US 7814598

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check specifically for any 2026 CAFC activity tied to this patent number.

Let me check for any 2026 litigation activity specifically implicating this patent.

US Patent 7,814,598 — Summary

Bibliographic data (from the patent's own front matter and full text)

Abstract (verbatim)

"An article of footwear and a method of manufacturing the article of footwear are disclosed. The footwear may include an upper and a sole structure. The upper incorporates a textile element with edges that are joined together to define at least a portion of a void for receiving a foot. The textile element may also have a first area and a second area with a unitary construction. The first area is formed of a first stitch configuration, and the second area is formed of a second stitch configuration that is different from the first stitch configuration to impart varying textures to a surface of the textile element. Various warp knitting or weft knitting processes may be utilized to form the textile element."

Overview of the independent claims (plain language)

• Claim 1 — A method of making footwear with three steps: (a) mechanically manipulating yarn on a circular knitting machine to make a cylindrical textile structure; (b) removing at least one textile element from that structure; and (c) incorporating the removed textile element into an upper of the footwear.

• Claim 9 — Same three-step method, but the machine is a wide-tube circular knitting machine, and the textile structure is knit so as to contain an outline of the textile element (the knit pattern itself defines the part's boundary), which is then removed and incorporated into an upper.

• Claim 14 — Same three-step method, but the machine is a jacquard double needle-bar raschel knitting machine (a warp-knitting machine), used to form a textile structure having an outline of at least one textile element, which is removed and incorporated into an upper.

Representative dependent claims: Claim 4 (and parallel claim 11) require the textile element to have a first area and second area of unitary construction with different stitch configurations imparting varying textures — the CAFC referred to these as the "Unitary Construction Claims." Claims 6 requires apertures formed in the textile element (e.g., by omitting stitches). Claims 7–8 / 12–13 require securing pairs of edges into a seam along the lower region and a seam along the heel region of the upper.

Litigation / PTAB / CAFC history (grounded)

• IPR2016-00921 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., challenging claims 1–13 of the '598 patent. Petition filed Apr. 19, 2016; instituted Oct. 21, 2016; Final Written Decision Oct. 19, 2017 holding adidas failed to prove unpatentability. Remanded under SAS Inst. v. Iancu; Decision on Remand Feb. 19, 2019.
• CAFC, Nos. 2018-1180/1181 — Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., 894 F.3d 1256 (Fed. Cir. July 2, 2018) (remand order under SAS).
• CAFC, Nos. 2019-1787/1788 — Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. (Fed. Cir. June 25, 2020; Moore, Taranto, Chen, JJ.) affirmed the Board's obviousness holding (Reed/Nishida and Castello/Fujiwara/Nishida grounds), and held adidas had Article III standing. This is the CAFC case the Google Patents family page links as case 19‑1787.
• Supreme Court — Petition No. 20‑728 (2020) referenced the '598 patent in the related PTAB record.
• ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1289 ("Certain Knitted Footwear") — Nike's Dec. 8, 2021 §337 complaint against adidas asserted, among others, claims 1, 9, and 14 of the '598 patent; investigation instituted Jan. 10, 2022 (87 FR 2270 / Fed. Reg. doc. 2022-00600). The dispute was reportedly settled in August 2022.
• Related district litigation: Oregon D. Ct. No. 3:21‑cv‑01780 (per Google Patents family page).

On the specific request: "CAFC 2026 dockets"

I could not confirm any 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket naming US 7,814,598. Specifically:

• The 2026 CAFC activity I located involving Nike — e.g., CAFC No. 26-1275, Nike, Inc. v. Lululemon USA Inc. (order dismissing appeal from PTAB IPR2024‑00460, entered May 5, 2026), and CAFC No. 25-1709 (order, posted May 6, 2026) — concerns different patents (a Nike wearable/fitness-tracking device patent), not the '598 patent. I am flagging this so the two are not conflated.
• A 2025 PTAB matter, IPR2025-00151 (Skechers U.S.A., Inc. v. Nike, Inc.), turned up with a claim-construction brief that cites the '598 patent among a list of Nike knit-footwear patents, but the '598 patent does not appear to be the patent under review there.
• The Google Patents family page for this patent lists litigation links for CAFC 19‑1787, ITC 337‑TA‑1289, and Oregon 3:21‑cv‑01780 — all as noted above — with no 2026 CAFC entry.

Uncertainty note: My searches did not surface a 2026 CAFC docket specific to 7,814,598. A PACER/CM‑ECF or CAFC docket query by patent number would be needed to state categorically that no such 2026 appeal exists; I cannot rule out an unindexed or very recent filing. Also note a minor data discrepancy: PubChem's record lists "priority 2004/03/03" while one third-party aggregator listed a 2004‑03‑02 priority; the patent's own cross-reference states the parent application (Ser. No. 10/791,289) was filed March 3, 2004, which I treat as authoritative here.

Sources: patent full text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7814598/en ; PubChem patent record https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-7814598-B2 ; PTAB/CAFC Adidas v. Nike (19-1787) opinions; ITC Fed. Reg. notice 2022-00600; PTAB IPR2016-00921 case record.

I'll research litigation involving US 7,814,598. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me verify the specific district court, ITC, and Federal Circuit proceedings.

Let me check the Federal Circuit result, the Lyden case, and any Skechers litigation involving '598.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,814,598 ("the '598 patent")

Important threshold note: The patent you identified, US 7,814,598 B2, is Nike's "Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper" patent (Dua & Thomas), a divisional of U.S. Pat. No. 7,347,011, with a Mar. 3, 2004 priority date. Note that this patent is now expired (Google Patents lists legal status as "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2024-05-12), so all infringement actions concerning it have necessarily been resolved or terminated. Below is the litigation/proceeding history I could verify, with sources.

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1. IPR2016-00921 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. (PTAB, inter partes review)

• Petitioner: adidas AG
• Patent Owner: Nike, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (USPTO), Tech Center 3700
• Proceeding No.: IPR2016-00921 (companion to IPR2016-00922, which challenged the related '749 patent)
• Petition filed: April 19, 2016
• Institution decision: Oct. 21, 2016 (instituted on claims 1–13, Ground 1 only)
• Final Written Decision: Oct. 19, 2017 — Nike prevailed; the Board held adidas had not shown claims 1–13 unpatentable as obvious.
• Outcome/status: Terminated. Following the SAS remand, the Board modified its institution and issued further decisions (decision on remand Feb. 19, 2019) again finding adidas had not met its burden on claims 1–13.

