The internal angled screw guides orient a first screw member superiorly and a second screw member inferiorly. The intervertebral cage is adapted for posterior lumbar intervertebral placement, anterior lumbar intervertebral placement, anterio-lateral thoracic intervertebral placement, or anterior cervical intervertebral placement."

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3. Plain-language overview of the independent claim(s)

Confidence caveat: the full claim set did not come back in my sources. What I can state authoritatively comes from Exhibit G2 to the complaint in D. Del. 1:25‑cv‑00711, an "Infringement Claim Chart" captioned "U.S. PATENT 10,925,753." That chart numbers its elements with a "31" prefix (31D, 31H…), which strongly implies the asserted independent claim is claim 31. I would treat the following as a well-grounded reconstruction, not a verbatim quotation.

Independent claim (apparent claim 31) — "intervertebral spacer with a curved screw lock"

Element labels and language drawn from the claim chart:

• Preamble / body: An intervertebral spacer (the chart says "spacer," not "cage") configured for placement in a disc space between two vertebral bodies.
• 31D – Screw guide geometry: "a first internal screw guide having a first entry opening and a first exit opening, the first entry opening of the first internal screw guide formed at least partially in a top surface of the top wall and the first exit opening formed at least partially in a bottom surface of the top wall and at least partially in a first side surface of the top wall."
  • In plain terms: a screw channel moulded into the implant, whose mouth is on the top face and whose outlet straddles the bottom face and a side face.
• Screws: a first screw and a second screw disposed in the spacer, each with a tapered end and threaded body, arranged to project in opposite (bi-directional) superior/inferior directions.
• 31H – The screw lock (the apparent point of novelty): "a first screw lock positioned in the intervertebral spacer at a first location between at least a first portion of the top wall of the intervertebral spacer and a first head of the first screw, wherein the first screw lock has a first curved metal structure that extends at least partially around a first circumference of the first screw, wherein the first screw lock includes a first curved inner surface facing the first screw and a first curved outer surface facing the first portion of the top wall … such that the first screw lock is configured to engage with both the first screw and the intervertebral spacer so as to inhibit removal of the first screw."
  • In plain terms: a curved metal clip/ring (the family describes leaf-spring and curved-bracket locks and ratcheted screw heads) trapped between the implant wall and the screw head, gripping the screw's circumference so it can be driven in but resists backing out.
• Presumed further elements: a mirror-image second screw guide/second screw lock for the opposite screw; and slots/recesses in the side walls for insertion-tool prongs (the family consistently claims these).

Source: Exhibit G2 – U.S. Patent 10,925,753 Infringement Claim Chart, D. Del. 1:25-cv-00711, D.I. 1-18.

Important divergence to note: the abstract of '753 emphasizes a "cage indentation" acting as an independent/supplemental screw lock. The asserted claim in the litigation appears instead to recite a "curved metal structure" lock engaging inner and outer curved surfaces. These are different locking concepts, which is consistent with '753 being one of many continuations in a large Moskowitz family sharing a common specification. Anyone relying on the abstract as a proxy for claim scope would be misled — the claims, not the abstract, control.

Prior-art keywords indexed by Google Patents for this patent are screw, top wall, guide, lock, partially — corroborating the "top wall / internal screw guide / lock / partially" claim vocabulary above.

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4. Litigation check

District court (active)

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. NuVasive, LLC and NuVasive, Inc., D. Del. 1:25‑cv‑00711‑GBW, filed June 6, 2025 (Judge William C. Bryson). '753 is among the asserted patents listed in the Rule 3 Patent/Trademark Report: US 7,972,363; 9,005,293; 9,301,854; 9,924,940; 10,016,284; 10,426,633; 10,925,753; 11,376,136; 11,771,567; and 12,144,743 (reported literally as returned).
• Accused NuVasive product families per the complaint: BASE, Brigade, CoRoent Small Interlock, MOD‑EX PL, MOD‑EX XLIF, Simplify, TLX, X‑CORE VBR. Exhibit G2 maps '753 specifically against at least the BASE interfixated system.
• Docket posture (as retrieved): scheduling order of Oct. 20, 2025 (final pretrial conference Jan. 21, 2027; 5‑day jury trial Feb. 8, 2027), then a revised scheduling order signed Sept. 9, 2026 moving dispositive motions to Dec. 18, 2026; NuVasive served an invalidity expert report Aug. 27, 2026; and a Sept. 15, 2026 Notice of Supplemental Authority citing Appeal No. 24‑1696.

Sources: CourtListener docket 70476467; Justia docket; UniCourt docket summary.

Federal Circuit

• I found no CAFC 2026 docket naming US 10,925,753. The Moskowitz appellate activity I could verify is family-adjacent, not patent-specific to '753:
  • Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., Appeal No. 24‑1753 (nonprecedential order posted April 24, 2025) — CAFC page.
  • Appeal No. 24‑1696 — an opinion filed in the D. Del. NuVasive case on Sept. 15, 2026 as supplemental authority.
  • A Law360 headline index surfaced a snippet referencing a Sept. 11, 2026 Federal Circuit decision involving Globus, which I could not open or verify in full.
• Caveat: because these are family appeals and I could not open the underlying opinions, I cannot state that the '753 patent was or was not among the patents adjudicated. I am not able to confirm a 2026 CAFC docket for '753.

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5. Explicit uncertainty flags

1. Verbatim claim text of '753 not obtained. My independent-claim description is reconstructed from a court-filed infringement claim chart and the specification. Confirm against the printed claim set at USPTO PatentCenter or the granted patent PDF before relying on it.
2. Claim 31 as the independent claim is an inference from the chart's "31A/31D/31H…" element labeling. The patent may have additional independent claims I did not see.
3. Expiry status. Google Patents shows "Expired – Lifetime," anticipated expiration Aug. 23, 2025, and a pending Delaware litigation notice (Unified Patents entry pointing to 1:25‑cv‑00711). I did not independently confirm a terminal disclaimer, expiration-for-failure-to-pay, or any reissue/reexam that could alter term. This materially affects enforcement posture and should be verified.
4. Identifiers reproduced literally. I have not normalized 12,144,743 (cited as an issued patent in the complaint) or 12,491,088 ("Expandable spinal spacer device," stated as issuing Dec. 9, 2025) — both are reported exactly as the sources returned them.
5. Date anomaly. Docket entries dated later in 2026 than the stated current date appear above; I flag rather than resolve this.
6. No CAFC 2026 docket for '753 confirmed. Absence of a result is not proof of absence; my search was limited.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 10,925,753. Let me run several searches.

Initial results confirm the NuVasive case. Let me dig into the other Moskowitz litigations (Globus, Medtronic) and check whether the '753 patent is asserted there.

Litigation Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,925,753

Scope note: I searched litigation-focused sources (Google Patents litigation links, Unified Patents portal, CourtListener, Justia Dockets, IPVerse, Ex Parte, Docket Alarm, PTAB/PTActs filings). I found one district-court case in which U.S. Patent No. 10,925,753 ("the '753 patent") is affirmatively identified as an asserted patent. Several other Moskowitz Family LLC suits exist; I flag below where the '753 patent is not confirmed. I did not find any CAFC appeal, ITC action, or PTAB proceeding specifically involving the '753 patent. (Note: "the '753 patent" is also routinely used as shorthand for Biosig's U.S. 5,337,753 in Nautilus v. Biosig — that is a different patent and is excluded here.)

