US 7846188

I'll search for authoritative records on this specific patent number.

Let me check specifically for any 2026 appellate activity and confirm the litigation record.

Let me do one final targeted check for any matter specifically asserting this patent.

US Patent 7,846,188 — Verification Summary

I searched for records specifically keyed to 7,846,188. Below is what I can confirm, with explicit flags where the record is thin. I did not find any CAFC 2026 docket naming this patent; details on that below.

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1. Bibliographic data (high confidence)

Priority chain (important for scope): 11/536,815 is a continuation-in-part of 11/208,644 (filed Aug. 23, 2005, now US 7,704,279) and claims benefit under §119(e) of provisional 60/670,231 (filed Apr. 12, 2005). Because this is a CIP, the 2005 priority date applies only to subject matter carried over from the parent; new matter added in the 2006 filing carries a Sept. 29, 2006 effective date. I could not find a definitive PTO record distinguishing which claim elements are new matter, so treat the priority date as asserted, not adjudicated.

Not verified: the primary examiner and art unit of record for this specific patent. I have art-unit evidence (3773) only for later family members (e.g., 16/280,684, 16/744,716), so I will not attribute an examiner to the '188 patent.

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2. Abstract (as issued)

An apparatus and method for joining members together using a self-drilling screw apparatus or stapling apparatus are disclosed. The screw apparatus includes a worm drive screw, a spur gear and superior and inferior screws which turn simultaneously in a bi-directional manner. A rotating mechanism drives the first and second screw members in opposite directions and causes the screw members to embed themselves in the members to be joined. The screw apparatus can be used to join members such as bones, portions of the spinal column, vertebral bodies, wood, building materials, metals, masonry, or plastics. A device employing two screws (two-in-one) can be combined with a capping horizontal mini-plate. A device employing three screws can be combined in enclosures (three-in-one). The stapling apparatus includes grip handles, transmission linkages, a drive rod, a fulcrum and a cylinder. The staple has superior and inferior segments with serrated interfaces, a teethed unidirectional locking mechanism and four facet piercing elements. The staples can also be used to join members such as bones, portions of the spinal column, or vertebral bodies.

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3. Independence structure — a key point

There is exactly one independent claim in this patent: claim 1. Every other claim (2–24) depends, directly or indirectly, from claim 1. This is unusual and materially affects any validity or infringement analysis:

• Claims 2–7, 15, 18 → depend from claim 1
• Claim 8 → depends from claim 1 ("at least a second gear box")
• Claims 9, 10, 11 → chain from claim 8
• Claims 12, 13, 14 → chain from claim 11
• Claim 16, 17 → chain from claim 10
• Claims 19–24 → chain from claim 18

So there is no separate independent claim covering the horizontal mini-plate, the three-in-one IBFD enclosure, or the facet stapler, as such. Those embodiments are disclosed in the specification but not claimed in the '188 patent; the stapling and implant-cage claims were pursued in other family members (e.g., 11/842,855 → US 7,942,903; 12/471,345 → US 8,257,370).

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4. Plain-language overview of the sole independent claim (claim 1)

Claim 1 — a self-drilling screw apparatus, comprising:

1. A gear box — a housing/casing.
2. A first screw member having a tapered (pointed, self-drilling) end and a threaded body, disposed within the gear box.
3. A second screw member with the same features, also inside the gear box, and axially offset from the first screw member (i.e., lying on a parallel but distinct axis).
4. A drive mechanism including a gear positioned between and engaging each of the two screw members, which simultaneously drives the first and second screw members in equal and opposite directions out of the gear box.

In plain terms: one input turns a central gear, which drives two parallel screws outward in opposite directions at the same time — so the device pulls two things together (or anchors into two bodies) with a single actuation. The "self-drilling" limitation in the preamble means the tapered screws cut their own path, requiring no pre-drilled hole.

Notable drafting features:

• The claim is not limited to bone or to the spine — it recites "members," consistent with the specification's stated use for wood, masonry, metals, plastics, etc. (In contrast, the later family member US 9,889,022 uses a "universal" preamble that the Federal Circuit held limiting in 2026 — see §5.)
• "Gear being disposed between and engaging each of the first and second screw members" and "simultaneously… equal and opposite directions" are the core structural limitations on which infringement will turn.

Representative dependent limitations worth knowing:

• Claim 3/19 — the gear is a spur gear driven by a wormed drive screw, rotating the screw members equal-and-opposite.
• Claim 4/18 — the wormed drive screw has an externally accessible head turned by a screwdriver.
• Claim 5/20–24 — the screw members have internal threading, a cavity, and spur gear teeth; spindles are inserted into them (base, rod, threaded segment).
• Claim 8 — adds a second gear box with third/fourth screw members; claim 9 adds a joining plate; claim 10 adds screw caps.
• Claim 11 — adds a third gear box; claims 12–13 place the gear boxes in a predetermined (triangular) pattern with upper and lower enclosures; claim 14 adds bone-fusion material slots — this is the "three-in-one" IBFD.
• Claim 15 — serrations on two exterior surfaces of the gear box.
• Claim 24 — axis geometry: the two screw axes and the spur-gear axis are parallel; the worm drive axis is transverse to the spur-gear axis.

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5. Litigation — CAFC 2026 and district court

I found no CAFC 2026 docket, and no PTAB IPR, naming US 7,846,188. I want to be explicit about that, because the family has significant litigation.

What I did confirm:

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 11, 2026) (Prost, Schall, Stoll, JJ., precedential) — affirmed summary judgment of noninfringement as to US 8,353,913 and US 9,889,022, and affirmed denial of JMOL as to US 10,478,319. The patents at issue were not the '188 patent. The '188 patent sits in the priority chain of those patents (11/842,855 is a CIP of 11/536,815), and the panel expressly relied on the shared specification — describing a "unique universal bidirectional screw" usable across cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions — in holding the "universal" preambles limiting. That holding is directly traceable to the disclosure of the '188 patent. (Opinion; IPWatchdog; Susman Godfrey)
• Underlying district case: Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 2:20‑cv‑03271 (E.D. Pa.), filed November 2019, asserting the '913, '022 and '319 patents (plus others). I was unable to confirm from the search results whether the '188 patent itself was ever asserted in that action; the '188 patent appears in the record primarily as a priority/continuity reference in prosecution exhibits. (CourtListener docket)
• PTAB: IPR2020‑01305, Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, concerns US 10,478,319, not the '188 patent.
• Google Patents' Darts‑IP "first worldwide family litigation filed" flag is a family-level indicator and does not by itself establish that the '188 patent was asserted. The USPTO assignment records show the patent was transferred within the Moskowitz family of entities (Moskowitz Nathan C., then Moskowitz Family LLC), which is consistent with it being held as part of an enforcement portfolio even where not itself asserted.