Sources: IPR2016-00921 Institution Decision and Final Written Decision (ptacts.uspto.gov; ipverse.greyb.com case page).

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2. Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. — Federal Circuit appeals

First appeal (SAS remand):

• Appellant: adidas AG; Appellee: Nike, Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Appeal Nos.: 2018-1180, 2018-1181
• Decision: July 2, 2018 — 894 F.3d 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2018). The court granted adidas's motion to remand under SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu so the Board could address the non-instituted Ground 2.
• Status: Remanded; concluded.

Second appeal (on the merits):

• Appellant: adidas AG; Appellee: Nike, Inc.
• Court: Federal Circuit
• Appeal No.: 19-1787 (listed on the Google Patents page for '598)
• Decision: June 25, 2020 (precedential; Judge Moore). The court affirmed the Board — the challenged claims of the '598 and '749 patents were not shown to be obvious. The court also held adidas had Article III standing to appeal despite Nike not having sued on the '598 patent, because the parties are direct competitors, Nike had previously accused adidas's Primeknit of infringing a German Flyknit patent, and Nike refused a covenant not to sue.
• Status: Affirmed; Nike win. Final.

Sources: business.cch.com/ipld/AdidasNikeFedCir20200625.pdf; docketalarm.com (case 19-1787, Doc. 64); ipwatchdog.com (June 26, 2020).

Supreme Court certiorari petition: A petition (No. 20-728) appears in the Supreme Court docket records, filed on/around Nov. 20, 2020, seeking review of the Federal Circuit's 2020 decision. I could not confirm the disposition of this petition with high confidence — treat it as an open item to verify rather than as a confirmed active proceeding.

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3. Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al. — D. Oregon

• Plaintiff: Nike, Inc.
• Defendants: adidas AG; adidas North America, Inc.; adidas America, Inc. (and related adidas entities)
• Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon
• Case No.: 3:21-cv-01780 (docketed as 3:21-cv-01780-YY; also reported as 3:21-cv-01780-YY)
• Filing date: December 8, 2021
• Nature of suit: Patent infringement (35 U.S.C. § 271) — Nike alleged adidas's "Primeknit" footwear infringed Nike's knit-upper ("Flyknit") patents.
• Outcome/status: Closed by settlement. The parties jointly moved to dismiss in August 2022 and the case was dismissed; the parties bore their own fees and costs. Cause of action: "Patent Infringement"; status listed as "Closed."

Caveat on which patents: The parallel ITC complaint (below, same Dec. 8, 2021 filing) expressly asserted the '598 patent. The Oregon complaint reportedly asserted nine Nike patents. I could not independently confirm from the sources retrieved that the '598 patent was one of the nine patents specifically named in the Oregon complaint — verify against the docket if this detail matters.

Sources: ex parte case page (3:21-cv-01780, filed 12/08/21, Closed); Reuters/bdnews24 and financialexpress.bd coverage of the Aug. 2022 settlement; docketalarm exhibit referencing "Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al., Case No. 3:21-cv-01780-YY (D. Oregon)."

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4. In the Matter of Certain Knitted Footwear, Inv. No. 337-TA-1289 — ITC Section 337

• Complainant: Nike, Inc. (Beaverton, OR)
• Respondents: adidas AG (Herzogenaurach, Germany); adidas North America, Inc. (Portland, OR); adidas America, Inc. (Portland, OR); later adidas International Trading AG (Lucerne, Switzerland) added by amendment.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. International Trade Commission
• Investigation No.: 337-TA-1289
• Complaint filed: December 8, 2021
• Institution: January 7/10, 2022 (notice published 87 FR 2176, Jan. 13, 2022)
• Patents asserted: U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,918,511; 9,743,705; 8,266,749; 7,814,598; 9,060,562; 8,898,932. Nike requested a limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders.
• Outcome/status: Terminated on settlement. ALJ Initial Determination No. 17 (Aug. 24, 2022) granted termination of the entire investigation based on settlement; the Commission determined not to review on September 22, 2022, ending the investigation.

Source: USITC press release (Jan. 7, 2022); 87 FR 2176 (govinfo, FR-2022-01-13/2022-00600); Federal Register notice of Commission determination (87 FR 17100); USITC 337_1289 notice dated 09/22/2022.

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5. Related but NOT asserted on the '598 patent

• Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., No. 2:22-cv-00198 (E.D. Tex.) — adidas's counter-suit against Nike regarding mobile-app/smart-shoe patents. This is part of the same 2022 global settlement but does not involve the '598 patent as an asserted patent.
• Lyden v. Nike, Inc. (D. Or.) — inventor Robert Lyden's suit against Nike over knit-footwear technology (his '883 patent) and Nike's Flyknit products. The '598 patent is discussed in the litigation record as part of Nike's knit-upper portfolio, but it was not the asserted patent. Not a "case involving the '598 patent" in the infringement sense.
• Skechers / Nike proceedings (e.g., IPR2025-00141, Nike v. Skechers complaint filed Nov. 6, 2023) — I saw a Skechers–Nike PTAB matter that cites the Oregon Nike v. adidas case, but I could not confirm that U.S. 7,814,598 itself is challenged or asserted in the Skechers dispute. Do not rely on this without verification.

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Summary

Bottom line: Every identified adversarial proceeding involving the '598 patent was between Nike (patent owner) and adidas (with adidas as challenger in the PTAB/Federal Circuit and as accused infringer in the district court and ITC). Nike prevailed on validity in the PTAB and on appeal; the district court and ITC infringement actions were resolved by a confidential 2022 settlement with no liability finding.

Verification caution: All case numbers, dates, and outcomes above should be confirmed against PACER, the ITC EDIS system, and the PTAB docket before being relied upon. I am not providing legal advice, and I have flagged the specific items (Oregon complaint's patent list, the cert petition disposition, and any Skechers connection) where my confidence is lower.

I'll reconcile the structured "no PTAB activity" block against the litigation references embedded in the patent page itself — Google Patents flags an IPR2016-00921 with a Final Written Decision and a CAFC appeal at 19-1787, which directly contradicts a clean "no PTAB activity" record. Let me verify.

Key conflict found: the patent page itself flags IPR2016-00921 (adidas AG v. Nike, Inc.) with a Final Written Decision, plus a CAFC appeal. Let me pin down the post-remand outcome and the appellate dispositions.

The structured block is wrong for this patent — there is an AIA trial. Let me check for any additional/later proceedings (a Skechers IPR2025-00141 surfaced in one result) and confirm the remand FWD outcome.

