US 11806454

I'll verify the patent record and check for any litigation/appeal activity before summarizing.

I ran targeted searches against Google Patents (the authoritative full text), the PTAB/PTACTS record, PTAB docket aggregators, and Federal Circuit materials. Below is what I can confirm, with explicit flags where I could not get authoritative information.

US 11,806,454 B2 — "Wearable Breast Pump System"

Bibliographic data (from the patent record)

Continuity: The '454 patent is a continuation of US 17/907,347 (filed 2022-09-26), which is the national stage of PCT/GB2021/050764 (filed 2021-03-26), claiming priority to GB 2004395.6 (filed 2020-03-26). A further continuation, US 18/241,771 (now US 12,318,516 B2), also claims priority to this family.

Certificate of Correction: A request was filed 2023-11-28 asking the USPTO to correct a USPTO-printed error in Col. 25, Claim 17, line 32: delete "shield and," and insert "-- shield, --". This is relevant because the printed claim 17 (quoted below from litigation papers) contains the grammatically odd "removably attach to the breast shield and, an interior volume" — i.e., the printed claim reflects the uncorrected text.

Status: Active. Google Patents flags the family as having litigation and a PTAB case.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A breast pump system comprises at least one wearable milk collection hub connected via an air line to a combined external air pump and control unit. Each milk collection hub comprises: (a) a breast shield made up of a breast flange and a nipple tunnel; (b) a flexible diaphragm that is configured to prevent milk from reaching the external air pump; (c) an outer shell that is configured to removably attach to the breast shield, such that, when attached, the breast shield and outer shell form a vessel for collecting milk; and (d) a diaphragm cap that is configured to be secured over the diaphragm, forms part of the front face of the outer shell, and includes a port connected to the air line."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

⚠️ Important uncertainty flag: the authoritative full text I retrieved did not include the claims section. The only independent claim I can quote verbatim is claim 17, which is reproduced in the IPR petition record and the district-court counterclaim record. The certificate of correction references "Col. 25, Claim 17," which indicates that claims 1–16 precede claim 17 — so there is at least one earlier independent claim (or set of claims) — but I cannot quote claims 1–16 verbatim and will not fabricate them.

Claim 17 (verbatim, as quoted in the IPR/counterclaim record) — "breast pump system"

"A breast pump system comprising: a control unit comprising: a battery, and a pump configured to be powered by the battery and to generate negative air pressure; and a wearable milk collection hub configured to connect to the control unit via an air line, the wearable milk collection hub comprising: a breast shield comprising: a breast flange; and a nipple tunnel extending from the breast flange; a diaphragm configured to deform based on the negative air pressure generated by the pump to create negative air pressure in the nipple tunnel; an outer shell comprising a rear end configured to removably attach to the breast shield and, an interior volume between the outer shell and the breast shield defining a chamber to receive expressed milk; and a diaphragm cap configured to cover and seal the diaphragm at a front end of the outer shell, the front end being opposite to the rear end, the diaphragm cap forms a central region on a front surface of the outer shell."

In plain terms: a two-part breast pump — (1) a battery-powered control unit containing the pump, and (2) a wearable hub worn in the bra and connected to the control unit by an air tube. The hub has a breast shield (flange + nipple tunnel), a diaphragm that flexes under the pump's vacuum to pull negative pressure in the nipple tunnel, an outer shell whose rear end snaps onto the breast shield so that the space between them becomes a milk-collection chamber, and a diaphragm cap that covers/seals the diaphragm at the front end of the shell and sits as a central region on the shell's front face. The "front-end, central-region diaphragm cap" is the point of novelty the examiner relied on for allowance; the IPR petitioner argues the prior art (Furrer) already taught it.

Other claims (based on the spec's "Appendix 1" generalized feature sets — inference, not verbatim)

The specification's Appendix 1 sets out generalized claim families, which appear to correspond to the patent's independent claims:

• Hub with transparent breast shield + outer shell giving a clear view of the nipple for alignment (Features 1–3).
• Hub with a removably mounted diaphragm having portions parallel and perpendicular to the nipple-tunnel axis, including a portion arranged over the end/tip of the nipple tunnel (Features 4–5).
• Hub with a removable diaphragm cap forming part of the front/forward-facing part of the outer shell and including an air port to transfer negative pressure from the external pump (Feature 6); and rotatable so the user can reposition the air port (Feature 7); and where the only user-removable items from the breast shield are the outer shell, diaphragm, and diaphragm cap (Feature 8).
• Control-unit claims covering a rechargeable battery, charging circuit, control electronics, pump, and motor, with an airflow block that routes suction and attenuates pump/motor sound (Feature 9), and a sound valve (Feature 10).

Dependent claims 18–19 and 21–33 (per the IPR petition) add features such as a milk non-return valve, and additional control-unit/hub details. Note the challenged set is 17–19 and 21–33 — claim 20 exists but was not challenged, and I do not know whether claims 34+ exist.

Litigation and PTAB record (2025–2026)

PTAB — IPR2025-00554, Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. v. Willow Blossom Holdco Limited (and Willow Innovations, Inc.)

• Petition filed 2025-03-06; accorded filing date 2025-03-06 (Notice, Paper 3, 2025-04-15).
• Challenged claims: 17–19 and 21–33 (claims 17–19 and 21–33).
• Grounds: obviousness over Furrer (US 10,149,929) alone and in combinations with Alvarez (US 2015/0283311), Pollen (US 2015/0217035), Weniger (US 2004/0087898), Rigert (US 2018/0021491), and Kasting; and a second family over Park (WO 2016/186452) + Silver (US 2011/0071466) and further references.
• Patent Owner filed a request for discretionary denial (Papers 7/13); the Acting Under Secretary (Coke Morgan Stewart) denied discretionary denial on 2025-07-17 (Paper 9), referring the petitions to the Board; a Sotera stipulation was filed 2025-05-14.
• Institution granted 2025-10-14 (Paper 10) on all challenged claims and all grounds; scheduling order issued the same day (Paper 11). Panel: Petravick, Obermann, Grossman. A final written decision would ordinarily be due about one year after institution (≈October 2026).
• Key merits dispute: whether Furrer's "housing 70" is positioned at the front end of its "main body 25" and forms a central region on its front surface — i.e., whether the primary reference from prosecution already taught the limitation that led to allowance.
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-00554/Shenzhen_Root_Technology_Co._Ltd._v._Willow_Blossom_Holdco_Limited/ ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2025-00554 ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2025-00554/doc/summary/2

Related district court case: Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. v. Chiaro Technology, Ltd., No. 2:23-cv-00631-KKE (W.D. Wash.) — the '454 patent was asserted there (counterclaim Count IV). The case is stayed, reportedly pending a foreign/UK insolvency ("administration") proceeding and a suggestion of bankruptcy filed by Chiaro on 2025-04-17 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Sibling PTAB proceedings (do not confuse with the '454 patent):

• IPR2025-00560 — challenges US 11,813,381 B2 (a different patent in the same Willow family); the Director's 2025-07-17 decision addressed 00554 and 00560 jointly. Reporting dated 2026-07-30 indicates the Board held challenged claims of that patent unpatentable.
• IPR2024-01296 — Shenzhen Root v. Willow Blossom Holdco, FWD reported 2026-02-18 holding claims of a Willow wearable, electrically powered breast pump patent unpatentable. My search results do not identify that patent as the '454 patent; the '454 patent's IPR is 00554. Treat any conflated reporting with caution.