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6. Confidence and caveats

• High confidence in the bibliographic data, abstract, claim text and claim structure (source: the Google Patents full text of US 7,846,188, cross-checked against PubChem's patent record for US‑7846188‑B2, which independently reports priority 2005/04/12, filing 2006/09/29, grant 2010/12/07 and inventors Moskowitz/Moskowitz/Glozman).
• High confidence that claim 1 is the only independent claim.
• Moderate confidence on current assignee: Google Patents shows two entries. Ownership of this specific patent by Moskowitz Family LLC is plausible but I could not verify an executed assignment of the '188 patent itself to that entity. Verify against USPTO Assignment Search before relying on it.
• Explicit negative finding: no CAFC 2026 appeal and no PTAB proceeding identified for US 7,846,188. Absence of a hit in my searches is not proof of absence in the full dockets — a full PACER/PTAB docket pull keyed to this patent number would be the way to close that gap.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 7846188. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Bottom line

Based on the sources I searched (Google Patents/Darts‑ip, CourtListener/Justia, PTAB/PTABCTS dockets, Federal Circuit opinions via govinfo, IPWatchdog, VitalLaw, law-firm and trade press), I could not identify any court case, complaint, or PTAB proceeding in which US Patent No. 7,846,188 ("the '188 patent") is itself named as an asserted or challenged patent. In other words, no litigation specifically on patent 7846188 surfaced.

I want to be precise about this rather than overstate it: the search tools available to me are limited, and I did not obtain a direct hit on a docket that lists 7846188 as a patent‑in‑suit. So this is "none found," not a verified negative.

What the record does show

1. The '188 patent is a parent/priority patent in a large, heavily‑litigated family.
US 7,846,188 (granted Dec. 7, 2010; filed Sept. 29, 2006; priority Apr. 12, 2005; inventors Nathan C. Moskowitz, Mosheh T. Moskowitz, Daniel Glozman; now associated with Moskowitz Family LLC; status "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration Feb. 25, 2028) is a continuation‑in‑part of US 11/208,644 (US 7,704,279) and the parent from which a very large continuation chain descends (e.g., US 7,942,903, 8,353,913, 9,005,293, 9,889,022, 10,478,319, etc.). The Google Patents page for 7846188 carries the family‑level litigation flag "Family has litigation – First worldwide family litigation filed" with a Darts‑ip family link (family=39269007): https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=39269007 . That flag is family‑level, not patent‑specific, and I found no source tying the actual filed suits to claim 7846188.

2. The Moskowitz Family LLC suits that I did find do not assert 7846188. For each, the asserted patents are different family members:

Representative sources: Susman Godfrey win report (https://www.susmangodfrey.com/wins/federal-circuit-affirms-complete-patent-victory-for-globus-medical/); Federal Circuit slip opinion (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01696/pdf/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01696-0.pdf); IPWatchdog (https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/09/13/cafc-affirms-noninfringement-rulings-on-spinal-implant-patents/); VitalLaw case summary (Sep. 15, 2026); Becker's Spine Review (https://www.beckersspine.com/spine/globus-medical-wins-spinal-implant-patent-appeal/); NuVasive amended complaint summary (https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/ded/1:25-cv-00711/doc/39); Medtronic complaint excerpts and IPR exhibits (ptacts.uspto.gov, docketalarm.com).

3. PTAB activity I saw relates to other family members (e.g., Globus's IPR on the '643 patent; Medtronic's IPRs on the '367, '505, '293, '674 patents). None of the retrieved petitions challenges 7846188.

Why 7846188 may not appear in the suits

The '188 patent issued in 2010 and is listed as Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration Feb. 25, 2028, per Google Patents). Asserted patents in the Moskowitz Family LLC campaigns tend to be later‑issuing continuations with claims drafted to read on modern stand‑alone/expandable interbody devices. That pattern is consistent with 7846188 being the ancestral priority document rather than an asserted patent, though I cannot confirm this as the reason from the dockets alone.

Caveats

• I was unable to run an exhaustive PACER/Lex Machina/Unified Patents litigation search specifically filtered to patent 7846188; those databases are largely paywalled and not fully reachable by the search tool I used.
• The Darts‑ip family flag ("Family has litigation") confirms some member of family 39269007 has been litigated, but does not establish that 7846188 specifically was asserted.
• If you need a fully verified answer, the definitive check would be a PACER docket search on the patent number and a Lex Machina / Darts‑ip query restricted to US 7,846,188 (not the family), which I could not complete here.

If you'd like, I can attempt additional targeted searches (e.g., Unified Patents litigation caselist, Darts‑ip family page, or Justia's "patent litigations" tab for 7846188) to try to close that gap.

I'll verify the structured-block default against live sources before finalizing.

No proceedings surfaced. Let me run two more targeted checks before concluding.

Let me confirm two things: whether any family-member IPR reached a claims-invalidating FWD, and the '188 patent's maintenance-fee status.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings on file against US 7,846,188 — the USPTO ODP structured block is the canonical source and returns none, and my independent searches (Google Patents/PTAB E2E-adjacent indexes, Docket Alarm, Patexia, Fish & Richardson case announcements, IPWatchdog) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming the '188 patent as the challenged patent. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied as to this patent. The bottom line for a defendant is unusual and cuts both ways: no claim of the '188 patent has ever been tested at the PTAB, so § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone and every prior-art ground remains on the table — but the patent carries a legal-status flag of "Expired - Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of 2028-02-25, and it is the CIP parent of a family that two sophisticated defendants (Globus Medical in 2020, Medtronic in 2025–26) have separately attacked at the Board. Neither campaign named the '188 patent.

Because no proceeding exists on this patent, the per-proceeding template cannot be populated for '188. Rather than fabricate entries, I set out (a) the negative finding with the sources checked, and (b) the family-level proceedings that a defendant should understand as context.

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No proceeding — US 7,846,188 (claims 1–24, all UNTESTED at the PTAB)

• Type: None. No Inter Partes Review, Post-Grant Review, or Covered Business Method review.
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No AIA trial activity. Structured ODP block: "returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent."
• Judge panel: None constituted.
• Petition grounds: N/A — no petition has ever been filed against this patent.
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim of the '188 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board. I want to be explicit on the constraint you gave me: because no FWD exists, I cannot quote claim-level dispositions for claims 1–24, and I will not.
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: No PTAB appeal. (There is a relevant Federal Circuit decision in the related district-court litigation, discussed below, but it does not arise from a Board proceeding on this patent.)
• Defensive value: Nothing about this patent has been hardened by PTAB review, and nothing has been narrowed. A defendant gets a fully open invalidity slate — no estoppel, no adverse claim constructions, no prosecution-history admissions extracted at trial. That is the good news. The caution is that the '188 patent was never picked as a target even by Globus, which challenged six sibling patents in the same July 2020 campaign — suggesting either that the '188 claims were seen as less commercially exposed, or that the family's later-issued continuations (with fresh term) were the better targets for an accused product.

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Family-context proceedings (NOT against US 7,846,188)

These matter because the '188 patent is the CIP parent of the asserted members of this family (per the '188 record: application Ser. No. 11/208,644 → '188, and 11/842,855 is a CIP of 11/536,815). None of the proceedings below challenged the '188 patent.

Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC — IPR2020-01303 through IPR2020-01310 (eight petitions)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-07-20 / 2020-07-21
• Patents challenged: U.S. 8,353,913; 9,889,022; 10,028,740; 10,251,643; 10,307,268; 10,478,319 — not '188
• Status: Institution denied in all eight. Denials issued from 2020-12-21 through roughly 2021-02-05; Fish & Richardson (counsel for Moskowitz Family LLC) announced the "categorical denial of all of Globus's IPR petitions."
• Judge panels: e.g., IPR2020-01303 — Neil T. Powell, James A. Tartal, James J. Mayberry; IPR2020-01306 — Meredith C. Petravick, Neil T. Powell, James J. Mayberry (opinion by Mayberry); IPR2020-01307 — Mayberry, Petravick, Powell; IPR2020-01309 — Petravick, Powell, Mayberry.
• Representative challenged claims: IPR2020-01303 — claims 1, 3, 5, 7–11, 21–26 of the '268 patent; IPR2020-01309 — claims 1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 15–18, 20 of the '740 patent.
• Grounds: § 103 obviousness (e.g., Tisserand in view of Bonutti, further with Mathieu / Brantigan / Waugh). Duplicate first/second petitions were filed with ranked fallbacks so the Board could reach the second if it discretionarily denied the first under § 325(d).
• FWD: None — no trial was instituted, so no claim was canceled.
• Settlement: N/A
• Appeal: None from a Board decision (no institution → no appealable FWD by petitioner).
• Defensive value: Shows the Board's 2020-era willingness to deny institution on this family, and — more usefully — shows which family members Globus thought were worth petitioning and which were not ('188 was not among them).

Medtronic, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC — 2025–2026 campaign (e.g., IPR2025-01598, IPR2026-00121, IPR2026-00124, IPR2026-00163, IPR2026-00285)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2025–2026 (cases pending as of this writing)
• Patents challenged: later-issued Moskowitz continuations, including U.S. 12,011,367 — not '188
• Status: Active/pending per the record; I did not confirm claim-level dispositions and will not guess at them.
• Related litigation: Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic, Inc. et al., D. Minn. No. 0:25-cv-00769 (filed 2025-02-28), where Moskowitz asserted eleven patents against Medtronic and Medtronic counter-petitioned on four.
• Defensive value: Confirms the family is still being monetized aggressively, and that the '188 patent's later-issued descendants — not '188 itself — remain the live targets.

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Strategic summary

Claim status on '188. All 24 claims are UNTESTED: none canceled, none confirmed, none construed by the Board. Contrast that with the family generally: the Globus campaign died at institution, so no Moskowitz family claim has been invalidated at the PTAB in either campaign. The only adverse claim-level outcome in this family came from litigation, not the Board — and the '188 patent was not among the patents litigated to judgment.

Estoppel landscape — favorable to a defendant. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner whose IPR "results in a final written decision under section 318(a)." No IPR against the '188 patent has ever been instituted, let alone decided, so:

• No petitioner is estopped as to the '188 patent's claims.
• Even for the IPR petitioners against the sibling patents (Globus, Medtronic), estoppel is claim- and patent-specific — it does not flow backward to the un-challenged '188 claims.
• Practical effect: you may raise § 102 and § 103 grounds against claims 1–24 in district court or the ITC without any estoppel exposure, and you may file your own IPR on this patent (subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of the complaint — verify the complaint service date before filing).

Litigation backdrop you should factor in. The family has been litigated hard, and the patent owner has lost at the Federal Circuit on claim construction and infringement. In Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 2024-1696 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 11, 2026) (precedential, Prost, J., joined by Schall and Stoll, JJ.), the court affirmed (i) summary judgment of noninfringement of the '913 and '022 patents, (ii) the construction of "universal" as requiring a spacer insertable "in any region of the spine, i.e., cervical, thoracic, or lumbar, using any approach," and (iii) denial of JMOL after a defense jury verdict on claim 1 of the '319 patent. Two points for your case: the '188 specification is the shared parent that the Federal Circuit relied on to hold "universal" limiting (the panel noted the shared spec describes a "unique universal bidirectional screw" system usable across regions and approaches) — a construction that helped kill Moskowitz's infringement case. And the '188 patent itself was never asserted in that case or in the Medtronic case.

Status flag — verify immediately. Google Patents lists '188 as "Expired - Fee Related," with an adjusted expiration of 2028-02-25. Those two data points are in tension (a patent that nominally runs to 2028-02-25 but is flagged as fee-expired suggests a maintenance-fee lapse — likely the 11.5-year fee window). I could not independently corroborate the fee lapse on a second source before running out of search steps, so treat this as a lead, not a finding. If the fee lapse is real, it is dispositive: an expired patent cannot be infringed prospectively, and pre-expiration damages windows shrink accordingly. Pull the fee history from USPTO Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov) and confirm whether a § 41(c) petition for unintentional delay / fee reinstatement was ever filed.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not rely on any PTAB win — there is none. There is no FWD to cite, no canceled claim to point at, and no institutional estoppel. Say so plainly in any defense memo rather than implying Board review narrowed the patent.
2. Run the expiration check first. Retrieve maintenance-fee payment history and any lapse/reinstatement petition for 7,846,188 from USPTO Patent Center. If the "Expired - Fee Related" status is confirmed and no reinstatement was granted, that ends the exposure analysis; if fees were reinstated, note the intervening-rights implications (35 U.S.C. § 252) for any accused product sold during the lapse.
3. Calendar the § 315(b) bar. If you have been served with a complaint asserting '188, your IPR petition must be filed within one year of service; joinder under § 315(c) is the only escape. Because no prior petition exists, you face no § 315(e)(1) estoppel from your own side and no § 325(d) "same art" risk unless the art was before the examiner.
4. Mine the family prosecution/PTAB record for claim-construction leverage. The Federal Circuit's precedential Moskowitz v. Globus opinion (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[10971910](/patent/10971910)/moskowitz-family-llc-v-globus-medical-inc/) construes "universal" against the patent owner and leans expressly on this family's shared specification. Any '188 claim containing "universal," "zero-profile," "stand-alone," or "flexible fusion" should be mapped against that construction before you build an infringement or invalidity theory.
5. Confirm no pending filing is imminent. The Medtronic 2025–26 petitions show the family is in active dispute again. Re-check PTAB E2E and the ODP endpoint before you finalize any opinion; the '188 patent's absence from both campaigns is the single most important fact here, and it is worth re-verifying at the time you rely on it.

Verification status / confidence: The "no proceedings" finding is high-confidence (structured ODP block + independent negative searches). Judge names, denial dates, and challenged-claim lists for the Globus IPRs are drawn from Patexia, Docket Alarm, PTAB institution decisions, and Fish & Richardson's client announcement and are medium-to-high confidence — I did not open every one of the eight denial papers. The maintenance-fee/expiration point is low-to-medium confidence and flagged for primary-source verification; do not advise a client on it without pulling Patent Center. I have not stated any claim-level FWD outcome, because none exists for this patent.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7846188 using the tools available, then reconstruct the chain.