PTAB proceedings on US 7,814,598

⚠️ Threshold correction to the source data

The structured block in my prompt says the ODP ingest returns no AIA trial proceedings. That is wrong for this patent, and I'd flag it as a data-integrity issue before anyone relies on it.

The Google Patents page for US 7,814,598 (fetched 2026-09-30) itself carries a "Family has litigation" entry reading:

PTAB case IPR2016-00921 filed (Final Written Decision) — linking to https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-00921

and a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit entry at 19-1787. Both are corroborated by primary documents retrieved below (the PTAB's own FWD text reproduced in the Supreme Court petition file, and the Federal Circuit opinion). So the correct baseline is one AIA trial proceeding on this patent, with a full appeal history — not zero.

I did not find any other IPR/PGR/CBM naming US 7,814,598 as the challenged patent. The later Skechers and lululemon proceedings I found (IPR2025-00141, IPR2025-00143, IPR2024-00460) are all directed at sibling patents in the same family — see the pattern-signals section — not at the '598 patent.

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Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding has been filed against US 7,814,598: IPR2016-00921 (adidas AG v. Nike, Inc.). Its status is claims sustained — the Board issued two Final Written Decisions (2017-10-19 and 2019-02-19) holding that adidas failed to prove any of challenged claims 1–13 unpatentable, and the Federal Circuit affirmed on 2020-06-25. Zero claims invalidated; zero settled; zero institution denials on this patent.

Bottom-line defensive posture: the '598 patent is hardened, not holed. There is no claim you can point to as canceled, and the strongest prior-art combinations adidas could assemble (Reed+Nishida; Castello+Fujiwara+Nishida) were run to a final merits decision twice and lost. An IPR-based defense built on those references is now both legally estopped for adidas and its privies and substantively disfavored as to everyone else. The two genuinely useful facts for a defendant are (a) claim 14 was never challenged — untested — and (b) the patent expired on 2024-05-12, so any exposure is backward-looking only.

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IPR2016-00921 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2016-04-19 (Petitioner's date per PTAB case record; the petition itself was docketed in April 2016)
• Status: Final Written Decision — claims sustained. Plain English: Nike won; no claim of the '598 patent was canceled. The case is closed and the FWD is final after the Federal Circuit's 2020 affirmance.
• Real parties in interest: Petitioner identified adidas International B.V.; adidas North America, Inc.; adidas America, Inc.; and adidas International, Inc. Patent Owner identified only itself.
• Judge panel: The consolidated on-remand decision identifies APJs Josiah C. Cocks, James B. Arpin, and Scott A. Daniels. Caveat: the PTAB case-statistics record for '921 also lists Michael J. Fitzpatrick, so I can't state with certainty that the original 2017 panel was identical to the on-remand panel. Treat the three named APJs as confirmed for the remand phase and the fourth as uncertain.
• Claims challenged: 1–13 (all claims of the patent except claim 14).
• Petition grounds (two, both § 103(a)):
  • Ground 1 — U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,003 (Reed) in view of U.S. Pat. No. 5,345,638 (Nishida).
  • Ground 2 — U.S. Pat. No. 4,038,840 (Castello) in view of U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,814 (Fujiwara) and Nishida.
  • Supporting declaration: Lenny M. Holden (Ex. 1003). No § 112 grounds were presented.
• Institution decision: instituted 2016-10-21, partially — on Ground 1 only. The Board declined to institute Ground 2, holding that Adidas had not identified "with particularity," as required by 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(3), the arguments and evidence supporting the Castello/Fujiwara/Nishida combination. That partial-institution decision became the entire ballgame on appeal.
• First Final Written Decision: 2017-10-19 (Paper 21, 49 pages), after a consolidated oral hearing with IPR2016-00922 on 2017-07-12. Verdict at claim level: no claim unpatentable. The panel determined "that Petitioner has not met its burden to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1–13 of the '598 patent are unpatentable." On Ground 1 the Board found no motivation to combine Reed and Nishida, because the "unitary construction" claims exclude the pre-seaming taught by the primary reference — modifying it would change its principle of operation. Claims 1–13 survived intact; claim 14 was not at issue.
• SAS remand: adidas appealed to the Federal Circuit (Appeal Nos. 2018-1180, 2018-1181). In Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., 894 F.3d 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2018), a panel (Moore, Wallach, Taranto) granted adidas's motion to remand in light of SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, 138 S. Ct. 1348 (2018), holding the Board must address all grounds in the petition and "directed [the Board] to promptly issue a final written decision as to all grounds raised in Adidas's petitions." Mandate issued 2018-07-02. (Notably, the court rejected Nike's waiver argument because adidas moved "promptly" after the intervening change in law.)
• Decision on Remand / Second Final Written Decision: 2019-02-19 (Decision on Remand, 35 U.S.C. § 144 and 37 C.F.R. § 42.5(a), 67 pages). The panel modified its Institution Decision and instituted on all challenged claims and all grounds. It authorized supplemental briefing limited to the newly instituted Castello/Fujiwara/Nishida ground and held a supplemental telephonic hearing (transcript dated 2018-11-15). Result on the merits was unchanged: claims 1–13 sustained. The panel again found no motivation to combine, because "Adidas relies upon disclosures of Castello that do not teach pre-seaming" and the combination would "change the principles under which [the primary reference] operates." (Also: the Board expunged Exhibit 1015 because it was improperly filed rather than served; Nike did not file a motion to exclude and thus did not preserve its evidentiary objections.)
• Settlement / termination: None. This case was decided on the merits twice; there is no termination-by-settlement on the docket.
• Appeal (second round): Appeal Nos. 2019-1787, 2019-1788 (consolidated with the '749 counterpart), decided 2020-06-25, reported at 963 F.3d 1355. Panel: Moore, Taranto, Chen. Disposition: AFFIRMED.
  • Standing (Nike argued adidas lacked injury in fact because Nike had never sued or threatened adidas on the '598 or '749 patents): the court disagreed, holding Adidas had standing because the parties are direct competitors, Nike had previously accused adidas of infringing a different Flyknit patent (a German patent, re Primeknit) and said it would "protect [its] rights globally," Nike had asserted the '749 patent against a third-party product similar to adidas's, and Nike refused to grant a covenant not to sue. That last point is worth remembering — it's a fact Nike created.
  • Obviousness: "Because the Board did not err in its obviousness analysis and substantial evidence supports its underlying factual findings, we affirm." The court emphasized that obviousness asks whether a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine, not merely could, and that substantial evidence supported the Board's finding of no motivation given the irreconcilable seaming differences between the references.
  • Opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4763634/adidas-ag-v-nike-inc/
• Cert petition: A petition for certiorari was filed at No. 20-728 (document filed 2020-11-20), reproducing the FWD. I could not confirm the disposition of that petition from the sources retrieved — treat the cert outcome as unverified rather than assume denial.
• Defensive value: Claims 1–13 are confirmed patentable over adidas's best art, twice, and the Federal Circuit affirmed. Any defendant planning a Reed+Nishida or Castello+Fujiwara+Nishida theory is walking into a loss that has already been litigated to finality. More importantly, adidas and its four identified RPIs are now estopped under § 315(e)(2) from raising in district court any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in '921 — so the strongest challenger in the space has been neutralized on this patent.

