US 11329352

I'll research US patent 11329352 across USPTO and litigation sources. Let me run several searches.

Let me verify the litigation outcomes and check the 2026 CAFC disposition details.

US Patent 11,329,352 B2 — Research Summary

Identifier interpreted literally: "11329352" → US 11,329,352 B2 (granted patent). Application No. 15/908,327; pre-grant publication US 2018/0190963 A1.

1. Bibliographic data

Sources: Google Patents; Unified Patents portal; USPTO.report; Patexia.

Minor record discrepancy to flag: the Unified Patents portal lists priority 2015‑08‑30, application date 2018‑02‑27, grant 2022‑05‑09, expiration 2036‑03‑21 — one day earlier than the printed patent front page and Google Patents (2015‑08‑31 / 2018‑02‑28 / 2022‑05‑10 / 2036‑03‑22). This looks like time‑zone normalization of the same events; I am treating the printed patent data (as reproduced in the Google Patents full text) as authoritative.

2. Abstract (as granted)

"The present invention provides a secondary battery. The secondary battery comprises a first electrode tab and a first electrode plate. The first electrode plate first electrode plate comprises a first current collector, a first active layer, a first electrode tab receiving groove and a first electrode plate notch. The first active layer is disposed on a surface of the first current collector. The first electrode tab receiving groove is configured to receive the first electrode tab, and the first electrode tab is electrically connected with the first current collector through the first electrode tab receiving groove. The first electrode plate notch is disposed on an edge of the first electrode tab receiving groove."

(The duplicated "first electrode plate first electrode plate" is a typographical artifact in the granted abstract.)

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claim

There is only one independent claim in the granted patent — claim 1. Claims 2–12 all depend, directly or indirectly, on claim 1 (claim 2→1; 3→2; 4→3; 5→3; 6→5; 7→5; 8→7; 9→1; 10→2; 11→1; 12→1). This is worth emphasizing because the pre-grant publication (US 2018/0190963 A1) contained independent claims directed to the winding formation system (e.g., its claim 13, plus system claims 14–16), whereas the granted patent's claim set is directed only to the battery cell — the system claims do not appear in the issued 12-claim set.

Claim 1 — A wound-type secondary battery (plain language):

• A battery comprising a first electrode tab and a first electrode plate.
• The plate has a current collector and active material coated on both faces — a "first surface" and an opposite "second surface."
• A tab-receiving groove: a trench cut into the coating that exposes bare current collector at the groove floor, with active material forming the walls around it. The tab sits inside this groove (not on top of the coating) and is electrically connected to the collector there — this is what saves cell thickness / raises energy density.
• A first recess on the opposite (back) side, directly opposite the tab-receiving groove — i.e., the matching groove formed on the reverse face of the plate.
• A notch through the plate at the side edge of the tab-receiving groove, cutting through both surfaces of the current collector. Plainly, this is the die-cut that severs and removes the region where laser cleaning left burrs, so those burrs cannot pierce the separator and cause an internal short.
• The groove must be bounded by the collector and at least two active-material walls.
• The battery must be a wound-type (jelly-roll) cell.

In short: a wound lithium-ion cell in which electrode tabs are recessed into coating-free grooves to boost energy density, with die-cut notches through the current collector at the groove edges to eliminate laser-cleaning burrs (replacing the prior-art thick insulating tape).

Note on dependent claims that carry meaningful substance (not independent, but define the commercial scope):

• Claim 2 adds the second electrode (tab, plate, receiving groove, and through-notch).
• Claim 3 names the electrodes anode/cathode.
• Claim 4 sets notch dimensions: length 0.9–1.2× and width 0.2–0.8× the receiving-groove dimensions.
• Claims 5–8 cover the insulating adhesive tapes (T1 on the cathode tab groove, T2 facing the anode tab groove, T3 on the anode recess, T4 on the cathode recess; single-sided in claim 8).
• Claim 11 requires the whole first electrode tab to be parallel to the first surface.
• Claim 12 relates the notch bottom to the active material on opposite sides of the groove along the plate length.

The specification's commercial embodiment reports (Table 1) a 335272 pouch cell with ~937 Wh/L average energy density, 3.28 mm thickness and 0 short-circuit cells for the die-cut/10 µm-tape embodiment, versus 925 Wh/L with a thick (35 µm) tape and 12/20 shorts with a thin (10 µm) tape and no die-cutting.

4. Litigation and validity — USPTO (PTAB) and CAFC dockets

PTAB — IPR2023-00585 (Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd. v. Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd.)

• Filed March 31, 2023; challenged claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 of US 11,329,352.
• Institution DENIED on Oct. 24, 2023 — a discretionary (Fintiv-type) denial; panel: Kristina M. Kalan, Donna M. Praiss, Jeffrey W. Abraham (opinion by Kalan). The Google Patents page labels this "Not Instituted – Procedural."
• Consequence: the validity question on the '352 patent was left unaddressed by the Board.
• Sources: Patexia lawsuit record; IPVerse case page; IPWatchdog, Nov. 3, 2023.

District court — Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd. v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd., No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG (E.D. Tex., Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap)

• Jury verdict, Feb. 9, 2024 (Dkt. 345): CosMX infringed (willfully) claims 1 & 17 of US 10,964,987, claim 1 of US 10,833,363, and claim 1 of US 11,329,352. The jury found claim 1 of the '352 patent INVALID; claim 1 of the '363 patent invalid; the '987 claims not invalid. Damages: $3,701,108.
• Final Judgment, Apr. 26, 2024 (Dkt. 369) — entered judgment that claim 1 of the '352 patent is invalid; later a joint post-trial motion added $459,127 in supplemental damages/prejudgment interest (Aug. 20, 2024, Dkt. 422). A 27% damages enhancement was awarded on the surviving patent.
• Sources: Final Judgment PDF; Verdict Form; Quinn Emanuel case note; Finnegan case note.

CAFC — 2026 docket (the two appeals flagged on the patent page)

• Appeals 25-1037 (CosMX, appellant) and 25-1091 (ATL, cross-appellant), consolidated (25-1037 lead), from E.D. Tex. No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG. Docketed Oct. 24, 2024.
• Disposition: June 9, 2026 nonprecedential ORDER dismissing both appeals under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), each side to bear its own costs; issued as the mandate the same day. No merits opinion was issued.
• Sources: CAFC order PDF; Justia; dockets.justia.com 25-1091.

China-side parallel report (for context, not independently verified here): Chinese press reporting on the U.S. judgment states that of the three asserted patents, US 10,964,987 survived while 11329352 and 10833363 were held invalid, and separately describes CNIPA invalidation rulings in other ATL–CosMX cases (e.g., Jiemian, May 6, 2024). I have not independently confirmed a CNIPA invalidation of the Chinese counterpart CN108352492B from the sources retrieved.