Let me dig into the specific recorded assignments and litigation context.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,846,188 B2

Patent: US 7,846,188 B2 — "Bi-directional fixating transvertebral body screws, zero-profile horizontal intervertebral miniplates, total intervertebral body fusion devices, and posterior motion-calibrating interarticulating joint stapling device for spinal fusion"
App. No.: 11/536,815 · Filed: 2006-09-29 · Granted: 2010-12-07 · Priority: 2005-04-12 (Prov. 60/670,231)
Family ID: 39269007 · Status: Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2028-02-25)

Data-sourcing note (read first). Live querying of Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov was not available in this session. The assignment events below are taken from the Google Patents "legal events" block for US 7,846,188, which mirrors USPTO Assignment data, and are corroborated by USPTO §3.73(b) chain-of-title statements captured in the PTAB/IPR and district-court records for the related Moskowitz Family LLC litigation. The specific reel/frame numbers for the four '188-specific recordings were not retrievable here and are marked "[reel/frame not retrieved]." I have not fabricated them. Reel/frame values that are confirmed for adjacent family members are given separately and labelled as such.

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Inventors

Unusual patterns:

• The non-family co-inventor (Glozman) assigned out at the outset, leaving ownership concentrated in the lead family, which was then rolled up into a single family LLC in 2018. This is consolidation into an inventor-controlled holding vehicle, not a third-party buy-out.
• Mosheh Moskowitz executed his assignment to Nathan C. Moskowitz in 2016-08-03 — a full decade after filing — consistent with a housekeeping/clean-up of internal family ownership ahead of enforcement.
• Two Glozman→Nathan Moskowitz recordings in 2006 and 2015 (same assignor/assignee pair) is a classic indicator of a defective first recordation later corrected, and it is worth pulling both documents to confirm.
• No evidence of "all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months" (there was no corporate assignee to depart from).

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Original assignee

Original assignee on the issued patent: "Individual" (i.e., the inventors themselves; no organizational assignee printed on the face of the patent).

• Primary line of business: The '188 patent issued to individual inventors; there was no operating company at issuance. Dr. Nathan C. Moskowitz is a practicing spine/neurosurgeon; the family (Nathan, Mosheh, Ahmnon) later formed Moskowitz Family LLC (Rockville, MD) to hold and monetize the portfolio.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence of any shipped product. No commercial spinal implant manufactured or sold by Moskowitz or Moskowitz Family LLC has surfaced. The family instead pursued licensing and litigation (see below). Note that the accused products belong to the defendant (Globus Medical), not the patentee.
• Current status: Moskowitz Family LLC is operating as a live IP-holding/assertion entity, not dissolved or in bankruptcy. As of the September 11, 2026 Federal Circuit decision in Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc. (No. 24-1696), it remains the owner of the family, having lost its infringement case on the merits.

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Assignment timeline

All four recordings below are for the '188 patent family per the Google Patents legal-events block. Conveyance type for the three intra-family transfers is Assignment of Assignors' Interest (see document for details). Correspondent names are drawn from the USPTO §3.73(b) chain-of-title statements for this family; reel/frame for the '188-specific records could not be confirmed and is flagged accordingly.

• 2006-12-27 (executed) / recorded 2006-12-27 — Reel [reel/frame not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Daniel Glozman
  • Assignee: Nathan C. Moskowitz
  • Correspondent: Not captured for this early record (prosecution of the era was handled under attorney docket series "3003/0105PU…", i.e., a firm different from the later Fish & Richardson docket series "46440-…").
  • Context: Inventor-to-inventor consolidation — the sole non-family co-inventor conveys to the lead inventor. Effectively the first "original assignment" completing ownership in Nathan C. Moskowitz.

• 2015-05-13 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-13 — Reel [reel/frame not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Daniel Glozman
  • Assignee: Nathan C. Moskowitz
  • Correspondent: Not captured in retrieved sources.
  • Context: Repeat recording of the same Glozman→Moskowitz conveyance — a correction/re-recordation, not a new transaction.

• 2016-08-03 (executed) / recorded 2016-08-03 — Reel [reel/frame not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Mosheh T. Moskowitz
  • Assignee: Nathan C. Moskowitz
  • Correspondent: Fish & Richardson P.C., Customer No. 26191, P.O. Box 1022, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1022 (the firm of record on the Moskowitz Family LLC filings; Michael T. Hawkins, Reg. No. 57,867, signed the §3.73(b) statements as "Attorney for Assignee" on 2017-07-20). Flag: Fish & Richardson recurs throughout this family's chain.
  • Context: Internal family clean-up — son conveys his inventor interest to his father, consolidating title ahead of the 2018 roll-up.

• 2018-03-14 (executed) / recorded 2018-03-14 — Reel [reel/frame not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Nathan C. Moskowitz
  • Assignee: Moskowitz Family LLC (Rockville, MD)
  • Correspondent: Fish & Richardson P.C., Customer No. 26191, Minneapolis, MN (same firm/customer number as above).
  • Context: Transfer from individual inventor to the family-owned holding LLC — the key structural event in the chain and the date from which Moskowitz Family LLC holds title.

Confirmed reel/frame for adjacent family members (NOT '188 itself — do not attribute these to '188):

• Reel 035557/0312, Reel 039331/0648, Reel 039331/0867 — assignments to Nathan C. Moskowitz (individual), cited in the §3.73(b) statement for App. 13/108,982.
• Reel 048237/0270 — Moskowitz, Nathan C. → Moskowitz Family LLC (recorded for App. 16/025,667).
• Reel 045586/0373 — Moskowitz, Nathan C. → Moskowitz Family LLC (recorded for the 16/744,755 chain).

These establish the repeat structure: individual inventor → Moskowitz Family LLC, with Fish & Richardson P.C. as the recurring correspondent of record.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7846188
    2005 : Provisional filed
    2006 : Application filed by Moskowitz
         : Glozman assigns rights to Moskowitz
    2010 : Patent US 7846188 issued
    2015 : Glozman assignment re-recorded
    2016 : Mosheh Moskowitz assigns to father
    2018 : Assigned to Moskowitz Family LLC
    2019 : Globus infringement suit filed in W D Tex
    2020 : Case transferred to E D Penn
    2023 : Jury finds no infringement
    2026 : Federal Circuit affirms Globus win

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — unclear (arguably weak-present).
   The patent moved from individual inventor(s) to Moskowitz Family LLC on 2018-03-14. The LLC suffix "Family LLC," the non-practicing nature of the entity, and its asserted posture tick some boxes. But the disconfirming evidence is strong: the LLC is owned by the inventor and his two sons (per the W.D. Tex. complaint in 6:19-cv-672), the address is the family's Rockville, MD location rather than a registered-agent/commercial mail-drop, and there is no third-party acquisition — title never left the inventor family. This is an inventor-controlled holding vehicle, not a classic single-purpose shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present.
   No assignment to or from Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Erich Spangenberg entity. Moskowitz Family LLC is an inventor-owned, single-family plaintiff that does not appear on the major high-frequency-plaintiff directories surfaced here.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present (weak).
   Fish & Richardson P.C., Customer No. 26191, P.O. Box 1022, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1022, is the recurring firm of record, and Michael T. Hawkins (Reg. No. 57,867) executed the §3.73(b) chain-of-title statements as "Attorney for Assignee" on 2017-07-20. However, this recurrence is within a single owner family, and Fish & Richardson is a large general-practice firm that handles both NPE and operating-company work — so a single-firm recurrence here is not a meaningful NPE tell. The earlier 3003/0105PU docket series indicates a different prior firm, further weakening the "one lawyer runs the shells" theory.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
   Transfers are spaced 2006 → 2015 → 2016 → 2018 (~12 years), not the sub-24-month churn through chained LLCs that characterizes troll structures. No shared registered-agent address pattern, no common-principal shell series.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present (for '188).
   Last transfer 2018-03-14; the first suit (Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-672) was filed 2019-11-20 — roughly 20 months later, outside the 6-month window. Further, the '188 patent itself was not asserted; the asserted patents were its continuations ('913, '022, '740, '643, '367, '386, '268, '319).

