US 11357579

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including any litigation activity.

Let me check for litigation/docket activity specifically.

Let me search for the actual claim language and any specific assertion of this patent.

US 11,357,579 B2 — Summary

Important note on sources: The authoritative full text provided (fetched from Google Patents on 2026‑09‑24) contains the front matter, description, and abstract, but the actual claims section was not included in the fetched text. My claim overview below is therefore an inference from the abstract, summary, and specification, and is expressly flagged as non‑authoritative. I did not find any CAFC 2026 docket, PTAB proceeding, or district‑court complaint that names U.S. Patent 11,357,579 specifically.

Bibliographic data (from patent front matter)

Abstract (verbatim)

"Methods are provided for planning, performing, and assessing of surgical correction to the spine during a spinal surgical procedure. These methods are implemented by a control unit through a GUI to digitize screw locations, digitize anatomical reference points, accept one or more correction inputs, and generate one or more rod solution outputs shaped to engage the screws at locations distinct from the originally digitized locations."

Plain‑language overview

The disclosure is a computer‑assisted spinal rod bending/correction platform (commercially associated with NuVasive's "Bendini"/Pulse integrated global alignment products). A spatial tracking system (infrared position sensor plus an IR‑reflective digitizer array on a stylus) digitizes the 3‑D positions and trajectories of pedicle screws/hooks already implanted. A control unit then runs geometry‑based algorithms that convert those screw point locations into human‑readable rod bend instructions ("Location / Rotation / Bend" values) for a mechanical rod bender, or recommends an off‑the‑shelf pre‑bent rod. Crucially, the system accepts user "correction inputs" (e.g., sagittal/lordosis, coronal/Cobb, axial rotation, compression/distraction, virtual points, adjusted points, CSVL reference) so the generated rod solution deliberately engages the screws at positions different from where they were originally digitized — i.e., the rod prescribes the desired deformity correction rather than merely matching the current anatomy. The specification also describes virtual bending, spline fitting, bend‑reduction, stress‑riser mapping, and probabilistic/Markov‑chain bend optimization.

Independent claims — best‑effort overview (inferred; verify against the official claims)

Because the claims text was not in my source, I flag this as uncertain. Based on the abstract and the "SUMMARY" statement that the invention "includes a system and methods," the independent claims most likely fall into these families:

• A method claim (probably claim 1, matching the abstract's "Methods are provided…"): steps of digitizing, via a spatial tracking system/GUI, a plurality of implanted screw locations; digitizing at least one anatomical reference point; accepting one or more correction inputs; and generating a rod solution whose curve is shaped to engage the screws at locations distinct from the originally digitized screw locations.
• Possible system/apparatus claims covering the spatial tracking system (IR sensor + reflective digitizer array/stylus), the control unit executing the bend‑instruction software, and/or the mechanical rod bender.
• Possible computer‑readable‑medium claims for the software performing the digitize → accept correction input → generate rod solution steps.

I cannot confirm claim numbering, count, or exact language without the official claim set (USPTO PatentCenter / the granted‑patent PDF).

Litigation / docket status (as of April 26, 2026)

• No CAFC 2026 appeal or docket naming 11,357,579 was found.
• Globus Medical, Inc. et al. v. Alphatec Spine, Inc., No. 3:25‑cv‑01522‑CAB‑DDL (S.D. Cal.) — NuVasive/Globus are asserting eight spine‑surgery patents against Alphatec (the '184, '146, '628, '979, '120, '771, '974 and '203 patents). 11,357,579 is not among them. The court largely dismissed the induced/willful claims (Dec. 3, 2025), with amended pleadings due Jan. 5, 2026; discovery deadlines continued into 2026.
• NuVasive, Inc. v. Alphatec Holdings/Spine, No. 18‑cv‑00347‑CAB‑MDD (S.D. Cal.) — earlier NuVasive–Alphatec dispute (asserted patents included the '156 and '334 implant patents and the XLIF/retractor family).
• Roger Jackson, MD v. NuVasive (D. Del.) — an April 2026 jury verdict reportedly found NuVasive's Reline, Armada and VuePoint lines infringed five Jackson patents. That matter involves different patents and NuVasive as the accused infringer, not as the owner of 11,357,579.

Caveats

1. The precise claims of 11,357,579 are not verifiable from the material provided; treat the claim overview as provisional.
2. Third‑party patent‑valuation figures (e.g., a reported ~$21.5M estimate) come from non‑authoritative aggregator sites and should not be relied upon.
3. Assignee status should be confirmed against current USPTO assignment records, since NuVasive is now part of Globus Medical and the front matter lists "Nuvasive Inc" as current assignee based on the record at grant.

I'll search for litigation involving US Patent 11,357,579.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Search Results: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 11,357,579

Bottom line: I did not find any litigation — district court, appellate, or PTAB — that specifically identifies U.S. Patent No. 11,357,579 ("the '579 patent") as an asserted, challenged, or adjudicated patent.

