US 7417447

I'll verify the current status of this specific patent number before summarizing.

Search results

I could not locate any 2026 CAFC appellate docket activity tied to US 7,417,447, and no Federal Circuit docket entry at all. My searches returned only patent-database and corporate-filing hits. Caveats on method: I cannot query PACER/CM-ECF or the CAFC docket system directly from this tool, so this is a negative finding from open web sources, not an authoritative docket clearance. What the open record does show is strongly inconsistent with live 2026 litigation: the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees in 2020 (below). If you need a definitive docket check, that requires a direct PACER/CAFC query, which I am flagging as outside what I verified here.

I also confirmed the "similar document" trap you warned about: Google Patents renders lines such as "Method for probing a semiconductor wafer – US7417447B2" only because 7,417,447 is cited by EP0681186A2. Those are citation-list displays, not separate patents. Everything below is for 7,417,447 only.

Bibliographic summary — US 7,417,447 B2

Ownership note: post-2016 legal events show a security interest recorded by HSBC Bank USA against assignors including FormFactor, Astria Semiconductor Holdings, Cascade Microtech, and Micro-Probe Incorporated (2016-07-12), then a release of security interest to FormFactor, Inc. recorded 2025-08-07. This is consistent with MicroProbe's assets sitting within the FormFactor corporate family, but the Google-listed "current assignee" still reads MicroProbe Inc. I am not asserting a clean chain of title beyond what the recorded events show.

Abstract (as printed)

Method and apparatus using a retention arrangement with a potting enclosure for holding a plurality of probes by their retention portions, the probes being of the type having contacting tips for establishing electrical contact with pads or bumps of a device under test (DUT) to perform an electrical test. The retention arrangement has a top plate with top openings for the probes, a bottom plate with bottom openings for the probes, the plates being preferably made of ceramic with laser-machined openings, and a potting enclosure between the plates for admitting a potting agent that upon curing pots the retaining portions of the probes. In some embodiments a spacer is positioned between the top and bottom plates for defining the potting enclosure. Alternatively, the retention arrangement has intermediate plates located in the potting enclosure and having probe guiding openings to guide the probes.

Independent claim 1 — plain-language overview

This is the only independent claim, and it is a method claim (despite the "Probe cards…" title; there are no apparatus claims in this patent):

A method for electrical testing of a device under test using a plurality of probes each having a connect end for applying a test signal, at least one arm portion and a contacting tip for making an electrical contact with said device under test, said method comprising:
a) providing a retaining portion in each of said probes;
b) providing a retention arrangement for holding each of said probes by said retaining portion;
c) creating a potting enclosure in said retention arrangement; and
d) admitting a potting agent into said potting enclosure for potting said retaining portion of said probes.

In plain terms: you test a chip by using a set of spring probes, each of which has (i) an end that receives the test signal, (ii) a bendable arm, (iii) a tip that touches the chip's pad/bump, and (iv) a retaining portion. You build a fixture that grips each probe by that retaining portion, form a cavity (potting enclosure) inside the fixture, and pour/flow a potting agent into the cavity so that, once cured, the probes are locked in place. The novelty lies in the potting-in-a-cavity retention concept rather than in any particular probe geometry, plate count, or potting chemistry.

Dependent claims (for completeness, all narrow claim 1):

• Claim 2 — the potting enclosure is defined between opposing plates that have openings for the probes.
• Claim 3 — those openings are laser-machined.
• Claim 4 — intermediate plates with probe-guiding holes are placed in the enclosure, with inter-plate spacing sufficient to admit the potting agent (the wicking embodiment of Figs. 9–10).
• Claim 5 — an admission opening is provided in the enclosure and the potting agent is poured through it.
• Claim 6 — a space transformer is provided to contact the probes and apply the test signal at their connect ends.

Key context from the specification

• Potted plates are preferably ceramic, with laser-machined openings for precision at very tight pitch (micron-scale).
• A preferred potting agent is an epoxy that cures on contact with atmospheric oxygen; planarity of tips must be set before potting.
• Disclosed probe families include two-arm base/reverse-arm probes joined at a "knee" (with a non-zero tip offset δ), probes with non-linear varying-curvature arms, and tips carrying a scrubbing protrusion for oxide removal (Figs. 2–7). These geometries are described and claimed in other MicroProbe cases (e.g., US 7,946,224; US 8,203,353), not in this patent's claims.
• Attachment variants: solder-ball reflow to a space transformer, underfill, side-friction connections into metallized holes, and detachable low-temperature solder joints.
• The specification's own prior art discussion distinguishes the invention over US 6,566,898 (Theissen, Invar spacers with laser-drilled silicon nitride sheets), US 6,881,974 (Wood), US 6,586,955 and US 2002/0000815 (Fjelstad), and US 2002/0117330 (Eldridge).
• Related family members include US 7,786,740 B2 ("…potting in a potting region"), US 8,907,689 B2 ("Probe retention arrangement"), and the parent US 7,345,492 B2.

Uncertainty flags

1. No CAFC 2026 docket found — stated as a limitation of my search, not proof of absence. Direct PACER/CAFC verification is recommended if this matters.
2. Current assignee — sources conflict between "MicroProbe Inc." (Google Patents field) and the recorded 2025 FormFactor security-interest release. I did not verify a recorded assignment of title to FormFactor for this patent.
3. Status — the patent is expired (2020 lapse for fee non-payment), so any assertion today would be limited to past damages; the recorded "expired" status makes a 2026 appeal involving this patent unlikely on its face, but I have not independently confirmed that.
4. All claim text above is quoted from the authoritative patent text supplied in the prompt; I made no corrections to identifiers.

I'll search litigation-focused sources for this specific patent number.

Initial hits for "7417447" returned only near-miss numbers (7,417,382; 7,417,944; 9,147,747). Let me run more targeted litigation queries.

Found FormFactor v. Micro-Probe, but that case asserts FormFactor's patents. Let me check whether MicroProbe ever asserted 7,417,447 (or its parent) and check litigation databases.

Bottom line

No litigation asserting US 7,417,447 has been found. I searched for this exact number and could not identify any district-court case, ITC investigation, PTAB/IPR proceeding, or CAFC appeal in which US 7,417,447 was asserted, challenged, or adjudicated. I am reporting that as a negative finding from the sources I could reach, with the limitations noted below — not as a certified docket clearance.

Per the strict rule, I did not auto-correct any identifier. The near-miss numbers my searches kept surfacing are listed separately in §3 so you can see they were not treated as 7,417,447.

1. Requested case table

There is no entry to populate this table for the patent in question.

2. Closest related-but-distinct litigation (does NOT involve 7,417,447)

Because 7,417,447 was owned by MicroProbe, Inc. — which was itself a defendant in probe-card litigation — I checked that litigation. It does not assert 7,417,447.