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
   No Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no court-supervised patent sale, no Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid-style divestiture. Assignor was an individual inventor, not a distressed operating company.

7. Privateering — not present.
   There is no operating-company-backing-a-proxy structure; the patentee and the asserting entity are the same inventor family. The patent was never transferred to a third-party proxy to assert against competitors.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present.
   The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent sits with an asserting holder, not a defensive one.

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: The current owner, Moskowitz Family LLC, is a non-practicing entity (no product embodying the claims; the family monetizes through licensing and litigation) that acquired title from the individual inventor on 2018-03-14 and, after a failed 2015 licensing negotiation with Globus, filed suit (6:19-cv-672, filed 2019-11-20) seeking over $86 million. That non-practicing-plus-assertion posture is the one strong signal. The secondary signals are weak: a "Holdings/Family LLC" style transferee and a recurring correspondent firm (Fish & Richardson P.C., Customer No. 26191; Michael T. Hawkins, Reg. No. 57,867). Critically, this is not a classic acquired-portfolio troll — title never left the inventor family, there is no cascading shell chain, no known-NPE assignee, no bankruptcy fire-sale, and no pre-litigation transfer window. It is best described as an inventor-owned family patent-holding company asserting its own portfolio, which is why confidence is moderate rather than high. Also note US 7,846,188 itself was never asserted (only its continuations), and the family lost on the merits — jury verdict December 2023, affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2026-09-11 (Nos. 2:20-cv-03271 (E.D. Pa.); Fed. Cir. 24-1696).

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7846188) and the mirrored index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — pull the four recordings (2006-12-27, 2015-05-13, 2016-08-03, 2018-03-14) to capture the reel/frame numbers and the recorded correspondent for each, which were not retrievable in this session and are the outstanding gap in this analysis.

I'll research US patent 7846188 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

Let me get the complete citation list with dates.

Let me verify the identities and dates of the key cited references.

1. Confirming the target patent (interpreted literally)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7846188/en (authoritative text supplied to me), cross-checked against PubChem's patent record https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-7846188-B2.

Important scoping point before the prior-art analysis: every one of the 24 granted claims is drawn to the self-drilling bi-directional gear-driven screw apparatus. Although the title and specification disclose a facet-joint staple gun (FIGS. 8–13), no claim recites the stapler, the staple, or facet stapling. Therefore staple/stapler art (e.g., trans-facet screw references) cannot anticipate any claim here — it is only germane to the written description/support, not to §102 of the claims as issued.

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2. The "References Cited" (prior art of record) for US 7,846,188

The US-7846188-B2 record lists the following cited art (PubChem's page, which mirrors the USPTO/Google Patents front-page citation list). I am not auto-correcting any identifier — all numbers appear exactly as listed.

2a. U.S. patent documents (verified titles/dates where confirmed by search)

2b. Non-patent literature of record

• Grob D, Benini A, Mannion AF. "Clinical Experience With the Dynesys Semirigid Fixation System for the Lumbar Spine." Spine 30(3):324–331 (2005). — discussed in the specification itself (Description of the Relevant Art).
• Wai EK, et al. "Disk Replacement Arthroplasties: Can the Success of Hip and Knee Replacements be Repeated in the Spine?" Seminars in Spine Surgery 15(4):473–482 (Dec. 2003).
• International Search Report (ISR) for the family.

Transparency note: I could not independently verify the titles, inventors, or exact publication dates for roughly 40 of the ~50 listed references within my search budget. Where the table says "number only; not verified," I am not asserting a title. I flag this rather than fill gaps from memory, per the operating rule against fabrication.

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3. §102 anticipation analysis — reference by reference

The controlling observation for independent claim 1

Claim 1 recites the combination of:
(a) a gear box;
(b) a first screw member with tapered end + threaded body, inside the gear box;
(c) a second screw member axially offset from the first, inside the gear box; and
(d) a drive mechanism including a gear disposed between and engaging each of the first and second screw members, simultaneously driving them in equal and opposite directions from the gear box.

No reference in the cited list discloses a worm-drive → spur-gear → two counter-rotating threaded screw members architecture. The cited art is overwhelmingly intervertebral fusion cages / spacers / disc prostheses (Michelson-type cages, Ferrée/Keller-type disc replacements, Pisharodi expandable spacers). Cages and disc prostheses do not have a gear disposed between two counter-rotating threaded screws. Accordingly:

• Claim 1 — no anticipation on the face of the record. The examiner never entered a §102 rejection; the art of record is background/general-field art.

The one reference that deserves genuine §102 scrutiny

US-4599086-A (Doty, "Spine stabilization device and method," 1986-07-08). Verified from its own text: it discloses a vertebral-body implant whose anchoring pins move from a "retracted position" (FIG. 3) to a "fully extended anchoring position" (FIG. 4) and expressly includes "a second embodiment of the gear mechanism" (FIG. 8), with an actuating wrench ("posterior engaging position" / "anterior engaging position," FIGS. 5–6).

• Potentially anticipates / materially reads on: claim 1 (gear-driven anchoring members extending out of a central body into the superior and inferior vertebral bodies), and consequently the dependent claims that simply add gear-box and drive-screw detail — claims 2, 3, 4, 7, 15, 18, 19, 24.
• Distinguishing features the patentee could rely on to avoid §102: Doty's element is characterized as pins, and there is no clear disclosure of threaded first/second screw members with tapered ends, nor of the screws rotating in "equal and opposite directions" about parallel axes with the gear's axis parallel to the screws and transverse to the worm axis (claim 24). Those distinctions are factual questions requiring the full Doty disclosure and file history.
• This is the single most relevant reference in the list and is the one I would expect to have been the §103 anchor (alone or with Ogilvie/Kapp).

Second tier — relevant to the multi-gear-box / plate / enclosure claims

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4. Bottom line

1. No reference of record anticipates independent claim 1 (or claims 8, 11, 18, 19) — the worm-drive/spur-gear/twin counter-rotating-screw mechanism is not disclosed by any cited item. This is consistent with the file: the examiner issued no §102 rejection.
2. The strongest (and only serious) §102/§103 candidate is US-4599086 (Doty) — its gear-mechanism-driven anchoring pins extending from a central vertebral body approximates claim 1's functional core, but requires reading "pins" onto "threaded screw members with tapered ends" and "equal and opposite" rotation, which Doty does not clearly show.
3. US-4636217 (Ogilvie) and US-4554914 (Kapp) are the principal structural secondary references; a §103 combination of Doty + Ogilvie/Kapp would have been the conventional challenge to claim 1, with Ogilvie/Kapp supplying the "vertebral-body-to-vertebral-body fixation" teaching.
4. The facet-stapler subject matter named in the title is unclaimed, so none of the cited staple/facet references can anticipate anything in this patent.
5. Caveat: this is an analyst assessment. I have not read the full text/drawings of the ~40 unverified references, and I do not have the 11/536,815 file-history office actions in hand. Conclusions about Doty turn on the full disclosure, which I recommend pulling directly (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4599086A](/patent/US4599086A)/en) and from the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper before relying on them.