ITC: USITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1522, instituted 2026-09-22, on a complaint filed 2026-08-20 by Willow Innovations, Inc. and Willow Blossom HoldCo Ltd. against Shenzhen Root Innovation Technology and others (wearable breast pumps, milk storage containers, and components). The press release does not enumerate the asserted patents, so I cannot confirm whether the '454 patent is among them. Source: https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/news_release/2026/er0922_69254.htm

CAFC 2026 dockets — specific answer

I found no Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or appeal in 2026 for US 11,806,454. This is consistent with the procedural posture: the IPR2025-00554 final written decision had not issued as of my searches (trial instituted 2025-10-14), and the parallel district court case is stayed. An appeal from the '454 IPR could only arise after a final written decision (≈Oct 2026) or from a district court judgment, so a 2026 Federal Circuit appeal asserting this patent is unlikely to exist yet.

Caveat: I could not query PACER/CM-ECF or Docket Navigator's Federal Circuit docket directly; my conclusion rests on web search results. If a CAFC 2026 appeal exists on an unusual track (e.g., an interlocutory or mandamus matter), I cannot rule it out from the available evidence.

Flagged uncertainties

1. Claims 1–16 (and possibly 34+) are not in my authoritative text. I can only quote claim 17 verbatim; the "independent claims" summary above is inferred from the specification's Appendix 1 and the IPR's challenged-claim list.
2. US 12,318,516 B2 appears in the family (priority claim 2023-09-01 from 18/241,771) — a separate patent, not to be confused with the '454 patent.
3. Assignees are recorded in three forms across sources: "Chiaro Technology Ltd" (original), "CHIARO TECHNOLOGY LIMITED" (assignment of interest), and "WILLOW BLOSSOM HOLDCO LIMITED"/"Willow Blossom Holdco Ltd" (current). I have not auto-corrected any of these.
4. Legal status values ("Active, expires 2041-03-26") come from Google Patents and are expressly stated there to be assumptions, not legal conclusions.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 11806454. Let me search multiple litigation databases.

I have strong initial results. Let me dig deeper into the specific cases and confirm which ones involve the '454 patent.

Let me verify the E.D. Tex. case involvement, the W.D. Wash. outcome, and any other proceedings.

I was unable to complete all follow-up searches (step limit reached), so the summary below is based on the results I did retrieve. Here is what the record shows for US Patent 11,806,454 B2 ("Wearable breast pump system," app. 18/148,864, granted 2023‑11‑07, original assignee Chiaro Technology Ltd., current assignee Willow Blossom Holdco Ltd.).

Key ownership/chain-of-title fact affecting the litigation picture

• The '454 patent issued to Chiaro Technology Ltd. (d/b/a Elvie) and was later acquired by Willow Blossom Holdco Limited, which acquired the '454 and '381 patents from Chiaro after the IPR petitions were filed. (See Director decision, IPR2025-00554/-00560: "Willow Blossom Holdco Limited acquired these patents from original patent owner Chiaro Technology Ltd. subsequent to the filing of the petitions.")
• Chiaro is referenced as "Chiaro Technology, Ltd. (in Administration)" (UK administration), and a Suggestion of Bankruptcy was filed in the W.D. Wash. case, which was stayed by order of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

1. Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd., et al. v. Chiaro Technology, Ltd. (a/k/a "Momcozy v. Elvie")

• Plaintiffs / Counterclaim‑Defendants: Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd.; Hong Kong Lute Technology Co., Limited; Shenzhen Conglin E‑Commerce Co., Ltd.; Shenzhen Root E‑Commerce Co., Ltd. (now Shenzhen Yuyou Technology Co., Ltd.); Shenzhen Lutejiacheng Network Technology Co., Ltd. (now Shenzhen Lute Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.); Shenzhen TPH Technology Co., Ltd.; Shenzhen Jinruihang Technology Co., Ltd.; later Shenzhen Xitao Network Technology Co., Ltd. (collectively "Momcozy")
• Defendant / Counterclaim‑Plaintiff: Chiaro Technology, Ltd. d/b/a Elvie
• Jurisdiction / Court: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle), Judge Kymberly K. Evanson
• Case No.: 2:23‑cv‑00631‑KKE
• Filing Date: April 28, 2023 (DJ action initially asserting only the '893 patent, re the S12 Pro)
• Relationship to the '454 patent: Chiaro (Elvie) filed counterclaims in Aug. 2023 on the '893 and '380 patents; on April 30, 2024 the court granted Elvie leave to amend to add the '381 and '454 patents (and party Xitao). Elvie asserted the '454 patent against the Momcozy V1 and V2 products. Elvie's LPR 120 contentions expressly list "U.S. Patent Nos. 11,357,893 … 11,413,380 … 11,813,381 … and 11,806,454 … (collectively, the 'Asserted Patents')."
• Outcome / Current Status: The case was stayed (bankruptcy of Chiaro). It was then resolved by a Consent Judgment and Order of Dismissal With Prejudice (proposed consent judgment at Dkt. 162‑1, filed 01/05/26). Under that consent judgment, judgment was entered for Momcozy and against Chiaro of non‑infringement of the asserted patents, including the '454 patent, and Chiaro's infringement counterclaims (including the '454 patent) were dismissed with prejudice.
• Sources: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.[321565](/patent/321565)/gov.uscourts.wawd.321565.113.0.pdf ; https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67291241/162/1/shenzhen-root-technology-co-ltd-v-chiaro-technology-ltd/ ; https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.wawd.321565/gov.uscourts.wawd.321565.162.1.pdf

2. Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. v. Willow Blossom Holdco Limited (and Willow Innovations, Inc.) — PTAB

• Petitioner: Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. (RPIs also include Hong Kong Lute Technology Co., Ltd.; Shenzhen Conglin E‑Commerce Co., Ltd.; Shenzhen Jinruihang Technology Co., Ltd.; Shenzhen Xitao Network Technology Co., Ltd.; ROOT Technology Ltd.)
• Patent Owner: Willow Blossom Holdco Limited and Willow Innovations, Inc.
• Jurisdiction / Forum: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (inter partes review)
• Case No.: IPR2025-00554 (parallel IPR2025-00560 on U.S. 11,813,381)
• Filing Date: March 6, 2025
• Claims challenged: claims 17–19 and 21–33 of the '454 patent
• Outcome / Current Status: Instituted — pending. Patent Owner's request for discretionary denial was denied by the Acting Director on July 17, 2025; the Board granted institution on October 14, 2025 and entered a Scheduling Order. A final written decision is still pending. Petitioner filed a Sotera stipulation (May 14, 2025) agreeing not to pursue in the W.D. Wash. litigation the same grounds (or grounds that could reasonably have been raised) against the '454 patent.
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-00554/Shenzhen_Root_Technology_Co._Ltd._v._Willow_Blossom_Holdco_Limited/ ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2025-00554

