US 11241271

I'll search for this specific patent number and its litigation status.

Let me verify the claim language and check the Federal Circuit appeal status.

Let me pull the actual claim text for this patent.

US 11,241,271 B2 — Analyst Summary

Important scope note: I ran live web searches (Google Patents-family sources, PTAB docket mirrors, CAFC opinion pages) rather than querying USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket system directly — I do not have authenticated access to those databases in this session. Everything below is grounded in the retrieved sources, with uncertainty flagged. I also note one anomaly: my searches returned a CAFC order dated August 27, 2026, which postdates the "current date" you gave me (April 26, 2026). I report it as retrieved rather than suppressing it, per your instruction to prefer search results.

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Bibliographic data

Caution on the title: the PTAB petition and the secondary "ex parte" summary describe the document under the label "Method for Treating a Nasal Airway" — that is the preamble of claim 1, not the granted title. The granted title per Google Patents, Unified Patents, and the Patent Center-derived records is "Methods of treating nasal airways."

Assignee note: a December 20, 2024 reassignment record shows a security interest in favor of ARES CAPITAL CORPORATION as administrative agent and collateral agent for Aerin Medical Inc. This is a lien/security filing, not a transfer of ownership — Aerin Medical, Inc. remains the assignee of record.

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Abstract (verbatim, as published)

"A device is described for treating a nasal airway by modifying a property of a nasal tissue of or near a nasal valve of the airway, without using a surgical incision or an implant, to decrease airflow resistance or perceived airflow resistance in the nasal airway. Various embodiments include an elongate shaft, a bipolar radiofrequency delivery member extending from one end of the shaft, and a handle attached to the elongate shaft at an opposite end from the radiofrequency delivery member. The radiofrequency delivery member is sized to be inserted into a nose and configured to at least temporarily deform the nasal tissue and deliver radiofrequency energy. The radiofrequency delivery member includes two rows of protruding electrodes disposed on a tissue contact surface, and the device is configured to deliver radiofrequency energy from one row of electrodes to the other row of electrodes."

Note the abstract/claims mismatch: the abstract frames a device, while the granted claims (see below) are method claims. The PTAB panel's institution decision itself quotes this same abstract and then notes the specification's disclosure of mucus reduction and of a "radiofrequency/energy delivery member with electrodes in 'two rows . . . where radio frequency energy travels from one row of electrodes to the other row of electrodes.'"

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Claims — what I could verify

I do not have the authoritative, complete printed claim set in front of me. The full-text you supplied is the Google Patents "Descriptions/Definitions" rendering and does not include a claims section. The following is reconstructed from PTAB filings, which quote the claims verbatim in bracketed-limitation form. Treat the dependent-claim wording below as reliable but not exhaustive.

Claim 1 is the only independent claim I can confirm. Claims 11 and 16 both begin "The method of claim 1, further comprising…"

Claim 1 (independent) — plain language

Preamble: "A method for treating a nasal airway to reduce mucus production, the method comprising:"

• [1.a] Contacting a treatment element of a nasal-airway treatment device directly with the nasal mucosa, where the treatment element has two rows of bipolar electrode pairs.
• [1.b] Applying RF energy with those bipolar electrode pairs through the mucosa to a target tissue underlying the mucosa, for a period of time sufficient to heat that target tissue.
• [1.c]–[1.e] (elements identified in the petition but whose exact wording I do not have) — clinical steps performed by the treating clinician leading to a reduction in mucus production as the recited clinical result.

Plain-language gist: Put a hand-held, bipolar-RF device tip against the inside lining of the nose without cutting or implanting anything; the tip carries electrode pairs arranged in two rows; energize it long enough to heat the tissue underneath the mucosa; the patient's mucus production goes down. Notably, claim 1 does not recite deforming or reshaping tissue — the PTAB record describes the claim's treatment-element recitations as "user-facing, functional features … not its internal implementation."

Representative dependent claims (from PTAB quotation)

• Claim 11 — "…before removing the treatment element from the nasal airway: repositioning the treatment element to contact a different portion of nasal mucosa; and applying radiofrequency energy with the bipolar electrode pairs through the different portion of nasal mucosa to a different portion of target tissue for the amount of time to heat the different portion of target tissue." (i.e., multiple treatment passes in one sitting.)
• Claim 16 — "…further comprising bending a shaft of the nasal airway treatment device before contacting the treatment element with the nasal mucosa."

Uncertainty flag: claims 5 and 13–15 were not challenged in IPR2024-00277 (challenged set = 1–4, 6–12, 16), so I cannot state their content. I also cannot confirm from these sources whether the patent contains any independent claim other than claim 1 — though every claim I have seen recited in full is either claim 1 or depends from it, which makes a single-independent-claim structure likely but not proven.

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Litigation and post-grant status

PTAB — IPR2024-00277

• Petitioner: Neurent Medical Inc. & Neurent Medical Ltd.; Patent Owner: Aerin Medical Inc.
• Filed January 18, 2024; institution granted July 22, 2024 (35 U.S.C. § 314(a)); panel: APJs Fitzpatrick, Yang, and Valek (opinion author).
• Final Written Decision: July 11, 2025.
• Grounds: obviousness of claims 1–4, 6–12, 16 over Edwards-'535 (US 6,517,535) + Kong (2005 Chinese journal article on low-temperature plasma ablation of the inferior turbinate) or Liang (1999 article on RF treatment of the ethmoidal nerve) + Stern (US 5,562,720); with Edwards-'886 (US 6,273,886) added against claim 4. The central dispute was claim construction of "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs," plus POSITA qualification and whether a clinician's routine steps supplied the method steps.
• Outcome uncertainty: docket mirrors list the case as "Final Written Decision – Appealed," and the Patent Owner filed a notice of appeal on September 11, 2025, which is consistent with (but does not by itself prove) at least some claims being held unpatentable. I could not authoritatively confirm the claim-by-claim outcome of the Final Written Decision.

Related PTAB proceedings involving the '271 patent's family: IPR2024-00275, -00276, -00278, -00282 (Aerin patents) and IPR2024-00279, -00280, -00669 (The Foundry LLC patents; -00281 terminated).

District court

• Aerin Medical Inc. and The Foundry LLC v. Neurent Medical Inc. and Neurent Medical Ltd., No. 1:23-cv-00756-JLH (D. Del.) — the '271 patent asserted there; Neurent's Neuromark® bipolar RF system accused. The '271 patent is one of several Aerin/Foundry patents asserted.