5. Uncertainty / caveats

1. Claim set scope. My claim analysis is based on the granted 12-claim text presented in the authoritative full text. I observed — but cannot confirm from prosecution history I did not retrieve — that the granted claims appear narrowed relative to the published application (e.g., the added limitations of dual-surface active coating, the opposite-side recess, the through-notch, "at least two active substance walls," and "wound-type secondary battery"), and that the winding-formation-system claims present in US 2018/0190963 A1 are absent from the granted patent. Treat the "apparent narrowing" as an inference, not a documented fact.
2. Legal status. The Google Patents page states the patent is "Active," expires 2036-03-22, and lists a 2022 priority claim to US 17/710,936 (itself granted as US 12,009,483 B2). However, the E.D. Tex. final judgment declared claim 1 invalid — and because every other claim depends from claim 1, the practical enforceability of this patent is materially affected even though the "Active" administrative status and the appeals' dismissal (by agreement, without opinion) leave the legal picture incomplete. An affirmance/reversal posture cannot be inferred from a Rule 42(b) voluntary dismissal.
3. Single independent claim. If your workflow expects "each independent claim," note there is exactly one in the granted patent (claim 1). The system-side independent claim exists only in the published application, which I have flagged separately rather than treating as issued claim scope.
4. No CAFC merits ruling in 2026. The only 2026 CAFC event I could verify for this family is the June 9, 2026 dismissal order; I found no 2026 opinion addressing the merits of US 11,329,352.
5. Third-party databases. Unified Patents, Patexia, PatentWorth, and patentleaderboard.com carry derived/estimated data (e.g., PatentWorth's $1,348,545 valuation and a "Biotechnology" domain tag) that are clearly auto-generated errors or estimates and should not be relied on; I have not reproduced their analytical conclusions as fact.

I'll research litigation involving US 11,329,352 using litigation-focused sources.

Let me gather specifics on the case docket, appeals, and the IPR.

Let me verify the appeal timeline and check for any other suits asserting this patent.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,329,352

Note on identifiers: I have interpreted "11329352" literally as U.S. Patent No. 11,329,352 B2, titled "Secondary battery cell and winding formation system thereof," assigned to Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd. (ATL), which issued May 10, 2022 from application 15/908,327. I excluded results for other numbers.

1. Ningde Amperex Technology Limited v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd. — E.D. Tex.

Patents asserted: The complaint initially asserted U.S. 11,329,352 (the "'352 Patent") and U.S. 10,971,706; ATL later amended to assert U.S. 10,833,363 and U.S. 10,964,987. By trial, three patents were in suit: the '987, '363, and '352 Patents.

Outcome (jury verdict, February 9, 2024 — Dkt. 345):

• CosMX infringed claims 1 and 17 of the '987 Patent, claim 1 of the '363 Patent, and claim 1 of the '352 Patent;
• Infringement was willful;
• Claim 1 of the '352 Patent was held INVALID (as was claim 1 of the '363 Patent); claims 1 and 17 of the '987 Patent were not invalid;
• Damages of $3,701,108 through trial.

Final Judgment (April 26, 2024 — Dkt. 369): Entered per the verdict; declared claim 1 of the '352 Patent invalid; awarded ATL $3,701,108 plus a $1,000,000 enhancement under 35 U.S.C. § 284 (total $4,701,108 — matching the 470.1108万美元 figure reported in CosMX's Chinese-language disclosures); ATL to recover costs; ATL's antitrust/state-law counterclaims against CosMX were rejected.

Amended Final Judgment (September 3, 2024 — Dkt. 427): Added supplemental damages and prejudgment interest and removed reference to verdict question 6a; the parties' stipulation on an ongoing royalty was adopted.

Status: Docket shows the case terminated April 26, 2024 (judgment); the amended final judgment followed September 3, 2024. As to the '352 Patent, the judgment of invalidity stands undisturbed.

Sources:

• https://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.txed.[215535](/patent/215535)/gov.uscourts.txed.215535.369.0.pdf
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63442870/427/ningde-amperex-technology-limited-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd/
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63442870/345/ningde-amperex-technology-limited-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd/
• https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/ningde-amperex-technology-limited-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd-222-cv-00232-ed-tex.html
• https://paper.cnstock.com/html/2024-05/06/content_1911946.htm

2. Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd. v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd. — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

The order lists CosMX as Defendant-Appellant (No. 2025-1037) and ATL as Plaintiff-Cross-Appellant (No. 2025-1091). The parties' joint agreement to dismiss resolved the appeals from the judgment that had held the '352 Patent invalid and awarded damages on the '987 Patent.

Date discrepancy flag: The Federal Circuit dismissal order is dated June 9, 2026. Your prompt states the current date is April 26, 2026, and the patent record I was given was fetched September 29, 2026. I am reporting the order literally as retrieved; if your working date is controlling, this dismissal postdates it and should be treated as a later development.

Sources:

• https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1037.ORDER.6-9-2026_2707162.pdf
• https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/25-1037/25-1037-2026-06-09.html

3. Related administrative proceeding (PTAB) — not district-court litigation, but directly on the '352 Patent

The '352 Patent therefore never received a PTAB validity determination. A companion petition, IPR2023-00586, was likewise denied institution.

Sources:

• https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2023-00585
• http://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IPR2023-00585.pdf
• https://ipwatchdog.com/tag/patent-trial-and-appeal-board/page/24/

Other points bearing on scope of the list

• No ITC (Section 337) investigation and no other U.S. district-court case asserting U.S. 11,329,352 were found. The '352 Patent appears to have been asserted only in the ATL v. CosMX action above.
• Related but distinct litigation between the same parties (E.D. Tex. No. 2:24-cv-00728-JRG) involves other ATL patents (e.g., U.S. 11,575,148 and U.S. 10,964,927), not the '352 Patent, and is therefore excluded.
• German litigation between ATL and CosMX (resulting in a 2024 injunction against certain CosMX products) is reported in industry press, but the sources I retrieved do not identify the '352 Patent as the asserted right in that action; I therefore do not attribute the German case to this patent.
• The Google Patents litigation metadata for this patent lists: the Texas E.D. case 2:22-cv-00232, the two Federal Circuit appeals (25-1091 and 25-1037), and PTAB case IPR2023-00585 (noted as "Not Instituted – Procedural"). This is consistent with the findings above.

Summary

There is one known U.S. litigation asserting U.S. 11,329,352: Ningde Amperex Technology Limited v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd., No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG (E.D. Tex., filed June 24, 2022), in which a jury and the court held claim 1 of the '352 Patent invalid (final judgment April 26, 2024; amended September 3, 2024). Both sides appealed (Fed. Cir. Nos. 2025-1037 and 2025-1091), and those appeals were dismissed by joint agreement. The sole PTAB challenge to the patent, IPR2023-00585, was denied institution on Fintiv grounds.

If you need confirmation of post-judgment docket activity or the exact notice-of-appeal dates, PACER for E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00232 and the Federal Circuit docket for 2025-1037/2025-1091 are the authoritative sources; I could not independently pull those dockets in this session.