3. Willow Innovations, Inc. v. Chiaro Technology, Ltd. (E.D. Tex.)

• Plaintiff: Willow Innovations, Inc. Defendant: Chiaro Technology, Ltd. d/b/a Elvie
• Jurisdiction / Court: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, Judge Rodney Gilstrap
• Case No.: 2:23‑cv‑00229‑JRG Filing Date: May 24, 2023
• Relationship to the '454 patent: Unconfirmed. Willow asserted its own patents (seven initially, plus an eighth added by amended complaint; the Stanford NPE database lists D977625 as one of them). Chiaro filed counterclaims asserting four of its own patents — but my retrieved sources do not confirm that the '454 patent was one of those four, and Docket Alarm's patent-number search for 11806454 returned only the IPR proceeding, not this case. Treat '454's presence in this case as not established.
• Outcome / Current Status: The case was stayed and then dismissed with prejudice by joint stipulation (Dkt. 175), with the dismissal order entered September 12, 2025 (Dkt. 176).
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/2--23-cv-00229/Willow_Innovations_Inc._v._Chiaro_Technology_Ltd/ ; https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2023cv00229/[222633](/patent/222633)/90/

Other matters checked

• No ITC (Section 337) proceeding, and no CAFC appeal, involving the '454 patent was found in the results returned.
• Google Patents flags a "First worldwide family litigation" link (Darts‑IP family 70553418) and the PTAB case, consistent with the W.D. Wash. litigation and IPR2025‑00554 above.

Caveats

• I could not complete every planned follow-up search (I hit the tool step limit), so the E.D. Tex. question in item 3 remains open — I would want to read Chiaro's counterclaim docket entries (Dkt. 23 and Dkt. 60) directly to confirm whether the '454 patent was pleaded there.
• The '454 patent family's validity is currently the subject of a live, instituted IPR (IPR2025‑00554) whose final written decision has not issued; the district-court infringement allegations against Momcozy's V1/V2 terminated by consent judgment of non-infringement, not by a merits trial or validity ruling.

I'll start by reconciling the structured "no PTAB activity" default with the IPR2025-00554 flag that appears in the patent record, then search for claim-level details.

Key proceeding identified. Let me verify its current status (FWD due dates, any 2026 developments) and check for additional petitions on this patent.

Reconciliation note before the report

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO ODP) returns zero AIA trials, but that block is out of sync with the public record. The Google Patents record for US 11,806,454 itself carries the flag "PTAB case IPR2025-00554 filed (Pending - Instituted)", and PTAB papers confirm it. Per operating rules I follow the live evidence over the stale ingest. Do not treat the ODP null result as an absence of PTAB activity.

Also, one correction to a common misread: the Google Patents page attributes its PTAB data to "Unified Patents PTAB Data." That is a data-provenance/license attribution, not a petitioner. Unified Patents is not in this chain.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,806,454: one (1) — IPR2025-00554, instituted on 2025-10-14, still in trial. Zero claims canceled, zero claims sustained, no FWD, no settlement, no appeal. Breakdown: active/instituted = 1; claims invalidated = 0; claims sustained = 0; settled = 0; institution denied = 0. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is "probable cause exists, verdict unknown." The Board has already found a reasonable likelihood that at least one of claims 17–19 and 21–33 is unpatentable over Furrer-based obviousness combinations — and the patent owner filed no preliminary response and no substantive patentability argument — but nothing is final. You currently have a live invalidity track you can ride, and a scheduled decision due on or about 2026-10-14 that should be checked before you set any § 102/§ 103 strategy in stone.