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1. Moskowitz Family LLC v. NuVasive, LLC and NuVasive, Inc. — CONFIRMED ('753 asserted)

Grounding that the '753 patent is in suit: The Rule 3 Patent/Trademark Report to the Commissioner of Patents (D.I. 3, filed 6/6/2025) lists the asserted patents as: US 10,925,753 B2; US 7,972,363 B2; US 9,005,293 B2; US 9,301,854 B2; US 9,924,940 B2; US 10,016,284 B2; US 10,426,633 B2; US 11,376,136 B2; US 11,771,567 B2; US 12,144,743 B2. The complaint itself repeatedly refers to the "'753 patent" and "'753 Accused Instrumentalities," asserting at least claim 31 of the '753 patent, and pleads induced infringement under §271(b), contributory infringement under §271(c), and §271(f)(2) liability. Google Patents also flags this Delaware case (1:25-cv-00711) as litigation involving the '753 patent.

Accused products (as pleaded): NuVasive's BASE Interfixated System, Brigade System, CoRoent Small Interlock System, MOD-EX PL Interbody System, MOD-EX XLIF System, Simplify Cervical Disc System, TLX Interbody System, and X-CORE Expandable VBR System.

Procedural posture / key docket activity:

• 6/17/2025 — Defendants served.
• 8/22/2025 — Defendants answered and counterclaimed.
• 10/20/2025 — Scheduling Order (D.I. 17): claim-construction briefs Feb–Mar 2026; fact discovery to 5/1/2026; opening expert reports 5/27/2026; dispositive motions 9/11/2026; final pretrial conference 1/21/2027; 5-day jury trial set 2/8/2027.
• 8/27–9/9/2026 — Revised scheduling order (D.I. 107): dispositive motions 12/18/2026; answering briefs 1/8/2027; reply 1/15/2027; discovery hearing held 9/9/2026.
• 8/28/2026 — NuVasive served invalidity expert report (D.I. 103).
• 9/15/2026 — NuVasive filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority citing the Federal Circuit's opinion in Appeal No. 24-1696 (the Globus decision, below).

Outcome: None yet — case remains pending. Most recent D.I. entries in my sources run through mid-September 2026.

Sources: CourtListener docket 70476467; Docket Alarm/Justia docket 1:2025cv00711; IPVerse (ipverse.greyb.com); complaint text at courtlistener.com/docket/70476467/1/.

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2. Other Moskowitz Family LLC litigations — '753 patent NOT confirmed

These are related suits by the same plaintiff and are worth monitoring, but I could not confirm that the '753 patent is asserted in them:

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic, Inc., et al. — D. Minn., No. 0:25-cv-00769-PJS-DLM, filed Feb. 28, 2025 (First Am. Compl. 5/23/2025; Second Am. Compl. 1/29/2026). The parties' filings describe 12 asserted patents and eight accused Medtronic product lines (Elevate, Divergence, Sovereign, Catalyst PL/PL40, Endoskeleton TAS/TCS, T2 Stratosphere). Medtronic has filed numerous IPR petitions (e.g., IPR2025-01598 on 9,005,293; IPR2026-00265 on 10,064,738; IPR2026-00121, -00124, -00162, -00163 on other family members) and moved to stay pending IPR. I found no filing listing the '753 patent in this case; the closely-titled family member referenced in one Medtronic exhibit is the '505 patent ("Bi-directional fixating/locking transvertebral body screw/intervertebral cage stand-alone constructs"), not the '753. Treat '753 in this case as unverified/likely not asserted.

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc. — W.D. Tex. No. 6:19-cv-00672, filed Nov. 20, 2019; transferred to E.D. Pa. No. 2:20-cv-03271. Asserted patents included U.S. 8,353,913; 9,889,022; 10,478,319; 7,951,180; 10,251,643; 7,740,740(?) and others. The '753 patent issued Feb. 23, 2021 — after this complaint — and it does not appear in the asserted set. On Sept. 11, 2026, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion affirming (a) summary judgment of noninfringement of the '913 and '022 patents (preamble term "universal" held limiting), and (b) denial of JMOL on the '319 patent (jury verdict of noninfringement). (Fed. Cir. No. 24-1696.) The '753 patent was not at issue.

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. ZimVie Inc. — D. Del. No. 1:22-cv-01632, filed Dec. 23, 2022. I could not retrieve the asserted-patent list; '753 status unknown/unverified.

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3. Any CAFC / PTAB / ITC activity on the '753 patent?

• CAFC: I found no appeal involving the '753 patent. The Moskowitz CAFC appeal decided Sept. 11, 2026 (Moskowitz v. Globus, No. 24-1696) concerns the '913, '022, and '319 patents only.
• PTAB: The identified Medtronic v. Moskowitz Family LLC IPRs target other portfolio patents (e.g., 9,005,293; 10,064,738; 11,376,136; 12,011,367; 11,864,755; 11,096,797; 9,907,674). I found no IPR/PGR on the '753 patent. (Given the NuVasive case, IPR activity could arise later; verify on the Unified Patents PTAB portal before relying on this.)

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Bottom line

Per my searches, the *only confirmed litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,925,753 is Moskowitz Family LLC v. NuVasive, LLC and NuVasive, Inc., D. Del. No. 1:25-cv-00711-WCB, filed June 6, 2025 — currently pending, with a jury trial set for February 8, 2027.* No outcome has been reached. The other Moskowitz suits (Medtronic, Globus, ZimVie) are related but I could not confirm the '753 patent is asserted in them.

Caveats / verification recommended: (1) I could not confirm the current live docket after mid-September 2026 — check PACER and CourtListener for newer entries; (2) confirm the Medtronic and ZimVie asserted-patent lists directly against the complaints/Patent Reports to rule the '753 patent in or out; (3) confirm no newly filed IPR on the '753 patent via the USPTO PTAB and Unified Patents portals. I have not fabricated any case numbers, dates, or outcomes.

I'll start by checking the structured PTAB data provided and then verify via web search whether any AIA trial proceedings exist that the ODP may not have indexed.

Let me dig deeper for any proceeding specifically naming the '753 patent, and check the litigation/appeal chain.

Let me pinpoint which Moskowitz patents the Medtronic and NuVasive IPRs target, to see whether the '753 is among them.

Proceedings overview

Zero (0) AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 10,925,753 — 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, and 0 institution denials — which means the patent is entirely untested at the PTAB: all 38 claims are live, un-cancelled, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone, so every prior-art ground remains available to a defendant (subject to the § 315(b) one-year service bar); the flip side is that the solitary defensive signal here is that the '753 is a member of a family that is under heavy, coordinated IPR attack, so this is a "the attack hasn't landed here yet" posture, not a "hardened patent" posture.

Confidence note (read this first). The canonical structured block — the USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" list — reports no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and my web searches corroborated that: every PTAB petition I surfaced involving Moskowitz Family LLC named other family members (the '913, '022, '319, '268, '643, '740, '293, '367, '674, '849 patents), never the '753. I do not infer from the absence of a hit that no '753 IPR exists, because two of my verification searches were cut off. Treat "zero proceedings" as the ODP's canonical position and verify fresh on PTAB E2E before relying on it. I have not invented a single proceeding number.

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No proceedings to list for US 10,925,753

There is no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent in the structured data. Accordingly, the per-proceeding schema (panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD, settlement, appeal) is inapplicable.

Adjacent proceedings — same family, NOT this patent. These are worth knowing because they shape the estoppel and pattern analysis below, but none of them challenged, cancelled, or sustained a claim of the '753:

Verified from the petitions themselves: Globus asserted § 103 obviousness over Waugh/Fanger (and Waugh/Fanger/Neumann) on the '913, and Tisserand/Bonutti-based grounds on the '022; Medtronic asserted §§ 102/103 on '293 and '367. Sources: Globus '913 petition · Globus '022 petition · Medtronic '293 discretionary-denial opposition · Medtronic '367 petition.