Sources cited: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7846188/en; https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-7846188-B2; https://patents.google.com/patent/US4599086A/en (text excerpt); https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[9034046](/patent/9034046).html (Kapp/Doty/Ogilvie title confirmations); https://patents.google.com/patent/US8257443 (Alleyne reference confirmation).

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art record rather than inventing references. Let me pull the cited-art and invalidity records for this patent and its family.

The ISA record for the '188 patent's PCT counterpart gives me the actual prior-art citations. Let me verify those references' identities and disclosures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 7,846,188 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Prepared: April 26, 2026 · Patent: US 7,846,188 B2 (app. 11/536,815; filed Sept. 29, 2006; granted Dec. 7, 2010; priority asserted Apr. 12, 2005)

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0. Preliminary: two contradictions to flag before analysis

(a) Date inconsistency with the prior sections. The previously generated sections rely on Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 11, 2026), including a 2026 precedential opinion. This task header states the current date is April 26, 2026. Those cannot both be true. I flag it rather than reconcile it: if the operative date is April 2026, the Sept. 11, 2026 opinion cited in the earlier sections has not yet issued. Nothing in the §103 analysis below turns on it, but the prior sections' litigation conclusions should be re-verified against the correct clock.

(b) The "Prior Art section of this page" is thinner than it appears, and one citation set must not be attributed to this patent. The Google Patents text supplied for US 7,846,188 contains:

• Prior art keywords: screw, screw member, gear, gear box, screws.
• Prior art date: 2005-04-12.
• The specification's own "DESCRIPTION OF THE RELEVANT ART" narrative (pedicle screws, ALIF/PLIF/TLIF, threaded titanium cages, bone dowels, carbon-fiber cages, femoral ring allograft, PEEK bores, BMP/DBM, anterior vertical plating, resorbable plates, static transfacet screws, and the Dynesys flexible-rod system with the Grob/Benini/Mannion, Spine 30(3), 2005 citation).
• A "Cited By (80)" list that is truncated in the fetched text, and no "Patent Citations" / "References Cited" enumeration at all.

So there is no examiner-citation list on the fetched page to reason from. I therefore flag one important near-miss: an ISA/US International Search Report and Written Opinion that cites US 4,997,432 (Keller), US 2004/0254644 A1 (Taylor), US 2005/0049590 A1 (Alleyne), US 2005/0027362 A1 (Williams), US 2005/0216084 A1 (Fleischmann) and US 2005/0278026 A1 (Gordon) with claim-by-claim relevance does exist in the Moskowitz file history — but it is the ISR/WO for PCT/US 07/05005 (international filing Feb. 28, 2007; priority April 4, 2006; applicant Moskowitz, Nathan), which is a different Moskowitz application (its claim 1 recites "a pair of substantially parallel plates … a core … a limiter"), not this patent's PCT counterpart, PCT/US2007/021015 → WO 2008/042305 A2. Those Keller/Taylor/Alleyne citations therefore cannot be described as the art applied against US 7,846,188's claims. I use them below strictly as independently available prior art on their own dates, not as "the examiner's art."

Source for the ISR/WO: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1558555](/patent/1558555)/download-documents?artifactId=4Ytnh_-8kasMziPY9bUmtV33rISdXSMfEtEST34l-dJGpHHaYv16tUc ; family/PCT identity from the supplied Google Patents page (PCT/US2007/021015, WO2008042305A2; "Country Status … WO (1) WO2008042305A2").

Two further framing points from the page that materially shape the §103 analysis:

1. The patent's own CPC scheme concedes the mechanism was known in this art. The page classifies the '188 under A61F2002/30523 ("…relative movement between the prosthetic parts by means of meshing gear teeth") and A61F2002/30525 ("Worm gears"), plus A61F2002/30476 / 30507 / 30517 (locked connections; threaded locking member/set screw; locking plate). A patent whose own classification places it in a pre-existing "worm gears" and "meshing gear teeth" subclass is, by definition, claiming in a crowded and classified mechanical subfield.
2. The claims are not limited to the spine. Claim 1 recites "members"; the abstract expressly extends the apparatus to "wood, building materials, metals, masonry, or plastics," and the specification says the bidirectional screw "may indeed have applications in general commercial, industrial and carpentry industries." This is a self-inflicted wound under In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2004): the field of endeavor and the reasonably pertinent art expand to all gear-driven bidirectional screw assemblies. It also forfeits any "non-analogous art" defense against mechanical references.

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1. Prior-art pool available against the '188 claims

All dates below predate at least the Sept. 29, 2006 actual filing date; items marked ✔✔ also predate the asserted Apr. 12, 2005 priority date.

Common-sense/mechanical-arts baseline (no citation needed, per KSR and In re Bigio): worm-and-wheel drives, spur/idler gearing, differentially-threaded (left-hand/right-hand) turnbuckle screws, and self-tapping/self-drilling screw threadforms were each centuries old by 2005.

Also relevant: KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007); In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2004); and the CAFC's 2026 construction of "universal" in this family, which rests on the '188's shared specification — i.e., the specification the panel relied on is this one. (Opinion)

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2. Claim 1 — the only independent claim, element by element

Claim 1 (decomposed):

Ground 1 (principal): Alleyne in view of Mastrorio (optionally further in view of Barber).
Alleyne supplies 1.0–1.4 — a spinal implant housing, plural threaded screw members, and a worm gear disposed between them driving them simultaneously. Mastrorio supplies the "equal and opposite" bidirectional-drive teaching in an expressly spinal implant — internal gear system separating opposed bodies, parts "movable axially and in the opposite direction from one another," and the reverse-thread rod. Barber supplies the self-drilling/threaded-body form of the screw members and the cage-like body. Every element is present; the combination is a substitution of one known gearing arrangement for another in a known implant architecture (KSR category B: "simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results").

Ground 2 (alternative): Keller in view of Alleyne in view of Mastrorio.
Keller supplies the implant body and a single expansion device interposed between a pair of bodies, plus serrated/toothed bone-engaging surfaces. Alleyne supplies the worm-gear-driven threaded screw expansion. Mastrorio supplies the opposed-direction actuation. Same result on claim 1.

Ground 3 (alternative, non-medical route). Because claim 1 recites "members" and nothing physiological, a worm-driven bidirectional carpentry/industrial screw (a worm screw driving two oppositely-threaded members apart, together with a spur/idler gear) anticipates or renders obvious 1.0–1.5 in view of the '188's own admission of carpentry applicability. Under Bigio, such art is both within the field of endeavor (fastening/joining members) and reasonably pertinent.

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3. Dependent claims — grouped obviousness grounds

3.1 Claims 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 17, 18, 19 (worm drive, spur gear, accessible head, screwdriver)

These claims add nothing beyond conventional worm gearing: an aperture for access (claim 2/17), a spur gear driven by a wormed drive screw (claim 3/19), an externally accessible head turned by a screwdriver (claims 4, 7, 18), and a spindle in the worm (claim 6).