FormFactor, Inc. v. Micro-Probe Inc. et al., N.D. Cal., Case No. C 10-3095 PJH (4:10-cv-03095)

• Plaintiff: FormFactor, Inc.
• Defendants: Micro-Probe Incorporated; a former FormFactor employee (Browne)
• Filed: July 15, 2010
• Patents asserted (all FormFactor's own): US 6,441,315; US 6,825,422; US 6,965,244; US 7,227,371; US 6,246,247; US 6,624,648 (the '648 patent was dropped in the amended complaint); later added US 7,671,614 and US 7,225,538. Plus state-law trade-secret/unfair-competition claims.
• Status: Bifurcated on April 28, 2011 (state-law claims = Phase 1; patent claims = Phase 2). On the Phase 1 summary-judgment record, the court found FormFactor had not established trade-secret misappropriation. The remaining patent-phase outcome was not confirmed by my searches.
• How 7,417,447 fits (and doesn't): This case runs the other direction — it is a suit against the patent's owner, asserting third-party patents. MicroProbe's defense included USPTO reexamination requests against several FormFactor patents (per FormFactor's 2011 Form 10-K). I found no record of MicroProbe counterclaiming on 7,417,447, and no record that 7,417,447 was ever asserted by MicroProbe against FormFactor or anyone else.
• Primary sources: https://investors.formfactor.com/news-releases/news-release-details/formfactor-sues-micro-probe-patent-infringement and https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/4:2010cv03095/[232952/189](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=232952-0189)

FormFactor, Inc. v. Nihon Micronics / MJC Electronics, N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 17, 2006 — asserted US 6,246,247; US 6,509,751; US 6,624,648; US 7,073,254. Again FormFactor's patents, unrelated to 7,417,447.

Note the circularity I checked for and rejected: Google Patents renders the string "US7417447B2 … Method for probing a semiconductor wafer" on the EP0681186A2 page. That is a citation-list display (7,417,447 is cited by EP0681186A2), not a case caption or a litigation record.

3. Near-miss identifiers that are NOT US 7,417,447

Searching "7417447" reliably surfaces these. None is the patent at issue; I did not conflate them:

4. Why the absence of litigation is consistent with the record

• The patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees: docketed 2020-09-28, effective 2020-08-26 (37 CFR 1.362), entity status large. Its legal status today reads Expired – Fee Related.
• An expired, fee-lapsed patent cannot be asserted going forward; any hypothetical suit would have been confined to past damages under 35 U.S.C. § 286, and no such suit appears in the sources I checked.
• Earlier analysis in this file also found no CAFC appellate docket activity for this number in 2026, which is consistent with the lapse.

5. Limitations — read before relying on the negative finding

1. I could not directly query PACER/CM-ECF, the CAFC docket, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or the Unified Patents litigation portal's structured caselist. My Unified Patents query returned only an unrelated inSight article on US 6,687,745 (Droplets). This is a negative finding from open web sources, not an authoritative docket clearance.
2. Post-grant proceedings: I found no IPR/PGR/CBM or reexamination tied to 7,417,447. However, note that 7,417,447 has no AIA-style post-grant history visible in the record supplied (it dates from 2008), and I did not exhaustively search the PTAB docket.
3. Unverified: whether MicroProbe filed an affirmative infringement action on any of its own patents (including the parent US 7,345,492) as a counterclaim in the FormFactor case or elsewhere. This is a plausible place a 7,417,447 assertion could hide, and I could not confirm or exclude it. If this matters, run a PACER docket pull on N.D. Cal. 4:10-cv-03095 (all docket entries and counterclaims) and a full-text party search for "MicroProbe"/"Micro-Probe" plus "Kister" in Docket Navigator or Lex Machina.
4. Contradiction flag for this file: the earlier-generated section dated the "current" frame at 2026 and characterized MicroProbe's assets as sitting within the FormFactor corporate family; the litigation record I retrieved confirms MicroProbe and FormFactor were adversaries in 2010–2012. Both can be true sequentially (adversaries, then later acquisition of MicroProbe assets by the FormFactor family — consistent with the 2016 HSBC security-interest assignment and the 2025 release to FormFactor, and with Astria Semiconductor Holdings appearing as a patent owner). But if you need this for a title or standing argument, the adversarial phase should be reconciled with the later corporate events before relying on it.

I'll verify the structured finding against open web sources before writing up.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The canonical structured input — the USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" block — returns no IPR, no PGR, and no CBM for US 7,417,447. That is the whole count: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. There is no proceeding-level partiality to report here, so the "most-impactful first" ordering has nothing to order.

Defensive posture this gives a defendant: untested and unrebutted, but also undefended. The patent has never been run through an AIA trial by anyone, so there is no FWD, no claim-cancellation result, and no institution decision to cite. The corollary signals cut both ways: (a) no claim of 7,417,447 has ever been canceled, and nothing in the PTAB record stops the owner (now within the FormFactor corporate family) from asserting claims 1–6; but (b) no third party has ever thought this assertion-worthy enough to file, and the patent lapsed on 2020-08-26 for non-payment of maintenance fees. A troll-style demand citing this patent today would be a demand over an expired patent — damages would be limited to past infringement (the six-year lookback under 35 U.S.C. § 286, itself bounded by the 2020 lapse), not an injunction or ongoing royalty.

No proceedings on file

• Type: n/a — no IPR / PGR / CBM ever instituted or even denied on this patent.
• Filed: n/a.
• Status: (verbatim from the structured data) "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest."
• Judge panel: n/a.
• Petition grounds: n/a.
• Institution decision: n/a.
• Final Written Decision: n/a — there is no FWD, so no claim of 7,417,447 has been held unpatentable or patentable at the Board.
• Settlement / termination: n/a.
• Appeal: n/a. This is consistent with the earlier section's finding of no 2026 CAFC docket activity tied to 7,417,447 — there is no Board decision in existence that could have been appealed.
• Defensive value: You cannot buy a claim-cancellation estoppel or a "claims are dead" argument off the shelf; you would have to build the invalidity case yourself. Conversely, you are not fighting a Board-hardened patent — 7,417,447's 6 claims have never faced an Article III or AIA validity challenge on the record I can see.

Method caveat (important, and not a clean bill of health): I am reporting a negative finding. The structured ODP block is authoritative for the proceedings list, but I could not query PTAB E2E / the PTAB API's petition-level records or PACER directly from these tools, and my web sweeps for "7,417,447" in combination with IPR/CBM terms returned only patent-database, citation-list, and generic PTAB-practice pages — no docket entries. A definitive check requires a direct USPTO PTAB E2E / ODP query and a CAFC docket / CourtListener party search for MicroProbe / FormFactor / Astria Semiconductor Holdings. Treat "zero" as "none found in the sources I can reach," not as a certified clearance.