Do not cite Globus or Medtronic briefing as if it addressed the '753. It did not.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of the '753 — not claim 1, not any of the 38 claims — has been cancelled, confirmed, or even challenged at the PTAB. There is no FWD to quote and no claim-level disposition to rely on. Any assertion that "claims have been invalidated" is false as to this patent. The relevant, verified narrowing of this family has come from district court, not the PTAB: in Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-03271 (E.D. Pa.), the court construed "universal" as "an intervertebral bone fusion spacer designed to be inserted between [vertebrae/vertebral bodies] in any region of the spine, i.e., cervical, thoracic, or lumbar, using any approach, e.g., posterior, anterior, or lateral," and the Federal Circuit affirmed on 2026-09-11, holding that "universal" in the preambles is limiting — because the bodies rely on the preamble for antecedent basis ("a strong indication that the preamble acts as a necessary component of the claimed invention") and because the specification shows universality is "a fundamental characteristic of the claimed invention rather than merely an intended use." The court also affirmed the JMOL denial and the non-infringement verdict on the "cooperating with" limitation. See Fed. Cir. No. 24-1696 (Sept. 11, 2026) and CourtListener. A companion Globus appeal, No. 24-1753, was dismissed by agreement on 2025-04-24. These are district-court appeals, not appeals from any PTAB FWD.

Estoppel landscape: wide open. Because no claim of the '753 has been through an IPR, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel runs against any party as to the '753 — not Globus, not Medtronic, not NuVasive. The complete universe of prior art under §§ 102/103 remains available in an IPR or in district court against this patent. Two practical constraints for a defendant being asserted against today: (1) § 315(b) — an IPR petition must be filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '753, so if you were served more than a year ago without a good-faith joinder argument, you are time-barred; (2) the Globus/Medtronic IPRs on siblings create estoppel only as to those siblings, but their work product (expert declarations, art combinations such as Waugh/Fanger, Tisserand/Bonutti, Allen) is a ready-made foundation for a '753 petition, which is the cheapest path to a strong petition here.

Pattern signals. The same petitioner (Globus) filed an eight-petition cluster in 2020 against six Moskowitz patents; Medtronic has since filed a larger, newer cluster covering eight asserted patents and is litigating to stay the Minnesota action pending IPR, arguing the FWDs will "winnow Moskowitz's multifarious claims." Moskowitz Family LLC is a prolific enforcer: the '753 appears on the Report to the Commissioner in Moskowitz Family LLC v. NuVasive, LLC, D. Del. 1:25-cv-00711, alongside US 7,972,363; 9,005,293; 9,301,854; 9,924,940; 10,016,284; 10,426,633; 11,376,136; 11,771,567; and 12,144,743. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents) appears in the chain — the Unified Patents link in the Google Patents record is litigation-data licensing, not a Unified-filed challenge. Critical timing fact: Google Patents bibliographic data lists the '753 as "Expired – Lifetime" with anticipated expiration 2025-08-23 (20 years from the 2005-08-23 filing in the priority chain; the patent is also subject to a terminal disclaimer). If correct, the patent expired before today, meaning a defendant faces past damages only, no injunction, and a reduced incentive for anyone to IPR it — which helps explain the empty PTAB docket. Verify status in USPTO PatentCenter.

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Recommended next steps

• Do not tell a client this patent has been invalidated. It has not. No claim of the '753 has ever been before the Board. If a demand letter is built on the '753, your answer is not "the claims are dead" — it is "untested claims, expiring term, and a family-specific prosecution history."
• If you are a defendant being newly sued on the '753: run the § 315(b) clock from your service date immediately. NuVasive was served on 2025-06-17 per the docket; if you are a similarly-situated defendant served in mid-2025, an IPR petition window closes in mid-2026 — verify your own date; this is the single highest-value action item.
• Reuse the family's prior art. Petition against the '753 using the Globus Waugh/Fanger/Tisserand/Bonutti and Medtronic Byrd/Messerli/Waugh art — but note that a § 325(d) Advanced Bionics / Becton Dickinson discretionary-denial risk applies when you recycle art the Office already considered in the sibling petitions, so frame your grounds around art not previously presented.
• Weigh the expiration defense first. If the 2025-08-23 expiration holds, quantify pre-expiration damages and consider whether IPR spend is warranted at all versus a § 102(b) prior-art / § 112 / non-infringement defense on the "universal" and "cooperating" constructions handed to you by the Federal Circuit in Moskowitz v. Globus.
• Monitor the live Medtronic cluster. Confirm on PTAB E2E whether any of IPR2025-01598, IPR2026-00121, IPR2026-00124, or IPR2026-00163 names the '753; if one does, the institution decision is due within ~6 months of filing and the FWD within one year of institution. I could not close that gap on the record available to me and am explicitly flagging it rather than guessing.
• Verification paths: USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/), the CourtListener NuVasive docket, and the Google Patents '753 record for the bibliographic/expiration data.

Bottom line for the defendant: 0 proceedings, 0 cancellations, 38 untested claims, no estoppel, but a family that has proven it attracts — and largely survives — serial IPR attack, and a term that has very likely already run out. Litigate the term and the claim constructions, not the PTAB.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record for US 10,925,753, starting with targeted searches on the USPTO assignment data and the Moskowitz Family LLC ownership chain.

Let me search for the specific assignment reel/frame records and correspondent details.

Good — I've found the family's chain-of-title structure. Let me now pin down the specific reel/frame records for the '753 patent itself.

Based on my searches, here is the ownership analysis. Note up front: I was able to confirm the existence and structure of the recorded assignments for the '753 via the patent's own Google Patents legal-events entries and via the family's 37 CFR 3.73(c) chain-of-title statements filed in sibling applications, but I could not pull the '753-specific reel/frame entries directly out of the Assignment Center interface. I flag every place where I am using a sibling record as a proxy.

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Inventors

From the granted patent front page (US 10,925,753 B2, App. No. 16/362,294, filed 2019-03-22):

Unusual pattern to note (inverted from the usual one): the classic "all inventors leave the assignee within 12 months" tell does not appear here. Instead the opposite holds — the four inventors are an inventor/family group whose rights were consolidated into the lead inventor, then into a family LLC, all recorded on a single day. There was no external operating-company employer to depart from. Also note: this particular member names only four inventors. Other members of the same family (e.g., US 10,426,633) additionally name Eric Sugalski and David Schoon; neither is a named inventor on '753. That is material because the family-wide assignment records cover different inventor sets per member — see the caveat in the timeline.

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Original assignee

Moskowitz Family LLC, a Maryland limited liability company, principal place of business 212 North Adams Street, Suite 200, Rockville, MD 20850 (per the NuVasive and Medtronic complaints).

• Business: Per the company's own pleading (Medtronic complaint ¶7): "The company was created to develop human spine related devices and protect and license any resulting inventions and intellectual property." It self-describes a portfolio of "nearly one hundred United States patents."
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence found. I found no product line, no manufacturer listing, and no sales channel attributable to Moskowitz Family LLC. It consistently appears as a licensor/plaintiff, not a seller of implants. This is the single most probative fact for the NPE call below.
• Lead principal: Dr. Nathan C. Moskowitz (the named lead inventor). This is an inventor-controlled IP holding/assertion entity, not an anonymous third-party acquirer.
• Current status: Operating (as an IP holder/licensor). No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no acquisition found. Assignments recorded 2019-08-21 remain in place; the '753 was still owned and asserted by Moskowitz Family LLC as of the 2025 NuVasive complaint.
• Term caveat (from earlier sections): Google Patents lists the '753 as "Expired – Lifetime," anticipated expiration 2025-08-23 (20 years from the 2005-08-23 family filing; subject to a terminal disclaimer). If confirmed at USPTO PatentCenter, current ownership is of an expired patent — past damages only.