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Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. No claim of US 7,814,598 has been canceled. Claims 1–13 are SUSTAINED — challenged in IPR2016-00921, decided on the merits twice, affirmed at 963 F.3d 1355. Claim 14 is UNTESTED: it is the jacquard-double-needle-bar-raschel claim (an independent method claim drawn to a flat jacquard raschel knit structure), and it was conspicuously outside the scope of adidas's challenge and outside the Board's two FWDs. Claim 14 is therefore the only claim of this patent that has never faced an APJ — and, given the Federal Circuit's treatment of flat-knit jacquard/raschel art in the sibling cases, it is also the claim least well covered by the prior-art combinations that have already failed. If a demand letter leans on claim 14, you have no PTAB roadmap; if it leans on claims 1–13, you are arguing against a two-time loser.

Estoppel landscape. Under § 315(e)(2), adidas AG and its privies (adidas International B.V., adidas North America, Inc., adidas America, Inc., adidas International, Inc.) are barred from asserting in civil litigation, or in an ITC proceeding, any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2016-00921. Because the Board ultimately instituted on both grounds on remand, that estoppel sweep is broad: Reed, Nishida, Castello, Fujiwara, and any obviousness combination a skilled searcher would naturally assemble from them are off the table for adidas. For any other defendant, no statutory estoppel attaches — estoppel is party-specific, not patent-specific. A non-privy defendant (Skechers, lululemon, New Balance, or a new entrant) can still petition, but faces § 325(d) discretionary denial headwinds and the adverse-precedent problem, and in district court must overcome an FWD that the Federal Circuit affirmed. Also note the one-year § 315(b) time bar runs from service of an infringement complaint — if a demand letter has matured into a suit, that clock is already ticking.

Pattern signals. This is a portfolio-wide, competitor-vs-competitor fight, not a troll campaign:

• adidas attacked four Nike Flyknit-family patents in one 2016 wave: IPR2016-00921 (this patent, '598 — instituted, sustained), IPR2016-00922 ('749 — instituted, sustained on remand), IPR2016-00920 ('288 — institution denied), and IPR2013-00067 (parent '011 patent, where Nike itself requested cancellation of claims 1–46 and the Board denied Nike's substitute claims 47–50; that saga ran through Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) and later Nike v. adidas on the Aqua Products remand). So Nike has been both winner and loser across the family — but never on this patent.
• Skechers later petitioned against the sibling '749 (IPR2025-00141, filed 2024-11-04) on Nishida anticipation; the Board discretionarily denied under § 325(d) on 2025-06-10, but on 2025-08-21 the Acting Director reversed on Director Review and remanded for consideration on the Nishida ground alone — that proceeding was instituted and, per one aggregator, later terminated-settled (2026-06-30). Skechers is not a privy of adidas, so its Nishida ground is not estopped, and its § 325(d) reasoning relied on PTAB findings from the sibling '749 IPRs, not from '921.
• lululemon filed IPR2024-00460 against the '749 patent. Nike's own mandatory notices in the '749 proceedings tie the family to co-pending district court cases against Skechers (C.D. Cal.), New Balance (D. Mass.), and lululemon (S.D.N.Y.).
• No defensive aggregator is in the chain. The "Unified Patents" string on the Google Patents page is the data licensee for the PTAB and litigation hyperlinks, not a petitioner. There is no evidence Unified Patents, RPX, or any similar entity has challenged this patent.

Commercial-status point often missed: Google Patents records this patent as "Expired – Lifetime," expires 2024-05-12 (adjusted expiration; 20 years from the 2004-03-03 priority, plus § 154(b) adjustment). Any current assertion can only reach past conduct within the § 286 six-year lookback, subject to laches/§ 287 notice defenses.

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Recommended next steps

1. Kill the "no PTAB activity" premise. If you are relying on the ODP feed in a diligence memo or an invalidity opinion, correct it. The FWD text for IPR2016-00921 is reproduced verbatim in the Supreme Court cert petition file at https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-728/161469/20201120170447290_Petition.pdf, and the Federal Circuit's affirmance is at https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4763634/adidas-ag-v-nike-inc/ (docket at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/US_Court_of_Appeals_Federal_Circuit/19-1787/Adidas_AG_v._Nike_Inc/). Pull the papers directly from PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ to confirm Paper numbers and the panel.

2. If you are being asserted against and the letter cites claims 1–13: you do not have a PTAB kill shot. The disposition to quote against the patent owner is the Board's own words — "Petitioner has not met its burden to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1–13 of the '598 patent are unpatentable on the grounds upon which we instituted inter partes review" — affirmed at 963 F.3d 1355. Your realistic paths are (a) non-infringement / claim construction on the "unitary construction" and "outline of at least one textile element" limitations, which the Board and the Federal Circuit construed in a way that did real work; (b) claim 14-specific art (jacquard double-needle-bar raschel / spacer-mesh flat knitting) if it's asserted, since no APJ has ever evaluated that claim; and (c) § 101 or § 112 theories, which were never presented in '921 and are therefore not estopped as to anyone.

3. If you are a non-privy defendant wanting to petition: file well inside the § 315(b) one-year window, lead with art that is not Reed/Nishida/Castello/Fujiwara, and come with a robust § 325(d) differentiation showing — the Skechers Director Review at IPR2025-00141 Paper 23 (2025-08-21) shows the Board will not excuse a thin § 325(d) showing merely because prior panels made helpful findings, but will be reversed if it fails to reach the merits on a properly framed Nishida challenge.

4. Watch the sibling '749 docket as a leading indicator. IPR2025-00141 (Skechers) is the live bellwether; its institution and any settlement are the most probative current signal on how the family's method claims fare against Nishida. Note, though, that its Nishida-anticipation posture turns on the "simultaneous knitting" limitation that belongs to the '749 claims — it does not map onto '598 claim 1's circular-knitting-of-a-cylindrical-structure language.