• Alleyne discloses a threaded worm gear with an actuation interface (the reference is about an expandable implant the surgeon actuates), i.e., an accessible drive.
• Mastrorio discloses a hexagonal port 49 on the actuation rod and expressly: "The devices of the present invention may include conventional actuation means well known to the person of ordinary skill in the art … a percutaneous approach is used to deliver the distal end of a driver (e.g., screwdriver or hexdriver) to a port in the device. Upon rotation of the driver, the height of the implant is adjusted."
• Worm-to-spur gear reduction in an implanted expanding device is also taught by the surgical-tool art: US 2008/0262494 A1 ("a pinion gear … engaged with a rack … a worm gear engaged with the pinion gear") — published after the '188, so usable only as evidence of the ordinary skill level, not as §102/§103 art.
• Motivation: worm drives provide self-locking (the '188 spec relies on this: the drive holds position), a high reduction ratio, and fine, controlled incremental advance — the same reasons Mastrorio gives ("a worm gear helps to hold the position … so that it does not inadvertently retract" in the analogous art of growing rods). Substitution of a spur gear for a worm wheel, or addition of a screwdriver-accessible head, is within KSR categories A–D.

3.2 Claims 5, 20, 21, 22, 23 (screw anatomy: internal threading, cavity, spur-gear teeth, spindles)

Claim 20 (external threaded portion + spur gear teeth on the screw) and claims 21–23 (internal threaded bore + cavity + mating spindle with base, rod and threaded segment) are conventional machine-element recitations — a threaded insert/stud with a guide spindle is ordinary mechanical design, and the ISA record in the sibling case matched precisely this kind of element to Gordon (¶[0148], [0163]; Figs. 40, 41, 47a) for a comparable claim set. Under KSR, "[a] person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity," and reciting the standard internal thread/spindle subassembly of a screw does not rise to patentable weight where the function (retain the screw member in the housing along its axis while permitting rotation) is exactly what the prior art achieves with nuts, collars and spindles.

3.3 Claims 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 (two-in-one: second gear box, joining plate, screw caps, serrations, insert/cap interlock)

• Two gear boxes / multiple anchors: plainly routine — the technology of placing two or more implants/anchors in a disc space is the entire ALIF/PLIF/TLIF corpus described in the '188's own background, and Barber '460/Brett '689 disclose plural anchor constructs.
• A plate joining two anchor bodies (claim 9): anterior spinal plating is the baseline art the '188's specification attacks at length ("anterior vertical titanium plates which cross the intervertebral space … secured to the vertebral bodies above and below"). A POSITA with plate-and-screw hardware in hand needs no inventive faculty to shorten a vertical plate into a transverse bridge — a change in shape serving a newly recognized benefit (zero/sub-zero profile), which is a predictable use of a known technique on a known device ready for improvement (KSR category D).
• Screw caps / locking plate (claim 10) and screw inserts in the gear box engaged by caps through plate perforations (claim 16): the screw-backout problem and its standard solution (locking caps, set screws, locking plates) is explicitly acknowledged in the '188 specification ("screw and/or plate pull-out," "screw back out/breakage"), and the '188's own CPC classification includes A61F2002/30507 ("threaded locking member, e.g. a locking screw or a set screw") and A61F2002/30517 ("using a locking plate"). Mastrorio discloses a set-screw locking mechanism in the same implant class. The combination is a textbook "known technique to improve a similar device in the same way."
• Serrations on two exterior surfaces (claim 15): bone-engagement teeth/serrations/spikes on implant surfaces are taught by Keller (tooth-like projections 6), Williams (conical/angled/pyramidal spikes), and the '188's own CPC entry A61F2002/30904 ("serrated profile, i.e. saw-toothed"). Antimigration serration is the very definition of predictable.

3.4 Claims 11, 12, 13, 14 (three-in-one IBFD: third gear box, enclosures, triangular pattern, bone-fusion slots)

• Third gear box (claim 11): pure aggregation (KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods … when it does no more than yield predictable results").
• Upper and lower enclosures (claim 12): the '188 specification itself frames this as an enclosure/IBFD; interbody cages with top and bottom walls are the standard interbody cage form factor named in the background (rings/boxes, carbon-fiber cages, femoral ring allograft).
• "Triangular pattern" (claim 13): the specification concedes the design choice — "it is also possible to place a third screw inferior and in the middle of the two other UBS screws … thereby providing additional screw intervertebral fixation." Triangulation of three anchors is a routine engineering expedient for three-column-ish stability (and is, in any event, the geometry the patentee's own parent claims disclose).
• Slots for bone fusion material (claim 14): graft windows in interbody cages are ubiquitous (Barber '460; Brett; the "vertebral interbody rings or boxes" and "carbon fiber cages" the '188 itself lists; US 2005/0278026 (Gordon) and Fleischmann '084 in the same 2005 window). A slot letting bone grow through an enclosure is the purpose of every interbody cage.

3.5 Claim 24 (axis geometry: screw axes and spur-gear axis parallel; worm axis transverse)

Claim 24 is the dependent claim with the most superficial appeal and the least substance. A worm drive is defined by the worm axis being transverse to the worm-wheel axis; and a spur gear meshing with two parallel screw shafts necessarily has an axis parallel to both. Claim 24 therefore recites the inherent geometry of the very mechanism recited in claim 3/18/19 — it is a definitional restatement, not an added structural limitation. Under §103, a limitation that is the inherent and unavoidable consequence of the structure the reference discloses is not a patentable distinction.

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4. Why a POSITA would have combined these references

A. The problem and its solution were both in the record. The '188 specification's own "Relevant Art" section supplies every motivation a POSITA needs: pedicle screw complications (misplacement, neural/vascular injury, blood loss, adjacent-segment disease, re-operation), interbody cage extrusion, graft/spacer subsidence, and plating screw pull-out/breakage. Its own abstract identifies the answer as a worm-drive/spur-gear bidirectional screw in a subsidence-resisting casing. Where the specification states the problem the claim solves, the motivation to combine is supplied by the applicant (KSR category G / "design incentive … in the field").

B. All the elements were known, and the combination yields nothing more than predictable results (KSR category A). Housing + worm + gear + threaded member + opposed-thread motion = the sum of the parts, working as each part was expected to work.

C. Same field, same purpose, same structure — no cross-industry leap. Alleyne, Mastrorio, Keller, Taylor and the '188 are all intervertebral implants addressing height/space restoration and fixation. A POSITA designing an implant whose parts must be moved apart and held would look first to (i) worm gearing (self-locking, high reduction — the standard solution for hold-position expansion) and (ii) differential/reverse-thread screws (the standard solution for equal-and-opposite motion from a single input). The "identified, predictable solutions" were few, which is itself a KSR "obvious to try" finding (KSR, 550 U.S. at 421).

D. The patent's own admissions broaden the analogous art. "Any commercial or carpentry application," "wood, building materials, metals, masonry, or plastics," and "general commercial, industrial and carpentry industries" (spec.; abstract) mean the patentee cannot confine the prior art to spine implants. In re Bigio governs.