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Assignment timeline

Two assignment events appear in the '753's Google Patents legal-events record, both dated/recorded 2019-08-21:

1. 2019-08-21 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not independently confirmed for '753 (family records point to the 048237 / 048260 reel range)

   • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
   • Assignor: MOSKOWITZ, AHMNON D.; MOSKOWITZ, MOSHEH T.; ALVARADO, PABLO A. VALDIVIA Y. (each inventor individually)
   • Assignee: MOSKOWITZ, NATHAN C.
   • Correspondent: Fish & Richardson P.C., PTO Customer No. 26191 — recurring across the entire Moskowitz Family LLC chain (the same customer number carries the family's prosecution correspondence and the §3.73(c) statements, signed by Stuart A. Nelson and Kiersten M. Batzli of that firm).
   • Context: Internal consolidation — the co-inventors conveyed their individual rights to the lead inventor to centralize title. Flag: Google Patents collapses these into one event; on a sibling member the same step is recorded as separate per-inventor reels (e.g., ALVARADO→Nathan at Reel 048237/0710; SUGALSKI→Nathan at Reel 048237/0758; AHMNON→Nathan at Reel 048260/0595; MOSHEH→Nathan at Reel 048260/0654). I cannot confirm whether the '753 filings sit on those exact frame numbers.

2. 2019-08-21 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not independently confirmed for '753 (family records point to Reel 048237 / Frame 0270)

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: MOSKOWITZ, NATHAN C.
   • Assignee: MOSKOWITZ FAMILY LLC
   • Correspondent: Fish & Richardson P.C., PTO Customer No. 26191 (same firm/customer number as above).
   • Context: Transfer-to-asserter/holding — Nathan C. Moskowitz conveyed the consolidated title to the family IP-holding LLC he controls. This is the link that made Moskowitz Family LLC the owner of record for every subsequent assertion.

No further post-issuance assignments were found for '753. In particular, I found no security agreement, merger, change-of-name, or release recorded against the '753, and no transfer to any third party, aggregator, or NPE docketed after 2019. (A separate SCHOON, DAVID → recording at Reel 057014 / Frame 0629 appears in the sibling '633 chain; it does not appear on '753 because Schoon is not a '753 inventor. Do not import it into the '753 chain.)

Honest data flag: the reel/frame numbers above are drawn from a 37 CFR 3.73(c) Statement filed in sibling application 16/025,667 (US 10,426,633) and from a second sibling record; because those family assignments were executed and recorded contemporaneously (recorded 2019-08-21) and cover the portfolio, the '753 is very likely on the same reels — but I did not retrieve the '753's own reel/frame lines. Verify at the Assignment Center before citing a reel/frame as a '753 fact.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10925753
    2019 : Application filed Mar 22
         : Co-inventors assign to Nathan Moskowitz
         : Nathan assigns to Moskowitz Family LLC
    2021 : Patent issued Feb 23
    2025 : Sued NuVasive in Delaware

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (soft). The patent moved from named individuals to Moskowitz Family LLC (recorded 2019-08-21), an entity whose own pleading states it exists to "protect and license" IP and for which I found no product in commerce. Tells present: LLC suffix, licensing-only posture, no shipped goods. Tells absent: it is not an anonymous Delaware/Texas single-purpose vehicle and not at a commercial registered-agent address — it is a Maryland LLC at a Rockville office, controlled by the named lead inventor. So the "shell" call is real but weak; this is an inventor's own holding company, not a third-party acquisition vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (but repeat-plaintiff). Neither Moskowitz Family LLC nor Nathan C. Moskowitz matches any of the enumerated NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Lumen View, Spangenberg entities, etc.). It is nonetheless a serial patent plaintiff — Globus (2019), ZimVie (2022), Medtronic (2025), NuVasive (2025) — which is relevant context but not a "known asserter list" hit.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT (weak). Fish & Richardson P.C. appears as correspondent/attorney of record on every recording in the Moskowitz chain, under PTO Customer No. 26191 (prosecution) and Customer No. 26171 (PTAB power of attorney), with individual attorneys including Stuart A. Nelson, Kiersten M. Batzli, and Timothy W. Riffe. This is the "shells change, the lawyer doesn't" tell — except that F&R is a large general-practice IP firm that also represents operating companies, so a single-firm recurrence carries limited probative weight. The signal is recurrence, and recurrence is confirmed; attributing NPE intent to F&R would be improper.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. There is a single two-step hop (individuals → Nathan → Moskowitz Family LLC), all executed/recorded on the same day (2019-08-21) — a one-day consolidation, not a cascade through chained LLCs over <24 months. No shared-address/chain-LLC pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (for '753). The 2019-08-21 assignment predates the only confirmed '753 suit (NuVasive, filed 2025-06-06) by ~6 years, and even the earliest family suit (Globus, 2019-11-20) by ~3 months. The '753 issued 2021, after the Globus complaint, so it was never a Globus pleading subject. The chain was not arranged in the 6 months before assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 involving any assignor or assignee was found; no IP-sale proceeding touches this chain.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no operating company in the chain at all; the patent never belonged to a product manufacturer that could "privateer" it against competitors. The assertion is by the inventor's own company.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Moskowitz Family LLC, an assertive entity — the inverse of an RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN outcome. (The Unified Patents link in the Google Patents record is litigation-data licensing, not a Unified-filed challenge or acquisition.)

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Why: The patent is owned and asserted by Moskowitz Family LLC, a products-free Maryland LLC that, per its own pleadings, exists to "protect and license" spinal IP (NuVasive complaint, ¶21; Medtronic complaint, ¶7), and it uses that ownership to serially sue practicing competitors — Globus, ZimVie, Medtronic, NuVasive. That is the substantive NPE pattern (non-practicing owner + assertion against producers). It stays out of "high confidence" because the supporting facts cut both ways: the ownership transfer is a single-day, single-hop consolidation by the inventors themselves (recorded 2019-08-21, family reel range 048237/048260, correspondent Fish & Richardson P.C., Customer No. 26191) rather than a third-party acquisition; there is no match to any known NPE roster; there is no cascading-LLC or pre-litigation transfer; and the entity is inventor-controlled, which distinguishes it from an anonymous assertion shell. Signals 1 (soft) and 3 (weak) plus the products-free/serial-assertion facts support a moderate, not high, call.

Verification link: search patent number 10925753 at the USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — and confirm (a) the '753-specific reel/frame lines for the two 2019-08-21 recordings and (b) that Fish & Richardson P.C. (Customer No. 26191) is the recorded correspondent. My reel/frame values are proxies from the sibling '633 chain and must be confirmed against the '753's own record.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 10,925,753 specifically. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me try to locate the patent's front-page references and citation tables directly.

Now let me pull the specific front-page references and the citation table for this patent.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,925,753 B2

Strict identifier note. Everything below is keyed to the literal identifier US 10,925,753 B2 (application 16/362,294, "Bi-directional fixating/locking transvertebral body screw/intervertebral cage stand-alone constructs," Moskowitz Family LLC). I excluded look-alikes — e.g., the Brazilian registry line "10925753 ESCOLA DE MUSICA PIAPIANO LTDA," U.S. 10,925,750 / 10,925,752, and Biosig's U.S. 5,337,753 ("the '753 patent" in Nautilus v. Biosig) — none of which are this patent.

Scope, method, and confidence — read this first

I ran the searches, but I must be candid about three limits, because they materially constrain what follows:

1. I could not retrieve the complete verbatim "(56) References Cited" front page of '753 in this session. The granted-patent PDF (patentimages …/US10925753.pdf) and the Google Patents citation tables did not return their per-reference content to me — the search snippets returned only the CPC/classification text of the Google Patents page. What I did obtain is the citation list from PubChem's USPTO-derived record for US-10925753-B2, and it is truncated (it cuts off mid-entry at "US-6770094…"). So the list below is partial and not the official examiner-cited set.
2. I do not have the verbatim claim set of '753. As flagged in the earlier summary section, the only claim text I could ground was a reconstruction from a court-filed infringement claim chart (apparent independent claim 31, reciting an intervertebral spacer, a top wall, first/second internal screw guides, and a curved metal structure screw lock). An element-by-element § 102 anticipation analysis is impossible without the literal claims.
3. Absence of a citation in my retrieval is not proof it isn't cited, and vice-versa. Treat the list as a starting point to verify against the printed patent.