Strategic summary

Claim status of 7,417,447: UNTESTED — all of claims 1–6 stand as issued. There is no canceled claim, no confirmed claim, and no disclaimer-like narrowing from an AIA trial. Because the patent is a method patent whose sole independent claim is claim 1 (a method for electrical testing using probes with retaining portions potted in a potting enclosure), any invalidity work you do would target claim 1 and then walk the dependents: claim 2 (opposing plates with openings), claim 3 (laser-machined openings), claim 4 (intermediate guide plates with sufficient inter-plate spacing to admit potting agent — the Figs. 9–10 wicking embodiment), claim 5 (admission opening + pouring), claim 6 (space transformer). Since claim 4 in particular carries a functional-spacing limitation ("sufficient inter-plate spacing… to admit said potting agent"), it is the kind of dependent claim that is narrower on its face but also more vulnerable to a § 112 written-description/enablement flank, which no panel has yet tested.

Estoppel landscape: essentially clean, in both directions. Because no IPR/PGR was ever filed, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel has never attached to anyone — there is no petitioner or privy carrying a bar on grounds "raised or reasonably could have raised." That means every prior-art ground remains available to a current defendant, subject only to the ordinary limits of district-court invalidity practice: the § 102/§ 103 art already in the file (the examiner cited only five references — EP 0681186 A2 (Motorola), US 6,246,245 (Micron), US 6,350,953 (Siemens, anti-vibration potting compound), US 6,367,150 (Northrop Grumman), and US 2002/0153913 A1 (Japan Electronic Materials)) plus anything else in the probe-card field, including the references the specification itself distinguishes (US 6,566,898 Theissen; US 6,881,974 Wood; US 6,586,955 and US 2002/0000815 Fjelstad; US 2002/0117330 Eldridge). The Siemens US 6,350,953 "potting a populated assembly using an anti-vibration potting compound" citation is worth a hard look — it is the closest thing in the intrinsic record to a potting-in-a-cavity teaching, and no panel has ever construed this patent's claims against it. Note also that claim construction here is unconstrained by any PTAB precedent: no Board or Federal Circuit construction of "potting enclosure," "retaining portion," or "retention arrangement" exists.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner, no serial-filing behavior, no aggressive PTAB-appeal posture by the patent owner, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain — my searches surfaced no third-party IPR campaign against this patent or its naming party. The family picture is similarly quiet: I found no PTAB activity for the siblings the earlier section identified (US 7,345,492 B2 parent; US 7,786,740 B2 "…potting in a potting region"; US 8,907,689 B2 "Probe retention arrangement"; and the related US 9,310,428 B2), though that family-level sweep was cut short and is less thoroughly verified than the main finding — treat it as a lead, not a clearance. The more telling structural fact is that the patent expired for fee non-payment on 2020-08-26 (docketed 2020-09-28, 37 CFR 1.362) despite a large-entity fee status and a well-resourced corporate family. Patents that are being actively asserted and monetized do not normally get abandoned for a maintenance fee — that lapse is itself a signal about the patent's commercial and litigation value to its owner.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not look for an FWD to cite — there isn't one. If a demand letter over 7,417,447 crosses your desk, the correct first response is not a PTAB-based invalidity argument but a status/laches-and-damages argument: the patent lapsed 2020-08-26, so the assertion is limited to past damages within the 35 U.S.C. § 286 window, and the "current assignee" record is muddled (Google lists MicroProbe Inc.; the 2025-08-07 recorded event is a FormFactor release of security interest, not a verified assignment of title). Ask for the chain of title before engaging on the merits.
2. Independently verify the zero count before you rely on it. Query USPTO PTAB E2E and the ODP API for application 12/009,128 and patent 7,417,447, and run a CAFC docket / CourtListener party search for MicroProbe, Astria Semiconductor Holdings, and FormFactor. My finding is a negative from reachable open sources and a structured ODP block, not a PACER-certified clearance.
3. If you want the AIA route anyway, note the practical constraints. IPR remains theoretically available against an expired patent (the Board can institute and the claims are construed under Phillips), but the PGR window (9 months from the 2008-08-26 grant) closed long ago, CBM review sunset on 2020-09-16 and this is a technological-invention probe-card patent that would very likely be excluded from CBM eligibility regardless, and § 315(b)'s one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement — so if you have been served, clock-check that date immediately. Ex parte reexamination is unaffected by the AIA bars and may be the cleaner vehicle for the Siemens/EP 0681186 art if the goal is simply to put a cloud on the claims.
4. Preserve the file-history record now. The specification's own prior-art discussion and the five examiner citations are the strongest intrinsic material you have. Because no panel has ever construed the claims, the prosecution history of 12/009,128 and its parent 11/302,650 — including any statements distinguishing Theissen's Invar/silicon-nitride spacer approach — is where your claim-construction leverage lives. Pull it before the owner frames the terms for you.
5. Flag the contradiction, don't paper over it. The earlier sections note a conflict between the Google-listed assignee (MicroProbe Inc.) and the 2025 FormFactor security-interest release. That conflict matters for who can settle, who holds standing, and whether any estoppel could ever attach to a privy — resolve it as a factual matter rather than assuming FormFactor is the real party in interest.

I'll research the ownership chain before reconstructing it.

Now let me dig into the corporate history and try to surface the assignment correspondent of record.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 7,417,447 B2

Scope note: The three legal events in the authoritative patent text are the backbone below. I attempted to cross-check against the USPTO Assignment Center, SEC filings, and RPX/Unified asserter directories, but my tooling hit its step limit; anything I could not verify is flagged as a gap rather than filled in. No assignment has been invented or interpolated.

Up-front warning — the record conflates three unlike conveyances. Google Patents dockets all three events below under the single event code AS ("Assignment"). Only the first is a conveyance of title. The second is a grant of a security interest and the third is a release of that interest. Any NPE screen that counts "assignments" on this patent will over-count by 3×.

Inventors

Departing-inventor screen: NOT present — and the inverse pattern holds. Kister did not leave within 12 months of the 2005-12-14 filing. He remained MicroProbe's CTO through the FormFactor acquisition and was explicitly retained as a condition of it — FormFactor's 2012-10-17 closing release states "Jarek Kister, CTO of MicroProbe, will continue to direct product and technology development at the MicroProbe business unit." Public bios list him as FormFactor CTO / SVP Technology R&D thereafter. Inventor retention through exit is a strong counter-signal to a fire-sale narrative.

Caveat: the "January" / "Jarek" variation appears in the patent records themselves (Google Patents says "January Kister"; the FormFactor release says "Jarek Kister"). I did not find a USPTO name-change or correction recordation reconciling them for this patent.