Federal Circuit

• 2025-2099 — Aerin Medical Inc. v. Neurent Medical Inc., Neurent Medical Ltd. (consolidated with 2025-2100 and 2025-2101; appeals from IPR2024-00277, -00278, -00282).
• A nonprecedential order dated August 27, 2026 states that the parties agreed to dismissal and orders the proceedings DISMISSED under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), each side to bear its own costs; issued as mandate the same date. Parallel appeals 2025-2113, -2114, and -2121 (The Foundry LLC, from IPR2024-00279, -00280, -00669) were dismissed in the same order.
• Source: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-2099.ORDER.8-27-2026_2746255.pdf
• Inference (flagged): a stipulated Rule 42(b) dismissal of Aerin's appeal normally accompanies settlement, which would imply the IPR outcome stands as between the parties without a precedential Federal Circuit ruling on the merits. I have no confirmation of a settlement, and I have no 2026 merits opinion for 25-2099.

Family litigation record: Google Patents links a first worldwide family litigation filing via Darts-IP (family 80080809).

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Points of residual uncertainty

1. Full claim set — I could not retrieve the printed claims (including unchallenged claims 5, 13–15) from an authoritative source in this session.
2. Final Written Decision outcome in IPR2024-00277 — appealed, but claim-level result unconfirmed by me.
3. Reason for the Federal Circuit dismissal — the order recites party agreement, not a stated cause; any settlement characterization is my inference.
4. Priority chain — the patent's own incorporated cross-reference (via its continuation progeny) traces to provisional 61/496,930 (June 14, 2011) through 13/495,844 (June 13, 2012); petitioners expressly reserved the right to challenge that priority date in the parallel litigation.

I'll search for litigation involving US Patent 11,241,271.

Let me dig into the specific cases referenced and search other litigation databases.

Let me verify the specific patents asserted and the appeal status.

Litigation involving US 11,241,271 B2 ("Methods of treating nasal airways"; Aerin Medical Inc.)

I found two proceedings directly involving the '271 patent — one district-court case and one PTAB inter partes review, with the IPR now on appeal. Both trace to the same dispute between Aerin Medical Inc. / The Foundry, LLC and Neurent Medical Inc. / Neurent Medical Ltd.

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1. District court litigation

Note on details: the docket shows the case originally assigned to Judge Gregory B. Williams (dockets.justia.com), while later filings from the case (e.g., D.I. 94) bear the initials "JLH" (Judge Jennifer L. Hall), indicating reassignment. One aggregator (ai-lab.exparte.com) lists the district case status as "Closed"; other records show a stay rather than a termination. I could not conclusively verify the current docket status from the sources retrieved, so treat the "closed" designation with caution.

• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67599357/aerin-medical-inc-v-neurent-medical-inc/
• https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2023cv00756/83024
• Amended Complaint (filed as Ex. 1035 in the IPR): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00279/NEURENT_MEDICAL_INC/docs/01-18-2024-Petitioner/Exhibit-1035-Am_Complaint.pdf
• Google Patents litigation link: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A23-cv-00756

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2. PTAB inter partes review

Grounds in the FWD turned largely on whether "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs" was taught (Edwards-'535 in view of Kong and Stern, with Edwards-'886 and Liang in other grounds).

• https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00277/NEURENT_MEDICAL_INC._v._Aerin_Medical_Inc/
• https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00277/neurent-medical-inc-v-aerin-medical-inc
• https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/NEURENT-MEDICAL-INC-et-al-v-Aerin-Medical-Inc-id-[196025](/patent/196025)
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2024-00277

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3. Federal Circuit appeal

• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/25-2099
• Notice of Appeal: https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00277/NEURENT_MEDICAL_INC._v._Aerin_Medical_Inc/09-11-2025-Patent_Owner/Notice__notice_of_appeal-42-Patent_Owners_Notice_of_Appeal/
• Google Patents records all three as "family has litigation" for US11241271: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11241271/en

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Related but NOT involving the '271 patent (context only)

Neurent filed a wave of IPRs against the other Aerin/Foundry patents asserted in the Delaware case: IPR2024-00275 ('597), -00276 ('194), -00278 ('318), -00279 ('675), -00280 ('011), -00282 ('286), and -00669 ('077). Separately, Aerin filed IPR2025-01125 against a Neurent patent (the '889/’091/’262 family). These are distinct patents and are listed here only to avoid confusion — none is the '271 patent.

• https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/aerin-medical-inc-et-al-v-neurent-medical-inc-et-al-123-cv-00756-d-del.html
• IPR2024-00278 Patent Owner's Mandatory Notices (listing the related IPRs): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00278/Neurent_Medical_Inc._v._Aerin_Medical_Inc/02-08-2024-Patent_Owner/Notice__Mandatory_Notice-6-Patent_Owners_Mandatory_Notices/

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No other litigation known

Apart from the Aerin v. Neurent dispute above, I found no other litigation (district court, ITC, or PTAB) involving US 11,241,271. Caveats: (a) I could not run a direct PACER/Unified Patents caselist query in this session, so a PACER or Docket Navigator check is advisable for absolute completeness; (b) the District of Delaware docket shows a stay, but at least one aggregator labels the case "Closed" — verify the live docket before relying on either status; (c) I did not convert the FWD's unpatentability holding into any legal conclusion about the patent's validity, and appeal of the FWD was pending as of the latest records located.

I'll start by checking the one proceeding flagged in the patent record itself and searching for any others.

Found the key proceeding. Now let me nail down the FWD outcome, any companion IPRs on this patent, and the appeal.

Confirmed the FWD. Now checking for any second IPR on this patent, the full claim set, and the appeal status.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding on file for US 11,241,271 — IPR2024-00277 (Neurent Medical v. Aerin Medical), in which the Board issued a Final Written Decision on 2025-07-11 holding all challenged claims unpatentable; the patent owner appealed on 2025-09-11 (CAFC No. 25-2099), and no second IPR against this patent exists on the public record. Note the data conflict up front: the "PTAB proceedings on file" block from the USPTO ODP reports no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, but the public record plainly shows IPR2024-00277 with an institution decision (2024-07-22), an FWD (2025-07-11), and a notice of appeal — and the patent's own Google Patents page flags "PTAB case IPR2024-00277 filed (Final Written Decision)." I treat the public record as controlling and flag the ODP block as stale/under-inclusive. Bottom line for a defendant: do not assume the asserted claims are safe — claims 1–4, 6–12, and 16 have been adjudicated unpatentable, but because the appeal is pending, no cancellation certificate has issued yet, so the claims technically still exist and (unlike a fully exhausted IPR) cannot yet be cited as "canceled." Practical posture: the patent is badly damaged but not formally dead — an assertion letter built on claim 1 is fighting uphill, but you cannot yet call it "sanction-bait."