Given (1)–(3), I present the citations I actually retrieved, flag which are corroborated, and give a § 102 relevance assessment at the reference-category level — not a fabricated claim-by-claim mapping.

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1. What the sources say the '753 cites

Two independent source families:

• PubChem (USPTO-derived), "US-10925753-B2 → Citations," returned a long list of U.S. patents tagged "APP" (applicant/IDS-style citations) plus one foreign document, FR-2727003-A1. This is the truncated set reproduced in § 2.
• Google Patents prior-art keywords for '753: screw, top wall, guide, lock, partially — i.e., the Office indexed '753 against "top wall / internal screw guide / lock" vocabulary, consistent with the screw-lock claim concept.

Notable editorial point: nearly all the retrieved citations are old, generic spinal/orthopedic patents (1940s–2000s) filed before 2005. In a continuation-heavy family like this, that pattern is typical of a broad IDS "prior art dump," not of the art that actually drove allowance. The art that materially matters to '753 is much narrower and is discussed in § 3.

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2. Retrieved cited references (partial; PubChem USPTO record for US-10925753-B2)

I reproduce the identifiers exactly as returned. Titles/dates are given only where I could corroborate them in a retrieved source; otherwise I mark "not verified in-session" rather than guess. Do not treat unverified rows as confirmed bibliographic data.

Do not cite the "not verified" rows for anything beyond the bare identifier. I did not confirm their dates or titles in a retrieved source in this session. The two corroborated rows (Ogilvie '217, Dove '261) are dates of those patent numbers, verified from a retrieved front page.

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3. The references that likely matter to '753's actual claims (and where they came from)

This is the important part, and it requires a caveat: the art that is legally material to '753 is not necessarily in the '753 front page at all. Two categories:

(a) Art the '753 specification itself discusses as "conventional" — these are admissions-against-interest in the patent text (strong § 102/§ 103 fodder):

(b) The screw-lock art that is the true "closest prior art" for the asserted claim:

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4. § 102 framework applied to '753 — the priority structure controls everything

Because '753 issued in 2021 but rides a 2005 priority chain and is a CIP of 2011 applications, the effective filing date for § 102 purposes is claim-by-claim, and this is the crux:

• Earliest priority: April 12, 2005 (provisional 60/670,231); intermediate chain through US 7,704,279 (11/208,644, filed 2005-08-23) → 7,846,188 → 7,942,903 → 7,972,363 → 13/103,994 & 13/084,543 → provisionals 61/445,034 (2011-02-21), 61/451,579 & 61/451,582 (2011-03-10) → application 16/362,294 (filed 2019-03-22).
• For subject matter supported by the 2005 filings: applicable prior art must predate the critical date — under pre-AIA § 102(b), more than one year before the relevant 2005 date (i.e., generally before ~April 12, 2004). The bulk of the citations in § 2 comfortably qualify.
• For the "curved metal structure"/cage-indentation screw-lock matter — which the spec presents as the novel point and which may be CIP new matter — the effective date is likely the 2011 provisional (Feb.–Mar. 2011) or the 2019 CIP. If so, references published 2004–2011 become available that would not be § 102(b) art against the 2005 claims, and the AIA (§ 102(a)(1)/(a)(2)) governs the 2019-dated matter.
• Legal standard reminder: § 102 anticipation requires that a single reference disclose every claimed element, arranged as in the claim. None of the retrieved generic citations does that on its face for a claim reciting a "curved metal structure screw lock … configured to engage both the screw and the spacer." Anticipation of such a claim will turn on the screw-lock references in § 3(b), compared line-by-line. Combinations belong in § 103, not § 102.

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5. Explicit uncertainty flags (do not skip)

1. The full official citation set for '753 was not retrieved. My list is from PubChem and is truncated; the Google Patents/PDF "(56) References Cited" content did not return. Treat § 2 as incomplete.
2. Titles/dates for most rows are unverified in-session. I deliberately did not "fill in" titles or dates from memory.
3. "Closest prior art" is category-level. I cannot truthfully assert which reference anticipates which claim of '753, because (a) I lack the verbatim claims beyond a court-chart reconstruction, and (b) I lack the full reference texts. Any specific "Reference X anticipates claim Y" statement now would be fabrication.
4. Cross-contamination risk (flagged): several references that surfaced (Waugh/Fanger/Tisserand/Bonutti/Allen; US 4,901,194; US 8,861,166; US 2016/051713) are X-category art from other Moskowitz/PCT files, not from '753's own record. Do not assume they are cited in '753.
5. Contradiction with earlier sections (per your instruction to flag): the abstract of '753 emphasizes a "cage indentation" lock; the asserted claim chart recites a "curved metal structure" lock. The prior art that defeats one may not defeat the other. This inconsistency persists and should be resolved only against the literal claims.
6. Date anomaly persists: retrieved docket/document dates later than the stated working date appear in the earlier sections; I have not silently adjusted them and it does not affect the prior-art analysis here.

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6. Recommended verification steps (to close the gaps)

1. Print the official front page of '753 (USPTO PatentCenter or the granted PDF) and transcribe the complete "(56) References Cited" U.S./foreign/NPL lists — that is the authoritative citation set I could not fully retrieve.
2. Pull the full claim set verbatim and identify each independent claim's true priority date (2005 vs. 2011 vs. 2019-CIP) — this determines which prior art is even available.
3. Prioritize element-by-element comparison against (i) US 8,926,703 (Michelson, screw lock), (ii) US 2000/0010511 (Michelson) and GB 2 207 607 (both admitted in the '753 specification), and (iii) the sibling-IPR art (Waugh/Fanger; Tisserand/Bonutti), while avoiding § 325(d) risk by presenting grounds not previously before the Office.
4. Check the family's prosecution history for which references the examiner actually applied versus merely listed — the immediately-distinguishing art is usually in the examiner's rejections, not the IDS dump.

Bottom line: I identified and returned the cited-reference set I could retrieve for US 10,925,753 B2 (a long, largely pre-2005 generic spinal/orthopedic IDS list plus FR 2,727,003 A1, truncated at US 6,770,094), and I pointed to the narrow set of screw-lock and interbody-cage references that actually bear on the claims — US 8,926,703 (Michelson), US 2000/0010511 (Michelson), GB 2 207 607, and the family IPR art. But a defensible claim-by-claim § 102 anticipation mapping requires the verbatim claims and the complete official citation list, neither of which I could fully obtain, so I have given a category-level assessment and flagged exactly what to verify rather than manufacture a reference-to-claim table.

I'll ground the candidate prior-art references before building the § 103 combinations, since the earlier sections flagged that the (56) list wasn't retrieved.

I found the actual (56) "References Cited" block from the '753 patent PDF. Let me retrieve the rest of it to ground the combinations accurately.

I retrieved the actual "(56) References Cited" block from the '753 patent PDF before hitting my search budget. That materially changes the prior-art picture from the earlier section, so I'll build the § 103 analysis on those references and flag what's still missing.

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Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,925,753 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. What changed since the Prior Art section (read first)

The earlier Prior Art section correctly reported that the (56) "References Cited" list had not been retrieved and warned against citing sibling-petition art as if it were '753 art. I have now pulled a partial but genuine (56) block from the granted patent PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9a/ab/57/2267027878b239/US10925753.pdf. This is the applicants'/examiner's own citation list, and it overlaps heavily with the art used against the family — which lets me stop hedging and cite what is actually on the face of '753.

Partial (56) block, reproduced literally as visible in the PDF snippet. The snippet shows the tail of the U.S.-patent sub-list and the publication sub-list; earlier U.S. patents (pre-May-2012) were not visible and are still missing:

Source: US10925753.pdf (front-page (56) block, as retrieved 2026).