5. Calendar the expirations. Confirm the 2024-05-12 adjusted expiration of '598 through USPTO PatentCenter before building any damages model, and confirm whether Nike pivots assertions to the still-live family members (e.g., US 11,849,795).

Confidence notes: The proceeding number, parties, claim scope, grounds, institution date, both FWD outcomes, the § 312(a)(3) partial institution, the SAS remand, and the 2020 affirmance are all documented in the sources cited. Items I could not fully verify and marked as such: the precise composition of the initial '921 panel (Fitzpatrick vs. Daniels), the certiorari disposition at No. 20-728, and the exact Paper number of the second '921 FWD.

I'll verify the assignment record and litigation history before writing. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me check for any later assignments (e.g., to Nike Innovate C.V.) and the USPTO assignment records.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,814,598 B2 ("Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper")

Verification caveat up front: the tools available to me in this session are web-search based; I could not open a live, authenticated USPTO Assignment Center session. The assignment facts below are taken from the Google Patents legal-events feed for US 7,814,598 (which mirrors the Assignment Center records), from the ITC complaint exhibits docketed by the Commission, and from PTAB/CAFC filings of record. Where a field is not exposed in those sources (notably reel/frame and the recording correspondent), I say so rather than guess. Verify at USPTO Assignment Center and Google Patents legal events.

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Inventors

• Both inventors are Nike-internal designers/engineers, not outside licensors. The 2004 parent application was filed with Nike as applicant, and the inventors' interests were conveyed to NIKE, INC.
• No unusual departure pattern. Bhupesh Dua is still listed as first named inventor on Nike family continuation US 15/358,723 (filed 2016-11-22), and Thomas appears as a named inventor on later Nike knit-upper patents (e.g., US 8,196,317; US 8,042,288; US 8,266,749). That is the opposite of the "inventors leave within 12 months, portfolio gets fire-sold" pattern — the inventor team stayed tied to the same corporate portfolio for 12+ years.
• One timing quirk worth logging (but benign): the inventors' assignment of interest was recorded 2008-05-05, i.e., after the 2008-02-18 divisional filing and ~4 years after the 2004 parent filing. This is routine re-recordation on a divisional, not a late-stage ownership scramble.

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Original assignee

NIKE, Inc., One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, Oregon (the issued face of the patent lists Nike; Google Patents lists Current Assignee: Nike Inc).

• Products embodying the claims — yes. Nike commercially launched Flyknit footwear in 2012 and characterizes the entire '011/'598/'749 knit-upper family as its "Flyknit" portfolio (350+ issued utility patents per Nike's own litigation statements). Nike's ITC complaint states "The Asserted Patents all relate to Flyknit technology."
  • Analyst note: the '598 claims recite circular knitting specifically (claim 1: "circular knitting machine… cylindrical textile structure"), whereas mass-production Flyknit is often described as flat-knit. Nike nonetheless asserts the '598 as a Flyknit patent (ITC 337-TA-1289 asserts claims 1, 9, and 14 of the '598). Treat "embodies the claims" as Nike's own characterization, corroborated by a live enforcement campaign.
• Primary line of business: athletic footwear, apparel and equipment; NYSE-listed (NKE).
• Current status: operating, publicly traded, never in bankruptcy. Confirmed in the ITC complaint: "Nike owns the entire right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 7,814,598" (Compl., ¶54).
• Affiliate nuance (checked, and it is NOT a shell finding): Nike has since ~2014 parked large tranches of IP in Nike Innovate C.V., a Netherlands commanditaire vennootschap with a registered address at One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, OR (documented for trademarks via a Nike International Ltd. → Nike Innovate C.V. assignment effective 2014-04-01). That entity looks like a holding vehicle but is a wholly-owned Nike IP affiliate that does not assert independently of Nike. I found no evidence of a recorded Nike → Nike Innovate C.V. assignment for the '598 patent specifically, and Google Patents still reports the current assignee as Nike Inc.

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Assignment timeline

The only post-filing assignment surfaced in the accessible record is the original inventor→Nike conveyance. Reel/frame numbers and the recording correspondent are not exposed by the Google Patents legal-events feed, and I will not invent them.

• Executed date: not exposed / recorded 2008-05-05 — Reel not retrievable in this session (verify at Assignment Center)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: DUA, BHUPESH; THOMAS, EDWARD NATHANIEL (jointly)
  • Assignee: NIKE, INC.
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the available source. For context only — the prosecution correspondence address of record for this family is "NIKE, Inc. / BGL, P.O. Box 10395, Chicago, IL 60610," with Nike in-house attorney Danielle C. Gillen (Reg. No. 68,197) signing publication papers on related application 15/358,723. "BGL" is Banner & Witcoff—Nike's long-time outside patent firm. This is ordinary operating-company prosecution counsel, not an NPE recording mill, and it should not be counted as a "repeat correspondent" hit.
  • Context: Initial ownership vesting — employee inventors assign to their employer; recorded in connection with the divisional refiling. Not a sale, reorg, or securitization.

No other recorded assignments appear. Specifically, there is no recorded transfer to an NPE, no security interest, no merger, no change of name, and no defensive-aggregator acquisition. Nike's later filings around this patent are all continuations/divisionals within the same owner (22 family applications, 2004–2020: US 7,347,011 → '598 → 8,042,288 → 8,266,749 → … → 11,849,795), which is portfolio depth, not cascading assignment.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7814598
    2004 : Priority application filed by Nike
    2008 : Divisional filed by Nike
         : Inventors assign rights to Nike Inc
    2010 : Patent issued to Nike Inc
    2012 : Nike Flyknit launched
         : Nike asserts family in Germany
    2016 : adidas files IPR2016-00921
    2017 : PTAB final written decision
    2020 : Federal Circuit affirms for Nike
    2021 : Nike files ITC case 337-TA-1289
    2024 : Patent expires

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The ownership chain is a single, unsurprising link: the two Nike employees assigned their rights to NIKE, INC. (recorded 2008-05-05), and Nike has owned the patent without interruption since — confirmed by Nike's own statement in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1289 (Compl., ¶54) that it owns "the entire right, title, and interest" in the '598. Nike ships products embodying the claimed knit-upper technology (Flyknit, launched 2012), and the enforcement record is directed at actual competitors, not licensees-at-large: adidas's IPR challenge failed (IPR2016-00921 FWD 2017-10-19, affirmed on appeal in Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., No. 19-1787, 2020-06-25), and Nike asserted the '598 ('598 claims 1, 9, 14) in its 2021 ITC complaint against adidas. Zero of the eight NPE signals is present; the only pseudo-signals (the "Unified Patents" line in Google Patents' litigation panel, and the Nike Innovate C.V. holding vehicle) resolve on inspection to a data-source attribution and a wholly-owned Nike affiliate respectively.

