US 8257370

I'll search for authoritative information on US 8,257,370, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

No 2026 CAFC docket surfaced. Let me check for any litigation or assignment activity involving this patent.

Let me check for PTAB proceedings and any appeal involving this specific patent.

US 8,257,370 B2 — Summary

Note on scope of search: I searched for the exact identifier 8257370 and did not return results for similar numbers (e.g., 8,353,913 / "the '913 patent," or the separately-numbered "the '740 patent" seen in Moskowitz litigation papers — those are different patents). Any uncertainty is flagged below.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative full text at patents.google.com/patent/US8257370/en)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A staple gun for a lumbar facet joint staple, including a puller disposed in and extending through the hollow cylinder body, wherein the puller has a puller tip coupled to the first end of the puller, wherein the first end of the puller and at least a part of the puller tip are disposed inside the first end of the hollow cylinder body when the handle is in the closed position, and wherein the first end of the puller and at least a part of the puller tip extend outside the first end of the hollow cylinder body when the handle is in the open position. A posterior lumbar facet joint staple for engaging the puller tip, and staple guns for a posterior cervical facet joint staple also are provided."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The authoritative text I was given describes the claim subject matter through "an aspect of the invention is directed to…" passages. I do not have the numbered claim set verbatim in the supplied text (that portion appears truncated), so the mapping below is to the described independent aspects, not a verified claim-by-claim listing:

1. Lumbar facet joint staple gun (the lead/abstract claim). A tool with a two-bar handle (upper bar 408, lower bar 410), a hollow cylinder body that receives the staple at one end, a connector pivotably joining the handle to the cylinder, a puller rod running through the cylinder and coupled to the handle, and a puller tip 402 on the far end of the puller. The key mechanic: when the handle is open, the puller and at least part of the puller tip project outside the cylinder, freeing the two-part tip (402a/402b) to swing open so a staple can be loaded or released; when the handle is closed, the puller retracts and the puller tip is caged inside the cylinder and cannot open, so the staple cannot fall off during surgery. A return spring biases the handle open.

2. Posterior lumbar facet joint staple. A two-claw (top/bottom) staple with bone-engaging prongs and ridges, joined by a pivot pin, with side protuberances that seat in the staple gun's puller tip, and integral closing mechanisms — either a flexure spring/ratchet pawl (FIGS. 9A–B) or a torsional spring plus brake (FIGS. 10A–C) — that lock the staple closed with high force and resist reopening.

3. Posterior cervical facet joint staple gun(s). A simpler impaction-style gun: handle, central staple plunger, tip, and retaining spring(s) that hold a two- or four-pronged cervical staple in the guide. The device is struck with a hammer to impact the staple into the facet joint; pressing a central button/plunger opens the spring(s) so the staple is released and the gun can be reloaded. One embodiment uses a single central retaining spring; another uses two mirrored retaining springs.

4. BDFT screw/cage apparatus (the intervertebral construct). An intervertebral cage that maintains disc height and carries bone-graft material, with first and second internal screw guides angled to drive two screws bi-directionally in opposite directions (one rostral, one caudal) into the adjacent vertebral bodies; a central screw locking lever 24 (or a press-fit screw locking horizontal bracket 30 with hooks 34 and flexion grips/tabs 32) locks the screw heads to prevent back-out/pull-out. Separate dependent/aspect-level variants cover a 4-screw lumbar version, an anterior cervical version, the horizontal-bracket alternative to the lever, and the bracket's deformable/hook structure.

5. Pliers device. An insertion/removal tool for the locking bracket: two pivotally coupled arms with upper/lower tips and stops 46 to hold the bracket, a leaf spring 48 to pre-load/biase the handles apart, and a limiter 50 with limiting screw 52 to prevent over-closing and crushing the bracket.

6. Method of inserting a BDFT screw/cage apparatus between two vertebral bodies. Insert the cage into the disc space midline until flush or countersunk; insert first and second screw members into the two internal screw guides; screw them into the superior and inferior vertebral bodies; then lock them in place using the central screw locking lever (rotating it from the unlocked to locked position), and unlock by reversing that rotation. A bracket variant locks by press-fitting the horizontal bracket so its hooks engage the cage's hook insertion slots, and unlocks by squeezing the flexion grips to deform the bracket and release the hooks.

Litigation / PTAB / CAFC check

• No 2026 CAFC docket involving US 8,257,370 was located in my searches. There is no indication in the sources I retrieved that this patent is on appeal at the Federal Circuit. I cannot rule out that a docket exists but is not indexed in the sources I could reach — treat this as "not found," not as a definitive negative.
• What I did find is adjacent Moskowitz-family activity, none of which is against the '370 patent:
  • Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 19-cv-672-ADA (W.D. Tex.) — the asserted patents identified in the claim-construction briefing are the '740 patent (curvilinear nail screws), '386, '913, '022, '367, '643, '268, and '319 patents. US 8,257,370 does not appear among the patents identified in that briefing.
  • Globus's IPR petitions (IPR2020-01303 through -01308) targeted, respectively, US 10,307,268, US 10,478,319, US 8,353,913, and US 9,889,022 — with institution denied in IPR2020-01307 as to 8,353,913 (Paper 7, Dec. 21, 2020). None of these IPRs is against 8,257,370.
  • One USPTO PTActs petition document (petition 1558745) contains a table listing application 12/471,345 / patent 8257370 with title and the inventor name "Alvarado, Pablo A. Valdivia Y." alongside many other Moskowitz patents. From the excerpt retrieved, this appears to be an internal listing within a petition filing rather than an adversarial proceeding against the '370 patent; I could not verify the petition's subject matter.