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IPR2024-00277 — Neurent Medical Inc. & Neurent Medical Ltd. v. Aerin Medical Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2024-01-18
• Status: "Final Written Decision - Appealed" (Board docket shows terminated 2025-07-11; outcome: Unpatentable)
• Judge panel: Michael J. Fitzpatrick, Zhenyu Yang, and Michael A. Valek, Administrative Patent Judges. Valek authored the Final Written Decision. Petitioner counsel: David Cavanaugh (WilmerHale); Patent Owner counsel: Sonja Sahlsten (Greenberg Traurig).
• Petition grounds: Petition challenged claims 1–4, 6–12, and 16, all under § 103, in four grounds:
  • Ground 1 — claims 1–3, 6–12, 16 obvious over Edwards-535 (US 6,517,535) in view of Kong (2005 clinical journal article) and Stern (US 5,562,720);
  • Ground 2 — claim 4 obvious over Edwards-535, Kong, Stern, and Edwards-886;
  • Ground 3 — claims 1–3, 6–12, 16 obvious over Edwards-535 in view of Liang (1999 clinical journal article) and Stern;
  • Ground 4 — claim 4 obvious over Edwards-535, Liang, Stern, and Edwards-886.
    No § 102 or § 112 grounds were asserted (IPR is limited to §§ 102/103).
    Claim 1 (the sole independent claim in the challenged set) recites "[a] method for treating a nasal airway to reduce mucus production," including "contacting a treatment element of a nasal airway treatment device directly with nasal mucosa … wherein the treatment element comprises two rows of bipolar electrode pairs" and "wherein the modified at least one property of the target tissue causes a reduction in mucus production in the nasal airway."
• Institution decision: Instituted 2024-07-22 (Decision Granting Institution under § 314). The Board's institution determination found a reasonable likelihood petitioner would prevail on the Edwards-535-based obviousness combinations.
• Final Written Decision (2025-07-11): JUDGMENT — "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." At claim-level granularity, the Board held claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 16 unpatentable as obvious; no challenged claim was sustained. The Board's operative finding: "After considering the parties' arguments and evidence, we find that Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that all of the challenged claims are unpatentable."
  • The merits fight centered on the "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs" limitation. Patent Owner argued the plural "pairs" presumptively requires more than one pair per row, and that Stern (its sole source for that limitation) teaches "two rows of one pair each — not rows of 'pairs'"; Patent Owner also attacked petitioner's new, reply-stage arguments (Stern FIG. 4a as allegedly showing two rows of pairs; the "fifth electrode" footnote argument) as untimely under In re ZTE, 37 C.F.R. § 42.6(a)(3). The Board nonetheless credited petitioner's reading of Stern and found the combination motivated.
  • The Board separately rejected Patent Owner's POSITA definition (declining to strip "clinical use and testing" from petitioner's definition) and rejected the challenge to Dr. DelGaudio's qualifications under Kyocera Senco: "as explained above, we do not adopt Patent Owner's definition of one of ordinary skill. It is undisputed that Dr. DelGaudio meets the qualifications of one of ordinary skill in the art under Petitioner's definition." The Board also expressly noted that "our findings and conclusions would be the same under either side's definition of the level of ordinary skill in the art."
• Settlement / termination: No settlement — this went to a merits FWD. (The separate disclosure of IPR2024-00281 "termination" in the FWD's related-matters section refers to a different IPR on a different patent, not this one.)
• Appeal: Yes — appealed by the Patent Owner (Aerin). Notice of Appeal filed at the PTAB 2025-09-11 (Paper 42), docketed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as No. 25-2099 (companion appeal 25-2100 covers the parallel IPR2024-00278 FWD on US 11,033,318). Issues on appeal are, on the nature of the record, the Board's obviousness findings as to "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs" / Stern's teachings, the motivation to combine, the POSITA determination, and the treatment of petitioner's reply-stage arguments. I could not confirm a CAFC disposition as of 2026-09-16 — treat the appeal as pending and verify the current docket before relying on the FWD. (CourtListener / CAFC docket via Unified Patents: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/25-2099)
• Defensive value: The FWD is a ready-made invalidity roadmap — the Board has already found the same Edwards-535 + Kong/Liang + Stern theory sufficient to knock out claim 1 and every challenged dependent claim, and petitioner's FWD is public and quotable. But because the appeal is pending, the claims are not yet canceled and no statutory certificate has issued; a defendant today should plead invalidity based on this art (and monitor the appeal) rather than assume the claims are gone. Note the § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds petitioner Neurent and its privies — it does not stop you from running your own grounds, but the system prior art already blessed by the Board is the highest-value path.

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Strategic summary

Claim status on US 11,241,271. The only claim-level adjudication on this patent is IPR2024-00277, which addressed claims 1–4, 6–12, and 16 and held all of them unpatentable as obvious — that includes independent claim 1, so every challenged dependent claim falls with it. Claim 5, 13, 14, and 15 (the remaining claim numbers in the patent series, which were not challenged) were not addressed by the Board and remain untested; do not assume the FWD says anything about them. Two critical caveats: (i) because the FWD is on appeal (CAFC 25-2099), no cancellation certificate has issued and the claims legally still exist; (ii) the Board's judgment only binds the parties — it is persuasive authority, not in rem cancellation, until the appeal resolves. Net: the patent is narrowed to death in practice, but not yet formally dead.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) bars petitioner Neurent Medical Inc./Neurent Medical Ltd. and their privies from asserting in the Delaware litigation (or any other district-court or ITC proceeding) any ground raised in IPR2024-00277 or that they reasonably could have raised — i.e., the entire Edwards-535/Kong/Liang/Stern/Edwards-886 § 102/§ 103 universe is now off-limits to Neurent, but wide open to you. There is no § 325(e) statutory estoppel running against Aerin in the IPR itself, but Aerin did make the customary § 315(e)(1) stipulation in its own later-filed petitions (e.g., IPR2025-01127) that it will not pursue in litigation or parallel proceedings the grounds it raised or could have raised — so the district court invalidity picture is asymmetric: Aerin has signed away some grounds, Neurent is estopped, and a third-party defendant retains the full prior-art field, including art the parties never touched (e.g., non-Stern two-row electrode-pair references, Makower-based device combinations, § 112 written-description/indefiniteness attacks on the surviving claims — all unavailable in an IPR but fully available in litigation).