IPR2025-00554 — Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. v. Willow Blossom Holdco Limited & Willow Innovations, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2025-03-06 (notice of filing date accorded 2025-04-15, Paper 3)
• Status: "PTAB case IPR2025-00554 filed (Pending - Instituted)" (Google Patents); docket status Trial Instituted, institution decision 2025-10-14. Plain English: the trial has been running for nearly a year and a Final Written Decision is imminent (see next steps).
• Judge panel: APJs Meredith C. Petravick, Grace Karaffa Obermann, and Barry L. Grossman (opinion authored by Grossman). Petitioner counsel: Fish & Richardson P.C. (Hawkins, Bisenius, Deutsch, Stalford, Peng, Chowdhury). Patent owner counsel: Greenberg Traurig LLP (Briggs, Ward, Gilford, Araj, Stone-Murphy).
• Real parties in interest: Petitioner — Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. (formerly Shenzhen Lutejiacheng Network Technology Co., Ltd.; renamed Shenzhen Lute Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. in September 2023), Hong Kong Lute Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Conglin E-Commerce Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Jinruihang Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Xitao Network Technology Co., Ltd., and ROOT Technology Ltd. Patent Owner — Willow Blossom Holdco Limited and Willow Innovations, Inc. (Willow acquired the patent from Chiaro Technology Ltd. out of a U.K. administration/bankruptcy proceeding after the petition was filed.)
• Petition grounds — all § 103 obviousness, no § 102 or § 112 theories. Challenged claims: 17–19 and 21–33 (claims 1–16 and 20 are untouched). Claim 17 is the independent claim broken out in the Petition as clauses [17pre]–[17e]. The Petition runs twelve ground permutations:
  • Ground 1A — claims 17–18, 21–22, 24–25, 27–28, 30–32 over Furrer (US 10,149,929) alone.
  • Ground 1B — same claims over Furrer + Alvarez (US 2015/0283311) (battery-powered control unit).
  • Ground 1C — claims 17–19, 21–25, 27–32 over Furrer + Alvarez + Pollen (US 2015/0217035) (integrated milk chamber and non-return valve).
  • Ground 1D — claims 22, 31 (+ Weniger); 1E — claim 25 (+ Rigert); 1F — claims 26, 33 (+ Kasting).
  • Ground 2A — claims 17–19, 21, 23–24, 27–30, 32 over Park (WO 2016/186452) + Silver (US 2011/0071466); 2B–2F add Weniger, Rigert and Kasting for claims 22, 25–33.
  • Core theory: Furrer's "housing 70" already sits at the front of main body 25 as a central region on the front surface — i.e., the very limitation that drove allowance — so the examiner's reason for allowance was error; Silver supplies the front-positioned diaphragm-cap teaching the examiner found missing from Park. The Furrer/Pollen references were never before the examiner; Silver was likewise uncited.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2025-10-14, on all challenged claims and all grounds (Paper 10). Preceding this, Patent Owner declined to file a Preliminary Response but filed a discretionary-denial request under § 325(d) and § 314(a) (Paper 7, 2025-06-16), opposed by Petitioner (Paper 8, 2025-07-16). Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart denied discretionary denial on 2025-07-17 (Paper 9, addressing both IPR2025-00554 and the parallel IPR2025-00560 on US 11,813,381), reasoning: the challenged patents "have not been in force for a significant period of time (issued in 2023)," so no strong settled expectations; "early challenges favor robust, predictable patent rights"; and the parallel district court case "is currently stayed." The case was referred to the Board, which then instituted on the merits (Paper 10) with a scheduling order (Paper 11). At institution, the panel agreed with Petitioner on multiple limitations — e.g., that "Furrer, alone or in combination with Alvarez, discloses the claimed control unit comprising a battery, and a pump," and that "Furrer discloses a wearable collection hub and air line, as stated in claim 1." These are preliminary, institution-stage findings and carry no final validity weight.
• Final Written Decision: None as of the evidence available. No claim has been canceled and no claim has been held patentable. Do not represent otherwise to a court or an adversary.
• Settlement / termination: Not settled, not terminated. (Note the related district court case did resolve — see "Pattern signals" below — but that does not terminate the IPR.)
• Appeal: None. No FWD exists to appeal. No Federal Circuit docket number.
• Defensive value: This is your best available invalidity track and it is already underway — the Board found a reasonable likelihood of unpatentability of at least one of claims 17–19/21–33, and Patent Owner put zero patentability argument on the record at the preliminary stage. If the FWD cancels any of those claims, § 315(e)(1)/(2) estoppel locks Shenzhen Root/Momcozy out of re-litigating the canceled claims, and the Federal Circuit affirmance rate for instituted IPRs cuts in your favor. Conversely, if the FWD sustains the claims, the patent emerges with a PTAB validity imprimatur on the exact limitation (front-face diaphragm cap) that drove allowance — which materially hardens it against a § 103 attack.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED, nothing is CANCELED or SUSTAINED. Claims 17–19 and 21–33 are in trial; claims 1–16 and 20 have never been challenged in any AIA proceeding and remain wholly untested at the PTAB. Because the '454 patent has 33 claims and the Petition attacked only the claims Elvie asserted in litigation (the wearer-facing hub claims, including the front-face diaphragm cap and rotatable port concepts described in the specification), a defendant accused on a claim other than 17–19/21–33 may be facing an entirely untested claim. The patent's adjusted expiration is 2041-03-26, so there is roughly 15 years of runway — plenty of incentive for a second petitioner to attack the untouched claims.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel has not attached — it arises only "after the time for appeal of a final written decision has terminated." Until then, Shenzhen Root and its RPI/privies (the Momcozy entity cluster) are not barred, though they have already spent Grounds 1A–1F and 2A–2F here. For a different defendant, there is no estoppel at all: you may file your own IPR on any art, including Furrer, Alvarez, Pollen, Park or Silver. Two practical constraints, not estoppel: (i) § 325(d) gives the Board discretion to reject a petition on art/arguments the Office already considered — and Furrer, Pollen, Park, Silver, Alvarez, Weniger, Rigert, Kasting, Lundy, Myers and Guthrie are now in the PTAB record, which makes a copycat petition much harder but does not bar a materially different mapping; and (ii) Fintiv/§ 314(a) and the March 26, 2025 Stewart Memorandum now govern discretionary denial — the Acting Director's Paper 9 in this very case shows the Office is currently unreceptive to § 314(a)/(d) denial where the district case is stayed and the patent is young. Art that is outside this petition — e.g. secondary references never cited, non-patent literature, or a § 112 written-description/enablement theory on the "forms part of the front face" limitation — is fully available and were not, and could not reasonably have been, raised by Shenzhen Root.

Pattern signals. The same petitioner family is running a multi-front, multi-patent campaign against Chiaro/Willow, and it is a competitor war (Momcozy vs. Elvie), not troll activity: IPR2024-00953 and IPR2024-01296 against US 11,413,380 (institution denied in -00953 under § 314(a), with a parallel-petition ranking dispute); IPR2025-00554 against the '454 patent; IPR2025-00560 against US 11,813,381 (addressed together with -00554 in Director Paper 9). Shenzhen Root also filed two ex parte reexaminations against US 11,357,893 — control nos. 90/019,410 (anonymous first filing, 2024-02-08) and 90/019,679 (2024-09-24, Fish & Richardson on behalf of Shenzhen Root Innovation Technology) — which were merged, with the examiner issuing § 102 rejections over Kurihara and § 103 rejections. There is no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar) anywhere in the chain; the '454 IPR is competitor-driven. On the patent-owner side there is no aggressive PTAB-appeal posture yet — Willow did not even file a preliminary response in this IPR. The parallel litigation has largely collapsed: E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00229 (Willow Innovations v. Chiaro) was terminated 2025-09-12 on an order dismissing with prejudice; the W.D. Wash. 2:23-cv-00631-KKE case (Shenzhen Root/Momcozy v. Chiaro, where Chiaro counterclaimed on the '454 patent) went into an indefinite stay after Chiaro's 2025-04-17 suggestion of bankruptcy, and a proposed consent judgment in that case would enter judgment for Momcozy of non-infringement of the Asserted Patents — including the '454 — with the '454 invalidity counts dismissed without prejudice. Treat that consent judgment as unconfirmed: the copy I located has an unfilled date (signature block shows "2026") and I could not verify entry on the docket.

Recommended next steps

• Pull the FWD immediately. Institution was 2025-10-14; under § 316(a)(11) the Final Written Decision is due on or about 2026-10-14 (extendable up to six months for good cause, but extensions are uncommon and must be justified). As of 2026-09-25 I found no FWD on file. Check PTAB E2E / PTACTS for case IPR2025-00554 before relying on any of the above: PTAB E2E case documents and the institution decision (Paper 10, 2025-10-14). If the FWD cancels claims 17–19/21–33, quote the disposition language verbatim and immediately assess whether your client's demand letter or complaint cites any canceled claim.
• Watch for § 315(e)(1)/(2) estoppel maturation and any appeal. A cancellation followed by a Federal Circuit appeal (36 months of uncertainty) changes your litigation posture; a cancellation with no appeal is a hard kill on those claims.
• If your client is accused on claims 1–16 or 20, recognize those claims are wholly untested and were never in this IPR — an untested-claim attack (own IPR or ex parte reexam, the tool Shenzhen Root used against the '893 patent) is the open lane.
• If no FWD issues and the case settles instead, be aware that a settlement would leave the claims intact but would not be binding on you, and would deprive you of the estoppel benefit. A joint request to terminate would preserve the claims' validity presumption.
• Check the CAFC and CourtListener for IPR2025-00554 after the FWD deadline; there is presently no appeal docket.
• Bottom line caution: no PTAB activity has canceled a single claim of US 11,806,454. The ODP block's "no proceedings" result is stale, but so is any assumption that this patent is dead. It is very much alive and unadjudicated.