Explicit uncertainties

• The complete numbered claim set (exact claim numbers and full claim language) is not present in the authoritative text supplied to me; the text ends mid-Summary. The independent-claim overview above is derived from the specification's enumerated "aspects of the invention" and the abstract, and should be verified against the issued claims before being relied on for any infringement or validity analysis.
• The "current assignee" field is expressly disclaimed as potentially inaccurate by the source itself, and it contains a misspelling ("Moskowtiz Nathan C"); ownership as of today cannot be confirmed from these sources.
• I found no 2026 CAFC docket for this patent.

I'll search litigation databases and dockets for US 8,257,370 specifically.

Let me run more targeted searches to confirm whether the '370 patent itself has been asserted or challenged.

Litigation search: US 8,257,370

Bottom line: I found no litigation — no district court case, no PTAB proceeding, and no CAFC appeal — in which US 8,257,370 (application 12/471,345) is the asserted, challenged, or otherwise case-numbered patent. I searched for the exact identifier "8257370"/"8,257,370" and treated hits on similar numbers (e.g., 8,353,913; 10,028,740) as distinct. Below I set out what I found, what I did not find, and how confident I am.

1. Cases I identified involving the patent's owner (Moskowitz family) — none of which names the '370 patent

The Globus, NuVasive and Medtronic pleadings and claim-construction briefs that surfaced enumerate their asserted patents in detail (e.g., the Globus Markman brief lists the '740, '386, '913, '022, '367 and '643 patents; the CAFC opinion covers the '913, '022 and '319 patents). US 8,257,370 does not appear in any of those assertion lists. Sources: the Globus opening claim-construction brief and the CAFC opinion summarized at ipwatchdog.com/2026/09/13/cafc-affirms-noninfringement-rulings-on-spinal-implant-patents and natlawreview.com.

2. PTAB / IPR proceedings

The Medtronic and Globus IPR campaigns against Moskowitz-family patents are substantial, but none of the petitions I located is directed to US 8,257,370:

• Globus IPR2020-01303 through -01308 — targeted US 10,307,268, US 10,478,319, US 8,353,913, and US 9,889,022 (institution denied as to 8,353,913, Paper 7, Dec. 21, 2020).
• Medtronic IPR2025-01598, IPR2026-00121, IPR2026-00162 (challenging US 12,011,367), and IPR2026-00265 (challenging US 10,064,738), shown at portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2026-00265.

3. The one document that does mention 12/471,345 / 8,257,370

USPTO PTActs petition filing 1558745 (a Patent Owner Mandatory Notice in Medtronic, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, IPR2026-00162, concerning US 12,011,367) contains a table listing application 12/471,345 / patent 8257370 with the inventor name "Alvarado, Pablo A. Valdivia Y." This is a portfolio-listing context (37 C.F.R. § 42.8 mandatory-notice style disclosure of related patents), not an assertion or challenge of the '370 patent. It does not create a litigation case for the '370 patent.

4. Why this absence is consistent

US 8,257,370 issued Sept. 4, 2012, has a longest possible term measured from its April 12, 2005 priority, and Google Patents lists it as "Expired – Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of July 2, 2026. A patent nearing or past expiry is a low-value assertion target, which is consistent with its non-appearance in the Moskowitz enforcement campaign (which instead centers on later-issued continuations such as the '913, '022, '319, '367, '293, '674 and '643 patents).

5. Explicit caveats — please read before relying on this

• This is a "not found," not a certified negative. CourtListener, PACER, and Unified Patents' portal are not fully full-text searchable by patent number in the results I could reach; a complaint that merely attached the '370 patent as an exhibit or cited it as background would not necessarily surface. I also could not verify the NuVasive and Medtronic complaints' complete patent lists first-hand.
• Search limits reached. I was cut off before completing several planned queries (e.g., a direct docketalarm/Docket Navigator lookup on "8257370" and verification of the '370 patent's own "Litigation" tab). Those gaps are why I frame this as "no litigation located" rather than "no litigation exists."
• Cross-reference to the prior section: the earlier generated summary already reached the same conclusion ("No 2026 CAFC docket involving US 8,257,370 was located; US 8,257,370 does not appear among the patents identified in the Globus briefing"). My search is consistent with, and does not contradict, that finding. One point to note for accuracy: the prior section described the Globus case as "No. 19-cv-672-ADA (W.D. Tex.)"; the docket records confirm it was filed as 6:19-cv-672-ADA in W.D. Tex. and transferred on July 2, 2020 to E.D. Pa. as 2:20-cv-03271-MSG, where all substantive activity (Markman, SJ, trial, JMOL) occurred. Both numbers should be cited.

Conclusion: On the evidence available, US 8,257,370 has no known litigation history — it has not been asserted in any of the Moskowitz-family suits identified (Globus, NuVasive, Medtronic, ZimVie) and has not been the subject of any identified IPR or CAFC appeal. Its only appearance in the retrieved record is as a portfolio-listing entry and as a cited reference in later patents.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,257,370: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal, which is the canonical feed for IPR/PGR/CBM petitions — returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. I found nothing in web sources that contradicts that: no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal involving US 8,257,370. Breakdown by status: not applicable (no active, no invalidated, no sustained, no settled, no institution-denied proceedings). The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore the opposite of a "hardened" patent: the claims of the '370 patent sit entirely untested at the PTAB, no petitioner is estopped under § 315(e)(2), and every prior-art ground remains on the table for a defendant to raise. That said, this is a narrow, low-stakes posture for a different reason — the patent's own bibliographic record shows it expired 2026-07-02 (status "Expired – Fee Related"), so any IPR would now be worth pursuing only to knock out claims for past damages, not to clear a live product.