Original assignee

MicroProbe, Inc. (also styled "MICRO-PROBE INCORPORATED" and "MicroProbe Inc." in the records) — the entity named on the issued patent per the 2008 recordation.

• Line of business: advanced semiconductor wafer probe cards — vertical MEMS, Cobra-style vertical, spring-pin vertical, and cantilever probe cards for SoC and non-memory test. This is squarely the product category to which the claims are directed (potting probes in a retention arrangement is a probe-card manufacturing step).
• Did they ship product embodying the claims? Yes, with high confidence. MicroProbe was a revenue-generating supplier: $87.3M revenue FY2011 (46% YoY growth), ~360 employees, and per its then-CEO it had "shipped more than 2,500 MEMS probe cards" by late 2012. It was consistently ranked among the top handful of probe-card suppliers (VLSI Research ranked it #4 in 2011). This is the decisive fact killing the shell-entity and asserter screens.
• Corporate structure: by ~2008/2010 MicroProbe sat under Astria Semiconductor Holdings, Inc. (Carlsbad, CA), a parent that also held Micromanipulator. Astria is the listed assignee of record on the sibling family member US 7,786,740 B2, confirming the portfolio was held at the Astria level even though this patent's own record does not show that step (see gaps).
• Current status: acquired, operating, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORM) completed the acquisition of Astria Semiconductor Holdings, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary MicroProbe Inc. on 2012-10-17 for $100M cash + $16.8M stock (announced 2012-09-03). MicroProbe has operated since as a FormFactor business unit; FormFactor's 10-Ks list Carlsbad and San Jose, CA among its probe-card manufacturing sites and describe the acquired vertical/MEMS probe-card product lines. FormFactor's 10-K describes probe cards "designed for each of our customers' unique designs" — i.e., a bespoke operating business, not a licensing shop.
• Financing history: investors included Intel Capital and Flywheel Ventures; a Needham & Company-advised transaction in 2008 involving Flywheel/Astria is referenced in trade coverage. Unverified — my follow-up search on the 2008 step returned no results, so I am not asserting its structure (recapitalization vs. buyout) or value.

Assignment timeline

Three recorded events exist. All are on the record; none is a cascade. Executed dates are the "effective date" fields where the record supplies one.

• 2005-12-13 (executed) / recorded 2008-01-15 — Reel 020429/0983

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (title transfer)
  • Assignor: Kister, January (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: MicroProbe, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: Not obtainable from the sources I reached. USPTO Assignment Center exposes this field; Google Patents' legal-events feed does not. See gap #1.
  • Context: Routine pre-filing inventor-to-employer assignment — executed the day before the parent application (Ser. No. 11/302,650) was filed on 2005-12-14. Note the ~25-month recording lag, typical where assignment recordation rides along with the divisional filing (12/009,128, filed 2008-01-15).

• 2016-06-24 (executed) / recorded 2016-07-12 — Reel 039184/0280

  • Conveyance: Security interest in United States patents and trademarks — not a title transfer
  • Assignors (grantors): FORMFACTOR, INC.; ASTRIA SEMICONDUCTOR HOLDINGS, INC.; CASCADE MICROTECH, INC.; and others
  • Assignee (secured party): HSBC BANK USA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (California)
  • Correspondent: Not obtainable from the sources I reached (gap #1).
  • Context: Securitization — the whole FormFactor patent family pledged as collateral under a credit facility, coinciding with the Cascade Microtech acquisition. Analytically important: this record is docketed against this patent as a listed asset, which is the best evidence on the face of the record that title had passed into the FormFactor family (see gap #2).

• 2025-08-06 (executed) / recorded 2025-08-07 — Reel 072853/0001

  • Conveyance: Release of security interest — not a title transfer
  • Assignor (releasing party): HSBC BANK USA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
  • Assignee (owner named): FORMFACTOR, INC. (California)
  • Correspondent: Not obtainable from the sources I reached (gap #1).
  • Context: Securitization unwind — collateral release on facility payoff/refinancing. This is the most recent recorded event, and it moved no title.

Non-assignment events relevant to standing and value

• 2012-10-17 — FormFactor completes the Astria/MicroProbe merger. No per-patent assignment from MicroProbe/Astria to FormFactor appears in this patent's legal-events record (gap #2). Merger transfers frequently ride on the merger agreement and a corporate-level filing rather than individual per-patent recordations.
• 2020-08-26 (effective) / docketed 2020-09-28 — Patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees (37 CFR 1.362; FEPP/LAPS/STCH/FP events). This is the terminal event in the asset's life. Anticipated expiration had it been maintained: 2025-12-14.

No other recorded assignments exist. In particular, there is no assignment to any licensing entity, no LLC-to-LLC step, and no transfer to a defensive aggregator.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7417447
    2004 : Kister joins MicroProbe as CTO
    2005 : Kister assigns invention to MicroProbe
         : Parent application filed
    2008 : Divisional filed
         : Patent issued
    2012 : FormFactor completes MicroProbe merger
    2016 : HSBC security interest recorded
    2020 : Patent lapses for unpaid fees
    2025 : HSBC security interest released

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. Every entity in the chain is an operating business. The only "Holdings"-named entity, Astria Semiconductor Holdings, Inc., is not a licensing shell: it is the parent of MicroProbe and Micromanipulator, two product suppliers, and it was acquired as a going concern with ~360 employees and $87.3M revenue. No registered-agent-service address, no single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC, no licensing-only entity appears anywhere in the record (reels 020429/0983; 039184/0280; 072853/0001).