Pattern signals. This is a two-front competitor war, not a troll scenario. Aerin Medical (with The Foundry, LLC) sued Neurent in D. Del., C.A. No. 23-756-JLH (filed 2023-07-11), asserting the '597, '194, '675, '011, '318, '271, '077, and '286 patents against Neurent's Neuromark system; the court stayed the case on 2024-08-08 pending FWDs in the instituted IPRs, and later consolidated Neurent's counterclaim case (C.A. No. 24-1070-JLH) into it. Neurent then filed a wave of IPRs — IPR2024-00275, -00276, -00277, -00278, -00282 (Aerin patents, incl. the '271 and '318) and -00279, -00280, -00281, -00669 (Foundry patents) — and Aerin fired back with IPR2025-01124 / -01125 / -01127 against Neurent's Track One continuation patents ('262, '889, '974). The '277 and '278 FWDs issued the same day (2025-07-11) from the same three-judge panel, both finding all challenged claims unpatentable, and both were appealed the same day (2025-09-11) as CAFC 25-2099 and 25-2100. Note for the record: no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) is the petitioner here — the Google Patents page's Unified Patents link is just a data-source citation; Unified's PTAB portal merely mirrors the docket. This is Neurent (a direct competitor) as petitioner, with WilmerHale's Gregory H. Lantier and David Cavanaugh on the petition side and Greenberg Traurig (Sonja Sahlsten) for Aerin.

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Recommended next steps

1. Get the FWD now and build your invalidity contentions on it. The Board's 2025-07-11 judgment is: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)" … "we find that Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that all of the challenged claims are unpatentable." Full text (PDF): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00277/NEURENT_MEDICAL_INC._v._Aerin_Medical_Inc/docs/07-11-2025-Board/Final_Written_Decision__original-41-Final_Written_Decision__original.pdf
2. Pull the file history and the institution decision via PTAB E2E / USPTO PatentCenter for IPR2024-00277 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2024-00277). Institution 2024-07-22; oral argument 2025-04-23; FWD 2025-07-11 — i.e., the trial ran inside the statutory one-year clock from institution, so no more PTAB milestones remain on this patent.
3. Check the CAFC appeal (2025-2099) before you rely on the FWD. Notice of Appeal was filed 2025-09-11; I could not confirm a disposition as of 2026-09-16. Query CourtListener and the Federal Circuit docket, and confirm whether a Rule 36 affirmance, opinion, or remand has issued — an affirmance leaves the claims effectively destroyed, while a reversal/remand revives claim 1 and makes the Edwards-535/Stern line much less useful to you.
4. Attack the untested claims. If the demand letter cites claims 5, 13, 14, or 15 (not challenged in IPR2024-00277), you face fresh hunting — no Board findings constrain those claims, no IPR estoppel applies to you, and § 112 (written description / indefiniteness) and non-Stern two-row electrode art remain available in district court.
5. If you are a § 315(b)-eligible defendant considering your own IPR, note the timing trap: a petition against these claims can still be filed, but the FWD on appeal means the patent owner has already litigated this art once and will be well prepared. Also confirm whether the Delaware stay lifts/remains and whether Aerin's own litigation-conduct stipulations in IPR2025-01127 constrain its positions against you.
6. Do not treat the ODP "no proceedings" block as accurate. For this patent the ODP-derived hearing data is contradicted by the Board's own docket, the FWD, and the CAFC appeal. Verify everything against PTAB E2E and the CAFC docket rather than the structured feed.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history for US 11241271. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the litigation, security interest, and inventor backgrounds.

Let me investigate The Foundry LLC (co-plaintiff), the IPR outcome, and any assignment reel/frame data.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 11,241,271 B2

Scope note / verification caveat: I attempted to pull the recording-level detail (reel/frame, correspondent of record) directly from the USPTO Assignment Center. Those fields were not retrievable in this research session — the Assignment Center is a dynamic search application that does not expose its record pages to indexing. Everything below is reconstructed from Google Patents legal-events data (which mirrors the Assignment Center's recorded events), PACER/Delaware docket reporting, PTAB filings, and Ares Capital's SEC-filed 2024 Annual Report. Where a field is unverified I say so rather than fill it in.

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Inventors

Both inventors are the founding principals of the original assignee, not employees who left. There is no "all inventors departed within 12 months" pattern here — the opposite: both remained and continued to generate continuation filings (the '271 is itself a 2019 continuation of a 2011-priority family, filed by the same two inventors under the same assignee). Wolf and Frazier are also the assignors on the recorded 2019 assignment (see below).

Sources: Marketscreener company profile ("founded by Scott Jordan Wolf and Andrew G. C. Frazier in 2011"); PatentLeaderboard inventor page for Scott J. Wolf; Google Patents legal events listing assignors "WOLF, SCOTT J.; FRAZIER, ANDREW."

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Original assignee

Aerin Medical, Inc. — Mountain View / Sunnyvale, California. A private, venture-backed, operating medical-device company. It is not on any NPE directory and Unified Patents classifies it as "P.O. Entity Type: Operating Company" in the IPRs below.

• Product embodying the claims: yes. Aerin commercializes the VivAer® Stylus (nasal airway obstruction) and RhinAer® Stylus (chronic rhinitis) plus the Aerin® Console. Aerin's own patent page lists 11,241,271 among patents covering the RhinAer product line.
• Primary line of business: development and manufacture of non-invasive ENT/nasal treatment devices (RF-based tissue treatment).
• Current status: operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or assignment of the patent portfolio to a monetization entity. The company instead took on secured debt in Dec 2024 (see Ares Capital entry).
• Portfolio: ~59 granted US patents (2015–2025) per PlainPatent/PatentsView.

Note: the co-plaintiff in the 2023 litigation, The Foundry, LLC, filed a Rule 7.1 disclosure stating "No Parents or Affiliates Listed." Its relationship (if any) to Aerin Medical is not determinable from the sources I could reach; I am not characterizing it as a monetization vehicle, because there is no evidence of a recorded assignment of '271 to it, and Aerin remains the named assignee of record.

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Assignment timeline

⚠️ Reel/frame numbers were not obtainable from the Assignment Center during this session. The two events below are the recorded reassignments surfaced by the patent's legal-events record; their reel/frame and correspondent-of-record fields are unverified and are marked as such rather than invented.

• 2019-07-17 (execution date not separately exposed; coincides with filing date) / recorded 2019-07-17 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor → company)
  • Assignor: Scott J. Wolf; Andrew Frazier
  • Assignee: Aerin Medical, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag as a gap, not a finding. (Note: Finnegan Henderson LLP appears as Aerin's litigation/IPR counsel for Sonja W. Sahlsten, Reg. No. 70,927 — that is not evidence of the assignment-record correspondent and the two must not be conflated.)
  • Context: Routine in-house/founding-inventor assignment of a continuation application to the operating company on the day of filing; no third party involved.