⚠️ Flag — contradiction with previously generated section: The earlier summary attributed a "current assignee" status as live; that remains consistent. No contradiction there. The one item I want to flag explicitly is a search false positive I did not treat as this patent: several results referenced "the 2025 IPRs involving the '370 Patent" (IPR2025-00687 / -00688) in a dispute involving Berkshire Hathaway Energy, PacifiCorp, an MDL, and Missouri power plants. That is a different patent whose number happens to end in 370 (an energy/utility patent), not Moskowitz's spinal US 8,257,370. Do not conflate them.

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Per-proceeding detail

None. There are no proceedings to detail. I will not fabricate proceeding numbers, panels, or dispositions. For the record, here is what the adjacent (non-'370) Moskowitz-family activity looks like, so you can be confident the absence is real and not a search artifact:

• No entry in this series is against US 8,257,370. The Globus campaign targeted the '268, '319, '913, and '022 patents (and the petitions cross-reference the '643 and '740 patents). The '370 patent is a sibling in the same 2005 priority family (provisional 60/670,231), but it was never petitioned.
• The 2025–2026 Medtronic campaign (Medtronic, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC) likewise targets different Moskowitz patents — e.g., IPR2025-01598, IPR2026-00121, -00124, -00163, and IPR2026-00285 — against patents such as the '367 and '755, not the '370. Moskowitz's own stay opposition in D. Minn. No. 0:25-cv-00769 lists the asserted patents ('293, '674, '505, '738, '183, '284, '633, '797, '136, '367, '088, '755) — US 8,257,370 is not among them.
• Source anchors for the above (non-'370) proceedings: PTAB E2E / PTActs at ptacts.uspto.gov and the Globus institution decisions (e.g., IPR2020-01306, Paper 7, 2021-01-08, denying institution).

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Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. For US 8,257,370, the answer is unambiguous: every claim is UNTESTED at the PTAB. Nothing has been canceled; nothing has been sustained. There is no IPR record to narrow the claims, which means the issued claims stand exactly as granted (subject only to whatever happened in prosecution/ex parte reexam, which is outside the AIA-trial scope of this task). Cross-reference the earlier section's caveat: I still do not have the numbered claim set verbatim in the authoritative text, so I cannot list surviving-claim language — but that limitation is moot here because no claim was ever adjudicated.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever instituted against this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is empty. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no ground that a prior challenger "raised or reasonably could have raised" that is now off-limits. A defendant facing assertion of the '370 patent today has the full menu of invalidity defenses available — § 102/§ 103 on any patent or printed publication, plus § 112 and § 101 theories in district court — with no PTAB-based estoppel shadow.

Pattern signals. The Moskowitz family is a heavy, serial enforcer (Globus 2019; ZimVie 2022; Medtronic and NuVasive 2025), and its patents have drawn repeated IPR campaigns — Globus filed an eight-petition wave in 2020 (all denied institution in 2021) and Medtronic filed a multi-petition wave in 2025–2026. Against that backdrop, the total absence of any petition against the '370 patent is itself a meaningful signal: it suggests the '370 patent either was not asserted in the campaigns that generate IPRs, or that defendants did not view it as worth challenging. There is no defensive-aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) involvement evidenced for this patent. Moskowitz has shown itself willing to litigate aggressively but has not pursued any PTAB appeal on the '370 patent (none exists to appeal).

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Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant being asserted on US 8,257,370: there is no PTAB activity to leverage — and none to fear. Say so plainly to your client. The absence of any IPR means (a) no claim has been narrowed or canceled, but also (b) no estoppel constrains your invalidity case, and (c) there is no co-pending PTAB proceeding that would justify a stay.
• Calendar the expiration. The bibliographic record shows the patent expired 2026-07-02 ("Expired – Fee Related"). If you are evaluating a demand letter or an accusation of ongoing infringement dated after 2026-07-02, the asserted right is limited to past damages within the § 286 six-year lookback (measured from the filing of suit). Ask the patent owner to identify the accused acts and their dates.
• If you want PTAB review anyway: an IPR can still be filed on an expired patent (the PTAB may not entertain claim amendments, but the merits analysis proceeds under Phillips). With no prior petitioner, you would face no § 315(b) time bar unless you were served with a complaint more than one year ago, and no § 325(d)/§ 315(e) estoppel. That is an unusually clean slate — but weigh it against the practical reality that the patent is expired and any benefit is retrospective.
• Verify ownership before relying on the record. The "current assignee" field is self-disclaimed as potentially inaccurate and contains a misspelling ("Moskowtiz Nathan C"); assignment entries show transfers to Moskowitz Family LLC in 2018. Confirm the current owner of record (USPTO Assignment database) before negotiating any license or covenant.
• Re-run the ODP check before filing anything. The structured ODP feed is the canonical source and currently shows zero. If a petition is filed between now and your filing, it will appear there first; the absence today is a snapshot, not a permanent guarantee.

Explicit uncertainties I am not papering over: (1) I could not retrieve the PTActs petition file 1558745 in full — its excerpt merely lists application 12/471,345 / patent 8257370 within a table of Moskowitz patents, which reads as an exhibit listing inside some other petition, not an adversarial proceeding against the '370 patent; I could not confirm its subject matter. (2) Some search-engine snippets conflate unrelated patents numbered "…370"; I have excluded those. (3) Treat "zero proceedings" as "none found in the canonical ODP feed and none surfaced by search," which for an issued-2012 patent that is now expired is the expected, and defensible, conclusion.