E. No teaching away. Nothing in Keller, Alleyne, Taylor, Williams or Mastrorio disparages a gear-driven opposed-direction screw; Mastrorio affirmatively embraces it. Where the prior art predicts the claimed direction of improvement, the §103 case strengthens. (Note: the "teaching away" language in some of the retrieved prosecution material relates to other Moskowitz applications, not this one.)

F. Secondary considerations are absent or neutral. No unexpected-results evidence is presented in the specification. The record the earlier sections established shows the '188 was never asserted (as nearly as could be determined) while the family's later continuations were — and those later assertions ended in noninfringement (CAFC 2026) and PTAB institution denials. That pattern is not evidence of nonobviousness; at most it shows the later claims were narrower. Additionally, the page lists the patent as "Expired – Fee Related" — if that is accurate, maintenance lapsed, which undercuts any commercial-success/nonobviousness story.

G. PTAB denials do not rescue the claims. Globus's petitions in IPR2020-01303 through -01308 were denied institution (Paper 7 decisions, Dec. 2020–Jan. 2021). That is a threshold-discretionary outcome on specific grounds (e.g., Gutlin + Barber + Sutcliffe against the '643, Gutlin/Baynham/McLuen/Allen/Sutcliffe against the '268) and against different claims of different patents. It establishes only that those particular combinations were not institution-worthy; it neither addresses the ground set above nor immunizes the '188's claims.

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5. Consolidated claim chart (obviousness)

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6. Where the §103 case is weakest (and where the patentee should focus)

Be balanced about this rather than triumphalist:

1. Element 1.4's precise wording — "a gear disposed between and engaging each of the first and second screw members." Alleyne's worm gear engages worm nuts, which in turn engage adjustment screws; a court could read the claim to require the gear to directly engage both screw members. Mastrorio's gear separates bodies, not screw members. The strongest infringement-avoidance and validity-preservation argument for the patentee is a narrow construction of "engaging" plus the absence of a single reference showing a gear tooth-to-tooth with two screw heads at once. A challenger should look for a mechanical reference in which one gear directly meshes with two gear-toothed screw members (this is a common arrangement in bidirectional fasteners, turnbuckles, and machine jacks, but I was not able to retrieve and verify a specific pre-2005 U.S. patent in the searches available — that verification gap is the single most important item to close).
2. Kinematic tension inside the claim/spec. The specification says the spur gear produces "simultaneous rotation of the superior and inferior screws 102, 103 in equal and opposite directions," yet a single spur gear meshing with two externally-toothed screw members necessarily rotates them in the same rotational sense; "opposite" motion is obtained by opposite-hand threads or by engagement on opposing flanks. If the patentee must read "opposite directions" as opposite translation, that reading aligns the claim almost exactly with the Mastrorio reverse-thread teaching and strengthens the obviousness case. If the patentee instead insists on literal opposite rotation, the claim is in tension with its own disclosure (a §112 written-description/enablement vulnerability, and a claim-construction fight the patentee may lose). Either way the patent's position is uncomfortable — I flag this as a genuine technical concern, not as a certainty.
3. Claim 16's specific insert/cap/perforation interlock is the most structurally particular dependent claim and the one most likely to survive a §103 attack absent a reference showing a cage body with threaded insert bores + a plate whose perforations are traversed by threaded caps. A challenger needs a plate-and-cage locking reference; the direction is obvious, the pin-down is not yet in hand.
4. The '188 patent's real commercial idea — "zero- to sub-zero-profile" horizontal mini-plating — is not in the claims. The claims reach "a plate" (claim 9) and caps (claim 10, 16), but never the zero-profile/horizontal-trans-discal limitation. This is the classic disclosure-claims mismatch: the patentee's best story at trial would be the unclaimed concept. For §103 purposes, this helps the challenger, because the unclaimed contribution cannot be used to argue nonobviousness of what is claimed.

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7. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is the whole patent's validity. With 23 dependents hanging from it, every claim stands or falls on the gear-box/spur-gear/bidirectional-screw combination. That is a fragile architecture, and a single successful §103 attack on claim 1 takes the patent down.
• A strong prima facie §103 case exists on claim 1 on Alleyne + Mastrorio (+ Barber), and on the alternative Keller + Alleyne + Mastrorio line, supported by (i) the patent's own CPC classification in "worm gears"/"meshing gear teeth," (ii) the patent's own candid statement of the problems, (iii) its admission of non-medical applicability, and (iv) the ubiquitous differential/reverse-thread bidirectional-drive mechanism.
• The dependent claims are, with few exceptions, conventional machine-element or design-choice recitations and are obvious over the same pool augmented by Keller/Williams (serrations), Gordon/Fleischmann/Barber (cages, graft slots, inserts), and the admitted anterior-plating and locking-cap art (plate, caps, insert interlock).
• The genuinely contestable issues are narrow: (i) whether "gear … engaging each" requires direct gear-to-screw-member meshing; (ii) how "equal and opposite" is construed (a construction that helps the patentee on §112 hurts on §103, and vice versa); and (iii) claim 16's insert/cap interlock.
• Pragmatically: if the page's "Expired – Fee Related" status is accurate, the patent has lapsed and the §103 question is largely retrospective (damages window closed), unless the lapse is an artifact of the Google status field.

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8. Confidence and explicit caveats

• High confidence: the claim structure (single independent claim) and claim texts; the statutory availability of Keller (1991), Alleyne (Mar. 3, 2005), Taylor (Dec. 16, 2004 — granted as US 7,214,243), Williams (Feb. 3, 2005), Barber ('460, 1993), Allen ('335, 1997), B-Twin (2003) and WO 2004/052245 as art against at least the Sept. 29, 2006 filing date, and of all but Fleischmann/Gordon/Mastrorio against the asserted Apr. 12, 2005 priority date.
• High confidence that the Keller/Taylor/Alleyne/Williams/Fleischmann/Gordon citation set comes from the ISR/WO of PCT/US 07/05005 — a different Moskowitz application — and must not be represented as the '188's own prosecution art.
• Verified existence, content not fully retrieved: Williams '362, Fleischmann '084, Gordon '026, Gutlin WO 2004/052245, Barber '460, Allen '335. Descriptions of these rest on third-party quotations (ISA record, IPR exhibit lists) rather than my own reading of the documents.
• Not verified / open: (a) the '188's actual PTO "References Cited" and examiner's reasons for allowance (the Google Patents citations list was absent from the fetched text); (b) the primary examiner and art unit for the '188; (c) whether the spur gear/worm drive limitations are new matter relative to parent 11/208,644 (which controls whether the Apr. 12, 2005 or Sept. 29, 2006 date applies — the analysis above is deliberately robust to either); (d) a specific pre-2005 reference showing one gear directly meshing with two gear-toothed screw members — closing this gap is the highest-value next step.
• Speculative: the inference that the "Expired – Fee Related" status reflects non-payment of maintenance and the absence of commercial success; and any suggestion that the 2026 CAFC "universal" holding bears on the '188's own claims (it does not — the '188's claim 1 contains no "universal" preamble, and its preamble reaches non-medical members).