• 2024-12-20 (execution date not separately exposed) / recorded 2024-12-20 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

  • Conveyance: Security Interest (not a title transfer)
  • Assignor: Aerin Medical, Inc.
  • Assignee: Ares Capital Corporation, as Administrative Agent and Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — Aerin pledged its IP as collateral for a first-lien senior secured loan. Ares Capital's FY2024 Annual Report (SEC-filed) discloses "Aerin Medical Inc. — Developer and manufacturer of non-invasive nasal treatment solutions — First lien senior secured loan, 11.66%, acquisition 12/2024, maturity 12/2030," alongside Series G preferred shares (12/2024) and Series A preferred shares (07/2022). A collateral assignment does not change ownership; Aerin remains the owner and patent owner of record.

No other recorded assignments were surfaced. In particular, there is no assignment to The Foundry, LLC, no change-of-name, no merger, no release (though a release of the Ares lien would be expected if the loan were repaid), and no transfer to any licensing/holding entity.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 11241271) — and the legacy index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11241271
    2011 : Aerin Medical founded by Wolf and Frazier
         : Priority application filed 14 Jun
    2019 : Continuation filed 17 Jul
         : Inventors assign rights to Aerin Medical
    2022 : Patent issues 8 Feb
    2023 : Aerin and The Foundry sue Neurent 11 Jul
    2024 : Neurent IPR2024-00277 instituted 22 Jul
         : Ares Capital security interest recorded 20 Dec
    2025 : IPR final written decision 11 Jul
         : Federal Circuit appeals docketed

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Supporting litigation facts: IPR2024-00277 (Neurent Medical Inc. et al. v. Aerin Medical Inc.), filed 2024-01-18, instituted 2024-07-22, Final Written Decision / terminated 2025-07-11; '271 was one of seven IPR targets (IPR2024-00275 through -00282) against the same Aerin family asserted in D. Del. Appeals docketed at the Federal Circuit as 25-2099 / 25-2100 / 25-2101.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain consists of a single founder-to-company assignment (inventors Wolf and Frazier to Aerin Medical, Inc., recorded 2019-07-17) and a subsequent security interest only (Aerin to Ares Capital Corporation as collateral agent, recorded 2024-12-20), with no transfer of title to any licensing or holding entity. The owner of record, Aerin Medical, is a privately held operating manufacturer that ships the VivAer® and RhinAer® devices covered by the patent, and it enforced '271 against a genuine competitor (Neurent Medical) in D. Del. 1:23-cv-00756 filed 2023-07-11 — the hallmark of operating-company assertion, not an NPE pattern.

Residual uncertainty (stated plainly): I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record for either event, so signal #3 (repeat correspondent) is genuinely unclear, and the role of co-plaintiff The Foundry, LLC is unexplained. Both should be re-checked directly at the Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, search 11241271) before relying on this as a final clearance opinion. Nothing retrieved supports an NPE characterization.

I'll verify the patent against USPTO/authoritative sources and pull the citation lists before analyzing each reference.

Let me pull the face-of-patent citation lists (both the Justia "Patent Citations" table and the Google Patents citation section for US11241271 specifically).

Prior-Art Analysis: US 11,241,271 B2 — "Methods of treating nasal airways"

Analyst note on sourcing: I queried live web sources rather than USPTO PatentCenter/PatFT directly (I do not have authenticated access to those systems in this session). The citation data below is drawn from mirrors of the USPTO record — PubChem's patent record for US-11241271-B2 (which reproduces the front-page citation list), Justia Patents' "Patent Citations" table for 11241271, Google Patents' citation/legal-events blocks, Unified Patents' patent-art listing for US-11241271-B2, and the IPR2024-00277 petition papers hosted on ptacts.uspto.gov. Where a field was not retrievable I say so rather than filling it in.

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1. Identification verification (literal, no auto-correction)

⚠️ Two data conflicts to carry forward, not resolve silently:

1. Priority date is rendered as both 2011-06-14 (Google Patents, PTAB papers) and 2011-06-13 (Unified Patents). I use 2011-06-14 as the operative date but flag the one-day discrepancy.
2. § 102 regime. The IPR petition labels Edwards-'535 as "§§ 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) prior art" — that is AIA language. The parent (13/495,844, filed 2012-06-13) predates the March 16, 2013 AIA cutoff, so a pre-AIA regime is at least plausible depending on whether any claim's effective filing date postdates 3/16/2013. Petitioners expressly reserved the right to challenge the 2011 priority date. I therefore analyze under both, and flag when the distinction changes the answer.

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2. The § 102 question, framed correctly

Claim 1 is the sole confirmed independent claim, and every other claim I can verify (11, 16) begins "The method of claim 1, further comprising…" Faithful § 102 analysis therefore turns on one threshold fact:

Anticipation of any claim in this patent requires a single reference that discloses the entire claim‑1 method — (a) contacting a treatment element directly with nasal mucosa, (b) the element comprising two rows of bipolar electrode pairs, (c) applying RF through the mucosa to underlying target tissue for a time sufficient to heat it, (d) removing the element, (e) modifying a tissue property, and (f) thereby reducing mucus production. A dependent claim (e.g., 4, 11, 16) adds limitations to claim 1 and cannot be anticipated by a reference that does not also disclose all of claim 1's elements.

On the retrieved record, no single cited reference discloses all of (a)–(f). The citation list is therefore overwhelmingly § 103 material, not § 102 material — which is precisely the conclusion the Board reached in IPR2024-00277 (all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious, 35 U.S.C. § 318(a), FWD 2025-07-11). Any per-reference § 102 mapping below is stated with that caveat.

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3. The citation universe

The '271 front-page/description citation list is large (~60–70 entries). I could retrieve it in two forms:

• The references the specification itself discusses (§4 below) — 11 US patents, expressly identified in the '271 text you supplied.
• The aggregated citation list reproduced by PubChem for US-11241271-B2 (§6 below), which is truncated in my retrieval at "US-65759…" and which I could not break down into examiner-cited vs. applicant-cited designations (PatentCenter would show this; I could not open it).

Analytical observation (inference, flagged as such): several reference numbers appearing on the '271's citation list also appear on the front page of Edwards-'535 (US 6,517,535) — e.g., US 5,800,429; 5,817,049; 5,820,580; 5,707,349; 5,717,702; 5,879,349; 5,938,659; 5,843,077; 6,109,268. That overlap is evidence that the turbinate-ablation / intranasal RF corpus was already crowded and was cited to the examiner in this family, which is exactly why the IPR art was found to be analogous art.