I'll start by verifying the structured block against live sources, since the patent page itself flagged a PTAB docket entry.

Found a live proceeding the ODP block missed. Let me drill into it and check for any sibling IPRs and related appeals.

Let me pull the actual institution decision and check for any later-filed petitions against this patent.

Data-integrity note (read first)

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block returns zero AIA trial proceedings for US 11,329,352. That is an ODP ingest gap, not reality. Web search surfaced a real, publicly decided IPR against this exact patent — IPR2023-00585 — which is even linked off the patent's own Google Patents page under "litigation" ("PTAB case IPR2023-00585 filed (Not Instituted – Procedural)"). Everything below is sourced from live sources, and I flag confidence levels per item. I did not independently retrieve the ODP proceeding record or the PTAB E2E case page, so treat the proceeding-level metadata as reported-by-third-party unless noted.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,329,352: one (1) — IPR2023-00585 — with institution DENIED on discretionary grounds; zero final written decisions, zero claims canceled by the Board, zero claims sustained by the Board, zero settlements, and zero PTAB appeals. The bottom line for a defendant is genuinely favorable but not because of the PTAB: the Board never reached the merits, so no PTAB estoppel exists for anyone. The patent's real problem is in Article III — the parallel E.D. Tex. case (Ningde Amperex v. Zhuhai CosMX, No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG) produced a judgment that US 11,329,352 is invalid, and the Federal Circuit appeals from that judgment were dismissed by joint agreement on 2026-06-09, leaving that invalidity judgment as the final word. In other words: not "the patent survived an IPR and is hardened," and not "claims 1-5 were canceled at the PTAB" — rather, "the patent was IPR-challenged and the challenge never got instituted, but the patent was held invalid in district court and that ruling is now final."

IPR2023-00585 — Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd. v. Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2023-03-31 (petition filing date per Lexology case analysis, Patexia, and IPVerse/GreyB)
• Status: Institution Denied (Patexia, IPVerse/GreyB) — Google Patents renders the same event as "Not Instituted – Procedural." Not in the supplied ODP structured data. Institution decision date: 2023-10-24 per Patexia/IPVerse; IPWatchdog's roundup of the same denial ran 2023-11-03, consistent with a late-October decision.
• Judge panel: Reported as Kristina M. Kalan, Donna M. Praiss, and Jeffrey W. Abraham. (Single-source, via Patexia's case summary; the same three APJs sat on the companion IPR2023-00586. Patexia's field labels Kalan as "Judge Writing the Final Decision," which is a data artifact — no final written decision ever issued in this case.)
• Petition grounds: Petitioner challenged claims 1, 2, 3, and 5–12 (i.e., claims 1–3 and 5–12; claim 4 was never challenged). Sole statutory basis was § 103 obviousness, over "various combinations of Chinese and United States patent documents." Claim 1 is the sole independent claim of the '352 patent — the Board's decision reproduces it in full as limitations 1(pre) through 1(i), including the "first electrode plate notch disposed on a side edge of the first electrode tab receiving groove and extending through the second surface and the first surface of the first current collector" and "wound-type secondary battery" limitations. Named references in the public record include CN 104157914 A to Wang ("Wang"), plus Deng, Zhou, Kobayashi, and Hasegawa; Wang was the primary reference in every ground, and Petitioner conceded Wang disclosed every element of claim 1 except the "notch" element (claim 1(g)). Petitioner relied on the declaration of Dr. Ulrich von Sacken (Ex. 1002); Patent Owner relied on James L. Kaschmitter (Ex. 2001). Claim construction under Phillips v. AWH Corp.
• Institution decision: DENIED — discretionary denial under § 314(a) (Apple v. Fintiv), not on the merits. The Board expressly noted that "the PTO is permitted, but never compelled, to institute an IPR proceeding." Factor-by-factor (per the Lexology case note, which tracks the decision): Factor 1 neutral (no stay requested or likely); Factor 2 weighed heavily in favor of denial — trial in E.D. Tex. was scheduled to precede the projected October 2024 FWD deadline; Factor 3 heavily favored denial — by the time of the institution decision the parties had exchanged contentions, held a Markman hearing (2023-08-15), and completed fact discovery and initial expert reports, and the Board rejected the petition's "early stage" framing because the relevant snapshot is the time of the institution decision; Factor 4 only "somewhat against denial" — CosMX's stipulation was not a full Sotera-type stipulation (it did not extend to grounds that reasonably could have been raised) and, critically, carved out Wang, which was the primary reference for every ground; Factor 5 favored denial (same parties, trial before FWD); Factor 6 turned on the primary factors. No merits ruling on claim 1 or any dependent claim.
• Final Written Decision: None. No FWD issued; no claim of the '352 patent has ever been canceled, confirmed, or otherwise adjudicated by the Board. PTAB-side, claims 1–12 remain presumptively valid and stand exactly as granted.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement — the proceeding terminated by denial of institution on 2023-10-24. A denial of institution is not appealable, and no request for Director Review is reflected in the public record I located.
• Appeal: None from this proceeding (nothing appealable issued). The 25-1037 / 25-1091 Federal Circuit appeals discussed below arise from the district court case, not from IPR2023-00585.
• Defensive value: The denial is a double-edged fact. On the plus side, because there was no FWD, CosMX (and its privies) are not estopped under § 315(e)(2) — no ground was "raised or reasonably could have been raised" to judgment. On the minus side, the denial gives you no PTAB invalidity ruling to hand a court. Practically, though, the denial is close to irrelevant to a defendant today: the same petitioner went on to win a district court judgment that the '352 patent is invalid, and the Board's Fintiv reasoning would now apply with even more force (a final district court invalidity judgment is far stronger grounds for § 314(a) denial than the pretrial posture that drove the 2023 denial).

Related non-PTAB disposition (crucial context — this is not a PTAB proceeding)

Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd. v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd., No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG (E.D. Tex., Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap) — complaint filed 2022-06-24. This is the parallel litigation that drove the Fintiv denial.