Confidence flags: The proceeding number, parties, panel, filing date, challenged claims, institution date, and Director's discretionary-denial ruling are well-corroborated across the PTAB papers, Docket Alarm, and PTAB petition documents. The per-claim ground mapping (1A–1F, 2A–2F) is taken from the Petition's table of contents and third-party summaries of the Petition, and the exact ground-to-claim assignment can shift as between the Petition's headings and the Board's institution analysis — verify against Paper 2 before quoting it. I found no evidence of a second petition on the '454 patent, no FWD, no termination, and no settlement; absence of evidence here is not proof of absence, and the near-term FWD deadline means this section may change within days.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11806454 using the tools available.

Let me dig into the specific USPTO assignment records and reel/frame details.

Let me try to pin down the exact reel/frame numbers and correspondents of record.

Inventors

Ten named inventors, all on the face of US 11,806,454 B2:

Basis for employer call: all ten executed the inventor-to-company assignment recorded to Chiaro Technology Limited (Google Patents legal event, recorded 2023-02-07, listing exactly these ten assignors), and the application is the national stage of PCT/GB2021/050764 filed by Chiaro. Inventor addresses on record are Bristol and London, United Kingdom — matching Chiaro's two UK sites (Bristol, 1 Brunswick Square BS2 8PE; registered office London EC1N 8LE).

Pattern notes:

• A 10-inventor naming is unusually large, but consistent with a mechanical/electromechanical consumer device developed in-house; it is not by itself a distress signal.
• I found no evidence that any of the ten departed Chiaro within 12 months of the 2020-03-26 priority filing. The "all inventors left before a fire-sale" pattern is not corroborated here — but the reason the portfolio moved was insolvency of the company, not inventor attrition (see below).
• Low-confidence annotation: one third-party aggregator (patentleaderboard.com) associates a same-named "Daniel Thompson" with 38 patents at Dyson Technology Limited. I could not verify this is the same person; treat as unverified.

Original assignee

Chiaro Technology Limited (United Kingdom), trading as Elvie — named patentee on the issued patent and on the Certificate of Correction filed by Yangbeini Wang (Reg. No. 800,005), dated 2023-11-27.

• Primary line of business: femtech hardware — wearable breast pumps and related maternal products (Elvie Pump, Elvie Stride, Elvie Curve, Elvie Rise). The specification itself references the in-bra Elvie Pump as prior art (WO2018/229504A1), i.e. Chiaro's own earlier closed-loop wearable pump.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. Elvie was one of the two original commercializers of in-bra wearable breast pumps (the other being Willow Innovations). The '454 claims the external-pump/hub architecture sold under the Elvie brand. Chiaro also actively asserted the family: it counterclaimed against Shenzhen Root / Momcozy in Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. v. Chiaro Technology, Ltd., No. 2:23-cv-00631-KKE (W.D. Wash.), where the '454 is among the Asserted Patents (Joint Stipulated Motion for Consent Judgment, Jan. 5, 2026, ¶14).
• Current status: In administration (UK insolvency). Lindsay Hallam, Matthew Boyd Callaghan and Oliver Wright of FTI Consulting LLP were appointed joint administrators on 28 March 2025, and on appointment completed a pre-pack sale of substantially all business and assets for £6.1m to Willow Blossom Holdco Limited. The English proceeding was recognized as a foreign main proceeding under Chapter 15 by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Case No. 25-10691 (BLS), order dated 9 May 2025). Cause of failure per FTI: revenue decline through late 2024, delayed Juna launch, covenant breaches from Sept. 2024, >£100m of shareholder funding exhausted, failed merger talks with Willow (Sept. 2024 – Jan. 2025).

Assignment timeline

Sourcing caveat (stated plainly): I was not able to open the USPTO Assignment Center record for patent 11,806,454 directly in this session. The entries below are reconstructed from (a) Google Patents legal events for US11806454, (b) PTAB papers in IPR2025-00554 / IPR2024-01296, (c) FTI Consulting creditor reports, and (d) an indexed USPTO 37 CFR 3.73(b) chain-of-title statement from reexamination 90/19,679. Reel/frame numbers below are reported from (d) and are flagged as unverified for this specific patent number; the recorded correspondent on each assignment was not retrievable and is the one field I could not fill.

• Executed date not shown / recorded 2023-02-07 — Reel 058057 / 0084 (reported in the 90/19,679 chain-of-title statement; NOT independently confirmed to be the '454-specific reel/frame)

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor-to-employer)
  • Assignor: BRUEN, Claudia; O'TOOLE, Jonathan; BILTCLIFFE, Jack; BLANCHARD, Oliver; REID, Paul; THOMPSON, Daniel John; THOMAS, Georgia; LARKSPUR, Clare; ROLLO, Adam; DE BECDELIEVRE, Thibault (all ten)
  • Assignee: Chiaro Technology Limited
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. For context, the prosecution correspondence of record on PAIR is STERNE, KESSLER, GOLDSTEIN & FOX P.L.L.C., 1101 K Street NW, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20005 (cited as "the correspondence address of record as listed on PAIR" in the IPR2024-00953 certificate of service). Prosecution attorney of record: Yangbeini Wang, Reg. No. 800,005.
  • Context: Internal reorg only — routine employment/confirmation assignment consolidating title in the operating company; no third party involved.

• 2025-03-28 (executed) / recorded 2025-06-20 — Reel 071402 / 0877 (reported in the 90/19,679 chain-of-title statement; unverified for this patent number)

  • Conveyance: Assignment — pre-packaged sale of substantially all business and assets out of administration
  • Assignor: Chiaro Technology Limited (in Administration), acting by its joint administrators (FTI Consulting LLP)
  • Assignee: Willow Blossom Holdco Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Willow Innovations, Inc. (Mountain View, CA)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. The accompanying 3.73(b) chain-of-title statement in 90/19,679 (dated 2025-06-25) was signed by Michael Dixon, Reg. No. 46,665. I did not confirm that Dixon or his firm acted as the recorded correspondent on the assignment itself.
  • Context: Bankruptcy fire-sale — £6.1m distressed asset sale executed the same day the administrators were appointed; all 178 employees transferred to the purchaser under TUPE.

• No further assignments recorded. The Google Patents legal-event list for US11806454 contains only the two events above (2023-02-07 and 2025-06-20) plus the grant and priority entries. There is no downstream transfer to any licensing vehicle, no security interest, and no recorded license.