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. MicroProbe, Inc., Astria Semiconductor Holdings, Inc., Cascade Microtech, Inc., HSBC Bank USA, and FormFactor, Inc. appear on no public NPE roster (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Erich Spangenberg entities). FormFactor is a NASDAQ-listed manufacturer and has itself been a patent plaintiff — but operating-company assertion is the opposite of the NPE signal. Caveat: I could not reach the RPX/Unified asserter directories directly within my step budget; this call rests on the identity and operating status of the named entities, which is strong evidence on its own.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNRESOLVED (critical data gap). The correspondent of record exists in USPTO Assignment Center for all three reel/frame entries (020429/0983, 039184/0280, 072853/0001), but it is not carried in the Google Patents legal-events feed I received, and I could not reach Assignment Center or a mirror in this session. I will not guess at attorney or firm names. This is the one screen I cannot clear or fail, and it is the screen the task weights most heavily. Expected shape, unverified: three different correspondents (employer-side patent counsel for the 2008 inventor assignment; FormFactor banking/credit counsel for the 2016 and 2025 HSBC records). Because the 2016 and 2025 records are security instruments rather than asserter-enabling transfers, even a repeated correspondent there would carry low NPE probative weight. Action: run patent number 7417447 through Assignment Center and read the correspondent field off all three entries.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Three records spanning 2005 to 2025 (2008, 2016, 2025). No chained LLC sequence, no two transfers within 24 months, no shared address or common principals across assignees.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit naming US 7,417,447 was found, so there is no assignment to time against a complaint. The only related suit in the corporate history runs the other direction: FormFactor sued MicroProbe for patent infringement roughly two years before acquiring it (circa 2010, unsuccessful), with MicroProbe as defendant — the antithesis of an assertion-enabling transfer. I was not able to independently verify the docket number or venue before hitting my step limit, so treat the "circa 2010" timing as trade-press-derived rather than docket-confirmed.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 for MicroProbe or Astria appears in the record. MicroProbe's exit was a $116.8M acquisition by a strategic buyer (FormFactor, 2012-10-17) after a year of 46% revenue growth. Nothing resembling the Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid pattern. Unverified sub-point: the 2008 Flywheel/Astria step could theoretically have been distressed, but search returned nothing and 2008 revenue was reportedly ~$60M, so I am not calling it either way.

7. Privateering — not present. FormFactor acquired MicroProbe into itself as an operating business unit, kept the engineers, kept the product lines (Gx-3D, vertical MEMS, Cobra-style, spring-pin), and continued manufacturing. There is no transfer to a separate assertion vehicle to sue FormFactor's competitors. The 2016 HSBC record is a credit facility pledge, not a privateering transfer.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. It terminates at FormFactor, Inc., which is where the 2025 security-interest release runs. Note that the asset itself has been neutralized — but by expiration on 2020-08-26, not by defensive aggregation.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with an explicit qualification I do not want buried.

The entire chain consists of operating probe-card businesses: inventor Kister → MicroProbe, Inc. (reel 020429/0983, executed 2005-12-13) → the Astria/FormFactor family (reel 039184/0280, 2016-06-24, a security pledge; reel 072853/0001, 2025-08-06, its release). There is zero evidence of any NPE pattern: no licensing LLC, no asserter assignee, no cascade, no pre-suit transfer, no bankruptcy sale, no privateering. On the substance of the screens this is a clean operating-company chain.

The qualification: the "assertion" prong of this verdict is not satisfied for this patent. No suit naming US 7,417,447 was found, and the patent expired 2020-08-26 for unpaid maintenance fees, making assertion impossible. The accurate one-line characterization is therefore operating-company-held, never-asserted, now-expired asset — and if the taxonomy had a "no NPE indicators found / ordinary corporate chain" bucket, that is the bucket this patent belongs in. I have selected "Operating-company assertion" because it is the closest available fit (FormFactor ships probe cards embodying the claims and has litigated patents generally), not because assertion of this patent occurred.

Not NPE — high or moderate confidence. Do not refer this patent for NPE-monetization analysis.

Data gaps that could change the picture

1. Correspondent of record — unretrieved for all three reel/frame entries. Highest-priority open item; it is the only screen I could not evaluate.
2. No per-patent MicroProbe/Astria → FormFactor assignment is docketed, even though the 2016 collateral listing implies FormFactor-family ownership by then. Confirm whether a merger/name-change recordation exists for this patent or its siblings, and whether the 2008 step included an Astria-level assignment for this specific patent.
3. 2008 Flywheel/Astria transaction structure and value — unverified (search returned no results).
4. FormFactor v. MicroProbe (circa 2010) docket details — unverified; trade-press sourced only.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (alternate index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search by patent number 7417447, then read the correspondent and conveyance fields on reels 020429/0983, 039184/0280, and 072853/0001. Cross-check the unrecorded merger step in USPTO PatentCenter for application 12/009,128 and against FormFactor's 2012 Form 8-K and 2013 Form 10-K.

Per the prior section's standing caveat, and reiterating it here: the "similar documents" listings on Google Patents (e.g., items rendered as "…— US7417447B2") are citation-list artifacts reflecting that 7,417,447 is cited by EP0681186A2. They are not separate patents and are not assignments.

I'll verify the cited references against USPTO/live sources before analyzing them. Let me run parallel searches.

Scope, sources, and one flag before the analysis

Method limitation (important): My tooling here is general web search, not a direct USPTO PatentCenter/Public-PAIR or examiner's search-system query. I verified the references against Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, and (where available) the patent-image PDFs. Where I could not independently verify a bibliographic field, I say so. All identifiers are reproduced literally from the patent text supplied in the prompt and from the search hits — I made no corrections.

Ground truth used: the authoritative full text of US 7,417,447 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7417447/en). Its own "Patent Citations (5)" and "Family Cites Families (6)" tables are the citation sets analyzed below.

Flagged contradiction: the system date reads 2026-09-10; this task's header reads April 26, 2026. I could not reconcile them and am not treating either as controlling — no date-sensitive conclusion below depends on it.

Also re-confirming the trap flagged earlier: EP0681186A2 shows up on many Google Patents pages only because other patents cite it. It appears in 7,417,447's citation list because 7,417,447 cites it, not the reverse. It is a real, single document: Motorola, "Method for probing a semiconductor wafer."

Key statutory framing: claim 1 is the sole independent claim and is a method claim. All five dependent claims (2–6) incorporate every limitation of claim 1. Therefore, to anticipate any claim of this patent under § 102, a reference must disclose the full claim-1 sequence — probes having (i) a connect end, (ii) an arm portion, (iii) a contacting tip, (iv) a retaining portion; a retention arrangement holding each probe by that retaining portion; creating a potting enclosure; and admitting a potting agent into that enclosure to pot the retaining portions. As shown below, not one of the five examiner-cited references discloses that combination. The realistic exposure from this art is § 103, not § 102.

A. The five examiner-cited references on the face of US 7,417,447

1. EP 0681186 A2 — Motorola, "Method for probing a semiconductor wafer"

• Full citation / dates: EP 0681186 A2; application EP 95105785.0, filed 1995-04-18; priority US 236,847 of 1994-05-02; A2 published 1995-11-08 (A3 search report published 1996-11-06). Inventors Lum & Wenzel. Verified via the EPO publication PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ae/73/42/0326c88fed01b1/EP0681186A3.pdf
• Description: Uses an "array probe assembly" (60) built on a production package substrate (64) to transform the pad configuration on a probe card (62) into a configuration matching the bumps (54) on a die (52). The assembly includes an array probe head (68) with probe wires (84) coupling pads on the substrate to the die bumps; the substrate deliberately emulates the final package substrate.
• Claim mapping: Superficially touches the space-transformer concept recited in dependent claim 6 (a substrate that transforms a sparse pad configuration to a dense one) and the general "probes contacting a DUT" preamble of claim 1.
• § 102 verdict: Does not anticipate any claim. No retaining portion, no retention arrangement, no potting enclosure, no potting agent. As to claim 6, EP 0681186's substrate is a package-emulation substrate for wire probes, not a space transformer contacting probe connect ends; and claim 6 is dependent on claim 1, which the reference cannot meet. § 103 context at most, and weak.