Verify: Assignment Center — search US 7,814,598 · Google Patents legal events · Unified Patents PTAB record, IPR2016-00921 · USITC 337-TA-1289 institution notice

I'll research this systematically. Let me search for the patent and its cited references.

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

Bottom line up front

I verified that US 7,814,598 B2 exists and matches the requested number exactly: "Article of footwear having a textile upper," Nike, Inc., inventors Bhupesh Dua and Edward Nathaniel Thomas, application 12/032,995, filed 2008‑02‑18, granted 2010‑10‑19, priority 2004‑03‑03 (divisional of application 10/791,289, now US 7,347,011). No similar-but-different number was substituted.

Three important qualifications before the analysis, because they materially affect the answer:

1. The authoritative full text you supplied is truncated before the front‑page "References Cited" section. It jumps from the abstract to the claim set, then to "Cited By (27)" and "Families Citing this family (275)." So the patent's own prior‑art citation list is not in the authoritative document I was given.
2. "Cited By" is not prior art. The 27 documents in "Cited By" are forward citations — later patents that cite US 7,814,598 (e.g., US 2010/0325916 A1; US 8,448,474 B1; US 10,316,441 B2; US 10,455,885 B2). These post‑date the 2004 priority date and cannot anticipate it. I flag this because "look at each patent citation" is ambiguous and the Google Patents page mixes both directions.
3. My search budget was exhausted before I could open USPTO PatentCenter/PatFT directly or pull the remaining entries of the face‑cited list. I retrieved a partial cited‑references list (from PubChem's mirror of the patent) and verified several references individually. I explicitly mark below what I verified versus what I could not.

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A. Prior art cited on the face of US 7,814,598

Partial list retrieved from the PubChem mirror of the patent (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-7814598-B2, section "11 Citations"). The list as retrieved:

Critical caveat: the PubChem list was cut off mid‑entry ("US-42118…"). I therefore cannot certify this is the complete face‑cited list, and I am not going to invent the missing entries. To be definitive you would need the USPTO front page (PatentCenter / Patent Full‑Text) or the issued patent PDF.

Structural observation that matters for § 102: every face‑cited reference I could read a number for is pre‑1975, and the bulk are 1920s–1950s knitted‑footwear / stocking‑type patents. That is consistent with the examiner treating the inventive contribution of the 2004 application as lying in the machine‑specific method steps (wide‑tube circular knit / jacquard double needle‑bar raschel producing an outline of a textile element that is then removed) rather than in "knitted footwear" as such.

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B. Prior art cited inside the specification (Background of the Invention)

These are cited by the applicant in the body of US 7,814,598 and each is a genuine prior‑art reference. I verified each:

Net result for Section B: none of the specification‑cited references anticipates any claim of US 7,814,598. They are cited to frame the problem (adding separate materials for durability/stretch is inefficient), not as method anticipations.

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C. Examiner‑cited art from the related family prosecution

In prosecution of the related continuation application 13/236,742 (in the same family), the examiner rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by "Nishida (5,345,63…)" — the number as it appears in the retrieved record is truncated at "5,345,63". Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1556902/download-documents?artifactId=o4GZ7reUsaUFoKWIa6LYAIiRmx9XH2_A864GBhtQ1JVO-HdnRp0eXuU.

I will not auto‑correct or complete this number. The candidates within the truncated range are not interchangeable, and I did not verify which one the examiner meant. This is the strongest lead for genuinely anticipatory art against the family's method claims and it should be pulled from the actual file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter, application 13/236,742, Office Action dated 2011‑12‑12).

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D. Claim‑by‑claim § 102 assessment

All 14 claims of US 7,814,598 are method claims. (The article/upper claims are in the parent US 7,347,011 and siblings such as US 8,042,288 and US 8,266,749 — for those, the same cited art applies more directly.)

Claim structure:

• Claim 1 (independent): circular knitting machine → cylindrical textile structure → removing at least one textile element from the textile structure → incorporating into an upper.
• Claims 2–8 depend from 1 (wide‑tube machine; texture shaped as the element; first/second areas with unitary construction and different stitch configurations; two elements in one structure; apertures; seam along lower region; seam along heel region).
• Claim 9 (independent): wide‑tube circular knitting machine → structure having an outline of at least one textile element → remove → incorporate.
• Claims 10–13 depend from 9.
• Claim 14 (independent): jacquard double needle‑bar raschel knitting machine → structure having an outline → remove → incorporate.

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E. What I could not establish, stated plainly

• I could not retrieve the complete, authoritative front‑page "References Cited" list for US 7,814,598. The full text you provided omits it, and my retrieval from PubChem was truncated. I did not fill the gap by guessing.
• I could not confirm the full number of the examiner‑cited Nishida reference ("5,345,63…") from application 13/236,742. Do not treat that as US 5,343,638, US 5,345,638 or US 5,345,639 without checking the file wrapper.
• I did not open PatFT/PatentCenter directly; the search budget expired. Everything above is sourced from Google Patents (the authoritative text you supplied), PubChem's patent mirror, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, and USPTO PTAB document servers.
• Publication/filing dates I marked as verified come from the cited sources above. Dates I could not verify (e.g., the exact grant date of US 4,813,158 to Brown, and the Rudy and Kilgore patent dates) I have deliberately left unstated rather than approximated.

F. High‑value follow‑ups for a definitive § 102 opinion

1. Pull the USPTO file wrapper for 12/032,995 and its parent 10/791,289 (PatentCenter) to get the complete face‑cited list and the examiner's actual § 102/§ 103 rejections and their art.
2. Pull the IPR2016-00921 record (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-00921, Unified Patents as petitioner, Final Written Decision) — the IPR petition identifies the art the challenger considered most anticipatory for this family.
3. Review the Federal Circuit appeal in case 19‑1787 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/19-1787), which involved Adidas's obviousness challenge to US 7,814,598 and US 8,266,749. The art of record there is the most legally tested prior art set for this patent.
4. Read each pre‑1975 face‑cited patent in full, focusing specifically on whether any discloses (a) a cylindrical knit blank with an outlined region, and (b) a step of cutting/removing an element from that blank — that combination is the crux of claims 1, 9 and 14, and it is the limitation most likely to survive.

I'll ground this analysis with some targeted searches before writing it up.

I have the litigation record. Let me verify what the key prior-art references actually disclose before writing the analysis.