• Outcome (as publicly reported): The district court entered judgment holding US 11,329,352 and US 10,833,363 invalid, and dismissing ATL's claims on those two patents; the court upheld US 10,996,987 as valid and infringed, awarding $4,701,108 plus taxable costs. Source: Zhuhai CosMX's own May 2024 disclosure announcement (CosMX is a Shanghai-listed issuer, 688772.SH), dated 2024-05-06, and consistent Chinese trade press. ⚠️ Confidence note: I located the judgment outcome through CosMX's investor disclosure and secondary press, not the judgment itself. Before relying on the '352 invalidity finding in a brief, pull the docket (Doc. 427 Judgment and the later Amended Final Judgment) directly from CourtListener/PACER.
• Appeals: 25-1037 (CosMX as appellant; notice of appeal filed 2024-10-02, docketed 2024-10-08) and 25-1091 (ATL as plaintiff-cross-appellant; notice of appeal filed 2024-10-16, docketed 2024-10-24), both from No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG. CosMX's opening brief in the consolidated appeal frames the issues as (i) reversal of the induced-infringement judgment for lack of admissible evidence of the number of infringing acts, (ii) damages-methodology/daubert issues, and (iii) a Fifth Circuit jury-instruction error on the Noerr-Pennington sham standard — i.e., the briefed merits were about the '987 patent's liability and damages. I could not confirm from the public record which of ATL's cross-appellate issues specifically targeted the '352/'363 invalidity rulings.
• Disposition: Both appeals were dismissed under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), each side to bear its own costs, by nonprecedential order, 2026-06-09, mandate issued the same day. Order: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1037.ORDER.6-9-2026_2707162.pdf (mirrored at https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/25-1037/25-1037-2026-06-09.html). The order contains no vacatur language — a Rule 42(b) dismissal of that form ordinarily leaves the underlying district court judgment standing and final. A joint dismissal agreement of this kind typically (though not always) accompanies a global settlement; terms were not disclosed.
• Defensive value: This is the fact that matters most. Absent vacatur or a subsequent reversal I'm unaware of, the '352 patent stands adjudged invalid in E.D. Tex., and the losing patent owner is estopped from re-asserting it against CosMX; other defendants get a stare-decisis/defensive-collateral-estoppel argument built on a government-sourced, final judgment.

Companion IPRs on the other two asserted patents (different patents — listed only for pattern context):

• IPR2023-00586 — Zhuhai CosMX v. Ningde Amperex, U.S. Patent 10,833,363 — filed 2023-02-23, institution denied 2023-08-18 (claims 1–16 challenged).
• IPR2023-00587 — Zhuhai CosMX v. Ningde Amperex, U.S. Patent 10,996,987 — institution denied under Fintiv (publicly reported mid-October 2023).

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 11,329,352 has been canceled, confirmed, or construed on the merits by the PTAB — because IPR2023-00585 was denied institution and its sister petitions on the companion patents were denied too. At the Board, all of claims 1–12 remain intact and unadjudicated. Claim 4 in particular is untested: it was the one claim CosMX did not challenge in the 2023 petition, and no other petition has touched this patent. But that PTAB blank slate is not the operative fact. In district court, claim 1 (the sole independent claim) and its dependents were held invalid, and after the 2026-06-09 Rule 42(b) dismissal that judgment appears final. So the practical claim-by-claim picture is: effectively unenforceable-as-adjudicated in E.D. Tex. (claim 1 and dependents, per reported judgment) vs. formally valid-but-untested at the PTAB (all claims). That split is your single most important talking point — and your single biggest verification task.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone. Estoppel attaches only after a final written decision, and IPR2023-00585 never produced one. CosMX is therefore free to raise any ground — including grounds it raised or could have raised in the 2023 petition — in the district court; conversely, a different defendant gets no benefit from CosMX's petition and cannot bootstrap off it. The real gating constraint on a new IPR is § 315(b): a petition must be filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '352 patent. Any party served before roughly September 2025 is now time-barred from petitioning. Combined with the final district court invalidity judgment, a fresh IPR on this patent in 2026 would be a near-hopeless exercise — expect § 314(a) denial and a § 325(d)/finality fight. (Availability of the art itself is a separate question from § 315(b): because no FWD issued, art that was before the Board in the 2023 petition is not statutorily off-limits to a non-privy defendant, though practically the Board would view a re-run as inefficient and the district judgment makes it moot.)

Pattern signals. Zhuhai CosMX is a serial, systematic petitioner against the Ningde Amperex/ATL battery family — IPR2023-00585/00586/00587 on the three patents asserted in ATL I, and a later wave including IPR2025-00405 (US 11,769,910), IPR2025-00431 and IPR2025-00722 (US 11,799,131), and IPR2025-00524 (US 12,015,118), targeting patents asserted in ATL II, No. 2:24-cv-728-JRG. This is not a defensive aggregator: Unified Patents does not appear as a petitioner — the "Unified Patents" links on the Google Patents page are merely Unified's licensed litigation-data portal. The 2023 Fintiv denials did not stop CosMX; it kept filing. ATL, for its part, pursued the district court appeals to the point of briefing and oral argument (CourtListener audio: https://www.courtlistener.com/audio/[104726](/patent/104726)/ningde-amperex-technology-ltd-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd/) before the parties jointly walked away. Critically for you: this patent family has a continuation tail — US 11,329,352 has a granted continuation, US 12,009,483 B2 (appln. 17/710,936, filed 2022-03-31), and a further pending continuation, US 2024/0291040 A1 (appln. 18/623,461, filed 2024-04-01). Killing the '352 does not kill the family. Any freedom-to-operate analysis must cover the '483 and its pending sibling, whose claims you should compare against the 2023 petition art and the E.D. Tex. invalidity record.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the district court judgment before you rely on it. Pull Doc. 427 (Judgment) and the Amended Final Judgment in No. 2:22-cv-00232-JRG from https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63442870/ningde-amperex-technology-limited-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd/ and confirm (a) the precise claim-level basis on which US 11,329,352 was held invalid (jury verdict, JMOL, or bench ruling), (b) the invalidity ground (anticipation vs. obviousness, and the references), and (c) that the judgment has not been vacated. The reported disposition is a district court judgment, not a PTAB cancellation — do not cite it as an FWD, and quote the judgment's own claim numbers.
2. Confirm the CAFC dismissal left the judgment intact. The 2026-06-09 order (https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1037.ORDER.6-9-2026_2707162.pdf) dismisses under Rule 42(b) with no vacatur and issues the mandate. Check the CAFC docket (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69650843/17/ningde-amperex-technology-ltd-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd/) for any post-order motion, and watch for a covenant not to sue or license as part of the apparent settlement — that, not the judgment, may be what actually neutralizes the patent going forward.
3. Get the institution decision itself. Read IPR2023-00585 in full (PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ — search proceeding number IPR2023-00585; a publicly mirrored copy of the decision is at http://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IPR2023-00585.pdf) and confirm the panel (Kalan, Praiss, Abraham), the exact claim set (1–3, 5–12), the ground table, and — most importantly — that the denial rests on § 314(a)/Fintiv and contains no merits holding you can cite or that binds anyone.
4. If you are being asserted against today on the '352: lead with the E.D. Tex. invalidity judgment plus the dismissed appeal, and press for a stay or summary judgment on the judgment's preclusive effect; the absence of any PTAB proceedings means there is no adverse FWD and no estoppel to worry about, but also no Board ruling to borrow — so your Tier-1 exhibit is the judgment, not a PTAB paper. Check your own § 315(b) date if you were served before ~September 2025: you are almost certainly time-barred from filing an IPR.
5. If you are looking at the family rather than the '352: shift analysis to US 12,009,483 B2 and the pending US 2024/0291040 A1, and to the currently-pending CosMX petitions (IPR2025-00405, -00431, -00524, -00722) to see which claims of which family members are already under attack and what art has been credited.
6. Do not report "no PTAB activity." The ODP AIA-trial dataset returned nothing for this patent despite an IPR that was filed, briefed, decided, and covered by the IP press. Flag that gap to whoever maintains your feed; the same blind spot likely affects the companion patents in this family.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11329352. Let me start with targeted searches.