2. US 6,367,150 B1 — Northrop Grumman, "Solder flux compatible with flip-chip underfill material"

• Full citation / dates: US 6,367,150 B1; priority/filing 1997-09-05; issued 2002-04-09; Northrop Grumman Corporation. (Bibliographic fields taken from the patent's own citation table; I did not obtain the front page independently.)
• Description: A solder-flux chemistry selected to be compatible with flip-chip underfill encapsulant — a materials reference about flux/underfill interaction, not about probe retention or probe-card construction.
• Claim mapping: Bears only tangentially on the specification's disclosure of an underfill 190 (epoxy) strengthening the space-transformer joint (Fig. 11) and solder-reflow attachment — i.e., the subject matter surrounding dependent claim 6 (space transformer contacting the probes at their connect ends).
• § 102 verdict: Does not anticipate any claim. It discloses no probe, no retention arrangement, no potting enclosure, and no potting agent. It is at best background/§ 103 material for the attachment/underfill aspects that the patent does not claim here.

3. US 6,246,245 B1 — Micron, "Probe card, test method and test system for semiconductor wafers"

• Full citation / dates: US 6,246,245 B1; application Ser. No. 09/027,880, priority 1998-02-23; issued 2001-06-12; Micron Technology, Inc. (Verified via FreePatentsOnline: https://FreePatentsOnline.com/[6246245](/patent/6246245).html and the related US 6,356,098 page at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6356098.)
• Description: A probe card with conductive pins slidably mounted in openings of a substrate, tip portions that penetrate wafer contacts, a flex circuit with first contacts at fine pitch fanning out to coarser second contacts, and a compressible pad biasing the pins to accommodate planarity differences. A separate continuation, US 6,356,098, claims the same probe-card family.
• Claim mapping: This is the closest of the group to certain contextual elements:
  • Claim 1 preamble — probes with tips contacting a wafer (DUT) and an electrical connection at the other end: largely present in substance.
  • Claim 2 — "opposite plates having openings for said probes": not present as claimed (a single substrate with openings, not opposed plates defining a potting cavity).
  • Planarity/displacement accommodation is disclosed (the "cure/adjust planarity before potting" theme in the spec).
• § 102 verdict: Does not anticipate any claim. Critically, the Micron pins are slidably mounted — the reference teaches away from fixing probes by a "retaining portion," and it discloses no potting enclosure and no potting agent. Because claim 1 is a method whose inventive step is steps (c)–(d), this reference cannot meet the claim. It is meaningful § 103 art on the probe-in-substrate-opening and planarity concepts, and it supports the "densely spaced contacts" background the specification itself acknowledges.

4. US 6,350,953 B1 — Siemens, "Method for potting a populated assembly using an anti-vibration potting compound…"

• Full citation / dates: US 6,350,953 B1; application Ser. No. 09/606,592, filed 2000-06-29, priority DE 1999-06-29; issued 2002-02-26; Siemens Aktiengesellschaft. Inventor Frank Franzen. (Verified: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[6350953](/patent/6350953).html and https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6350953B1](/patent/US6350953B1)/en.)
• Description: A method of potting a populated circuit assembly (a transmission-controller circuit) with a thixotropic (anti-vibration) potting compound — e.g., a thixotropic Silgel. Components on a ceramic substrate are enveloped in a potting structure, and the lead-wire contact points on a flexible PCB are separately potted. A circumferential gap zone catches excess potting compound.
• Claim mapping: This is the most material reference for the potting concept itself. It discloses "admitting a potting agent … for potting" a structure — i.e., the general idea underlying claim 1 step (d), and arguably a "potting enclosure"-like retention of parts by cast encapsulant. It also shows deliberate flow management of the potting material, which is conceptually near the "sufficient inter-plate spacing to admit the potting agent" limitation of dependent claim 4.
• § 102 verdict: Does not anticipate claim 1. Its potted article is a populated electronics assembly with lead wires and electrical components — not "a plurality of probes each having a connect end … at least one arm portion and a contacting tip for making an electrical contact with said device under test," and it has no probe retaining portion and no retention arrangement holding a probe by such a retaining portion. Potting chemistry and potting-structure disclosure are present; the probe-card retention context that gives this patent its point of novelty is absent. This reference is the single best § 103 candidate if combined with a probe-card/probe-holding reference (e.g., #3 above or Wentworth US 6,566,898 below), but it cannot alone anticipate any claim.

5. US 2002/0153913 A1 — Japan Electronic Materials, "Probe for the probe card"

• Full citation / dates: US 2002/0153913 A1; priority/filing 2000-11-28; published 2002-10-24; Japan Electronic Materials Corp. (Appears repeatedly in citation lists, e.g., via https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7675305](/patent/US7675305).)
• Description: Directed to a probe geometry for a probe card (a vertical contactor/probe structure) — the probe itself, its shape and contact behavior.
• Claim mapping: Potentially relevant to the preamble elements of claim 1 (a probe with a connect region, a body/arm, and a contacting tip) and to the probe-geometry subject matter the specification discusses (though the specification claims probe retention-by-potting, not probe geometry).
• § 102 verdict: Does not anticipate any claim. A probe-structure disclosure supplies no retention arrangement, no potting enclosure, and no potting step. At most it is § 103 art on the probe configuration recited in the claim 1 preamble — and the preamble alone does not anticipate a method claim whose steps (b)–(d) are absent.

B. Supplemental: the six "Family Cites Families" references

These are cited in 7,417,447's family (i.e., in the parent US 7,345,492 and/or siblings) rather than on this patent's face; they are included because they are the substantive technical neighbors and two of them are expressly discussed/distinguished in the specification.

Non-prior-art caution: the parent US 7,345,492 B2 and post-priority documents such as US 7,786,740 B2 and US 8,907,689 B2 (MicroProbe family) are not § 102 prior art to 7,417,447 — they share the 2005-12-14 priority (or postdate it) and are family members. Do not treat them as anticipating references.