Links referenced: US 8,257,370 full text — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8257370/en · PTAB E2E / PTActs — https://ptacts.uspto.gov · CourtListener — https://www.courtlistener.com (for any future Federal Circuit docket, which as of 2026-09-28 shows none for this patent).

I'll research the assignment record for US 8,257,370 across USPTO Assignment Search, Google Patents legal events, and asserter directories.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and correspondent details.

I found specific reel/frame references in chain-of-title statements. Let me pin down the records specific to application 12/471,345 / patent 8,257,370.

Data-confidence note up front. The assignment events below for US 8,257,370 are taken from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events record (dates, conveyance type, assignor/assignee) supplied with this analysis. I was unable to retrieve the Assignment Center reel/frame numbers for this specific patent in this session, and I will not invent them. Where I cite reel/frame numbers, they come from 37 CFR 3.73(c) chain-of-title statements filed in sibling applications of the same Moskowitz family, not from verified records of 12/471,345 — I flag every such instance. Treat those as candidate reel/frames requiring lookup at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 8257370).

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Inventors

Pattern notes.

• This is a family/founder inventor group, not a corporate R&D team. Three of the four inventors share the Moskowitz surname; the fourth (Valdivia y Alvarado) is the only outside contributor.
• Unusual and relevant: the issued patent names "Individual" as original assignee (see next section). That means no pre-issue assignment to any company was recorded — the inventors held their undivided interests personally at issuance, which is the opposite of the usual corporate-assignment-at-filing pattern. Rights were consolidated only post-issuance (2015 and 2016), and only then pushed into an entity (2018).
• No evidence was found that all inventors departed a common original assignee within 12 months — there was no common corporate assignee to depart from. The "engineer/inventor departures precede fire-sale" tell does not apply here.

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Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Individual (i.e., no assignee — the named inventors held title individually). Confirmed against the Google Patents bibliographic record for US8257370, which lists Original Assignee as "Individual."
• Primary line of business of that "assignee": N/A — individuals. The relevant later holder, Moskowitz Family LLC, is a Maryland limited liability company at 212 North Adams Street, Suite 200, Rockville, MD 20850, self-described in its own pleadings as "created to develop human spine related devices and protect and license any resulting inventions and intellectual property," and as owning "nearly one hundred United States patents and nine pending patent applications."
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No product was identified in any source retrieved. Moskowitz Family LLC describes itself as a development/licensing vehicle, and its enforcement posture is against third-party medical-device manufacturers (Globus Medical, Medtronic). I found no commercial spinal-staple or staple-gun product attributable to the assignee. Mark this not confirmed, not "no products" as a hard finding.
• Current status: Operating as a patent-holding/assertion entity (not insolvent; actively litigating as of 2025–2026). The patent itself, however, shows legal status "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2026-07-02 — i.e., the '370 lapsed early on maintenance-fee non-payment and is on the shelf.

Contradiction flag vs. the previous section: the earlier summary stated "No 2026 CAFC docket involving US 8,257,370 was located." That remains correct for the '370 patent. However, I did surface live 2026 Federal Circuit activity in the assignee's flagship case, Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., CAFC (CourtListener docket 69935576; the search returned this docket for CAFC appeal number 24-1696), with entries dated 2026-03-27, 2026-04-29, 2026-05-04, 2026-07-02, 2026-07-07 and 2026-09-11. So "no 2026 CAFC docket" is true only as to the '370; the family has a live 2026 appeal. I also found a newer Medtronic case and IPR not in the earlier summary: Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic, Inc., 0:25-cv-00769 (D. Minn., filed Feb. 28, 2025) and IPR2025-01598 (Medtronic v. Moskowitz Family, US 9,005,293), plus IPR2026-00121 (Medtronic v. Moskowitz Family, US 11,864,755).

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Assignment timeline

Recorded events for US 8,257,370 per the Google Patents legal-events record. Reel/frame not retrieved for this patent — see notes.

• 2015-05-04 (executed) / recorded 2015 — Reel not retrieved (family-parallel candidate: 035557/0312 — see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Alvarado, Pablo A. Valdivia y
  • Assignee: Moskowitz, Nathan C. (212 N Adams St, Rockville, MD 20850)
  • Correspondent: not confirmed for this record. The attorney signing 37 CFR 3.73 statements on behalf of "Nathan C. Moskowitz" in this family at the relevant time was Michael T. Hawkins, Reg. No. 57,867, Fish & Richardson P.C., Minneapolis, MN — single appearance context, not established as the recording correspondent.
  • Context: Founder-consolidation — outside co-inventor sells his undivided interest to the lead inventor. This is the first step in aggregating 100% of title in one hand.

• 2016-08-03 (executed) / recorded 2016 — Reel not retrieved (family-parallel candidate: 039331/0648 or 039331/0867 — see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Moskowitz, Ahmnon D.
  • Assignee: Moskowitz, Nathan C. [recorded with typographical variants "Moskowtiz"/"MOSKOWTIZ" in the Google Patents event feed]
  • Correspondent: not confirmed. Fish & Richardson P.C. (TC), PO Box 1022, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1022 is the correspondence address of record across this family's post-2017 filings; repeat-player firm within this portfolio.
  • Context: Founder-consolidation — co-inventor interest to lead inventor.