I have strong context. Now let me pin down the specific assignment reel/frame records and the correspondent.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,329,352 B2

Patent: Secondary battery cell and winding formation system thereof
App. No.: 15/908,327 (filed 2018-02-28) · Granted: 2022-05-10 · Priority: 2015-08-31 (PCT/CN2015/088638, filed 2015-08-31 by Ningde Amperex Technology Limited)
Assignee of record: Ningde Amperex Technology Limited (Fujian, CN)

Data caveat up front (read this first). USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and the legacy https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) renders its results client-side and my retrieval tools could not pull the underlying reel/frame detail or the recorded correspondent for this patent. The only post-filing assignment event I can verify is the one surfaced in Google Patents' legal-events stream (recorded 2020-11-09, inventor-to-company). I am not supplying reel/frame numbers or a correspondent name because I could not verify them; anything I invented there would be fabricated. Verify the two links above directly.

Inventors

All five are credited on the face of the patent as Fujian-resident inventors and were co-workers at the Ningde, Fujian R&D site of Ningde Amperex Technology Limited (ATL group). The applicant of record was the company, which confirms the standard employer-invention arrangement (confirmed by the 2020-11-09 nunc pro tunc assignment of all five names to the company).

Departure pattern (flag, but low weight): third-party aggregator data (Patent Leaderboard) shows Wenqiang Cheng credited with 22 US patents at Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications and 8 at Ningde Amperex, indicating he left the ATL group for OPPO at some point after this filing. This is a single-inventor move, not a coordinated five-inventor exodus, and there is no evidence it preceded a portfolio sale — the patent stayed with Ningde Amperex. Noted for completeness only.

Original assignee

Ningde Amperex Technology Limited (Chinese: 宁德新能源科技有限公司) — the Chinese operating subsidiary within the ATL (Amperex Technology Limited) group, the Hong Kong-headquartered Li-ion cell maker that TDK Corporation acquired in 2005. (Do not conflate with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. / "CATL", the separately organized spin-off — the similarly named but distinct assignee appearing throughout the citation record.)

• Primary business: design/manufacture of lithium-ion and lithium-polymer pouch cells, principally for consumer electronics (smartphones, wearables, tablets).
• Does it ship product embodying the claims? Yes. The claims are directed to a wound electrode-plate/tab-receiving-groove architecture and the equipment that builds it — ATL's core mass-production cell technology. The patent is asserted against a battery maker, which is only coherent if the assignee practices in the field.
• Current status: Operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or restructuring event in the record. The family remains under ATL control (continuations US 12,009,483 and US 2024/0291040 A1 list the same assignee).

Assignment timeline

Only one recorded conveyance is visible in the sources I could retrieve. I could not obtain reel/frame or correspondent, so those fields are marked as unverified rather than guessed.

• Executed: not established / recorded 2020-11-09 — Reel/Frame: not retrievable (verify at Assignment Center)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (categorized "reassignment" in the Google Patents legal-events feed)
  • Assignor: Guo, Peipei; Zhao, Yi; He, Ping; Fang, Hongxin; Cheng, Wenqiang (all five named inventors)
  • Assignee: Ningde Amperex Technology Limited, No.1 XinGang Road, ZhangWan Town, Jiaocheng District, Ningde City, Fujian, PRC 352100
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. For context only, prosecution was handled by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (named as attorney/agent of record on the granted patent, primary examiner Nicholas P. D'Aniello), and the sibling ATL family patents in the same portfolio use Maier & Maier, PLLC, Alexandria, VA (Customer No. 62008) as correspondence address. I cannot confirm which firm recorded this assignment — treat both as unverified.
  • Context: Confirmatory inventor-to-employer assignment (nunc pro tunc style), i.e. internal perfection of title, not a sale.

No further assignments of record. There is no conveyance of this patent out of Ningde Amperex Technology Limited — no LLC, no holding company, no security interest, no license, no release, no change of name. The grant line, the Google Patents "Current Assignee," and the Unified Patents portal entry all show the same entity that filed it.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11329352
    2015 : PCT filed by Ningde Amperex
    2018 : US continuation filed
    2020 : Inventor assignment recorded
    2022 : Patent issued
         : Suit filed against Zhuhai CosMX
    2023 : IPR filed by CosMX
    2024 : District court finds patent invalid
    2025 : Federal Circuit appeals

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity appears. The sole recorded assignee (Ningde Amperex Technology Limited, recorded 2020-11-09) is the original operating applicant, with a real manufacturing address in Fujian.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither the recorded assignee nor any prior holder matches the Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock / Spangenberg-type rosters. The counterparty it litigates against is a product competitor, not a licensee.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not assessable / no finding. With only a single recorded link, there is no recurrence to detect. Two candidate firms (Morgan Lewis; Maier & Maier) are associated with the family generally, but neither is confirmed as assignment correspondent here, and a single appearance would not be a finding anyway.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. One recorded conveyance, from inventors to the original employer, and nothing after it (all later activity is prosecution/continuation and litigation, not title transfer).

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The only recorded assignment (2020-11-09) predates the first suit (E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00232, filed 2022-06-24) by ~19 months, and it ran to the entity that filed the patent rather than to a newly created assertion vehicle. The chain was not arranged on the courthouse steps.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11, no stalking-horse/§363 sale, no Kodak/Nortel-style auction. ATL is operating.

7. Privateering — not present. Litigation is conducted in the patent owner's own name as plaintiff, not through a proxy NPE asserting on its behalf. Ningde Amperex Technology Limited v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd., 2:22-cv-00232 (E.D. Tex.) names the patent owner directly.

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

Important correction re: Unified Patents. Google Patents' litigation sidebar on this patent carries a line reading "Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data'… licensed under CC BY 4.0." That is a data-source attribution, not the IPR petitioner. The actual petitioner in IPR2023-00585 is Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd. (filed 2023-03-31; institution denied 2023-10-24), i.e. the defendant competitor. Do not read this as Unified Patents holding or asserting the patent — it does not appear in the ownership chain at all. Unified Patents' own portal entry for US-11329352 simply mirrors the patent's bibliographic data.