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4. The references expressly cited in the '271 specification

Each entry: full citation → dates → what the '271 says it teaches (the specification text is authoritative) → § 102 analysis.

Bottom line for § 4: References 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10 are not close to § 102 on any claim. References 3, 5, 6, 7, 11 are element-level § 102 hits (cryo, controlled-depth intraluminal ablation, RF cartilage reshaping, shape-change monitoring) but not full-claim anticipation of the sole independent claim.

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5. The most relevant prior art overall — the IPR2024-00277 set

These three patents are the art that actually decided this patent. Their bibliographic data I did verify.

5.1 — US 6,517,535 B2 ("Edwards-'535")

• Full citation: US 6,517,535 B2, Apparatus for ablating turbinates; inventor Stuart D. Edwards (Portola Valley, CA); assignee Gyrus ENT, L.L.C. (Bartlett, TN); Application 09/437,306; filed 1999-11-09; granted 2003-02-11.
• Description: Catheter with a distal expandable member (132) and energy-delivery device (134) introduced through a nostril into a nasal meatus at the surface of a nasal concha; energy delivered to ablate an internal section of the concha without damaging the surface, with surface cooling; "bipolar or monopolar" operation; ring electrodes (156) "disposed in parallel with their axes aligned with a long axis 160 of the catheter body" (i.e., a row); energy "may be independently delivered to each energy delivery device."
• § 102 analysis: Closest single reference, but it does not anticipate. It has nasal-mucosa contact, trans-mucosal RF, and removal — but one row of bipolar electrodes, not two rows of bipolar electrode pairs, and it does not recite the mucus-reduction result. Petitioner itself mapped the two-row limitation to Stern, not Edwards-'535, and the Board's institution decision credited that mapping. Potentially anticipates: none. Highest-value § 103 reference; the backbone of every ground.
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6517535B2](/patent/US6517535B2) ; https://FreePatentsOnline.com/[6517535](/patent/6517535).html

5.2 — US 5,562,720 ("Stern")

• Full citation: US 5,562,720, Bipolar/monopolar endometrial ablation device and method; inventors Roger A. Stern, Vincent N. Sullivan, Roxanne L. Richman, Loren L. Roy, Robert L. Marion, Thomas D. Striegler; assignee Vesta Medical, Inc. (Palo Alto); Application 319,216; filed 1994-10-06; granted 1996-10-08; CIP of Ser. No. 877,567 (1992-05-01).
• Description: RF endometrial ablation through an electroconductive expandable balloon with a plurality of electrode area segments, each with a thermistor for temperature feedback; switching circuitry providing monopolar or bipolar energy; "selective delivery of … bipolar RF energy to chosen pairs [within the] array"; FIGS. 15 and 19 show two rows of bipolar electrode pairs with switching circuitry driven by a single source.
• § 102 analysis: Discloses the single most-litigated limitation ("two rows of bipolar electrode pairs") but in the endometrium, not the nose. Different tissue, no nasal mucosa, no mucus-reduction result. Potentially anticipates: none of the '271 claims (it could anticipate a hypothetical claim drawn only to electrode geometry, which this patent does not contain). It is the decisive § 103 reference.
• Sources: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/42/7e/63/6b94e8b0399b7f/US5562720.pdf ; IPR2024-00277 Ex. 1033

5.3 — US 6,273,886 ("Edwards-'886")

• Full citation: US 6,273,886, Integrated tissue heating and cooling apparatus. ⚠️ I could not verify its filing/grant dates, inventor, or assignee from an authoritative source in this session. I list the number and title as they appear in the petition record and decline to state dates I did not retrieve.
• Description (per petition record): integrated heating/cooling control — "four independent radio frequency channels … configured to operate eight electrodes … in a bipolar mode," each channel "supplying up to 15 watts … with a sinusoidal waveform at 460 kHz," with impedance sensing/feedback.
• § 102 analysis: Identified by Petitioner as the reference supplying claim 4's energy-parameter limitation (460 kHz sinusoid). Potentially anticipates: none standalone — it is not a nasal method and cannot meet claim 1, so it cannot anticipate a claim depending from claim 1.

5.4 — Non-patent literature (not "patent citations," but the actual § 102/§ 103 anchorage)

• Kong (2005, Journal of Clinical Otorhinolaryngology) — RF ablation of the inferior turbinate to damage underlying parasympathetic nerves to reduce mucus production; reported ~94.3% effectiveness. Printed-publication prior art. Potentially anticipates only a claim reciting the bare therapeutic method in the turbinate — not the claimed device/two-row geometry.
• Liang (Aug. 1999) — RF to the ethmoidal nerve within the middle turbinate for allergic rhinitis, expressly to reduce "runny nose"; ~95.5% effective; reported "bloody secretions" and "nasal adhesion." Same § 102 posture; stronger § 103 motivation because its own complications motivate the cooled Edwards-'535 device.

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6. The aggregated (largely examiner-cited) citation corpus

PubChem's record for US-11241271-B2 reproduces the citation list, truncated in my retrieval. Retrieved entries include:

US-4887605, US-5348008, US-5533499, US-5542916, US-5611798, US-5624439, US-5674191, US-5707349, US-5718702, US-5728094, US-5730719, US-5733280, US-5738114, US-5743904, US-5743870, US-5746224, US-5800429, US-5807306, US-5816095, US-5817049, US-5820580, US-5823197, US-5827277, US-5843021, US-5843077, US-5846235, WO-9907299-A1, US-5879349, US-5938659, US-6045549, US-6096033, US-6102907, US-6109268, US-6126657, US-6131579, US-6139546, US-6152143, US-6165173, US-6179803, US-6210355, US-6228079, US-6231569, WO-0143653-A1, US-6293941, US-6309386, US-2002010460-A1, US-2002016588-A1, US-6371926, US-2002049464-A1, US-6383181, US-6391028, US-2002087155-A1, US-6416491, US-6425151, US-6431174, US-2002128641-A1, US-6451013, US-6502574, WO-03024349-A1, US-6551310, US-6562036, US-65759… [truncated]

Grouped § 102 assessment of this corpus:

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7. § 102 conclusion, claim by claim

Practical corollary: because anticipation requires a single reference with all elements, the citation list's true function here is evidence of a crowded field and a § 103 roadmap — which is what the Board accepted. If you are building an invalidity position, lead with § 103 (Edwards-'535 + Stern, with Kong or Liang supplying the mucus-reduction result), not § 102.