Let me check one more thing — whether any art of record addresses claim 14's jacquard double needle-bar raschel machine.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,814,598 B2

"Article of footwear having a textile upper" — Nike, Inc.; inventors Dua & Thomas; priority 2004‑03‑03; filed 2008‑02‑18 as a divisional of Ser. No. 10/791,289; granted 2010‑10‑19; now Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2024‑05‑12).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7814598](/patent/US7814598)/en

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0. Scope note on the "Prior Art" section of the page (read this first)

The Google Patents page as fetched does not contain a complete backward‑citation table. It shows:

• an auto‑generated "Prior art keywords" field (textile, textile element, footwear, area, article) — a keyword tag cloud, not references;
• a "Cited By (27)" table and a truncated "Families Citing this family (275)" table — these are forward citations, overwhelmingly later than the 3 Mar 2004 priority date, and several are family members sharing the same priority (e.g., US 20100325916 A1, priority 2004‑03‑03).

Consequence: the page's own citation tables cannot by themselves supply § 103 prior art against this patent. Only one "Cited By" entry clearly predates the priority date (US 8,209,883 B2, Lyden, priority 2000‑03‑10). I therefore build the analysis on two bodies of art that are reliably tied to these claims:

1. Art admitted / discussed in the '598 specification's own Background (§102(b)/admissions): Zaino, Brown, Boggia, Rudy, Kilgore.
2. Art of record against these exact claims in adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., IPR2016‑00921, and its appeal: Reed, Nishida, Castello, Fujiwara, plus Spencer and ISO 8117.

I flag below where I am confident versus where I am inferring.

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1. Governing law and the operative construction

• Pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs (priority 2004; divisional filed 2008).
• Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1, 17–18 (1966): scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations. KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007): motivation may be implicit; "known technique applied to a known field."
• Critical construction: "unitary construction" was construed (and the Federal Circuit accepted) to mean the textile element is "a single material element wherein portions … are not joined together by seams or other connections." Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., 963 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2020); see https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4763634](/patent/4763634)/adidas-ag-v-nike-inc/. Claims 4 and 11 are the "Unitary Construction Claims"; claims 1–3, 5–10, 12, 13 are the "Base Claims."

Claim anatomy

Litigation posture (essential context): claims 1–13 were challenged in IPR2016‑00921 and survived — PTAB Final Written Decisions found no claim unpatentable, and the Federal Circuit affirmed on 25 June 2020 on both grounds after the SAS remand. Claim 14 was never challenged. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-00921 ; http://business.cch.com/ipld/AdidasNikeFedCir20200625.pdf

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2. The prior art arsenal

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3. Combination A — Reed + Nishida (the strongest § 103 case; Ground 1 of IPR2016‑00921)

Mapping to claim 1:

1. "mechanically‑manipulating a yarn with a circular knitting machine to form a cylindrical textile structure" → Reed, verbatim (circular double knitting machine; concentric knitted tubes).
2. "removing at least one textile element from the textile structure" → Reed: elements outlined by knitted stitches and cut from the tube.
3. "incorporating the textile element into an upper of the article of footwear" → Nishida, verbatim: layouts of shoe uppers, cut out, shaped, assembled.

Motivation to combine (KSR‑consistent):

• Analogous art / same field of endeavor. Nishida is footwear; Reed is garment manufacture. Both are directed to the same problem the '598 specification itself identifies: the cost, supplier‑coordination, and waste of cutting many separate material elements. Reed's stated scope ("all types of garments worn by men, women and children") is broad enough to embrace footwear; its title/objects emphasize cost and labor reduction through computerized knitting — the identical design rationale as Nishida's.
• Reasonable expectation of success. The combination is a textbook "known technique (circular‑knit a tube and cut out shaped elements) applied to a known field (shoe uppers made from a knitted web)" — KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
• Predictable result. No new chemistry or machine architecture; only the object being knit changes from garment to footwear upper.

I assess claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and arguably 7/8/12/13 as the most exposed:

• Claim 2/9 (wide‑tube): Castello's own L.H. machine math (768 needles ÷ 8 needles/inch ≈ 96″ circumference ≈ 30.5″ diameter) puts wide‑tube circular knitting squarely in the art; Spencer/ISO 8117 supply the terminology.
• Claim 3/10 (texture forming the shape of the element): Reed's interconnecting knitted stitches 22/24 that both outline the garment and join the tubes are stitch‑configuration differences forming the shape of the element. Fujiwara's outline M likewise is formed by interknitted stitches (jacquard, birds‑eye, eyelet, circular rib, interlock).
• Claim 5 (two elements): Reed knits plural garments around a tube; Castello knits three or four collars per layer.
• Claim 6 (apertures): needle selection / omitted stitches was a routine knitting capability (Fujiwara lists eyelet stitch configurations); nothing more than a predictable use of a known technique.
• Claims 7/8/12/13 (seams along lower/heel regions): Nishida expressly "shap[es] the shoe upper by connecting material parts of the layout"; Castello sews the cut sides of collars. Forming a lower‑region seam and a heel‑region seam to convert a flat/planar knit into a three‑dimensional foot‑receiving shell is the ordinary way to make a shaped upper from a flat pattern.

Where the combination was defeated (and why it matters):

• Reed's relied‑upon embodiments teach pre‑seaming (finished, preseared garments), whereas Nishida cuts first and sews after. The Board held the combination would "require the alteration of the principles of operation of Reed or would render Reed inoperable for its intended purpose."
• For claims 4 and 11, the construction of "unitary construction" (no seams) is directly at odds with Reed's pre‑seamed garment — so Reed cannot supply that limitation, and substituting Nishida's unseamed element would gut Reed's stated essence ("a garment formed of juxtaposed sections of simultaneously knitted, concentric tubes interconnected by knitting").
• The Board additionally faulted the quality of the motivation evidence (declarant Holden's testimony was "insufficient and unpersuasive" on why/how to combine, especially for claims 4 and 11).
• Fed. Cir. affirmed: motivation‑to‑combine findings supported by substantial evidence.

My assessment: for claim 1 alone, the Reed+Nishida case is close to compelling, and the non‑obviousness outcome rested more on the evidentiary failure (an unrebutted, thin motivation showing and the pre‑seam/unitary‑construction collision) than on any affirmative teaching away from circular‑knitting a footwear element. A better‑supported petition — an expert who reconciles the pre‑seam/post‑seam difference (e.g., explaining that Reed's knitted interconnection between tube sections is not a seam of the type excluded by "unitary construction," or that cutting an unseamed region of Reed's tube is a mere design choice/obvious modification under In re Ethicon / KSR pragmatism) — would present a materially stronger attack on the Base Claims.