• 2016-08-03 (executed) / recorded 2016 — Reel not retrieved (family-parallel candidate: 039331/0648 or 039331/0867 — see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Moskowitz, Mosheh T.
  • Assignee: Moskowitz, Nathan C.
  • Correspondent: not confirmed (same Fish & Richardson address of record).
  • Context: Founder-consolidation — co-inventor interest to lead inventor. After this, Nathan C. Moskowitz holds 100%.

• 2018-03-14 (executed) / recorded 2018 — Reel not retrieved (family-parallel candidate: 045586/0373 — see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Moskowitz, Nathan C.
  • Assignee: Moskowitz Family LLC (Rockville, MD)
  • Correspondent: Fish & Richardson P.C. (TC), PO Box 1022, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1022 appears as correspondence of record for Moskowitz Family LLC filings in this family (attorney docket series 46440-0009xxx). Repeat correspondent across the family — flag. Current PTAB/appeal counsel has since moved to Avantech Law, LLP, 80 S 8th St, Suite 900, Minneapolis, MN 55402 (Eric A. Zelepugas, Reg. 73,302; Robert A. Conley, Reg. 55,846; Umar R. Bakhsh, Reg. 67,307) — also Minneapolis.
  • Context: Transfer to assignee/assertion entity — individual lead inventor folds the entire portfolio (including the '370) into his own holding LLC. Not a third-party acquisition; not a name change.

Caveat on the "family-parallel" reels. In 37 CFR 3.73(c) statements filed in sibling Moskowitz applications (e.g., from PTAB petition documents for applications 16/025,667 and 17/706,873), the identical legal chain — Valdivia y Alvarado → Nathan C. Moskowitz; Ahmnon D. Moskowitz → Nathan C. Moskowitz; Mosheh T. Moskowitz → Nathan C. Moskowitz; Nathan C. Moskowitz → Moskowitz Family LLC — is recorded at reels/frames 045636/0075, 046069/0540, 045997/0805, 045586/0373 (and a later re-recording round at 048237/0710, 048260/0595, 048260/0654, 048237/0270). Because the Moskowitz family recorded the same conveyances at different reels for different applications, I cannot safely map any of those reels to 12/471,345. They are candidates only. The 2018-03-14 and 2015/2016 dates match this chain's Google Patents events; that is suggestive but not proof.

No other recorded conveyances found for this patent: no security agreement, no license recordation, no change of name, no merger, no release, no correction. No Assignment Center record was found tying the '370 to any purchaser, acquirer, or aggregator.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8257370
    2005 : Priority date from provisional
    2009 : Application 12471345 filed
    2012 : Patent issued to inventors as individuals
    2015 : Valdivia y Alvarado assigns to N Moskowitz
    2016 : A Moskowitz assigns to N Moskowitz
         : M Moskowitz assigns to N Moskowitz
    2018 : N Moskowitz assigns to Moskowitz Family LLC
    2019 : Related Globus suit filed involving other patents
    2025 : Related Medtronic suit filed involving other patents
    2026 : Patent expired for fee non-payment

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present, atypical variant. The patent moved from individual inventors to Moskowitz Family LLC (event 2018-03-14), an entity whose name matches the "Holdings/LLC" pattern and whose stated function is to "protect and license" inventions. However, the concrete shell tells are partly absent: the LLC's address (212 N Adams St, Suite 200, Rockville, MD 20850) is a real principal place of business, not a registered-agent service; it is inventor-controlled (formed by Dr. Nathan C. Moskowitz, the lead inventor), not an anonymous acquirer; and the acquisition was an internal founder-to-holding-company transfer, not a purchase from a third party. Call: present in form, not a third-party shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present, but not on the enumerated lists. Moskowitz Family LLC is a serial patent plaintiff: Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., 6:19-cv-672 (W.D. Tex., filed 2019-11-20; transferred to E.D. Pa. 2:20-cv-03271; now on CAFC appeal, docket 69935576 / appeal 24-1696); Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic et al., 0:25-cv-00769 (D. Minn., filed 2025-02-28); and a D. Del. complaint (1:25-cv-00711) asserting ten patents. It is not a match for Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, or an Erich Spangenberg entity. Note: US 8,257,370 is NOT among the asserted patents in any of these suits that I could identify — the asserted families are the '740/'386/'913/'022/'367/'643/'268/'319 set and the '363/'293/'854/'940/'284/'633/'753/'136/'567/'743 set.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. Fish & Richardson P.C. (TC), PO Box 1022, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1022 is the recurring correspondence of record for this portfolio's filings and the office that signed 37 CFR 3.73 assignee-showing statements for Nathan C. Moskowitz (e.g., Michael T. Hawkins, Reg. No. 57,867, signature date July 20, 2017, for US 8,353,913). Current PTAB/appeal counsel is Avantech Law, LLP, Minneapolis (Zelepugas Reg. 73,302; Conley Reg. 55,846; Bakhsh Reg. 67,307, signing a 3.73 statement on 2022-03-29). Caveat: Fish & Richardson is a large general-practice firm doing substantial operating-company work, and neither firm appears on any Unified Patents / RPX NPE counsel list I retrieved. The signal here is recurrence within one family, which is what the criterion asks for, but the "lawyer running the shells" inference is not supported — the same lawyer serves the same client in prosecution.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. There is exactly one LLC in the chain and no chain of successive LLC-to-LLC hops. The three transfers span ~34 months (2015-05-04 to 2018-03-14) and are consolidations to a single individual before one entity transfer, not rapid cascading.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present as to this patent. The entity transfer (2018-03-14) preceded the first Globus suit (2019-11-20) by ~20 months, outside the 6-month window, and US 8,257,370 has never been asserted, so no "arranged to enable assertion" inference attaches to the '370.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No bankruptcy of any assignor/assignee found; no Chapter 7/11 sale.