Litigation/enforcement status (for completeness): the asserted U.S. patents in the CosMX campaign included US 11,329,352; US 10,833,363; and US 10,964,987. In its 2024-05-05/06 disclosure, Zhuhai CosMX reported that the E.D. Tex. court held US 11,329,352 and US 10,833,363 invalid, with only US 10,964,987 upheld (USD 4.701108M damages award). Appeals followed at the Federal Circuit (Nos. 25-1091 and 25-1037). A prior art/title analysis is outside this scope, but it materially affects the patent's value as an asset.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The ownership chain is exactly two nodes — five Ningde Amperex (ATL) employees → Ningde Amperex Technology Limited, recorded 2020-11-09 as a confirmatory employer assignment — and the patent has never left the operating manufacturer. It is asserted in the owner's own name against a genuine product competitor, Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd. (E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00232, filed 2022-06-24; IPR2023-00585 filed by CosMX, institution denied 2023-10-24). Zero of the eight NPE signals are present, and the "Unified Patents" hit that might look like a defensive-aggregator signal is a misread of a CC-license attribution line, not an assignment.

Verification links: Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ · legacy search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html · docket — https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63442870/ningde-amperex-technology-limited-v-zhuhai-cosmx-battery-co-ltd/ · PTAB — https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2023-00585

Reel/frame and correspondent fields remain unverified in this report; confirm them directly at Assignment Center before relying on them.

I'll search for US patent 11329352 and its cited prior art.

Let me get the specific cited references from the patent's front page and prosecution history.

Let me retrieve the full "References Cited" list from the patent's front page.

Verification of the patent (literal identifiers)

Searching the USPTO/Google Patents record for US 11,329,352 B2 returns exactly the target document — nothing for similar numbers:

The authoritative full text you supplied (claims, description) does not include the front-page "(56) References Cited" block, so I reconstructed the citation list from the patent's own front page as reproduced in a litigation exhibit and from the prosecution record. Important caveat up front: I was not able to retrieve the complete front-page reference list in a single authoritative block, and I was not able to independently verify the technical content/abstracts of the two U.S. patents and two CN documents listed there. I flag each item below where my confidence is limited rather than supplying fabricated descriptions.

A. Prior art cited on the face of US 11,329,352 (References Cited)

Source: the '352 patent front page as reproduced in Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd. v. Zhuhai CosMX Battery Co., Ltd., E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00232, Exhibit F (courtlistener.com/docket/63442870/1/6/).

U.S. Patent Documents

1. US 6,300,002 B1 (Webb) — issued Oct. 2001; classified H01M 4/04; "429/94" (battery/electrode art).

   • Description: Low confidence — I could not verify the abstract. The classification and the "429/94" secondary class point to an electrode/electrode-assembly structure patent, but I cannot responsibly summarize its disclosure.
   • § 102 relevance: Cited as an "A"-type background reference; on the record I reviewed there is no § 102 anticipation mapping to the '352 claims. No claim can be attributed to it as an anticipatory reference on the evidence available.

2. US 8,232,008 B2 (Morishima) — issued Jul. 2012; classified H01M 50/538 (tab/lead connection in wound or folded electrode stacks — the same CPC family as the '352 patent).

   • Description: Low/medium confidence — the CPC class H01M 50/538 puts it squarely in "connection of several leads or tabs of wound or folded electrode stacks," i.e., a tab-lead connection reference, but I did not verify its text.
   • § 102 relevance: No § 102 anticipation of any '352 claim is established on the record I found. Treat as background art on tab-connection structures.

Foreign Patent Documents

1. CN 1805183 A — published Jul. 2006 (Chinese published application).

   • Description: Not verified.
   • § 102 relevance: Cited as background; no § 102 mapping available. Note that a July 2006 publication is § 102(a)(1) prior art by date, but I have no evidence it discloses the "electrode tab receiving groove + electrode plate notch" combination of claim 1.

2. CN 201336332 Y — published Oct. 2009 (Chinese utility model).

   • Description: Not verified.
   • § 102 relevance: Same as above — dated prior art but no verified § 102 mapping.

I explicitly cannot state "reference X anticipates claim Y" for items 1–4 because the record I retrieved does not contain the examiner's claim-by-claim application of these four documents. Asserting a specific § 102 claim mapping for them would be fabrication.

B. Prior art actually applied by the Examiner during prosecution (the substantive § 102 / § 103 art)

These are reported in the prosecution documents for 15/908,327 (ptacts.uspto.gov, petition 1553607 document set).

1. Woo — US Pub. 2013/0252053 A1 ("of record").

   • Role: The core § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) reference. The Examiner held:

     "Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 8, 21 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1 or 2) as being anticipated by Woo (US Pub 2013/0252053 of record)."

   • Alleged disclosure: a secondary battery with first/second electrode tabs, first/second electrode plates, first/second current collectors with coated/uncoated portions, first/second active layers, first and second electrode tab receiving grooves (groove g) with the current collector at the bottom and active layer on the periphery, and a first electrode plate notch (the Examiner treated an additional groove "g" in the adjacent wound portion as the claimed notch), re FIG. 3 and paras. [0063–0082]; wound-type cell (claim 5).
   • § 102 mapping (pre-amendment claim numbers): claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 21, 22. Claim 1 is the independent claim; the rest are dependents. This is the only clean, documented anticipation position.

2. Tao et al. — applied in a § 103 obviousness rejection.

   • Role: The Examiner's office action rejected claim 1 (and dependents) over Tao et al. The Applicant-Initiated Interview Summary records that an amendment reciting a second active layer and the matching recess "opposite of the first electrode tab receiving groove" "would appear to overcome the rejection based on Tao et al." because Tao discloses "only a single electrode material layer with a single groove."
   • § 102 relevance: None directly — Tao was a § 103 (obviousness) reference, not an anticipation reference.

3. Stern and Kim — applied in a § 103 obviousness rejection.

   • Role: Applicant argued "there is no prima facie case of obviousness for claim 1 and its associated dependent claims 8-10 and 12, over the cited combination of Stern and Kim."
   • § 102 relevance: None — combination art under § 103 only.

4. Deng — applied by the Petitioner/Examiner in the obviousness line of argument as a secondary reference for the "notch" (heat-dissipation/warp-minimizing notch in a resistance-welded electrode/tab).

   • § 102 relevance: None — secondary § 103 reference combined with Wang.

(Note: "Tao," "Stern," "Kim," and "Deng" appear in the record by surname only in the excerpts I retrieved; I do not have their patent numbers, so I will not invent them.)

C. Post-grant challenge art (IPR2023-00585, Unified Patents — Not Instituted, Procedural)

Source: PTAB IPR2023-00585 petition/decision (bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IPR2023-00585.pdf).

1. Wang — WO 2016/197382 A1, "High-power soft pack lithium-ion battery and manufacturing technique thereof," applicant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, published 2016-12-15 (from PCT/CN2015/081309). Named the same five inventors as the '352 patent.

   • Role: The primary § 103 reference in the Petition. Petitioner "contends that Wang discloses every limitation of claim 1," including the electrode tab receiving groove and the notch.
   • § 102 relevance on this record: none — the ground was § 103, and institution was denied ("we are not persuaded that Petitioner's case presents compelling merits for institution").