I want to be explicit about the confidence level here rather than overstate it. I searched general web sources and litigation-oriented sources (including Unified Patents' litigation portal, CourtListener/RECAP references, Justia, and RPX-adjacent material), but I was unable to reach the dedicated case docket pages for the most authoritative confirmation before hitting my tool-call limit. So the honest characterization is: no litigation found in the sources I could reach — not "an exhaustive, docket-confirmed clearance." A definitive negative would require a search of PACER's nationwide Case Locator, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or Unified Patents' Case List filtered by this exact patent number.

What I did find (and why it is not litigation on the '579 patent)

Why it is plausible that no litigation exists on this patent

1. It is a recent continuation. The '579 patent issued June 14, 2022, from Application No. 16/891,052 filed June 3, 2020, as a continuation of Ser. No. 15/318,823 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,709,509), tracing priority to June 17, 2014 (provisional 62/013,387). A patent this recent with an alive continuation family (note the related U.S. Pat. No. 12,357,393, issued 2025) is a likely enforcement vehicle going forward, but that is speculation, not a factual finding, and I flag it as such.

2. NuVasive's active spinal litigation campaign (vs. ATEC) targets a different patent set, as shown above.

3. No PTAB challenge surfaced in my searches for the '579 patent number.

Required caveats / where to confirm

• Nothing above should be read as a statement that no case exists. My searches did not return the authoritative docket pages for the specific number; absence of a hit is not proof of absence. I have not verified this against PACER's nationwide Case Locator, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or Unified Patents' Case List with a filter on exactly 11357579.
• Per your instruction, I am not auto-correcting or treating any near-number as this patent. Results for 11,357,393, 11,357,579 vs. 10,357,579-style variants, and the various 8,xxx,xxx / 9,xxx,xxx / 10,xxx,xxx / 11,890,203 patents listed above are different patents and are reported only as context, not as litigation on US 11,357,579.

Recommended next steps to obtain a docket-confirmed answer

1. PACER Case Locator — nationwide party search for "NuVasive" + full-text/patent filter; search the exact string 11,357,579.
2. Unified Patents Litigation Portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — search the exact patent number in its case list.
3. Docket Navigator / Lex Machina / RPX Insight — patent-level litigation history.
4. USPTO PTAB — search for IPR/PGR petitions naming the '579 patent.
5. CAFC — search for appeals referencing the '579 patent.

If you can grant me additional search steps, or if you can confirm whether you want me to treat near-number hits (e.g., the sibling '393 patent) as in-scope, I can attempt the docket-level confirmation you asked for.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB activity" default against public sources before reporting.

PTAB Proceedings on US 11,357,579 — Analyst Report

Patent: US 11,357,579 B2 — Systems and methods for planning, performing, and assessing spinal correction during surgery
Assignee of record: NuVasive, Inc. (now part of Globus Medical / NuVasive, LLC)
Priority: 2014-06-17 · Granted: 2022-06-14 · App. 16/891,052 (continuation of 15/318,823 → US 10,709,509)
Search performed: 2026-10-01

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming US 11,357,579, and independent web searches on 2026-10-01 surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, termination, or Federal Circuit appeal directed to this patent — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied, and the bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant is the least favorable one: the patent is completely untested at the Board, carries zero estoppel baggage, and every one of its claims is still live. That is not the same as "the patent is strong" — it means no one has yet tried, or at least succeeded, in putting the claims in front of the PTAB.

Search artifacts reviewed and ruled out (flagging to prevent mis-citation)

No proceeding numbers have been invented, and the following near-misses are not proceedings on 11,357,579:

Verified by: USPTO ODP structured block (canonical), PTAB E2E / PTAB Center, and general web search. Confirmed: no proceedings to report. Accordingly, the per-proceeding template is not populated below — populating it would require fabricating proceeding numbers, petitioners, and panels, which I will not do.

Strategic summary

Claim status: every claim of 11,357,579 is UNTESTED before the PTAB. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been narrowed by disclaimer or certificate, and nothing has been held valid by the Board either. There is therefore no surviving-claims list to hand a defendant, and no dead claims to warn a plaintiff off of. Any assertion of this patent today rests on claims whose validity has never been stress-tested in an AIA trial.

Estoppel landscape: a clean slate — which cuts against you, not for you. Because no petitioner has instituted an IPR on this patent, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel operating against anyone. But that also means there is no petitioner-friendly record (institution decision reasoning, expert declarations, FWD claim constructions) to reuse, and no "but the Board already construed that term" argument to borrow from a parallel case. If you file first, you own the entire cost of building the invalidity record, and any subsequent defendant free-rides on your work with no estoppel exposure on grounds you did not raise. Two statutory timing points matter for a defendant now: the PGR window (9 months from grant) closed on 2023-03-14, so a § 112/§ 101-style post-grant attack route is gone; IPR remains available absent a § 315(b) bar, which runs one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent.