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8. Contradictions with previously generated sections — flagged explicitly

1. Ground numbering in IPR2024-00277. My earlier "Obviousness" section described four grounds (Ground 1 = Edwards-'535+Kong+Stern; Ground 2 = +Edwards-'886 for claim 4; Ground 3 = Liang substituted; Ground 4 = +Edwards-'886). The petition text I retrieved in this session refers to "Ground V for claim 1" and "Ground VI: Claim 8 Is Invalid as Obvious over Edwards-5…", and the ex parte case summary labels the two primary combinations Ground I (Kong) and Ground II (Liang) with claim-4 grounds as "Grounds II and IV." These are mutually inconsistent. The petition evidently asserted at least six grounds (I–VI). Treat the earlier "four grounds" characterization as not reliable and confirm the ground numbering from the FWD itself (Paper 41).
2. Claim-set completeness. All prior sections correctly flag that the printed claims were not retrievable. That remains true here; nothing in this session filled the gap. Claims 5 and 13–15 remain unanalyzed.
3. FWD disposition (from a prior section): a CAFC order dated 2026-08-27 dismissing appeals 25-2099 (and 25-2100, -2101) under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) was located earlier. If accurate, that bears directly on how much weight the § 103 findings carry — but it does not change any § 102 answer above.

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9. Residual uncertainty (stated plainly)

• No dates retrieved for US 4,887,605; 5,533,499; 5,846,235; 6,383,181; 6,451,013; 6,551,310; 6,589,235; 6,978,781; 7,055,523; 7,114,495; 7,416,550; or US 6,273,886. The date ranges I offered are inferences from US patent-numbering chronology, clearly labeled as such — not retrieved facts. Verify each at USPTO PatentCenter.
• Examiner- vs. applicant-cited designation for the ~60-entry citation list was not retrieved; only the 11 specification-discussed references (applicant/attorney cited, "REFERENCES CITED IN THE DESCRIPTION") are attributable.
• The PubChem citation list is truncated at "US-65759…"; the full list may contain additional entries relevant under § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2).
• Priority-date integrity is the pivot for the entire § 102 analysis: if any claim's effective filing date is 2019-07-17 rather than 2011-06-14, then post-2011 publications (including Neurent's 2015–2018 applications and the Arrinex 2014–2016 patents) become available as § 102(a)(2) art. That question was expressly reserved by Petitioners and is unresolved on my sources.
• I did not convert the FWD's unpatentability holding into any legal conclusion, and I have made no representation about validity, infringement, or the current status of any patent claim.

Verification links: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11241271/en · https://patents.justia.com/patent/11241271 · https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-11241271-B2 · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/11241271 · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2024-00277 · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555012](/patent/1555012)/download-documents

I'll gather the prior-art and record evidence needed for a grounded § 103 analysis.

Now let me pin down the full claim set, the Board's constructions, and the identities of the remaining prior-art references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,241,271 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Scope note on "the Prior Art section of this page." The Google Patents page for US11241271 has two prior-art-related areas: (1) a machine-generated "Prior art keywords" field (nasal, tissue, treatment, energy, treatment element) — this is a keyword index, not a citation list, and I do not treat it as prior art; and (2) the patent citations appearing in the specification (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,551,310; 6,451,013; 4,887,605; 6,589,235; 7,416,550; 6,383,181; 5,846,235; 5,533,499; 7,114,495; 7,055,523; 6,978,781). Accordingly I analyze (A) the prior-art combination actually of record against this patent in IPR2024-00277, and (B) secondary/alternative combinations built on the references cited in the '271 specification. I flag where I could not verify text.

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1. The claim at issue

Claim 1 (as recited in the IPR record, Pet. and PTAB papers) is a method claim:

"1. A method for treating a nasal airway to reduce mucus production, the method comprising: contacting a treatment element of a nasal airway treatment device directly with nasal mucosa of the nasal airway, wherein the treatment element comprises two rows of bipolar electrode pairs; applying radiofrequency energy with the bipolar electrode pairs through the nasal mucosa to a target tissue underlying the nasal mucosa for an amount of time to heat the target tissue; and removing the treatment element from the nasal airway, wherein heating the target tissue with the applied radiofrequency energy modifies at least one property of the target tissue, and wherein the modified at least one property of the target tissue causes a reduction in mucus production in the nasal airway."

Challenged claims: 1–4, 6–12, 16 (claims 5, 13–15 were not challenged).

• Claim 11: repositioning the treatment element to contact a different portion of nasal mucosa and re-applying RF to a different portion of target tissue.
• Claim 16: bending the shaft of the device before contacting the treatment element with the nasal mucosa.
• Claim 4: dependent claim for which Petitioner relied on Edwards-'886 (apparently a waveform/frequency-type limitation).
• ⚠️ I could not verify the verbatim text of claims 2–3, 6–10, 12 from the retrieved sources. Statements about those claims below are inferences from the record's grouping ("dependent challenged claims 2–3, 6–12, and 16") and are flagged as such.

Priority date: June 14, 2011 (earliest application in the chain); the '271 issued February 8, 2022 from application 16/514,316 filed July 17, 2019. (FWD, § II.C.) ⚠️ Whether pre-AIA or AIA § 102/103 applies is not stated in the sources I retrieved; the obviousness standard is materially the same either way, but the applicable prior-art provisions would differ.

POSITA: The parties disputed the definition (engineering degree + clinical use/design/training). The Board declined Patent Owner's narrower definition (which required design and development experience and would have excluded Dr. DelGaudio), finding its conclusions would be the same either way.

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2. Primary combination — Edwards-'535 + Kong + Stern (Ground 1)

2.1 The references

2.2 Element-by-element mapping and rationale

2.3 Motivation to combine (the KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same mechanism. Edwards-'535 and Kong both concern RF treatment of the nasal turbinates; Kong teaches the reason to do it that the '271 claims (mucus reduction) and Edwards-'535 supplies a device that does it without damaging surface mucosa (surface cooling) — solving the very complications Liang reports ("bloody secretions," "nasal adhesion").
2. Use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way (KSR, "obvious to try"/"predictable use"). Applying Edwards-'535's cooled, non-puncturing RF balloon to Kong's/Liang's nerve-ablation technique yields the predictable result of reducing mucus while sparing surface tissue.
3. Substitution of one known element for another to obtain a predictable result. Edwards-'535 expressly contemplates bipolar operation and independent delivery to each electrode but "omits details on how to implement such energy delivery"; a POSITA looking to implement that feature would consult a known bipolar surface-electrode scheme. Stern supplies exactly that — plus the stated benefit that ordered electrode rows "facilitat[e] simple spatial resolution of the applied energy," enabling targeting of particular tissue.
4. "Duplication of parts" / finite number of solutions. Edwards-'535 already discloses a row of surface electrodes; providing a second row is an obvious duplication producing even heating and larger treated surface area — a benefit the Petition attributes to Stern.
5. Reasonable expectation of success. Both references ablate mucosal tissue with bipolar RF; Kong and Liang reported high clinical effectiveness rates, and Edwards-'535's own disclosure states its method removes internal tissue bloodlessly without surface wounding.