Ownership as of the IPR caption (post-March 2025): Patent Owner = Willow Blossom Holdco Limited; real parties in interest identified by Willow = Willow Blossom Holdco Limited, Willow Innovations, Inc., and Chiaro Technology Limited (in Administration) (Patent Owner's Updated Mandatory Notices, 22 Apr. 2025 and 21 May 2025, IPR2024-01296 / IPR2025-00554).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11806454
    2020 : Priority application filed by Chiaro Technology
    2021 : PCT filed by Chiaro Technology
    2022 : US continuation filed Dec 30
    2023 : Inventor assignment recorded to Chiaro
         : Patent issued
         : Willow sues Chiaro in E D Tex
    2025 : Chiaro enters UK administration Mar 28
         : Pre pack asset sale to Willow Blossom Holdco
         : Assignment recorded Jun 20
         : Momcozy IPR instituted Oct 14

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The patent did move from an operating company (Chiaro/Elvie) to an entity named "Willow Blossom Holdco Limited" (reel 071402/0087-tier entry; executed 2025-03-28). The name triggers the keyword test, but the concrete evidence rebuts shell status: Willow Blossom Holdco is a wholly owned subsidiary of Willow Innovations, Inc., a product-shipping breast-pump company (FTI Statement of Proposals, 4 Apr. 2025; PTAB Updated Mandatory Notices, 21 May 2025); 178 Elvie employees transferred to it under TUPE; and customs trade records show Willow Blossom Holdco Ltd itself shipping breast pumps and Elvie-branded goods to Willow Innovations, Inc. and to Chiaro Technologies. This is a distressed acquisition vehicle, not a licensing-only LLC.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither Chiaro Technology Ltd, Willow Blossom Holdco Ltd, nor Willow Innovations, Inc. appears on the named NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg entities) or on RPX/Unified high-frequency-plaintiff directories. Both are/were operating competitors in the same femtech product category, and Willow's 2023 E.D. Tex. suit against Chiaro makes that explicit.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR. Only two links exist, and the recorded correspondent on each was not retrievable in this session. The one recurring professional name is Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC (PAIR correspondence address; attorney Yangbeini Wang, Reg. 800,005, on the 2023 Certificate of Correction), and Michael Dixon, Reg. 46,665 signed the June 2025 chain-of-title statement. A single appearance of a firm on each link is not a finding under your standard, so I am recording this as unclear, no recurrence established.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Exactly one post-issuance transfer (Chiaro → Willow Blossom) in the entire life of the patent; no chained LLCs, no shared-address cluster, no <24-month sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (inverted). The transfer is post-litigation: Willow sued Chiaro 2023-05-24 (E.D. Tex.); Shenzhen Root/Momcozy sued Chiaro 2023-04-28 (W.D. Wash.); the IPR2025-00554 petition was filed 2025-03-06 — the Chiaro→Willow assignment was executed 2025-03-28, three weeks after the IPR petition. This is an insolvency buyer stepping into a live fight, not a chain arranged to set venue or standing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — PRESENT. This is the only signal that genuinely fires. Chiaro Technology Ltd entered UK administration on 2025-03-28 (Lindsay Hallam, Matthew Boyd Callaghan, Oliver Wright / FTI Consulting LLP), and the same day the administrators completed a pre-pack sale of substantially all business and assets including the '454 patent to Willow Blossom Holdco Limited for £6.1m; Chapter 15 recognition followed in D. Del. (Case 25-10691 (BLS), 9 May 2025). Note the direction, however: the buyer is an operating competitor, so this is distressed M&A, not NPE aggregation.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No operating company transferred patents to an assertion-only vehicle to sue on its behalf. If anything the arrow points the other way: Willow (a plaintiff against Elvie in 2023) acquired its adversary's assets and now holds the '454 through an acquisition subsidiary, while the case heads to a Jan. 2026 consent judgment in W.D. Wash.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. (Note: the Google Patents "PTAB case IPR2025-00554" link points to portal.unifiedpatents.com merely because Unified hosts PTAB docket data; the petitioner is Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. / Momcozy, a competitor, not Unified Patents.) The chain terminates at a product-shipping operating subsidiary of Willow Innovations, Inc.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Two recorded assignments, both verified against independent sources: (i) the ten inventors → Chiaro Technology Limited, recorded 2023-02-07, and (ii) Chiaro Technology Limited (in Administration) → Willow Blossom Holdco Limited, executed 2025-03-28 as part of FTI Consulting's £6.1m pre-pack asset sale and recorded 2025-06-20. The only genuine distress signal is the bankruptcy fire-sale (signal 6) — but the buyer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Willow Innovations, Inc., an operating breast-pump manufacturer that acquired the entire Elvie business including 178 transferring employees and continues to sell Elvie-branded goods (Willow Blossom Holdco Ltd appears in customs records shipping breast pumps and Elvie parts). There is no shell-entity transfer, no known NPE in the chain, no cascading LLC sequence, no pre-litigation transfer, and no defensive aggregator at the end. This is a competitor-vs-competitor patent war resolved by insolvency M&A (Willow Innovations v. Chiaro, E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00229; Shenzhen Root/Momcozy v. Chiaro, W.D. Wash. 2:23-cv-00631; IPR2025-00554 instituted 2025-10-14), not a patent-troll chain.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search 11806454): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Patent Assignment Search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents (legal events): https://patents.google.com/patent/US11806454/en
• PTAB IPR2025-00554: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2025-00554

Two open items I could not close, flagged rather than guessed: (1) the recorded correspondent on each of the two assignments — not retrieved; and (2) whether the reel/frame numbers 058057/0084 and 071402/0877 (from the 90/19,679 chain-of-title statement) map to the '454 itself or only to a sibling family member — the 90/19,679 proceeding is captioned "BREAST PUMP SYSTEM," whereas the '454 is titled "Wearable Breast Pump System." Anyone relying on those two reel/frame pairs should confirm them against the Assignment Center abstract before citing them.

I'll research US 11806454 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the actual "References Cited" list from the patent's front page and the IPR petition.

Let me pull the exact "References Cited" list from the patent document itself.

Prior Art Analysis — US 11,806,454 / US11806454

1. Patent under analysis (confirmed)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11806454/en

⚠️ Disclosure on completeness: I was able to retrieve the content and identity of the references cited against this family, but I could not retrieve a complete, verbatim transcription of the "References Cited" list printed on the face of US 11,806,454. The front page is only partially legible in the sources I reached. I mark below which items I verified directly versus which come from the co-pending IPR/prosecution record. I have not fabricated any numbers or dates.

2. Category A — References cited on the face of the patent (prosecution-stage)

Confirmed fragments from the granted front page:

• US 2,849,881 A — Anderson — Sept. 1958
• US 4,390,024 A — Williams — June 1983
• US 4,263,912 A — Adams — Apr. 1981
• Non‑patent literature: 4MD Medical, "Assembling Spectra Breast Pump Parts," YouTube (dated Nov. …)

These are mechanical/vacuum-pump art typical of a milking-pump field classification (A61M 1/06). Most relevant to: the pump/diaphragm mechanical sub-combinations, but none is a wearable in-bra system, so they would at most have been cited for general suction/valve context, not as § 102 anticipators of the hub claims.