Pattern signals: no petitioner, no aggregator, no appeal activity. There is no repeat-petitioner pattern (there is no petitioner at all), no Unified Patents or other defensive-aggregator challenge in the chain, and no NuVasive appeal to the Federal Circuit from a PTAB decision on this patent. The closest analogous signal in the portfolio is that NuVasive has litigated this technology family hard in district court — the parent US 10,709,509 appears as a trial exhibit (NUVA_ATEC0344545, US 10,709,509, dated 07/14/2020) in the NuVasive v. Alphatec docket (S.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-00347-CAB-MDD), and the successor continuation US 12,357,393 issued 2025-07-15 with yet another pending continuation (US 2025/0339210 A1). A well-resourced owner actively prosecuting continuations while asserting the family is exactly the profile that eventually attracts an IPR — the fact that one hasn't landed on 11,357,579 is a timing signal, not a validity signal.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant: do not plan a defense around an existing FWD — there isn't one to link. Assume you will have to build the invalidity case from scratch, and budget for it accordingly. The most efficient first step is a full prior-art harvest against the 2014-06-17 priority date, sweeping the rod-bending/computer-assisted bend-instruction space (the spec itself cites and incorporates US 7,957,831 to Isaacs and PCT/US2014/059974, both of which are mandatory starting points and are already in the patent's own intrinsic record — meaning § 325(d) discretion risk if you lead with them).
• Watch the § 315(b) clock. If you have been served with a complaint asserting 11,357,579, your one-year bar to file an IPR runs from service. The PGR door is closed; IPR is your only AIA route.
• Consider the family angle. 11,357,579 is one node in a chain: US 10,709,509 (parent) → 11,357,579 → 12,357,393 (issued 2025) → US 2025/0339210 A1 (pending). A challenge aimed at the common specification/priority support of the shared disclosure can have cross-family leverage; a claim-only attack on 11,357,579 does not touch the sibling patents.
• Trial-stage milestones: not applicable — no active proceedings, so there is no institution-decision deadline, no oral hearing, and no statutory one-year FWD due date running against anyone.
• If you are the patent owner: the absence of PTAB activity is a genuine positive for assertion posture — you can tell a defendant the claims have never been invalidated — but be prepared for the first IPR to arrive with the first serious commercial threat. Consider whether a reexamination-style preemptive strengthening or a narrowing (but not estopping) amendment is worth it before that happens.

Bottom line: No PTAB activity on file for US 11,357,579 as of 2026-10-01. The absence is itself the finding: the patent is unhardened and untested, and any "this patent has survived PTAB" or "these claims have been canceled" statement you encounter — in a demand letter or an opposition brief — is unsupported for this patent number.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent. Let me start with several targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper into the specific assignment records and the NuVasive/Globus merger's patent recordation.

I hit my tool-call limit, so I'm reporting from the records I could actually reach. Critically: I was not able to open the USPTO Assignment Center / legacy-assignment record pages for the '579-specific entries, so I could not capture the reel/frame numbers, execution dates, or the recorded correspondent. Those fields are marked as unverified below rather than guessed. What I can confirm comes from the Google Patents "Legal Events" block in the authoritative text you supplied, cross-checked against NuVasive's general assignment practice and the Globus merger filings.

Inventors

Pattern note: This is a mixed employee-plus-surgeon inventive entity typical of NuVasive's med-device portfolio — no signal of a startup inventor team. I could not determine inventor departure dates from the accessible records, so the "all inventors left within 12 months" fire-sale precursor cannot be confirmed or excluded here. The only hint of any sequencing is that Gharib's assignment was recorded nearly 3 years after the June 2020 continuation filing (and ~8 years after the 2014 priority), which is far more consistent with late/omitted-inventor paperwork clean-up than with a departure.

Original assignee

NuVasive, Inc., a Delaware corporation, 7475 Lusk Blvd., San Diego, CA 92121 — named on the face of the patent and listed by Google Patents as current assignee of record.

• Primary line of business: operating medical-device company (spine surgery implants, navigation, neuromonitoring). Not a licensing entity.
• Product embodying the claims: NuVasive commercialized a computer-assisted rod-bending / spinal-alignment workflow (marketed within its Bendini rod-bending instrument and the Pulse platform's integrated global alignment offering), used with its Armada and Precept posterior fixation systems. (Product-embodiment linkage is well-corroborated but is my assessment, not a court finding.)
• Current status: Acquired. Globus Medical, Inc. acquired NuVasive in an all-stock merger that closed September 1, 2023 (fixed exchange ratio 0.75 Globus class-A share per NuVasive share; total consideration ≈ $2.6 billion per Globus's audited purchase-price allocation). NuVasive survives as a Globus subsidiary; it was not dissolved and there was no bankruptcy. Because the deal was a merger, ownership of the patent passed by operation of law to the Globus side of the chain; whether a separate patent-level merger recordation was filed is not confirmed in the sources I reached.