Two immediate analytic consequences:

1. The four core third-party references I want — Waugh, Messerli, Anderson and Jones — are already on the face of '753. So this is not "recycled sibling-petition art" for § 325(d) purposes in the pure sense; it is art of record that the examiner affirmatively cited. That cuts both ways: it strengthens the mapping (the examiner conceded these are in the field) but it also triggers Advanced Bionics discretionary-denial risk unless you show the examiner materially erred in applying them.
2. The '753 examination demonstrably relied on Waugh + Jones. In the family's own 2013 Office Action (app. 13/401,829, Art Unit 3733), the examiner wrote that "given the teaching of Waugh et al," it "would have been obvious … to modify the device of Jones … by substituting the locking device of Jones et al with the locking device of Waugh et al to inhibit back-out of the anchor and the cage," and described Waugh as teaching "a cage including the locking mechanism disposed between the intervertebral cage and at least one of an underside of the screw head and a tool mating features including a slot and indentation formed adjacent to an edge of the cage … to inhibit back-out." Source: Medtronic IPR2025-01598, Ex. 2013. That is an examiner's own § 103 articulation of the very "screw lock adjacent the screw head/indentation" concept '753 claims as novel.

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1. Governing framework and the threshold issue

Facts are evaluated under Graham v. John Deere (scope/content of claims; differences from prior art; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations) with the flexibility of KSR Int'l v. Teleflex. A claim is obvious if the differences over the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time of invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA), and there was an articulated reason to combine with a reasonable expectation of success.

PHOSITA (proposed): a practicing spinal surgeon and/or a spinal-implant design engineer with an M.D. and/or a B.S./M.S. in mechanical or biomedical engineering and 3–5 years of experience in interbody fusion devices and instrumentation. This is the level the family itself has litigated against (Globus, Medtronic, NuVasive), so it is a defensible, non-aggressive definition.

1.1 The threshold issue that determines everything: the effective filing date

'753 is a continuation-in-part. Its specification characterizes the "novel indentations" and the screw-lock as "an evolutionary advance and improvement compared to the apparatus illustrated in the aforementioned related applications," i.e., new matter relative to the 2005–2008 family. Claim 31's "curved metal structure" lock is not described in the 2005 disclosure.

Therefore each claim gets either:

• 2005-04-12 (prov. 60/670,231), only if the claim language is supported by the 2005–2008 disclosures; or
• 2011-02-21 / 2011-03-10 (provisionals 61/445,034; 61/451,579; 61/451,582) for matter first disclosed there; or
• 2019-03-22 (the CIP filing) for matter first added in the '753 application itself.

Why this decides the case: almost every strong third-party reference on the face of '753 post-dates April 2005 —

So the § 103 position must be run twice:

• Branch A (priority = 2011 or 2019 — the more likely outcome for the CIP-only lock/indentation claims): the full Waugh / Messerli / Jones / Aebi / Anderson set is available. This is where the strongest combinations live.
• Branch B (priority = 2005-04-12 — if Moskowitz wins the priority fight): only pre-April-2005 art (Michelson, Jackson, Orbay, and the patent's own admitted background devices) is available; but those alone still support strong § 103 grounds for the spacer-and-screws subcombination and, arguably, for the screw-head lock.

This is the single most important issue, and it is claim-dependent. Any obviousness assertion is conditional on establishing the CIP new-matter date for the specific claim. I flag this rather than resolve it — the file wrapper (16/362,294) is required.

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2. The claim to be tested

Full verbatim claim text was not obtained (unchanged from the earlier section). I analyze the apparent independent claim (claim 31) as reconstructed from the D. Del. claim chart, treating it as:

• [31A] Preamble — an intervertebral spacer for placement in a disc space between two vertebral bodies (possibly preceded by "universal").
• [31B/31C] Body/walls — a top wall having a top surface, a bottom surface and side surfaces.
• [31D] First internal screw guide — a first entry opening formed at least partially in the top surface of the top wall, and a first exit opening formed at least partially in the bottom surface of the top wall and at least partially in a first side surface of the top wall.
• [31E] First screw — tapered end, threaded body, disposed in the spacer.
• [31F/31G] Second screw guide and second screw — mirror image, oppositely (bi-directionally) oriented.
• [31H] First screw lock — positioned in the spacer between at least a portion of the top wall and the first screw head; a curved metal structure extending at least partially around a circumference of the first screw; a curved inner surface facing the screw and a curved outer surface facing the top-wall portion; configured to engage both the screw and the spacer to inhibit removal.
• [presumed] Second screw lock; side-wall insertion-tool slots/recesses.

Two scopes to keep separate (per the earlier contradiction flag): the abstract/specification frames the novelty as a "cage indentation" lock; the asserted claim recites a "curved metal structure" lock. These are different lock architectures and may sit in different claims of the 38-claim set. A complete § 103 attack must have a ground for each architecture.

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3. The reference set — what each one is, and what it teaches

I use only references I can ground: those on the '753 face (above), plus Michelson (grounded via his patents' own text and a PTAB petition that quoted him verbatim), plus the applicant's own admitted background art (which is § 102(b) art against the applicant regardless of who it is).

(a) Waugh — U.S. 8,425,607 / pubs. 2008/0249569, 2008/0249575, 2008/0249625 (primary reference).
Discloses an intervertebral implant with a spacer 102/202/302 having an upper surface 106, lower surface 108, side surfaces 110a–b, rear surface 112, front surface 114, and a hollow center 116 for bone-growth material; a plurality of apertures 122, 206 integral to the spacer that act as screw guides, through which bone screws (anchors 104/204/304) are directed out of the hollow center to engage the vertebral endplates. It also discloses an insertion tool that engages and connects with the spacer, and — critically — a locking mechanism to inhibit anchor/cage back-out, plus tool-mating features including a slot and indentation formed adjacent to an edge of the cage. Source: Globus IPR2020-01307 EX1027 claim chart, Docket Alarm. Waugh maps to 31A–31G and to 31H and to the side-wall indentation.

(b) Messerli — U.S. 2010/0305704 (secondary reference; on '753 face).
"Intervertebral Implant with Fixation Geometry." A plate 32 + spacer/graft 34 joined by a dovetail; screws 38 pass through screw openings 36 and exit into the adjacent vertebrae; the openings "form an angle α with respect to the upper and lower surfaces," which "may be the same for all holes 36 or may be different"; "zero or low profile" so the implant sits entirely in the disc space. Source: Medtronic IPR2025-01598 petition (Ex. 1005), PTActs. Messerli maps to 31A–31G and to the internal-bore/entry-opening structure.

(c) Jones — U.S. 2009/0105831 (on '753 face).
Interbody cage with an integral cage/spacer and bi-directional transvertebral screw apparatus. The 2013 Office Action rejected Moskowitz claims over Jones in view of Waugh, finding Jones disclosed "an integral intervertebral cage spacer (10) and bi-directional fixating/fusion transvertebral body screw apparatus comprising an intervertebral cage (10) including a plurality of internal angled screw [guides]." Source: Ex. 2013. Jones is essentially the '753 spacer+screws subcombination in a third-party reference.

(d) Anderson — U.S. 2006/0155285 (examiner-cited; CPC A61B 17/8047).
Classified by the examiner at A61B 17/8047 — "having indirect contact with screw heads … wherein the additional element surrounds the screw head in the plate hole." This is the plate-and-screw anti-backout element that surrounds a screw head. It is on the '753 face and within the same CPC subclass cluster the examiner assigned to '753 itself (A61B 17/8033; 17/8042 "cover over the screw head"; 17/8047 "element surrounds the screw head"). Anderson maps to the curved-metal-structure lock (31H).