7. Privateering — not present. There is no separate operating company transferring to an NPE to assert on its behalf. The reverse structure applies: the inventor himself holds and asserts through his own LLC, and the LLC's pleadings describe the patents as original to Dr. Moskowitz.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Ownership remains with Moskowitz Family LLC.

Additional finding (not a listed signal, but material): The '370's status is "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2026-07-02 — it appears to have lapsed for maintenance-fee non-payment well before its statutory term (application filed 2009-05-22). An expired, unasserted, fee-lapsed patent is not a monetization asset. This cuts against the "built the chain to assert this patent" reading.

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The current owner of record, Moskowitz Family LLC (assignee per the 2018-03-14 recorded assignment), is a non-practicing patent-holding LLC that generates no products and enforces its portfolio against spinal-implant manufacturers — concretely demonstrated by Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc. (6:19-cv-672, W.D. Tex., filed 2019-11-20; CAFC 24-1696) and Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic et al. (0:25-cv-00769, D. Minn., filed 2025-02-28). Two signals are present: an entity-form transfer to a licensing/holding LLC (2018-03-14) and a repeat correspondent firm across the chain (Fish & Richardson PC, Minneapolis; now Avantech Law LLP, Minneapolis). Confidence is only moderate, and quality-of-evidence is limited, because: (a) the entity is inventor-controlled, not an anonymous acquisition vehicle, and holds a real Rockville, MD business address rather than a registered-agent mail drop; (b) the entity matches none of the enumerated public NPE lists; and (c) critically, US 8,257,370 itself has never been asserted and has lapsed for fee non-payment (expired 2026-07-02) — so this is a non-monetized portfolio member of a litigious, non-practicing family, not a patent being driven to litigation.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 8257370 (or application 12/471,345) to pull the actual reel/frame, execution dates, and the recording correspondent for each of the four conveyances above. If those records show the correspondent as anyone other than the Fish & Richardson / Avantech Minneapolis group, revise signal 3 accordingly.

Explicit uncertainties. (1) Reel/frame numbers for the four assignments were not retrieved and are not asserted here; the reels cited in the caveats belong to sibling applications and may differ for the '370. (2) The recording correspondent field was not obtained for any link — the attorney names given are signing/recordation-adjacent and are not confirmed as the recording correspondent. (3) Whether Moskowitz Family LLC has ever shipped a device was not affirmatively disproved, only not evidenced — verify against SEC/company filings if a stricter products inquiry is required.

I'll search for the specific patent number and its cited prior art.

Let me target the citation data specifically.

Let me try to pull the citation tables directly from Justia and Google Patents.

I hit the tool-call limit before I could pull the full automated "References Cited" table for US 8,257,370. Rather than pad this out with guesses, here is what I can state with confidence, with the gaps flagged explicitly.

⚠️ Scope limitation (read first)

I was not able to retrieve the complete USPTO/Google Patents "References Cited" (patent-citation) list for US 8,257,370 within my search budget. The searches I ran returned the patent's classification, family, and litigation/citation data, but not a verbatim enumerated list of the U.S. patent documents cited during prosecution of 12/471,345. Treat everything below as partial, and verify against the full "References Cited" and "Cited By" tables at:

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US8257370/en (sections "Patent Citations" and "Cited By")
• USPTO PatentCenter / Global Dossier for application 12/471,345 (file wrapper "References Cited" / PTO-892)

Confirmed prior-art citation (from the authoritative full text)

U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,261 — Dove, Hardcastle, Davis & King

Claim mapping under § 102: The Dove reference is discussed in the '370 specification exclusively in the context of the intervertebral cage / bi-directional fixating transvertebral (BDFT) screw construct — i.e., the aspect/claim family directed to the intervertebral cage with internal screw guides, screw members, and screw-locking mechanism (the cage+lever and cage+bracket claims, and the method-of-inserting-BDFT claims). It is not relevant to the other independent aspects (the lumbar facet staple gun, the posterior lumbar facet staple, or the cervical staple guns), which are mechanical stapler/spring/puller-tip constructions that Dove (a spinal fusion cage) does not address.

That said, my assessment is that Dove is unlikely to anticipate those cage claims under § 102, because the specification affirmatively distinguishes it on two points the claims recite: (a) symmetric screw-hole orientation and (b) the novel screw-locking mechanism. Dove's non-symmetric five-hole arrangement and single-stop design do not disclose those limitations. It is more properly a § 103 obviousness reference (and one the applicant already overcame).

Family members cited as priority (NOT prior art)

The following are the '370 applicant's own earlier applications, cited as priority/continuity, not as § 102 prior art:

• Ser. No. 11/208,644 (filed Aug. 23, 2005) → U.S. Pat. No. 7,704,279
• Ser. No. 11/536,815 (filed Sep. 29, 2006) → U.S. Pat. No. 7,846,188
• Ser. No. 11/842,855 (filed Aug. 21, 2007) → U.S. Pat. No. 7,942,903
• Ser. No. 12/054,335 (filed Mar. 24, 2008) → U.S. Pat. No. 7,972,363
• Provisional 60/670,231 (filed Apr. 12, 2005)

Also not prior art: the concurrently filed, commonly owned application Ser. No. 12/471,340 ("BI-DIRECTIONAL FIXATING/LOCKING TRANSVERTEBRAL BODY SCREW/INTERVERTEBRAL CAGE STAND-ALONE CONSTRUCTS HAVING A CENTRAL SCREW LOCKING LEVER…"), cited in the '370 specification as a related application.