Assignment timeline

Important caveat up front: Google Patents' own Legal Events block records two post-filing assignment events for this patent (transcribed below), but the fetched text omits the reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and correspondent fields. My searches did not return the Assignment Center detail pages for these two entries, and I will not invent reel/frame data. Treat the two entries below as event-verified but reel/frame-unverified.

• 2020-07-07 (recorded; execution date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved/Frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → company)
  • Assignor: Finley, Eric; German, Robert; Pothier, Albert; Scholl, Thomas; Isaacs, Robert E.; Peterson, Mark; White, Shannon (7 inventors)
  • Assignee: NuVasive, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. NuVasive's historical assignment practice routes these through in-house patent counsel at 7475 Lusk Blvd., San Diego, CA 92121 (records in this family name "Jonathan Spangler, Esq." and the "Chief Patent Counsel, NuVasive, Inc."), so an in-house correspondent is the expected answer — but this is not confirmed for the '579 record.
  • Context: Initial capture — all-right-title-and-interest assignment from the employee/surgeon inventors to the operating company during prosecution of the 16/891,052 continuation.

• 2023-03-27 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved/Frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → company) — listed by Google Patents as a "reassignment"
  • Assignor: Gharib, James E. (sole)
  • Assignee: NuVasive, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (see above).
  • Context: Late-filed inventor assignment capturing the one remaining named inventor who had not yet been recorded — routine chain-of-title clean-up, not evidence of a transfer to a third party. Note this recorded after the June 14, 2022 grant.

No other recorded events found. Specifically, I found no security agreement, license, release, corrective assignment, or NPE/aggregator transfer tied to this patent, and no patent-level Merger recordation from the Globus–NuVasive transaction in the sources I could reach.

⚠️ Because the Assignment Center pages themselves were unreachable for me, the statement above is a best-effort reconstruction from Google Patents Legal Events, not a docket-grade confirmation. If you need the reel/frame and correspondent of record, the query is: patent number 11357579 at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (or https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11357579
    2014 : Priority provisional filed 17 Jun
    2015 : PCT application filed 17 Jun
    2016 : US national stage 15 318 823
    2020 : Continuation 16 891 052 filed
         : Seven inventors assign to NuVasive
    2022 : Patent issues 14 Jun
    2023 : Gharib assignment recorded 27 Mar
         : Globus Medical acquires NuVasive 1 Sep

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. Every recorded link runs inventor → NuVasive, Inc., a named operating manufacturer (7475 Lusk Blvd., San Diego). There is no transfer to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity, no registered-agent-only address, and no single-purpose LLC anywhere in the chain.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither the record owner (NuVasive) nor its parent (Globus Medical) appears on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Pendrell / Round Rock NPE lists. NuVasive is a net patent plaintiff in its own name, which is the inverse of the NPE posture.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — cannot be assessed / not a finding. NuVasive's assignments consistently use in-house NuVasive patent counsel as correspondent. A recurring in-house correspondent across a company's own portfolio is expected and is not an NPE tell. I did not retrieve the specific correspondent for the two '579 entries, so I make no call. (Note: the "S. Kareff / Schulte Roth & Zabel" correspondent that appears in aggregated assignment data belongs to a different chain — Monarch Networking / Starboard, not this patent — and must not be imported here.)
4. Cascading transfers — not present. The chain is a single hop (inventors → NuVasive) plus one late inventor catch-up. No chained LLCs, no sub-24-month hops.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit naming the '579 patent was found (consistent with the earlier litigation section), so there is no transfer positioned within 6 months of an assertion.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. NuVasive's 2023 end-state was a solvent, all-stock merger at ~$2.6B, not a Chapter 7/11 sale of the portfolio.
7. Privateering — not present. No NPE spin-off designed to assert on NuVasive's behalf; NuVasive/Globus assert in their own corporate names (e.g., the Globus/NuVasive v. Alphatec campaign, which however targets a different patent set — the '579 is not among the eight asserted patents).
8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion. The entire recorded chain is inventor→NuVasive, Inc. with no intermediate or terminal NPE, and the current owner is the surviving spine-implant operating business (now inside Globus Medical, Inc. following the September 1, 2023 merger, ≈$2.6B). Every NPE-specific tell — shell-entity naming, aggregator/asserter recurrence, cascading LLC transfers, bankruptcy sale, privateering — is absent from the records I could reach.

Two honest caveats that keep this from being a "high-conviction, docket-grade" call: (a) I could not retrieve the reel/frame, execution date, or correspondent for the two recorded assignments, so this rests on the Google Patents Legal Events entries, not the Assignment Center pages; and (b) the '579 patent has not been publicly identified as asserted in any suit I found — the operating-company litigation campaign against Alphatec involves a different patent set.

Verify at: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search 11357579) — also mirrored at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Cross-reference note / possible contradiction to flag: the earlier-generated summary correctly lists the two assignee entries and the Globus merger, and correctly notes the '579 is not in the Globus/NuVasive v. Alphatec asserted set. One clarification: the prior summary described NuVasive as "original and current" assignee; strictly, NuVasive remains the assignee of record, but the beneficial owner since Sep 1, 2023 is Globus Medical (merger by operation of law). No conflict with the earlier sections otherwise.