2. Deng — secondary reference in the same Petition, directed to a notch whose function is heat dissipation / warpage minimization during (resistance) welding. Institution denied; also § 103 only.

The same Wang (WO 2016/197382 A1) was asserted by CosMX as an inequitable-conduct reference (allegedly withheld from the USPTO), where it was argued to render "at least one claim of the '352 Patent invalid." That is an allegation of § 102/§ 103 invalidity, not an established anticipation.

Bottom line on § 102

• Only one reference is documented as an anticipation reference with an explicit claim-by-claim mapping: Woo, US Pub. 2013/0252053 A1 → claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 21, 22 (pre-amendment numbering) under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2).
• The four documents on the face of the patent (US 6,300,002 B1; US 8,232,008 B2; CN 1805183 A; CN 201336332 Y) are cited/background art; no § 102 anticipation mapping to a specific '352 claim is present in the record I retrieved, and I could not verify their disclosures to supply one.
• Tao, Stern, Kim, Deng, and Wang were all deployed under § 103 (obviousness), not § 102, and the Wang/Deng IPR ground was not instituted.

If you want the complete, authoritative front-page citation list and the Examiner's full claim-by-claim application of each reference, the reliable sources are the patent PDF at patents.google.com/patent/US11329352B2/en (front page) and the USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB record for application 15/908,327 and IPR2023-00585 — I was unable to pull the complete front-page list within this session, so I have limited my § 102 assertions to what the retrieved record actually supports rather than guessing.

I'll research the prior art cited on this patent and in the related IPR before building the § 103 analysis.

Found the key invalidity contentions. Let me pull the full prior-art combinations and the IPR petition grounds.

Let me identify the remaining references (Kobayashi, Hasegawa) and the examiner-cited art on the patent's face.

Obviousness Analysis — US 11,329,352 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / source basis. The "Prior Art" data available for this document is thin on the patent's own face: Google Patents lists only prior-art keywords (electrode plate, electrode tab, receiving groove, cathode, secondary battery) and a "Cited By (2)" list that is not prior art at all — both entries are later ATL family/portfolio documents (US 2022/0328941 A1 and US 11,923,498 B2). The substantive prior art therefore comes from the two adversarial records in which this patent was actually tested: the IPR2023‑00585 petition and the E.D. Tex. invalidity contentions. I use those, and I flag where the record conflicts.

1. The claim at issue and the legal frame

There is exactly one independent claim (claim 1); claims 2–12 depend from it (2→1; 3→2; 4→3; 5→3; 6→5; 7→5; 8→7; 9→1; 10→2; 11→1; 12→1). A prima facie § 103 case therefore has to be made against claim 1, with the dependents then falling by expansion.

Claim 1's elements, stripped to their technical core:

Graham factors: (1) scope/content of prior art; (2) differences; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations. KSR supplies the legal overlay: a POSITA is "a person of ordinary creativity," and a combination need not be taught expressly if there is an articulated reason with a rational underpinning (known technique to improve similar devices; use of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; predictable results from a finite set of solutions).

Level of ordinary skill. No POSITA level was judicially fixed for the '352 patent (the Markman order at Dkt. 197 fixed levels only for the '987 and '363 patents: bachelor's + ~3 years for one, Ph.D. + 2 years for the other). CosMX's expert Dr. Ulrich von Sacken worked from the Aug. 31, 2015 priority date.

2. The prior-art references actually deployed

Two corroborating facts about the prosecution: (i) the Examiner's stated reason for allowance was that "while the prior art teaches the presence of notches or grooves on various portions of the current collectors, the combination and orientation of the notch and groove together required by the instant claims would not have been obvious" (quoted at von Sacken Decl. ¶ 34); and (ii) Zhou was submitted by the Applicant himself during prosecution but was never discussed in any Office Action, and Wang, Deng, Kobayashi and Hasegawa were never before the Examiner (von Sacken Decl. ¶ 35).

3. Combination A — Wang + Deng (Ground 1/2 of IPR2023‑00585 for claims 1–3, 9–12; the sole cell-level theory elected in district court)

This is the leading combination, and it is the one the jury accepted.

Coverage.

• 1(a)–(b): Wang's soft-pack Li-ion cell has electrode strips coated with active material on both sides (Ex. 1004 ¶¶ [0032], [0065]).
• 1(c): Wang's electrode has an uncoated "island"/strip region in the middle area of the electrode strip where the tab is welded to bare collector — i.e., a tab-receiving region with exposed collector at the floor and coating on the periphery, with the tab electrically connected to the collector there. This maps to the "first electrode tab receiving groove" and to claim 9's "defined by the first active substance and extends to the first surface."
• 1(d): Wang's positive electrode has a second uncoated area on the opposite side of the strip relative to the positive tab (Ex. 1004 ¶ [0064], Fig.) — the "first recess opposite the first electrode tab receiving groove." Note that Wang expressly places uncoated areas on both faces of the strip, so the double-face "groove + counter-recess" architecture is disclosed, not merely obvious.
• 1(f): the groove bounded by collector + active-material walls follows from patch/uncoated-region coating on a double-side-coated strip.
• 1(g): Wang's is a soft-pack wound cell ("high-power soft pack lithium-ion battery").
• 1(e): Deng supplies the through-notch at the electrode edge. Deng's notch is cut at the edge of the electrode before the tab is joined, and it extends through the electrode (through the collector).

The gap and the reason to close it. Under CosMX's own framing, "ATL does not dispute that Wang discloses every element of claim 1 except for the 'notch' element" (POPR Reply, p. 1). So the entire § 103 question on claim 1 collapses to: would a POSITA have been motivated to form Deng's edge notch on Wang's double-side-coated electrode at the edge of the tab-receiving region, with a reasonable expectation of success? The articulated rationales:

1. Same field, same problem. Deng is directed to "a battery" generally and to the problem of electrode deformation at the tab-joining region from heat and stress accumulation during welding. Wang's electrode requires a tab to be welded to a thin current collector in exactly such a region. A POSITA seeking to avoid weld-induced deformation at the tab joint would look to Deng, because Deng addresses that very defect.
2. Same structural location, predictable result. Deng puts the notch at the electrode edge where the tab is joined; Wang's tab is joined at the uncoated middle region. Relocating Deng's edge notch to flank Wang's tab-receiving region is applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement (KSR), with the predictable result of relieving weld stress/heat at the joint.
3. KSR "finite number of identified, predictable solutions." Given a coated electrode with a tab-receiving void bounded by coating, the only places to relieve the welding-zone stress are the edges of that void. That is a closed, predictable design space.
4. The claim scope itself invites it. Claim 4's notch width of 0.2–0.8× the groove width expressly contemplates a notch that is narrower than the groove, which blunts ATL's argument that the combination would tear the collector.