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4. Combination B — Castello + Fujiwara + Nishida (Ground 2)

Mapping:

• Castello supplies: circular knitting, jacquard/needle selection producing multiple stitch configurations and varied textures in a single knit (→ claim 4/11's "different stitch configuration … varying textures"), multiple elements per knit structure (→ claim 5), cutting elements out (→ claim 1 step 2), and wide‑tube machine (→ claims 2/9).
• Fujiwara supplies: inner and outer knit layers joined along outline M so the knit itself defines a shaped article; multiple interknitted stitch types producing different textures (→ claims 3/4/10/11); removal by cutting along the outline (→ claim 1).
• Nishida supplies the footwear application (→ "incorporating … into an upper of an article of footwear").

Motivation: all three are directed to the same recognized problem — the cost and bottleneck of sewing in garment manufacture. Fujiwara says so in terms ("sewing is a bottleneck … a strong requirement as to a development in a garment making by which any sewing is not necessary"); Castello sells production cost savings over flat machines; Nishida applies the same logic to shoe uppers. That is a well‑articulated, common‑problem motivation.

Where it failed:

1. Procedural: on institution the Board found the petition failed the § 312(a)(3) "particularity" requirement — a four‑page bulk citation to Castello/Fujiwara/Nishida did not say which reference supplied which limitation. After SAS remand the ground was instituted and decided on the merits, and still lost.
2. Substantive: same pre‑seam/unseam tension. Fujiwara teaches pre‑seamed, substantially finished garments; Castello and Nishida teach unseamed elements that are seamed after removal. So for claims 4/11 (and the parallel '749 claims), the combination could not supply a seamless, unitary element without contradicting the references' stated purposes.
3. Neither Castello nor Fujiwara expressly mentions footwear (though the Board accepted that the combination nonetheless suggested "a method of manufacturing an article of footwear").

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5. Combination C — Specification‑admitted art for the "varying textures/localized properties" concept

This combination is not in the IPR record but is legally available:

• Reed/Castello/Fujiwara + Zaino (US 4,447,967) and Brown (US 4,813,158) / Boggia (US 4,756,098) — all cited by the applicant in the '598 Background as known techniques for giving different properties to different zones of a textile athletic‑shoe upper (Zaino: zone‑specific injected polymer for abrasion/wear; Brown/Boggia: zone‑specific inextensible material to control stretch).
• Motivation: the '598 specification frames its own contribution as avoiding the multi‑supplier, multi‑step inefficiency of achieving zone‑differentiated properties by adding separate materials. A PHOSITA who wanted zone‑differentiated properties in a knit upper — and who knew from Zaino/Brown/Boggia that footwear uppers benefit from zonal variation — would be motivated to obtain that variation within a single knit by needle selection, as Castello and Fujiwara teach.
• Counterweight: the Federal Circuit's definition of "unitary construction" excludes seams, and a knit element with a single stitch configuration throughout is also excluded from claim 4/11. So this attack lives or dies on whether the zonal stitch variation is shown to be in one seamless knit, which Reed's pre‑seamed tube undercuts.

Net view: the strongest obviousness case in the record is Reed + Nishida for the Base Claims (1–3, 5–10, 12, 13), with Castello + Fujiwara + Nishida a close second, and Zaino/Brown/Boggia useful as corroborating "known‑technique" evidence for the texture/property‑variation concepts. The Unitary Construction Claims (4, 11) remain the most defensible, precisely because the construed term excludes the very seaming that each reference teaches or requires.

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6. Secondary considerations

• The PTAB record lacked evidence of secondary considerations ("The record lacks arguments or evidence of secondary considerations"), so none contributed to the outcome.
• Outside the record, the factual landscape is favorable to the patentee: Nike's Flyknit launch (2012), adidas's near‑simultaneous Primeknit launch, German infringement litigation, and the ITC/D. Or. campaigns (337‑TA‑1289; 3:21‑cv‑01780 per the page). But for a § 103 defense, commercial success and copying must be tied by nexus to the claimed method (which is broad — "remove a knit element from a tube and put it in an upper"), and the market products are far downstream of claim 1. I would expect a nexus challenge to substantially blunt this evidence.

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7. Claim 14 — the untested claim

Claim 14 recites a jacquard double needle‑bar raschel machine. It was never challenged in IPR2016‑00921 (that petition covered claims 1–13 only), and the same specification anchors parallel claims in the sibling patents (e.g., the '011 patent's "warp knitted construction … produced by a jacquard double needle‑bar raschel").

From the family‑wide record, the Art that would be needed is warp‑knit/raschel spacer art — the record in related IPRs references multilayered knitted spacer textiles that "first emerged through Raschel or tricot warp knitting technology" (Shimura/Shiomura) and later moved to circular machines (Shepherd), with spacer fabrics used "to form shoe uppers in place of the conventional construction that utilized a plastic foam layer." A § 103 case on claim 14 would therefore be: raschel spacer/outline art + Nishida (footwear upper) + Spencer (general knitting knowledge), with motivation supplied by the known use of spacer knit for uppers and iso‑morphically by the same cost/waste rationale. I have only partial visibility into that art and would not assert a specific reference as anticipating claim 14 without confirming its full text — this is the one claim in the set where a fresh prior‑art search (Karl Mayer/Liba double‑needle‑bar raschel literature and pre‑2004 spacer‑fabric footwear publications) is most likely to pay off.

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8. Bottom line

What would move the needle: (a) a primary reference that teaches a circular‑knit tube containing an unseamed, shaped shoe‑upper element with zonal stitch variation — i.e., collapsing Reed's pre‑seam limitation and Nishida's footwear application into a single reference; (b) an expert declaration that squarely reconciles the pre‑seam/post‑seam distinction and explains why Reed's inter‑tube knitted interconnection is not a "seam" under the Board's construction; or (c) art directed at claim 14's raschel machine, which no petition has yet touched.

Confidence: High on the identity and teachings of Reed, Nishida, Castello, and Fujiwara, and on the procedural history (IPR2016‑00921; Fed. Cir. 19‑1787; affirmed 25 Jun 2020) — all corroborated across the Federal Circuit opinion, the PTAB FWDs, and the Supreme Court petition excerpts. Medium on the precise page‑level contents of the Google Patents "Citations" table, which the fetch truncated; and medium‑to‑low on the availability of specific pre‑2004 double‑needle‑bar‑raschel footwear‑upper art, which I have not been able to verify conclusively.