I'll search the USPTO database and related sources for this specific patent number and its cited prior art.

Let me pull the actual citation lists and claim text from the patent's official pages.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,357,579 B2

Analyst: Senior US patent analyst | Date: April 26, 2026
Subject patent (verbatim): US 11,357,579 B2 — "Systems and methods for planning, performing, and assessing spinal correction during surgery"

⚠️ Source-integrity statement (read first)

I must be explicit about a material limitation before any § 102 mapping, per the operating rules requiring me to flag uncertainty rather than fabricate:

1. I could not retrieve the face-of-patent "Patent Citations" (References Cited) list for US 11,357,579 B2. My searches surfaced bibliographic records for the patent (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, Golden wiki) but returned the citation tables of other patents — pages where 11,357,579 appears as a citing document — not the certificate page of 11,357,579 itself. I therefore cannot enumerate the examiner-cited/ applicant-cited references with the specificity the task requests, and I will not present a reconstructed list as if it were the record.

2. I could not retrieve the granted claim set of 11,357,579. The authoritative full text supplied for this analysis (fetched from Google Patents 2026-09-24) contains front matter, description and abstract but no claims section. A § 102 anticipation determination is defined claim-by-claim (a single reference must disclose every limitation of a claim, arranged as recited). Without the literal claim language, any statement of the form "Reference X anticipates claim Y" would be fabricated. I therefore present claim mappings as provisional, limitation-level hypotheses, expressly flagged.

3. Strict-number compliance: I treated 11357579 literally. Near numbers that appear in the same citation networks — e.g. US 12,357,393 B2 (sibling continuation, priority 2014-06-17), US 10,709,509 B2 (parent application 15/318,823), US 11,376,045 B2, US 10,695,099 B2 — are different patents, reported only as context, never substituted for 11,357,579.

1. Confirmed bibliographic record (corroborated across sources)

Ground-rules consequence: Because the application was filed after March 16, 2013 and claims a 2014 priority date, AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) governs (not pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e)). Any anticipatory reference must have a public-disclosure date, or an effectively-filed § 102(a)(2) date, before 2014-06-17 (or before 2015-01-20 for subject matter entitled only to the second provisional).

2. References I can verify — from the '579 specification itself

These are the only references whose citation by 11,357,579 I can confirm from the authoritative text (they are expressly incorporated by reference or relied upon in the specification). For each I give citation, date, description, and the § 102 relevance — with the caveat that claim mapping is provisional absent the claim text.

Family/continuity documents (not prior art in the § 102 sense — same family): Prov. 62/013,387 (2014-06-17); Prov. 62/105,733 (2015-01-20); PCT/US2015/036301 (2015-06-17); Ser. No. 15/318,823 → US 10,709,509 (2020-07-14); US 11,357,579; US 12,357,393 (2025-07-15). These share the 2014-06-17 priority and cannot anticipate one another.

3. Documents in 11,357,579's citation network (context only — NOT verified as cited-on-face)

Searching the network returned third-party documents that co-occur with 11,357,579 in citation tables. I flag these as candidates, not confirmed face-of-patent references, because I could not open the '579 certificate page:

• US 9,320,604 B2 — "Method incorporating computer-implemented steps for providing surgical parameter data" (appears in a citation table alongside US 11,357,579's full identifying row 2014-06-17 | 2022-06-14 | Nuvasive).
• US 9,029,094 B2 — "Biomechanical-based methods of diagnosing scoliosis" (its "Cited By" table lists US 11,357,579).
• US 8,744,826 B2 — "Method for simulating the behavior of an articulated set of bones" (surgical-planning simulation).
• US 2007/0272216 A1 — "Automated pedicle screw rod bender" family.
• WO 2015/003224 A1 — Cryptych Pty Ltd, "Spinal surgery navigation" (published 2015-01-15) — publish date is after 2014-06-17, so it cannot be § 102(a)(1) art against the June-2014 priority; only potentially § 102(a)(2) if a U.S. counterpart designating the US published/patented with an earlier effective date.

None of these is established by me as an anticipation reference, and none should be relied upon as such without the actual citation list and the claims.

4. § 102 analysis — the honest position

Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation of a claim, arranged as recited (Net MoneyIN v. VeriSign). On the record I could verify:

• No verified reference is a clean § 102 anticipation of the likely independent claims. The distinguishing limitation of the '579 family (confirmed by the sibling disclosure's summary language, e.g. "generating at least one rod solution output shaped to engage the screws at locations distinct from the digitized location," and by the '579 abstract's "engage the screws at locations distinct from the originally digitized locations") is correction-driven re-positioning of target points, which the ancestor '831 system does not appear to disclose. That limitation is what drives the claims over the art.
• The base digitize→bend-instruction pipeline is disclosed by US 7,957,831; if the examiner granted any claim essentially coextensive with that pipeline, '831 is the reference to test first under § 102(a)(1).
• The parameter-tracking features are addressed by PCT/US2014/059974, whose date only bites against non-June-2014 subject matter and is thus a priority/§ 102(a)(2) question.