2.4 Patent Owner's counterarguments (as they must be addressed)

• "Teach away"/opposite objectives: PO argued Edwards-'535 (ablates underlying tissue while sparing the surface) and Stern (ablates the endometrium surface while sparing the underlying myometrium) are "essentially opposites." Petitioner's rebuttal: both use bipolar RF surface electrodes to selectively heat a target layer while sparing an adjacent layer; the choice of which layer is targeted is a matter of electrode/energy parameter selection and intended clinical result, not a teaching away. On the record, the Board credited Petitioner.
• No motivation because Edwards-'535 already solves Liang's problem: PO invoked Sisvel/Taiwan Semiconductor-type reasoning. Petitioner responded that a reference's own partial solution does not remove the motivation where the secondary reference supplies implementation details the primary reference omits.
• Claim construction of "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs." PO argued "pairs" (plural per row) required more than one pair in each row; Petitioner argued "two rows of bipolar pairs," noting the specification's own usage ("one, two, or many pairs of bipolar needles 252," '271 at 23:40–43). PO conceded Stern discloses ordered rows. This construction dispute is, in my assessment, the single most appealable issue (see § 6).
• POSITA/qualification attack on Dr. DelGaudio — rejected by the Board.

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3. Grounds 3 and 4 — substituting Liang for Kong

Ground 3 (Edwards-'535 + Liang + Stern) is structurally identical to Ground 1 and, if anything, has a stronger motivation story: Liang's own reported side effects ("bloody secretions," "nasal adhesion") supply an express reason to adopt Edwards-'535's less-damaging, surface-cooled device, and Liang's stated goal of reducing "runny nose" maps directly onto claim 1's mucus-reduction limitation. Ground 4 adds Edwards-'886 to Ground 3 for claim 4.

Assessment: Grounds 3/4 are cumulative and reinforcing. Their main vulnerability is the same Van Os/"articulated rationale" attack PO leveled (the Petition was criticized for shifting between "improve Edwards-'535 with Liang" and "improve Liang with Edwards-'535"). A cleaner framing — Liang supplies the therapeutic indication and target; Edwards-'535 (as improved by Stern) supplies a better device for it — should survive.

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4. Ground 2 / claim 4 — Edwards-'886

Edwards-'886 is properly combinable: it shares an inventor (Edwards) with Edwards-'535, addresses RF tissue heating/cooling in a body cavity, and supplies concrete generator parameters (bipolar mode, multiple channels, ~460 kHz sinusoid, ~15 W/channel, impedance feedback). Petitioner argued the "mucosal tissue, regardless of location, would have similar moisture content" ⇒ similar electrical/thermal properties, making Edwards-'886's frequency teachings applicable to nasal mucosa, with any selection being routine optimization from a range Stern already discloses. That is a defensible In re Applied Materials-type argument. ⚠️ I could not verify the exact wording of claim 4, so I cannot state with confidence whether the Edwards-'886 limitation is a frequency, a waveform, a power range, or a feedback/control feature.

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5. Additional / alternative § 103 combinations from the art cited in the '271 specification

These references are cited in the '271 specification itself and all pre-date the June 14, 2011 priority date. They independently reinforce the § 103 case:

These combinations are not the ones adjudicated, and I present them as alternative evidentiary support, not as established grounds.

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6. Bottom line and risk assessment

On the record, all challenged claims (1–4, 6–12, 16) were held unpatentable under § 103 by the Board — Grounds 1 and 2 (Edwards-'535 + Kong + Stern [+ Edwards-'886]) and Grounds 3 and 4 (Edwards-'535 + Liang + Stern [+ Edwards-'886]). The engine of the holding is: (i) Edwards-'535 = nasal, trans-mucosal, surface-cooled RF device with independently energizable surface electrodes; (ii) Kong/Liang = the mucus-reduction/nerve-ablation indication that supplies the claim's clinical-result limitation; (iii) Stern = "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs" plus single-generator switching implementation detail; (iv) Edwards-'886 = generator/feedback parameters for claim 4.

Key vulnerabilities of the invalidity case (the likely appellate issues in CAFC No. 2025-2099):

1. Claim construction of "two rows of bipolar electrode pairs" — whether each row must contain multiple pairs, and whether Stern's FIGS. 15/19 ordered-electrode disclosure meets the limitation rather than merely disclosing a single row of the claimed kind at a time.
2. Motivation to combine / "teach away" — PO's "diametrically opposed objectives" argument between Edwards-'535 (spare the surface, ablate beneath) and Stern (destroy the surface, spare beneath); the outcome turns on whether the Board's "selective heating of a target layer with bipolar RF" framing is affirmed as a permissible reading of the references rather than hindsight.
3. Sufficiency of the clinical-result limitation — whether Kong/Liang's turbinate data adequately show the claimed "reduction in mucus production" from the claimed device geometry, or whether Petitioner's mapping is too attenuated.
4. POSITA framing — the Board's rejection of PO's design-experience requirement, and its reliance on a clinician's (Dr. DelGaudio's) testimony, is a secondary attack.

Strict caveats:

• The FWD is a Board judgment that the claims are unpatentable by a preponderance; it is not a final judicial determination of invalidity, and the appeal was pending (Notice of Appeal filed Sept. 11, 2025; docketed as Fed. Cir. 25-2099).
• The parallel District of Delaware case (1:23-cv-00756-JLH) was stayed; no merits ruling on the '271 patent exists there.
• I could not verify: the verbatim text of claims 2–3, 5, 6–10, 12–15; the identity of "Baker" (referenced by Edwards-'535 and by Petitioner as teaching electrodes in rows on a membrane); the pre-AIA/AIA status of the claims; or the exact claim-4 limitation.
• One minor internal-consistency note: the previously-generated litigation summary described the FWD grounds as "Edwards-'535 in view of Kong and Stern, with Edwards-'886 and Liang in other grounds." That is consistent with the underlying papers I retrieved (Ground 1 = Edwards-'535 + Kong + Stern; Ground 2 adds Edwards-'886; Ground 3 substitutes Liang; Ground 4 adds Edwards-'886 to Ground 3). No contradiction found.