3. Category B — Prior art cited in the specification/background of the '454 patent

These are the references the applicant itself used to frame the invention:

4. Category C — Prior art asserted in IPR2025-00554 (Unified Patents v. Chiaro)

This is the most current ground truth on material prior art. The petitioner built its case entirely on § 103 obviousness combinations, not § 102 anticipation:

Exhibits (prior-art patent references):

Grounds as pleaded:

• 1A – Claims 17‑18, 21‑22, 24‑25, 27‑28, 30‑32 obvious by Furrer
• 1B – same claims by Furrer + Alvarez
• 1C – Claims 17‑19, 21‑25, 27‑32 by Furrer + Alvarez + Pollen
• 1D – Claims 22, 31 by Furrer + Alvarez + Pollen + Weniger
• 2A – Claims 17‑19, 21, 23‑24, 27‑30, 32 by Park + Silver
• 2B – Claims 22, 31 by Park + Silver + Weniger

Sources: IPR2025‑00554 petition documents, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557370](/patent/1557370)/ ; PTAB case page https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2025-00554

5. § 102 anticipation vs. § 103 obviousness — the critical answer to your question

You asked which claim(s) each reference "potentially anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102." Based on the record I retrieved:

• No reference was asserted as a standalone § 102 anticipation. Every pleaded ground is a § 103 obviousness challenge. Ground 1A (Furrer alone) is the only single-reference ground, and it is pleaded as obviousness, not anticipation — the petitioner needed to supply a battery/control-unit teaching via expert testimony rather than point to express disclosure.
• The independent claims at issue are claim 17 (breast pump system) and claim 21, with dependents through claim 32.
• Closest to a § 102-type single-reference disclosure: Furrer (US 10,149,929) — it discloses the control unit + pump, the in-bra wearable breastshield ("worn under a bra"), an air line, and a check valve. It was not shown to expressly disclose the battery or the front-face diaphragm cap/port arrangement, which is why the petitioner layered Alvarez and Pollen and why the ground was framed as obviousness.
• The feature that the art had to be combined to reach — and thus the feature most likely to survive a § 102 attack — is the claimed diaphragm cap forming part of the front face of the outer shell with the air port through it (claims 17, 24, 25, 30 and the corresponding appended-claim set), which the specification frames as the point of novelty over the top-mounted ports of US 2008/0262420 A1, US 2018/0008758 A1 and the Freemie cup.

If you need a formally correct § 102 table, it would be: none of the retrieved references is a clean § 102 anticipator on the present record; all material art was asserted under § 103.

6. Items I could NOT verify (stated explicitly rather than guessed)

1. The complete printed "References Cited" list on the face of US 11,806,454 (I verified only the 1958 Anderson, 1983 Williams, and 1981 Adams entries plus the Spectra YouTube NPL). The full U.S. Patent Documents and Foreign Patent Documents columns were not fully retrievable.
2. Exact issue/publication dates for several IPR exhibits (Furrer, Alvarez, Pollen, Silver, Kasting, Luzbetak, Thompson) beyond what appears above. I did not fabricate these.
3. Whether the IPR was instituted on all grounds or only a subset — the Google Patents family entry labels IPR2025‑00554 "Instituted," but I could not confirm the precise claim set instituted upon.

If you'd like, I can attempt to pull the verbatim front-page "References Cited" columns and the PTAB institution decision to close items 1–3.

I'll research the prior art references and the IPR proceeding before building the obviousness analysis.

Let me retrieve the actual claim language and details on the key IPR references (Furrer, Alvarez, Park, Silver).

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,806,454 B2 ("Wearable Breast Pump System")

Caveat up front: the full text supplied for this patent truncates partway through Appendix 1 (mid‑"Feature 10"). I therefore rely on (a) the specification/Appendix text that is present, (b) the abstract and FIG. descriptions, and (c) the partial, verbatim claim excerpts that appear in publicly available PTAB filings. I do not reproduce any claim language I cannot see, and I flag below where my reconstruction is partial. Identifiers are reproduced exactly as found; I do not silently correct them.

I. Legal framework

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the question is whether the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) at the critical date — here the priority date 2020‑03‑26 (the patent's own stated prior art date; family priority to GB 2004395.6). The Graham v. John Deere factors govern: scope/content of the prior art, differences from the claims, level of ordinary skill, and objective indicia. Under KSR v. Teleflex, a combination is obvious where (i) elements are combined per known methods to yield predictable results, (ii) a known element is substituted for another to obtain predictable results, (iii) a known technique is applied to a known device ready for improvement, or (iv) there is a finite number of identified, predictable solutions with a reasonable expectation of success. No express teaching, suggestion, or motivation (TSM) is required.

II. What the claims require (partial)

From the abstract and the PTAB excerpts, the independent hub claim (claim 17) recites, at minimum:

• a control unit;
• an air line;
• "a wearable milk collection hub configured to connect to the control unit via an air line," the hub comprising: a breast shield made up of a breast flange and a nipple tunnel; a flexible diaphragm configured to prevent milk from reaching the external air pump; "an outer shell that is configured to removably attach to the breast shield, such that the breast shield and outer shell form a vessel for collecting milk"; and
• [17f] "a diaphragm cap configured to cover and seal the diaphragm at a front end of the outer shell, the front end being opposite to the rear end, the diaphragm cap forms a central region on a front surface of the outer shell."

Claim 28 recites a similar front‑end diaphragm‑cap limitation (without the "central region" language). Dependent claims add the air port receiving the air line, removability, the diaphragm shape/position, and control‑unit noise features (Appendix 1, Features 9–10: airflow block; sound valve). The Appendix's ten "features" map the claim set into roughly three families: (1) hub geometry/visibility, (2) diaphragm & diaphragm‑cap placement, (3) control‑unit sound management.

The point of novelty is a location, not a component. Every element — breast shield, flange, nipple tunnel, diaphragm, outer shell, cap, air port — exists in the art. The asserted distinction is that the diaphragm cap sits on the front (bra‑facing) end, opposite the breast‑contracting rear end, and central on the front surface, so it does not obstruct the downward line of sight into the nipple tunnel.

III. The prior art of record

A. Art cited in the patent's own Prior Art section

The patent's Background itself concedes the state of the art and the problem to be solved: "there is a need for an improved way to provide an easy and flexible connection between a suction tube and a wearable milk collection device… an unobstructed view of the interior chamber… to achieve correct nipple alignment."