Because the claims were not available to me, I am not able to state which claim(s) any reference "potentially anticipates." I am declining to assign claim numbers to references rather than guess, per the no-fabrication rule.

5. What is needed for a definitive answer (recommended retrieval steps)

To complete the task as specified (reference-by-reference § 102 mapping), retrieve and provide:

1. The "References Cited" face page of US 11,357,579 B2 — USPTO PatentCenter (application 16/891,052), the granted-PDF "References Cited" block, or the Google Patents page's "Patent Citations" table for US11357579B2. This yields the actual examiner/applicant citations with U.S. and foreign categories.
2. The full granted claim set (claims 1–N) so anticipation can be assessed limitation-by-limitation.
3. The U.S. counterpart(s) of WO 2015/003224 A1 and PCT/US2014/059974's publication, to fix effective § 102(a)(2) dates.

Once (1) and (2) are in hand, I can produce the requested table: for each cited reference — full citation, publication/filing date, description, and the specific claim(s) it potentially anticipates under § 102, or a reasoned conclusion that it is § 103-only art.

Bottom line

• Confirmed: US 11,357,579 B2 is a NuVasive spinal rod-bending/correction patent, app. 16/891,052, priority 2014-06-17, granted 2022-06-14.
• Verified cited/relied-upon references: US 7,957,831 (Isaacs), US 8,255,045, and PCT/US2014/059974.
• Not verified: the full face-of-patent citation list and the claims. I therefore did not map references to claim numbers, because doing so without the claim text would be fabrication. The single most important anticipation candidate to test is US 7,957,831, and it is more likely § 103 art than § 102 art for the correction-input claims.

Caveat repeated for the record: my inability to reach the authoritative citation list and claim set is a source limitation, not a substantive finding of novelty or non-infringement.

I'll start by checking whether the "Prior Art section" referenced in the task is actually present in the material I have — and search for the key prior-art references I can identify.

Let me retrieve the actual claim set of US 11,357,579 and identify more prior-art references.

I have strong material now. Let me retrieve the full claim set of US 11,357,579 and its cited references.

Scope and premise check — important

Before the analysis, two flags:

1. There is no "Prior Art section" in the material I actually have. The authoritative text provided (Google Patents capture of 2026‑09‑24) contains a "Prior art keywords" block — rod / points / user / bend / screw — and in‑text references, but no enumerated prior‑art reference list (no "References Cited" table, no "Cited By," no IDS). The previously generated sections likewise contain a patent summary, a litigation summary, and an Abstract/Description — but no prior‑art section. I am therefore treating the task's reference to a "Prior Art section of this page" as referring to (a) the "Prior art keywords," and (b) the references the patent itself cites/incorporates, and I supplement with the references those primary documents cite. If you have a different prior‑art list in mind, paste it and I will re‑run the analysis against that list.

2. The '579 claim set is not reliably in front of me. The full‑text capture omitted the claims. I reconstructed a working claim set from (i) the pre‑grant publication of the same application, US 2020/0289210 A1 (see below), and (ii) fragments of the granted claims visible on Justia. Treat all claim citations below as provisional until verified against the granted‑patent PDF / PatentCenter.

A. Working claim set of US 11,357,579 (source: its own pre‑grant publication US 2020/0289210 A1; verify)

The pre‑grant publication of Application 16/891,052 lists claims 1–20 as follows (verbatim substance):

Granted‑patent fragments (Justia) show dependent claims reciting "a first set of points" (digitized) vs. a "second set of points" (adjusted/corrected), a virtual anatomic reference line, first/second user‑interface elements for full vs. partial alignment to that line, an off‑set distance indicator per point, and selection of two points whose order defines the reference line. This is consistent with claim 1 substantially as above.

Take‑away for §103: the independent claims are system/method claims to an image‑guided spine‑deformity planning‑and‑rod‑bending workflow in which (1) screw positions are digitized, (2) the user inputs a correction (axial, and in dependents coronal/sagittal), and (3) the system outputs a rod solution that moves the anatomy rather than merely matching it. That is a software/workflow combination, which is the paradigm case for a §103 analysis built on a primary reference plus art‑recognized clinical parameters.

B. Prior art actually available and their §102 status against the '579

Effective filing date of the '579 = June 17, 2014 (provisional 62/013,387; also 62/105,733 Jan. 20, 2015) → AIA §102/§103 apply (post‑Mar‑16‑2013).

Sibling/parent documents that are not prior art (same family, same inventive entity → §102(b)(2)(A)): US 2017/0135770 A1 (the '579's parent publication), US 10,709,509 B2, US 10,695,099 B2, US 11,376,045 B2, US 12,357,393 B2, US 2025/0114127 A1, and the '579's own publication US 2020/0289210 A1.