C. Bottom line

• Anticipation (§ 102): No cited reference, on the face of the patent or in its family, discloses every element of claim 1 (probe retaining portions + retention arrangement + potting enclosure + admitted potting agent). The strongest single reference on the potting concept — US 6,350,953 (Siemens) — pottings a populated circuit assembly, not probes in a probe-card retention fixture, and lacks the "retaining portion"/"retention arrangement" elements. No § 102 anticipation of any of claims 1–6 is supportable from this art.
• Obviousness (§ 103): The real exposure lies in combinations — e.g., a probe-card/probe-holding reference (US 6,246,245 Micron; US 6,566,898 Wentworth, expressly cited and distinguished in the spec) combined with a potting-method reference (US 6,350,953 Siemens) — against the potting-encapsulation-of-probe-retaining-portions concept. That is an obviousness argument, not an anticipation argument.
• Peripheral references: EP 0681186 A2 (space transformation), US 6,367,150 (underfill/flux), and US 2002/0153913 (probe geometry) map only to unclaimed or preamble/attachment features and cannot anticipate.
• Confidence/caveats: Bibliographic fields for US 6,367,150 were taken from the patent's own citation table and not independently re-verified. I could not run a direct USPTO Public-PAIR/examiner-system query from this tool; if a formal anticipation or IDS-grade analysis is required, the front pages of each reference should be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter and the actual file-wrapper citations (including any 892/1449 forms) confirmed. Any litigation-relevant conclusion about invalidity should also account for the patent's status as expired (2020 maintenance-fee lapse), which does not change the prior-art analysis but changes the practical stakes.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references of record. Let me verify the key references.

Let me verify the remaining cited references and the background-art references discussed in the specification.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,417,447 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the summary, claim overview, and uncertainty flags already generated above. I do not repeat the bibliographic table or the claim-1 plain-language gloss.

0. Analytical frame

Governing law: The '447 patent's earliest effective filing date is 2005-12-14 (parent Ser. No. 11/302,650; the '447 is a divisional of that application under 35 U.S.C. § 121). That is pre-AIA, so pre-AIA § 103(a) governs, with the Graham v. John Deere factors and the pre-KSR teaching-suggestion-motivation framework. KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (2007) post-dates the priority date; its rationales are still the ones a modern challenger would plead, but a rigorous pre-AIA analysis must be able to articulate a motivation (explicit, implicit, or from the nature of the problem), not merely "obvious to try."

Practical corollary: Under TSM, the combination must be supported by something in the references, in the knowledge of a POSITA, or in the nature of the problem. The specification itself supplies a good deal of that "nature of the problem" framing (see § 3 below).

Threshold observation that shapes everything: All six claims are method claims, and claim 1 recites only four generic acts — provide a retaining portion, provide a retention arrangement that holds probes by that portion, create a potting enclosure in the arrangement, admit potting agent into it. There is no apparatus claim in this patent (consistent with the point already flagged in the claim overview). Broad, functionally-worded method claims of this type are comparatively exposed to § 103, because the recitation is essentially "use a fixture that grips probes and fill it with a hardenable compound," and each of those acts is individually old in the wafer-probing and electronics-packaging arts.

1. The prior art of record that matters

The "Prior Art" material on this page falls into three groups. I map them by relevance rather than restate the list.

Not prior art (important to avoid a false combination): The "Cited By" list contains US 7,786,740 B2 (priority 2006-10-11) and US RE44,407 E1 (priority 2006-03-20). Both post-date 2005-12-14 and therefore cannot be used in a § 103 combination against the '447. Likewise the sibling US7786740 ("…potting in a potting region") is a later family member, not prior art.

2. Claim 1 — element-by-element

Claim 1's preamble requires probes "each having a connect end for applying a test signal, at least one arm portion and a contacting tip." That is the plainest possible description of every vertical/spring probe in the cited art, including Theissen's pins (tip + shank + coupling end) and the FormFactor springable wire.

Conclusion on claim 1: A prima facie case exists over US 6,566,898 in view of US 6,350,953, optionally with US 6,246,245 or US 6,773,938 as evidence of the pin-retention-plate art. The only element requiring genuine motivation — not mere presence — is (c) the transformation of a pin-retention housing into a potting enclosure.

3. Why a POSITA would have combined them (the motivation)

This is where the record is unusually favorable to a § 103 challenge, because the '447 specification concedes much of the motivation itself:

1. Same field, same problem, same components. The '447 specification's own Background identifies the Theissen housing/sheet/hole architecture (US 6,566,898) as the closest approach to holding probes so they "can be arranged to address pads in a dense array," and then states the deficiency: holding geometry alone "is not sufficient… It is also important to ensure that the probes have suitable mechanical resilience and compliance properties." The invention's stated object is therefore to fix the retention of known probes — a classic "improve the same device" motivation.

2. The failure mode is a known, curable one. The '447 and '938 Backgrounds both emphasize ever-smaller pitch, two-dimensional pad arrays, and tightening planarity requirements. Where the art's answer to planarity is to let pins slide (US 6,246,245: pins "move axially within the openings… to accommodate differences in a planarity of the contacts"), a POSITA looking for a simpler, cheaper, more robust alternative has a finite menu: add guide plates, add springs, or immobilize the pins once they are aligned. The '447's own specification gives away the reasoning: potting is done only after "a sufficient level of planarity between contacting tips… should be ensured." That is exactly the sequence a POSITA would arrive at — align first, then lock.

3. Potting as a retention/anti-vibration expedient is expressly taught in the same corporate/technical neighborhood. Beyond Siemens, the Wentworth family (US 6,163,162) describes an epoxy potting compound that immobilizes the space-transformer wires in the very probing-device architecture of the Theissen reference. That is an explicit "pot a probe-card component to hold it in place" teaching by the same assignee whose '898 patent is the closest art here. (Caveat: the potting language I located is from US 6,163,162, a Wentworth sibling — I did not retrieve potting language in the '898 text itself; see § 6.)

4. KSR-style rationales available to a challenger:

   • Combining known elements with predictable results: a bored retention plate (known) + a hardenable encapsulant (known) → probes locked in a plane. Nothing unpredictable.
   • Known technique to improve a similar device: potting is used to protect and immobilize electrical components and their solder/bond joints (US 6,350,953); applying it to immobilize a pin array is the same technique for the same purpose (mechanical stabilization).
   • Design incentive / market pressure: the '938 Background frames the pin-mounting-plate approach as "laborious, expensive" and worsening with pitch — i.e., the field was actively seeking alternative retention schemes at the '447's priority date.
   • Finite number of predictable solutions: known encapsulants (atmospheric-cure epoxy, thixotropic silicone, underfill epoxy as in US 6,366,150) are interchangeable for a POSITA.

4. Claims 2–6

Claim 2 ("potting enclosure is defined between opposite plates having openings for said probes"). Directly suggested by US 6,566,898 (upper and lower spacers with hole-bearing sheets) — the two-plate architecture is the reference's housing. Adding an enclosure between those plates is trivial once potting is chosen. Also suggested by US 6,246,245's substrate with an array of openings. Obvious.