Forward citations found (context only — not § 102 art)

• US 2011/0319935 A1 — appeared alongside "US 8257370 B2" in a later patent's citation listing (in JP2019533484A's references). This is a citing document (post-dates '370), so it cannot anticipate '370.
• A Justia "Referenced by"-style table (on US 11,872,143, "Spinal fusion implant," Simpson et al., June 5, 2012) lists "8257370 | September 4, 2012 | Moskowitz et al." — again a forward citation.

Explicit uncertainties / contradictions to verify

• The complete prosecution-cited prior-art list for US 8,257,370 is missing from this analysis. Until you pull the PTO-892 / "Patent Citations" table, you should not treat the above as exhaustive. Given the "prior art keywords" listed (staple, puller, handle, facet joint, tip), I would expect prosecution to have cited surgical-stapler and surgical-staple art (A61B17/064, A61B17/068) in addition to spinal-cage art — but I could not confirm any specific such references and will not name any without evidence.
• No contradiction with the prior summary, but one gap to flag: the earlier summary reported it could not locate the numbered claim set. That limitation directly weakens any § 102 mapping below the aspect level. The Dove mapping above is stated at the "aspect/claim family" level for exactly that reason.
• Litigation check (refines the prior summary, same conclusion): Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc. involves the '913, '022, '319, '643, '268, '269, and '740 patents. US 8,257,370 is not among the asserted patents, and no IPR or 2026 CAFC appeal targets it. Neither the Globus IPRs nor the Federal Circuit opinion (No. 2024-1696, affirmed Sept. 11, 2026) supplies prior art against '370.

Recommended next step: retrieve the PTO-892/References-Cited list from PatentCenter for application 12/471,345, then map each cited reference against the issued claims (which also need to be pulled — the claim text was truncated in the supplied material). I can do that mapping once that list is in hand.

I'll run targeted searches to see whether I can surface additional prior art references for the claim families that the earlier section flagged as missing (the stapler/staple aspects), before writing the obviousness analysis.

Let me pin down the identities of the references appearing in the Moskowitz-family IPR claim chart (Tisserand, Bonutti, Waugh) and try once more for the '370 patent's own citation table.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,257,370 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold flags (read before relying on anything below)

A. Date contradictions in the record. This task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026." The session's system date is 2026-09-28. The previously generated Litigation section relies on a Federal Circuit opinion dated September 11, 2026 (No. 24-1696), which post-dates the task's stated current date. These three cannot all be true. It matters practically because Google Patents lists the '370 patent as "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration July 2, 2026 — i.e., in force on April 26, 2026 and expired on September 28, 2026. I proceed on the task's stated date (April 26, 2026), but the § 103 analysis must be read as applying to a patent at or within weeks of expiry. I flag rather than resolve the conflict.

B. The numbered claim set is still unavailable. The Prior Art section confirmed that the authoritative text supplied to me ends mid-Summary and contains no numbered claims. Everything below is therefore mapped at the "aspect / claim-family" level, using the specification's enumerated "an aspect of the invention is directed to…" passages and the abstract. No § 103 conclusion here should be quoted as a claim-by-claim holding.

C. I am supplementing the Prior Art section. That section stated only U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,261 (Dove) was a confirmed prosecution citation and that the full References Cited/"Patent Citations" table for 12/471,345 was not retrieved. My additional searches surfaced (i) the Globus Medical IPR claim charts against sibling Moskowitz patents in the same family, and (ii) a References Cited table from a sibling patent (US 8,734,516). These are new, sourced material beyond the Prior Art section, not a contradiction of it — but they are sibling records, and their applicability to 12/471,345 is not confirmed. All are labelled accordingly below.

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1. Framework

Governing law. Application 12/471,345 was filed May 22, 2009, so the pre-AIA §§ 102/103 regime governs, as construed in Graham v. John Deere and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (2007). Under KSR, a motivation to combine need not be explicit in the references; it may come from design incentives, market pressures, the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions," ordinary creativity, or "obvious to try." Expectation of success need only be reasonable, not certain.

Proposed POSITA. For a 2005-priority spinal-instrument application of this type: a person holding an M.D. in orthopedic or neurological surgery and/or an advanced degree in mechanical/biomedical engineering, with roughly 3–5 years of experience designing spinal fusion instrumentation and surgical stapling/bone-anchor delivery tools, familiar with interbody cage geometry, bone-screw back-out prevention, and spring-biased tool mechanisms. This definition is my proposal and should be confirmed against the asserted claims.

Prior-art window — the decisive threshold issue. The '370 is a CIP filed May 22, 2009, in a chain reaching back to provisional 60/670,231 (April 12, 2005). Its claims therefore divide into two groups:

• Claims supported by the 2005–2008 parents (the BDFT cage + internal bi-directional screw guides) can claim the April 12, 2005 date. Art published after 2005 is not § 102 art against those claims.
• Claims resting on new matter added in the 2009 CIP — on the face of the specification, the evolved lumbar staple gun with the independent puller tip, the two new staple-closing mechanisms (flexure spring, FIGS. 9A–B; torsional spring + brake, FIGS. 10A–C), the simplified cervical staple gun with retaining spring, and the two screw-locking mechanisms (central lever; horizontal bracket + pliers) — get a May 22, 2009 effective date.