C. What the primary reference (Isaacs '831 / US 2009/0254097) discloses

Verbatim (from the '097 publication, which is the '831 family text):

"a means for determining the relative spatial location of at least one of the attachment means and the bony structure; a means for converting the relative spatial location into a digital format; a computer … to determine one or more shape locations … each shape location having one or more of a shape angle and shape rotation …"

"The computer can be programmed to accommodate any number of parameters in determining the output or the final shape of the linking device. In this way, the goals of surgery can be assisted in being obtained through the alteration of the shape of the linking device. … further alterations in the device's shape can help to address, straighten, or alter abnormalities in alignment of the body part(s), create lessen or eliminate deformities, reduce or impose changes in alignment … It is possible to couple the changes in different planes or simply correct in one (and not, for example, the other orthogonal) plane. … guided by radiographs (intraoperative, preoperative, positioning films, etc.), guided by the material properties of the linking device …"

"transferring the digitized information to a computer which determines information of one or more of: … iii) one or more mathematical adjustments to the digitally rendered position of the attachment means so that the final shaped surgical linking device, once attached to the bony structure, will correct or alter the shape of the bony structure(s)"

"a number of different shape solutions could be accommodated such that the surgeon can use personal judgment in selecting the best shape solution"

"the program can be used to see if the attachment points can be used with a pre-bent device either without modification or with adjustment of the attachment means or the addition of spatial offsetting devices"

"It could minimize the number of bends if desired (… fewer bend points but with potentially greater stress risers). In other embodiments it could increase the number of bend locations to create a smoother design … It could also limit the choices to incremental choices such as every 5 degrees of bend or rotation or distances to a few millimeters."

That is: digitize implant locations → compute a corrected target curve that differs from the digitized locations → output human‑readable bend instructions → execute on a bender (the '831 bender, with location/rotation/angle gauges, being the very bender the '579 says it "may" use).

D. §103 analysis

D.1 Claim 1 (independent method claim)

Conclusion on claim 1: on the record available, claim 1 would have been obvious over Isaacs '831 alone (or '831 in view of the radiographic‑parameter literature), because '831 teaches each step and expressly motivates adjusting the computed attachment‑point positions to alter the bony anatomy in one or more planes. The only feature arguably not explicitly in '831 is the "axial plane" label — a routine parameterization choice.

D.2 Dependent claims 2–4 (rotational deformity angle; per‑level adjustment)

Obvious over '831 + the scoliosis‑measurement art. Digitizing bilateral pedicle screws and measuring the inter‑pedicle line relative to horizontal is a known deformity assessment; feeding that angle delta into the '831 bend engine is a predictable computation. Motivation: the '831 engine already accepts "incremental choices" and plane‑specific corrections.

D.3 Dependent claims 5–15 (coronal; anatomical reference point; CSVL; straight rod; Cobb angle; compression/distraction)

• Digitizing anatomical reference points and constructing a vertical reference line (CSVL) is standard deformity practice (Ames 2012; Angevine 2008) and is the express subject matter of the (common‑owned) '465 family — but that family is not clean art (see §B).
• Independent clean‑art route: '831's "guided by radiographs (intraoperative, preoperative, positioning films)" + Leitner '131 (digitizing anatomical/spinal landmarks to compute curvature) + the CSVL/Cobb literature. Cobb‑angle measurement per se is 1948‑era art; compression/distraction is a bedrock spinal deformity maneuver.
• Motivation: to correct scoliosis to a vertical coronal alignment (the stated clinical goal of the disclosure and of the art), the surgeon must reference a gravity/pelvic vertical — CSVL. The '831 text contemplates exactly this ("alter abnormalities in alignment").

D.4 Dependent claim 16 (sagittal plane) / 17–18 (Cobb angle)

Lordosis/kyphosis measurement and correction is the oldest sagittal‑plane objective in spinal deformity; '831 expressly contemplates coupling corrections across planes. Obvious.

D.5 Dependent claim 19 (overlay a stress map)

The '831 already frames the trade‑off: "minimize the number of bends … with potentially greater stress risers" vs. "increase the number of bend locations to create a smoother design." Suggesting to display those stress risers (an obvious visualization once the load/bend geometry is computed) is at most an obvious design choice with a predictable benefit.

D.6 Dependent claim 20 (screw)

The '831 background and claim 1 expressly name screws ("screws, hooks, etc."). Anticipated/obvious.

D.7 Granted dependent claims (first/second point sets, UI elements for full vs. partial alignment, offset indicators, two‑point selection defining the reference line)

• "Adjust‑point" GUIs, offset/distance indicators, and "percent of correction" sliders are routine UI; '831 already discloses outputting and judging multiple shape solutions and "adjustments to the position of … the attachment means" — a UI to make that adjustment is the natural, predictable implementation.
• Two‑point selection determining line direction/order is a trivial implementation detail.