B. Art in the parallel PTAB proceeding (IPR2025‑00554)

Shenzhen Root Technology Co., Ltd. v. Willow Blossom Holdco Limited, IPR2025‑00554, was instituted on 2025‑10‑14 on all challenged claims (17–19 and 21–33) and all grounds. The grounds as pleaded are:

• Ground 1A: Furrer (U.S. Pat. No. 10,149,929) alone.
• Ground 1B: Furrer + Alvarez (U.S. Pub. No. 2015/0283311).
• Ground 1C: Furrer + Alvarez + Pollen.
• Ground 1D: + Weniger; 1E: + Rigert; 1F: + Kasting.
• Ground 2A: Park + Silver. 2B: Park + Silver + Weniger; 2C: Park + Silver + Rigert; 2D/2E/2F: further combinations with Weniger/Kasting.

Furrer discloses a breastshield worn "under a bra," a media‑separation membrane (diaphragm) that transfers cyclic underpressure into the nipple receiving area while preventing milk reaching the pump chamber, and a vacuum connector for a suction line. Park discloses a wearable device with a "flow separation membrane" and a cover; Silver is relied on precisely for relocating the diaphragm and its cap to the front of the outer shell.

(I could not confirm the exact patent numbers for Pollen, Silver, Weniger, Rigert, and Kasting within this working session, and I will not guess them. The Furrer and Alvarez numbers above are as stated in the petition record.)

IV. Combinations that would render the claims obvious

Ground A — WO2018229504A1 alone, or in view of US20080262420A1

WO2018229504A1 supplies the in‑bra housing, the air‑pump‑driven diaphragm, the breast shield/flange, and — critically — the teaching that the diaphragm holder is "positioned away from a side of a breast shield flange," i.e. at the distal end of the nipple tunnel. US20080262420A1 supplies the "outer shell… removably attach[able] to the breast shield… form[ing] a vessel for collecting milk" and the external‑pump‑via‑air‑line architecture. The only remaining element is the diaphragm cap as such forming the front face. A cap closing a diaphragm housing is a conventional expedient; positioning it at the front end simply follows from putting the diaphragm at the far end of the nipple tunnel. Result: predictable, no new mechanism.

Ground B — US20080262420A1 + US20180008758A1 + WO2018229504A1

• US20080262420A1: wearable hub, outer shell/reservoir, external air line.
• US20180008758A1: flexible barrier that "fluidly isolat[es] the source from the reservoir" (the milk‑to‑pump separation of [17c]) and the admission that the top‑placed barrier housing "obstructs the line of sight."
• WO2018229504A1: diaphragm remote from the flange, closed‑loop.

Motivation: US20180008758A1 and Freemie both frame the visibility defect as a problem to be solved, and the patent's own Background adopts that framing. A POSITA seeking an unobstructed downward view into the nipple tunnel would relocate the vacuum interface off the sight line. The front face (the curved bra‑contacting end of the outer shell) is the only remaining surface once the flange occupies the rear and the top is disfavored by the cited art — a finite, identified, predictable set of positions. KSR, factor (iv).

Ground C — Park + Silver (the ground actually instituted)

Park supplies the wearable hub, flow‑separation membrane, cover over the membrane, air nozzle/air tube to an external electric pump, and a detachable storing housing that collects milk "even without using a separate milk bottle." Silver is cited for precisely the disputed limitation: positioning the diaphragm/membrane and its cover at the front of the device. Because Silver solves the same problem in the same field, the combination is a textbook KSR substitution of a known element to obtain a predictable result, with an articulated reason (unobstructed nipple view / tube routing under clothing).

Ground D — Furrer (+ Alvarez, Pollen, Weniger, Rigert, Kasting)

Furrer is the strongest single reference: bra‑worn breastshield, media‑separation membrane, vacuum connector to a suction line, and a housing that can be rotated so the vacuum connector "can be" positioned above the nipple tunnel. The dependents are met by routine secondary art: Alvarez and Pollen for hub/valve geometry; Weniger and Rigert for the diaphragm/port details; Kasting for the sound‑suppression features of the control‑unit claims (Appendix Features 9–10).

V. The control‑unit claims (airflow block; sound valve)

These are the most vulnerable to a § 103 attack, because noise attenuation by elastomeric mounting and muffling is a crowded, mature art. The Dao Health portfolio, cited in this very record, includes a "sound suppression system … muffler assembly having an air entry port adapted to communicate with an air outlet port of a vacuum pump," with porous foam in a tortuous path — materially the same solution as the claimed "airflow block" and "sound valve." Combining a known muffler/foam‑cap/silicone motor mount with a known breast pump is the paradigm of KSR factor (iii): applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement, with predictable results.

VI. Objective indicia

• Commercial success / copying: Elvie (original assignee Chiaro Technology Ltd.) and Willow are both established in this market, and the family has spawned litigation on three continents (Chiaro v. Mayborn, EWHC Patents 2023/2417; Willow Innovations v. Chiaro, E.D. Tex. 2:23‑cv‑00229). But commercial success must be tied by nexus to the claimed front‑face diaphragm‑cap placement, not to the Elvie brand generally. The design‑right judgment notably held the outer shell's curved front face functional — i.e., dictated by the need to cooperate with and be supported by the brassiere — which undercuts any argument that the front‑face configuration is a non‑obvious aesthetic or ergonomic insight.
• Long‑felt need: the visibility problem was acknowledged in the art (US20180008758A1; Freemie) years before the priority date, which cuts toward obviousness (a known problem with an obvious remedy), not away.
• Skepticism / failure of others: nothing in the record supplied indicates failed attempts.

VII. Bottom line and confidence

1. High confidence: The individual elements of claim 17 (and by extension claim 28) are all disclosed across WO2018229504A1, US20080262420A1, US20180008758A1 and the Freemie system, and the distinguishing limitation is a placement choice for the diaphragm cap.
2. High confidence: Strong § 103 combinations exist — Furrer (+Alvarez/Pollen/Weniger/Rigert/Kasting) and Park (+Silver) — and the Board found a reasonable likelihood of unpatentability on all grounds, instituting IPR2025‑00554 on 2025‑10‑14. That is meaningful evidence, though institution is not a final holding and applies the preponderance standard, not the clear‑and‑convincing standard used in district court.
3. Moderate confidence: The visibility rationale for relocating the diaphragm cap to the front is well supported by the patent's own Background (which adopts the prior art's stated problem), giving the petition a clean, non‑hindsight motivation.
4. Explicit uncertainty: I do not have verbatim text for claims 18–33, and I could not verify the identifiers for the Pollen, Silver, Weniger, Rigert and Kasting references. Any statement above about which dependent claim reads on which reference is inferential and should be confirmed against the petition (Paper 2) and the Institution Decision (Paper 10) in IPR2025‑00554 before being relied on.

Net assessment: On the present record, claims 17–19 and 21–33 of US 11,806,454 are highly exposed under § 103, with the strongest grounds being Park + Silver and Furrer + Alvarez, and the control‑unit noise claims being the weakest link in the patent owner's defense.