Answering ATL's rebuttals (POPR pp. 2–3, 20–35; Sur-Reply):

• ATL: Deng is "flat metal plate type batteries" / resistance-welding only → not analogous art. Response: Deng's own text is generic to "a battery" and says a tab "typically uses resistance welding" — one example, not a limitation; it elsewhere refers to welding "using a conventional welding method." Ultrasonic welding was conventional in secondary batteries, so Deng is not excluded.
• ATL: Wang's patch coating produces no burrs and ultrasonic welding produces no excess heat, so there is no reason to seek Deng. This is the strongest ATL point, and it is a motivation argument, not a disclosure argument. It does not defeat Combination A where the rationale is weld-deformation control rather than burr removal — and it is materially weakened by Combination B, where the reference is directed to burr removal itself.

4. Combination B — Wang + Zhou (Ground 2/4 of the IPR for claims 1–3, 9–12; Ground 4 for claims 5–8)

Zhou is the single most dangerous reference to this patent, because it is directed to the exact problem the '352 patent claims to solve. CosMX's expert states flatly: "Zhou—like the '352 patent—discloses forming a notch in the edge of an electrode plate to remove electrode burrs on the current collector" (von Sacken Decl. ¶ 38, citing Ex. 1013 ¶ [0015]).

Coverage: Zhou supplies element 1(e) (edge notch removing current-collector burrs) and, because it operates on a coated electrode plate, is closer to the claim's environment than Deng. Combined with Wang's elements 1(a)–(d), (f), (g), the full claim 1 is met.

Motivation: Where Deng's rationale is heat/warping relief, Zhou's rationale is the identical stated purpose of the '352 patent — burr removal to avoid separator piercing and internal short. That makes the "reason to combine" essentially self-proving: a POSITA concerned with laser-cleaning burrs on a grooved, tab-receiving current collector would adopt the known edge-notch burr-removal technique for its stated benefit, with a reasonable expectation of success.

The PTAB's counter-argument (important, and I do not bury it). In the IPR2023‑00585 institution decision, the Board found ATL's rebuttal persuasive enough to deny institution under § 314(a)/Fintiv, finding "less than compelling Petitioner's motivations to combine Wang and Deng," reasoning that Deng's notch serves heat-dissipation/warping-minimization and "would not necessarily lead one of ordinary skill in the art to make the combination of Deng with Wang." ATL separately attacked the Zhou ground as requiring "unsupported and heavily modified figures," and argued that Zhou's collector is etched away along its entire length, so the resulting notch does not "extend through" the two surfaces or sit on a "side edge of the first electrode tab receiving groove" as claimed.

Weight to give that. The Board's statement is a Fintiv Factor 6 "compelling merits" assessment, expressly not a merits adjudication, and the Board itself framed it as "on this record." No final written decision issued. So Combination B's weakness is evidentiary (whether Zhou's figures show the claimed notch geometry), not legal.

5. The dependent claims — where the combination gets easier

6. Overall motivation-to-combine narrative (the "why")

Pulling the rationales together, a single articulated rationale covers the whole claim set:

As of Aug. 31, 2015, Li-ion cell designers were under a known, intense pressure to raise volumetric energy density in a fixed pouch footprint. Two known techniques were on the table: (1) recessing the electrode tab into an uncoated region of a double-side-coated electrode to eliminate the added thickness of a tab stacked on top of the coating (Wang); and (2) cutting a notch at the edge of the electrode plate to manage defects at that tab-joining region — Deng for weld-heat deformation, Zhou expressly for removing current-collector burrs so they cannot pierce the separator and short the cell. Both techniques operate on the same physical element (the coated electrode/tab joint) and are directed to the same functional concern (integrity of the joint region). Combining them requires no change in the principle of operation of either reference and yields the predictable aggregate benefit of (i) higher energy density and (ii) a burr-free joint region. Applying insulation tape at the tab-joint region (Kobayashi) and laying the tab flat in the groove (Hasegawa) are further routine adjuncts.

This is squarely within KSR's "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way" and "combination of familiar elements according to known methods yields predictable results."

7. Secondary considerations and record tensions (flagged, not resolved)

• No secondary-considerations record was located. There is no evidence I found of unexpected results, long-felt need, industry praise, copying, or licensing tied to the '352 patent. The specification's Table 1 (937 Wh/L with 10 µm tape + die-cutting vs. 925 Wh/L with 35 µm tape; 0/20 vs. 12/20 shorts) is specification-internal data, not secondary-considerations evidence, and in any event compares two embodiments of the patentee's own process.
• Record contradiction to flag explicitly. The PTAB found "less than compelling" the motivation to combine Wang + Deng. The E.D. Tex. jury (Feb. 9, 2024, Dkt. 345), on a different record with live expert testimony, found claim 1 of the '352 patent invalid, and the Final Judgment (Apr. 26, 2024, Dkt. 369) entered judgment of invalidity — while simultaneously finding CosMX infringed claim 1. Those positions cannot both be "the" answer; they are different tribunals applying different standards to different records. The CAFC appeals (25‑1037 / 25‑1091) were dismissed by agreement under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) on June 9, 2026, with no merits opinion — so the 2026 posture leaves the § 103 question legally unresolved at the appellate level.
• Downstream caveat. Because claim 1 was adjudged invalid, every dependent claim is structurally exposed, even though the administrative Google Patents status still reads "Active," expiring 2036‑03‑22 (which, per the earlier section of this analysis, sits in tension with the judgment).

8. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is prima facie obvious over Wang + Deng (the theory the jury accepted) and, with a stronger motivation rationale, over Wang + Zhou — Zhou being the reference that targets burr removal expressly.
• Claims 2, 3, 9, 10 fall with Wang's dual-electrode disclosure plus the same notch teaching.
• Claim 4 falls as overlapping-range/optimization; the specification's own 12 mm × 3 mm notch on a 12 mm groove sits inside the claimed range.
• Claims 5–8 fall with Kobayashi as the tape teaching; claim 8's single-sided limitation is one of two disclosed alternatives.
• Claim 11 falls with Hasegawa and, independently, as an inherent geometric consequence of claim 1's groove.
• Claim 12 falls as the positional consequence of claim 1(e)'s own "side edge" requirement.

Caveats I will not paper over: (i) I could not verify the publication numbers for Kobayashi and Hasegawa from the retrieved sources — only their roles — and I decline to guess them; the exhibit lists I retrieved containing reference numbers (Ex. 1005–1015) belong to the sibling IPR2025‑00431 record for a different patent, so those numbers must not be mixed into this one. (ii) Zhou's sufficiency turns on figure interpretation that the PTAB found unpersuasive on a Fintiv "compelling merits" basis; that is an evidentiary weakness, not a legal holding. (iii) The only merits resolution of this § 103 question is a jury verdict, which carries no precedential or technical reasoning, and the 2026 Federal Circuit disposition did not reach the merits.