E. The combination(s) to plead, with motivation

Primary combination:

1. Isaacs US 7,957,831 (US 2009/0254097) — digitizer + bend‑instruction engine + bender, expressly including "mathematical adjustments … so that the final shaped … device … will correct or alter the shape of the bony structure."
2. Leitner US 6,400,131 — digitizing spinal/anatomical landmarks to derive spinal curvature/reference geometry.
3. Radiographic‑parameter literature (Angevine 2008; Ames 2012; SRS‑Schwab classification) — the clinical parameter set (Cobb, CSVL, C7PL, PT, PI, SVA, axial rotation), and the clinical goal of correcting those parameters intraoperatively.
4. Optional: Garner 2006/0150699 + Asher 5,113,685 — bender gauges and manual execution (already the '831 bender).

Motivation / legal rationale:

• Express teaching, not hindsight: the primary reference itself states the modifications ("correct or alter the shape"; "couple the changes in different planes"). Where the primary reference tells the artisan to make the modification, the case is strong.
• Known problem, known solution: the '579's own background concedes the problem ("a need still exists … for curvature and deformity correction") and identifies '831 as the starting platform.
• Same field, same purpose, same actors (spine deformity surgery / image‑guided rod bending) — combining references that address the same clinical problem is the classic KSR rationale.
• Predictable results: the asserted improvement is the algorithmic/UI consequence of feeding known clinical parameters into a known bend‑instruction engine — i.e., a predictable use of prior‑art elements.
• Commercial‑context evidence (a secondary indicium both ways): NuVasive's own stepwise progression — '831 (2009) → '465 family "Surgical Spinal Correction" (2013/2014, incorporated into and largely duplicated by the '579) — shows the "correction" workflow was already in hand before the '579 priority.

F. Where the §103 case is weakest / best defenses to expect

1. Claim 1's "axial plane" limitation — the strongest candidate for non‑obviousness, if the art does not suggest measuring a rotational deformity angle from the digitized pedicle‑screw line and feeding it back as a correction input. Expect NuVasive to argue '831 teaches bending corrections, not rotational (axial) de‑rotation. Rebuttal: the '831 text's "couple the changes in different planes" plus routine scoliosis vertebral‑rotation measurement undercuts this.
2. The '465/"Surgical Spinal Correction" family is likely off‑limits (§102(b)(2)(C) common ownership; also incorporated by reference). Do not shoulder the §103 case on it — an IPR petitioner would be sandbagged if that were the primary reference.
3. Computer‑implemented steps — if the granted claims were amended to require the specific spline/virtual‑bender/Markov‑chain/probabilistic bend‑reduction algorithms, that would materially strengthen the patent. But those algorithms appear to live in the specification, not the claims. On the claim set as best evidenced, they are not reached.
4. Secondary considerations — I have no verified evidence (no finding of nexus‑backed commercial success, no copying/long‑felt‑need record for these specific claims). Absent evidence, Alice/KSR‑style "predictable combination" reasoning governs; if NuVasive proffers the Pulse/Bendini commercial success, nexus to these claims would have to be tested. Flag as unverified — do not assert either way.
5. No PTAB or district‑court challenge to the '579 was found in the earlier sections (subject to the docket‑confirmation caveats already flagged there). So there is no adjudicated §103 record to cite.

G. Bottom line

On the evidence available:

• Claims 1–20, as best reconstructed, are vulnerable under §103 as a predictable combination of (i) Isaacs US 7,957,831 / US 2009/0254097 (digitize implants → compute a corrective rod differing from the digitized points → bend instructions/solutions → bender) with (ii) the art‑recognized spinal‑deformity radiographic parameters (Cobb, CSVL/C7PL, axial rotation) as described in the 2008–2012 literature, and optionally (iii) Leitner US 6,400,131 for landmark digitization and Garner '699/Asher '685 for the bender.
• The motivation is supplied by the primary reference itself ("mathematical adjustments … so that the final shaped … device … will correct or alter the shape of the bony structure(s)," coupled across planes) and by the admitted need in the '579's background.
• The main caveats: (a) the claim text is reconstructed, not verified; (b) the closest disclosure in the same corporate family (US 10,561,465 / US 2016/0235480) is probably disqualified prior art on common‑ownership and incorporation‑by‑reference grounds; (c) no litigation/PTAB record on the '579 was located.

Sources: Google Patents US11357579B2 (provided); US 2020/0289210 A1 claims; Justia US 11,357,579; US 2009/0254097 A1 (Isaacs) and patents‑review copy; Justia US 10,561,465; US 11,272,987 claims.

Suggested next step: if you can supply the actual granted claims (PatentCenter text or the grant PDF) and the IDS/"References Cited" list from the file history, I will (1) re‑map every claim element to the exact reference passages, (2) run the §102 date analysis reference‑by‑reference, and (3) draft formal claim charts for the strongest two‑ and three‑reference combinations.