Claim 3 ("laser machining said openings"). This is the strongest dependent claim against the patent. US 6,566,898 expressly discloses laser-drilled hole patterns in the ceramic sheets, and the '447 specification itself describes laser-machined openings in ceramic plates as the preferred implementation. A POSITA would not need any further motivation, and the result (precision hole placement at fine pitch) is precisely the reference's stated purpose. Very likely obvious — effectively a design/process choice dictated by the art.

Claim 4 (intermediate plates with probe-guiding holes in the enclosure, "sufficient inter-plate spacing… to admit said potting agent"). This is the Fig. 9–10 wicking embodiment. Two separate motivations exist in the art: (i) multi-plate pin guiding is the established geometry of vertical probing devices (US 6,566,898's multi-sheet dies; the laminated-spacer variant in the same family); (ii) once potting is selected, spacing the plates enough for the potting agent to flow is an inherent mechanical necessity, and the '447 specification says as much ("it is important to ensure that there is sufficient inter-plate spacing… to ensure admission of a potting agent"). Optimizing a gap dimension to admit a known fluid is routine design choice. Obvious, though this is the claim with the most structural specificity and thus the most room for a secondary-considerations rebuttal.

Claim 5 (admission opening in the enclosure; pouring the agent through it). Siemens meters potting compound onto the assembly; providing an inlet port to admit potting compound into a housing is an ordinary expedient and, again, is inherent in any enclosed potting scheme. Obvious.

Claim 6 (space transformer for contacting the probes at their connect ends). Motorola/EP 0 681 186 A2 discloses a substrate that transforms the probe-card pad configuration into the die bump configuration; the '447 specification itself concedes space transformers and routing strategies are "known to those skilled in the art. Any of those can be applied in apparatus 10." A POSITA combining a potted retention housing with the standard space transformer (Motorola; Fjelstad/Tessera US 6,586,955; FormFactor US 6,835,898) does so for the known purpose of pitch fan-out. Obvious.

5. The strongest counterarguments (where the § 103 case is vulnerable)

I want to be candid rather than deliver a one-sided rejection. Three real defenses exist:

(A) Teaching away — sliding pins versus potted pins. The Theissen reference's pins slide in their holes (the lower tips recede into the housing on overdrive, and the curved section deflects to generate spring force). Immobilizing the pin's shank with a cured encapsulant would destroy that compliant mechanism. A patent owner would argue that the primary reference, fairly read, teaches away from potting the probe pins, and that the Siemens reference is directed to a different problem (automotive vibration protection of a populated control assembly's bond wires and FPC contact points) in a different field (electronics packaging), which weakens both the TSM showing and the "same problem" rationale. (B) below is the answer to this.

(B) The "potting enclosure" element is not squarely met. Siemens' potting is an applied encapsulant layer over components and lead-wire contact points; the reference does not disclose creating a bounded enclosure inside a retention arrangement and potting within it. US 6,246,245's substrate openings have closed ends and compressible pads, but no potting. If the patent owner persuasively reads "potting enclosure" as a bounded cavity defined by the fixture (as claim 2 — "defined between opposite plates" — strongly suggests), then claim 1's element (c) may not be disclosed or suggested, and the prima facie case weakens materially. This is the limitation the challenger must find clean art for; US 6,566,898's housing gap between the two dies is the best candidate, but the reference is silent as to filling it.

(C) The '447 solves the compliance problem the sliding-pin art created. The reference's sliding pins accommodate planarity by moving; the '447 accommodates it by making the probes self-compliant (knee/base-and-reverse-arm geometry, non-linear arms) and potting only the retaining portion, leaving the arm and tip free. A POSITA reading Theissen might reasonably conclude that the two philosophies are alternatives, and that one does not suggest the other. Relatedly, the assignee's own later patents (US 7,946,224; US 8,203,353; US 8,907,689) show the probe-geometry side of this program — indicating the contribution was understood to lie in the probe and retention combination, which could support a secondary-considerations narrative (long-felt need for dense-array probing with reliable scrub).

Net assessment: On the record as pleaded, claims 1–6 would very likely draw a § 103 rejection over US 6,566,898 + US 6,350,953, with claims 3 (laser-machined openings) and 6 (space transformer) being the most exposed because the primary and secondary references disclose those elements almost verbatim and the specification admits them as conventional. Claim 4 is the most defensible, and claim 1's "potting enclosure" language is the pivot of the whole case: win that construction and the patent survives; lose it and the claims fall.

6. Verification status and caveats (mandatory)

1. Verified from live sources: US 6,566,898 (Theissen, laser-drilled silicon-nitride hole sheets, Invar spacers); US 6,350,953 (Siemens, anti-vibration thixotropic potting of components and lead-wire contact points); US 6,246,245 (Micron, substrate openings, slidably mounted pins, planarity accommodation); EP 0 681 186 A2 (Motorola, package-substrate configuration transformation); US 6,773,938 (Wood, blind-hole pins, and its Background criticism of precisely machined pin-mounting plates).
2. NOT retrieved — characterized from title of record only: US 6,366,150 B1 (Northrop Grumman) and US 2002/0153913 A1 (Japan Electronic Materials). I have not verified their disclosures and do not rely on them as primary references. Do not treat the one-line characterizations above as verified content.
3. US 6,835,898 B2 (FormFactor) — I relied on the title of record and on the '447 specification's own discussion of the corresponding Eldridge publication (US 2002/0117330). I did not independently open the '898 text.
4. Wentworth epoxy-potting point: the "epoxy potting compound immobilizes wires" language I found is in US 6,163,162, a Wentworth sibling patent, not in US 6,566,898 itself. I flag this explicitly so the point is not overstated as being in the reference of record.
5. No auto-correction performed. The specification's background cites "U.S. Pat. No. 6,881,974 to Wood et al." while the citation list of record contains US 6,773,938 B2 (Wood, Micron); both identifiers are reproduced literally and treated as distinct. Similarly, "US 6,586,955" / "US 2002/0000815" (Fjelstad) and "US 2002/0117330" (Eldridge) in the specification are reported as written.
6. Status caveat carried forward: as established in the prior section, the '447 lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees (effective 2020-08-26). Any § 103 analysis today is therefore relevant principally to past-damages exposure, validity challenges that survived to that point, or defensive/estoppel purposes — not to prospective enforcement. Also carried forward: I found no CAFC 2026 docket activity, and I cannot query PACER/CM-ECF, so that remains a negative finding from open sources only.
7. This is technical analysis, not a legal opinion or a validity determination. A formal § 103 rejection would require element-by-element claim charts against the actual full texts of each reference, and an analysis of any prosecution-history statements made during the parent ('492) and this divisional, which I have not reviewed.