(e) Orbay — U.S. 2002/0143338 and (f) Jackson — U.S. 2002/0068977 (both on '753 face, both pre-2005).
Bone-plate/fixation art with screw holes and screw-retention geometry at the screw head. These are the pre-2005 fallbacks for the 31H lock element under Branch B. (I did not retrieve their full texts; I flag them as "publication on the face, content to be confirmed" — I will not assert specific disclosures I have not read.)

(g) Michelson — the "single-lock" interbody implants (U.S. 5,015,247; 5,776,199; 5,609,635; 2003/0078668→U.S. 7,041,135; U.S. 6,096,038).
Discloses an interbody spinal fusion implant placed in the disc space between adjacent vertebral bodies, having upper/lower vertebral-body-engaging surfaces, a hollow interior, opposed bone screws 442 directed into the vertebral bodies at an angle "preferably between 25° and 75°," and threaded lock members 462 "preventing screws 442 from backing out." Implant 400 also has slots 424 through the upper/lower surfaces communicating with the hollow chamber. The reference's express purpose is to "functionally substitute for a damaged anterior longitudinal ligament" and to "prevent the screws from backing out." Sources: Michelson patents; verbatim quotations reproduced in Medacta v. RSB Spine IPR. Michelson maps to 31A–31G and to a screw lock (31H), and it is pre-2005 — usable in both branches.

(h) The applicant's admitted background art (patent's own "Background"/"Detailed Description").
The '753 specification admits two categories of conventional technology: (i) a "horseshoe implant" for anterior lumbar placement with a plurality of cylindrical holes and perforating bone screws, and (ii) lumbar implants with internally threaded bore holes, optionally with a front plate, whose "preferred borehole axes generally are 35–55 degrees," and whose possible locking mechanism "may be a screw with an external thread matching the internal borehole thread, or spiral springs." These admissions are § 102(b) art against the applicant and are the closest admitted art to the preamble and to a screw-locking mechanism generally.

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4. The § 103 grounds — element mapping and motivation to combine

I rank by strength. Each ground is stated as "Primary + Secondary, motivated by ___."

GROUND 1 (strongest) — Waugh in view of Messerli, further in view of Anderson

"Waugh + Messerli + Anderson" — covers 31A–31H entirely.

Motivation to combine (articulated, evidence-based):

1. Same field, same problem, same art unit. All three are interbody fixation implants classified by the examiner in A61F 2/44 + A61B 17/80. Combining references that were already cited on the face of the patent is the lowest-hindsight combination available.
2. Waugh already discloses the lock function. The examiner's 2013 characterization — lock "disposed between the intervertebral cage and … an underside of the screw head … to inhibit back-out of the anchor and the cage" — supplies the reason: anti-back-out. The '753 specification itself states the purpose of its indentation/lock is to "diminish the possibility of screw back out."
3. KSR rationale (C)/(D) — known technique, same way, predictable result. Swapping Waugh's slot/indentation lock for a known bone-plate screw-head-capturing element (Anderson) to prevent back-out is the classic "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way," with a predictable result and no change in principle of operation. This is precisely the substitution the examiner held obvious over Jones + Waugh.
4. KSR rationale (F) — design incentive. Messerli's express "zero/low profile" goal (to avoid esophageal/vascular irritation from protruding hardware) supplies the reason to recess the screw head within the wall — i.e., to put the lock/head between the top wall and the screw, exactly as 31H recites.
5. Reasonable expectation of success. No working interrelationship is changed; the screws still "enter through apertures/components and exit into the adjacent vertebrae to secure the implant between the vertebrae."

Rebuttal exposure: the only genuinely new element is the shape of the lock ("curved metal structure … curved inner surface facing the screw, curved outer surface facing the top wall"). Anderson closes that. But if Anderson does not disclose a curved (as opposed to threaded/rectangular) structure, Ground 1 needs a further reference (Ground 5 below).

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GROUND 2 — Tisserand in view of Bonutti (for element 31D specifically)

Maps 31D nearly literally; strongest single-element ground.

Tisserand (French; the primary reference in Globus IPR2020-01308 against the '022 patent) discloses holes 1g, 1h as through-holes serving as internal screw guides with an internal bore, where "the entry openings are formed in a top surface of the top wall and the exit openings are formed at least partially in a bottom surface of the top wall and at least partially in side surfaces 1i, 1j of the top wall" — plus counterbores with countersinks in which "the heads of the screws 2, 3 are recessed." Bonutti teaches a counterbore to recess fastener heads. Source: Globus IPR2020-01308 petition (Ex. 1029 Tisserand; Ex. 1030 Bonutti).

Why this is stronger against '753 than it was against the '022 patent (a key, non-obvious point): the '022 claim 47 requires the entry opening formed "only" in the top surface — the exact limitation the Board/PO attacked. The '753 element 31D (as charted) requires the entry opening "at least partially" in the top surface and the exit opening "at least partially" in the bottom surface and at least partially in a side surface" — which is exactly what Tisserand discloses literally. The '753 claim is broader at this element, so Tisserand's disclosure is a better fit here than the art was for the sibling.

Motivation to combine (from the record): recessing screw heads prevents irritation to the esophagus (cervical) and to the aorta/IVC (thoracic/lumbar); "countersinks and counterbores are interchangeable design alternatives" yielding a predictable effect — the very rationale the petitioner advanced against '022.

Rebuttal exposure (must be anticipated): the Patent Owner's '022 arguments were accepted in material part — One World Techs. (combinability ≠ motivation), Belden, PersonalWeb, In re Warner (no speculation/hindsight), Exacq, FanDuel, In re Lee ("design choice" alone insufficient). A '753 petition must (i) give specific parameters, (ii) address Tisserand's stated 45° preference and the 90° recess offset (Polaris), and (iii) explain how the exit opening results. A conclusory "design choice" recitation will fail again.

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GROUND 3 — Byrd in view of Messerli, further in view of Waugh

The Medtronic-style ground for the 31D + 31H combination.

Byrd (U.S. 7,077,864) — intervertebral cage configurable to "zero-profile" (residing entirely within the disc space), disclosing different cage sizes for different spinal regions; Messerli — internal bore with entry opening in the top surface of the top wall; Waugh — lock between cage and underside of the screw head. Medtronic ran Byrd + Messerli + Waugh as §§ 102/103 grounds against the sibling '293 claim 43, whose screw-guide language ("entry opening … formed only in a top surface of the top wall, while the exit opening is formed at least partially in a bottom surface of the top wall and at least partially in a side surface of the top wall") is materially the same as '753 element 31D. Sources: IPR2025-01598 Ex. list (Byrd/Messerli/Waugh); Culbert declaration (zero-profile motivation).

Motivation to combine: (i) zero-profile implants reduce hardware prominence and esophageal/vascular irritation; (ii) all three are interbody fusion implants; (iii) the modification is "a mere matter of routine experimentation or optimization of the implant" (dimensioning), not a change in operation; (iv) substituting Waugh's lock inhibits back-out — the same express rationale the examiner gave for Jones + Waugh.

Caution: confirm Byrd (U.S. 7,077,864) is not in the '753 (56) list I retrieved before relying on it for § 102; note also that, at an effective date of 2005, Byrd may predate or postdate — verify its priority.

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GROUND 4 — Michelson single-lock + Waugh or Messerli (the pre-2005 fallback)

The Branch-B ground (available even if Moskowitz wins a 2005 date).

Michelson's interbody implant with opposed bone screws at a preferred 25°–75° angle and threaded lock members preventing back-out closely matches the '753 preamble/body and the "predetermined angulation" feature (the '753's preferred 25°, within a claimed range of 20°–40°, sits squarely inside Michelson's 25°–75°). Under In re Peterson / In re Woodruff, an overlapping range is presumptively obvious absent criticality — and the '753 offers no criticality data for 25°, merely "preferred."

Motivation to combine: Michelson expressly seeks to substitute for the anterior longitudinal ligament and to prevent screw back-out; Waugh supplies a cage-mounted lock between the cage and the screw head; combining them to make an integrated one-piece stand-alone construct (which the '753's own background says was the goal) involves no change in principle of operation.

Limitation: Michelson's lock members are described as threaded members, and I did not retrieve a disclosure of a curved inner/outer-surface lock. If 31H requires curvature, Michelson alone is insufficient for 31H; it must be paired with Orbay/Jackson (Ground 5).

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GROUND 5 — Waugh (or Jones) + Orbay and/or Jackson (the "curved metal structure" lock)

Targets 31H's curvature limitation directly; available in both branches (both are pre-2005 and both are on the '753 face).

Orbay (U.S. 2002/0143338) and Jackson (U.S. 2002/0068977) are bone-plate references cited on the '753 face; the examiner separately classified '753 in A61B 17/8047 ("additional element surrounds the screw head in the plate hole") and A61B 17/8042 ("cover over the screw head"). The examiner's own classification is, in effect, an admission that the curved screw-head-capturing lock is a known bone-plate element, and thus that the field of the 31H lock is plate-and-screw fixation.

Motivation to combine: (i) the problem is identical — screw back-out — and the '753 itself lists the anti-back-out function as the raison d'être of the lock; (ii) the substitution is a known element for a known function (KSR rationale (B)); (iii) predictable result, no change in principle of operation; (iv) motivation supplied by the pathology the patent itself recites (esophageal or vascular injury from backed-out hardware).

This is the ground to develop hardest, because the curved-metal screw-head lock is the element most likely to carry whatever novelty '753 has. And the examiner's own CPC assignment to A61B 17/8042/17/8047 is powerful evidence that the lock art is in the plate field, not a new invention.

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GROUND 6 — The "cage indentation" theory (parallel theory of novelty)

If the asserted claim (or a dependent claim) recites the cage indentation lock rather than the curved-metal lock, then:

• Waugh + Jones alone, on the examiner's own 2013 reasoning: Jones supplies the cage + internal angled screw guides + bi-directional transvertebral screws; Waugh supplies "a slot and indentation formed adjacent to an edge of the cage … to inhibit back-out of the anchor and the cage." Substituting Waugh's indentation/lock for Jones's lock was expressly held obvious. Source: Ex. 2013.
• Plus the applicant's admitted background ("spiral springs," "matching screw/cage threads" as lock mechanisms) supplies the general concept of a screw lock.

This ground requires a re-run against the as-issued claim language, which I do not have.

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5. Summary table of grounds

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6. Secondary considerations and counter-arguments

For the patent owner (weak, but must be answered):

• No unexpected results. The specification asserts force distribution and strength qualitatively; there are no data (no FEA, no fatigue test) showing criticality of the indentation/curved lock. Under In re Peterson, an unproven range/shape is not entitled to nonobvious weight.
• No nexus / no commercial success. Moskowitz Family LLC makes no product; there is no evidence of licensing-due-to-merits, industry praise, or long-felt need solved by this feature. The family's long prosecution history (multiple continuations) is evidence of claim drafting, not of nonobviousness.
• CIP admissions cut against the patent. The applicant admitted that the indentation is "an evolutionary advance and improvement compared to" the earlier family applications — an admission of incremental, not inventive, advance.

For the challenger (risks to manage):

1. Priority/effective-date fight (§ 112 written description for CIP new matter) — the whole case turns on it; run both branches.
2. § 325(d) / Advanced Bionics discretionary denial — Waugh, Messerli, Anderson, Jones, Jackson, Orbay are all of record. Either (a) present art not previously presented, or (b) show the examiner materially erred — as Medtronic did by showing the examiner failed a "thorough and complete search" under MPEP § 904.02, missing three anticipatory references (Byrd, Messerli, Waugh) in the very classes searched, and by showing the applicant timed an IDS after allowance and without the § 1.97(e) fee/certification so the examiner never considered them (Medtronic petition, § II.A). If that prosecution-conduct showing applies to '753, it neutralizes the § 325(d) risk.
3. Motivation-to-combine rigor — the '022 precedent (PO won on motivation) is a warning. Every ground needs specific parameters, an answer to the reference's stated preferences, and a concrete resulting structure.
4. Common-ownership exception (AIA § 102(b)(2)(C)) / pre-AIA § 103(c). The numerous Moskowitz self-citations in the (56) list (7,704,279; 7,846,188; 7,942,903; 7,972,363; 9,005,293; 9,603,713; 9,744,052; 10,238,505 and the dozens of Moskowitz publications) are not available as prior art because they are commonly owned by Moskowitz Family LLC and the '753's claims are not entitled to a bare 2005 date for the new matter. Do not build a ground on family art. Use only third-party art.
5. "Universal" preamble. Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 11, 2026) held "universal" limiting — requiring a spacer usable in any spinal region via any approach. If '753's claim carries that preamble, obviousness must be shown for a universal spacer — which cuts both ways: it narrows the claim (helping the patent owner) but is also satisfied by art that expressly touts multi-region use (e.g., Byrd disclosing different sizes for different spinal regions). Check whether '753's claim 31 includes "universal."

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7. Explicit uncertainty flags (building on the earlier list)

1. Full claim text of '753 still not obtained. The claim-31 reconstruction is from the D. Del. claim chart; a § 103 opinion cannot be final without the printed claims.
2. The (56) block I retrieved is partial — earlier U.S. patents (pre-May-2012) were not visible in the snippet, and the list truncates after 2011/0295327 A1. Do not treat it as the complete list.
3. Michelson's, Orbay's, Jackson's, and the Tisserand translation's specific contents were not retrieved in full in this session (Orbay/Jackson contents are inferred from title/CPC only). Any specific-disclosure assertion for those three must be verified against the documents.
4. Byrd (U.S. 7,077,864) is grounded only through the Medtronic petition/declaration, not confirmed on the '753 face.
5. Effective-filing-date determination is claim-by-claim and unresolved — this is the dispositive issue and I am explicitly not resolving it.
6. Date anomaly persists (task 2026-04-26 vs. system 2026-09-28 vs. Aug–Sep-2026 docket entries); reported literally, not resolved.

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8. Bottom line

On the record I can ground, every element of the apparent independent claim (claim 31) is disclosed or suggested by art already on the face of '753 or by pre-2005 third-party art, and the motivation to combine is supplied by (i) the shared field and art unit, (ii) the shared express problem of screw back-out that the patent itself names, (iii) zero-profile design incentives (Messerli, Byrd) to avoid esophageal/vascular injury, and (iv) a KSR-known substitution of a plate-style screw-head-capturing lock (Anderson; and the examiner's own A61B 17/8042/17/8047 classification) into a Waugh/Jones-type caged transvertebral screw construct — a substitution the examiner itself held obvious in the family's 2013 prosecution.

The claims therefore present a strong § 103 case, but its strength is entirely gated on two unresolved facts: (1) the effective filing date of the specific claim (CIP new matter → 2011/2019, which unlocks Waugh/Messerli/Jones/Aebi; or 2005, which restricts you to Michelson/Jackson/Orbay); and (2) the precise claim language, particularly whether 31H requires curvature (Ground 5) or an indentation (Ground 6). Fix those two, and the grounds above can be charted claim-by-claim.

Immediate verification steps: (a) pull the printed claims of '753 from PatentCenter/US10925753.pdf and confirm claim 31's exact language (entry/exit openings; "at least partially" vs "only"; "curved metal structure"; presence of "universal"); (b) transcribe the complete (56) list and all PTO-892s for app. 16/362,294; (c) obtain the Tisserand translation and the Orbay/Jackson full texts; (d) resolve the CIP new-matter date against the 2005/2011 priority documents. Until (a) and (d) are done, treat this as a ground map, not a finished invalidity opinion.