This is not academic. In IPR2026-00265 (Medtronic, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, challenging US 10,064,738), the Petitioner's Ground 1 is that the challenged claims are obvious over the Patent Owner's own earlier publication, "Moskowitz 440" (Application No. 2008/0033440), in view of Waugh — a position that only works if the challenged later-family claims do not carry the 2005 date. The same effective-date sorting must be done for the '370 before any reference is treated as prior art. Source: ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2026-00265.

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2. Reference inventory

Source for the IPR exhibit identifications: Globus Medical's petitions at ptacts.uspto.gov petitions/1539287 (the '022 patent) and 1539286 (the '913 patent).

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3. Grounds of obviousness, by aspect

3.1 Independent cage claims — cage + first/second internal screw guides angled to drive screws bi-directionally in opposite directions

Primary ground: Tisserand in view of Bonutti. This is the strongest ground in the analysis because it is not my construct — it is the ground Globus actually pleaded, and the claim elements it mapped are near-identical to the '370's cage aspect. Globus's chart shows Tisserand disclosing:

• an intervertebral cage;
• through-holes 1g and 1h serving as internal screw guides, each with an "internal bore with an entry opening and an exit opening," the entry opening formed in the top surface;
• the two guides oriented in opposite directions ("recess 1g is oriented upwards, while the recess 1h is oriented downwards… one (2) will be directed downwards, while the other (3) will be directed upwards"), i.e. exactly the '370's "each of the first internal screw guide and the second internal screw guide are angled to orient the first screw member and the second screw member bi-directionally in opposite directions"; and
• countersinks/counterbores recessing the screw heads.

Motivation to combine with Bonutti: both references are in the identical field (interbody fusion devices achieving fixation by transvertebral screws), address the same problem (fixation of an interbody spacer to the adjacent endplates), and Bonutti supplies the "bone fusion + screw fusion" dual-function framing the '370 claims as its own contribution. A POSITA would combine them to add a second, oppositely-directed screw guide (i.e., bi-directional fixation in both endplates) — a predictable improvement with a reasonable expectation of success. That is a textbook KSR rational.

Secondary/alternative ground: Dove '261 in view of Waugh. Dove gives the horseshoe cage with angled screw passages and a single screw-head stop; Waugh supplies screw-head retention. Motivation: the '370 specification itself frames the problem as "preventing pull-out or back-out of the screws," which is the exact problem Waugh's retaining structure solves. Dove alone is unlikely to anticipate (the '370 distinguishes it on symmetric hole placement and its novel lock), so Dove is properly a § 103 reference, not a § 102 reference — consistent with the Prior Art section's conclusion.

Note on the priority-date exposure of these claims: these elements were in the 2005–2008 parents, so they likely carry the April 12, 2005 date, in which case Tisserand/Bonutti/Waugh are prior art only if they themselves predate April 2005. That must be verified before relying on Ground 3.1. If a given claim instead carries a 2008–2009 date, the ground strengthens considerably.

3.2 Screw locking horizontal bracket (cover portion + side tabs + bracket hooks 34 engaging hook insertion slots 36 + flexion grips 32), and its deformable/releasable structure

Ground: Waugh (US 8,425,607 / US 2008/0249569) in view of Fanger, optionally further in view of Mathieu or Michelson.

Waugh's "face plate" attaches to slots on the implant's sidewalls and physically blocks screw back-out. Map that to the '370: hook insertion slots 36 prefabricated on the left and right sides of the cage + bracket hooks 34 + a cover portion spanning the screws + flexion grips (side tabs) 32. The structural correspondence is close, and the motivation is express: screw back-out was a "known and critical problem" whose consequence is implant loosening and failure. Globus made precisely this argument against Moskowitz's own family in IPR2026-00265 — combining Moskowitz 440 in view of Waugh for the "screw locking bracket" element, with the KSR rationales of (i) a known problem, (ii) a known solution, (iii) structurally analogous devices with pre-existing side slots, and (iv) minimal modification / predictable result. The '370's added twist — pressing tabs to elastically deform the bracket and release the hooks — is a predictable use of the elastic deformation inherent in a snap-fit hook, and the specification itself describes it as such:

"the user needs only to press on the side tabs 32 with the pliers to slightly deform (open) the bracket hooks 34, and thereby easily remove the bracket 30."

Counter-consideration. If the claim requires the bracket to be removable and re-lockable over multiple cycles ("The locking mechanism has several cycles of use"), that is a functional-result limitation that a POSITA would expect from a snap-fit hook design; it does not save the claim under KSR. But if no art teaches hooks rather than a screw or threaded engagement for the cover, that narrower limitation is where the '370 is strongest. Verification of Waugh's plate-attachment geometry is essential.

3.3 Central screw locking lever (rotatable T-shaped lever, unlocked ≠ parallel to the longitudinal axis, locked = covering both screws)

Implied ground: a plate/cage lock in which a rotatable member is turned to overlie screw heads, in view of Tisserand or Dove. This is the weakest ground in my analysis. I found no reference in the retrieved record that discloses a rotatable lever that alternatively exposes and covers a pair of bone screws in an interbody cage. The '370 specification expressly asserts:

"These novel locking mechanisms are also quite unique and different from all other conventional locking mechanisms used for other types of anterior lumbar cages."

and distinguishes "the conventional approach of matching screw/cage threads or spiral springs." Dove's single screw-head stop and Mathieu's threaded bore holes are not a rotatable lever. My honest assessment: a § 103 rejection of the central-lever aspect is not supported by the art I have retrieved. The lever is the one cage element for which I cannot construct a credible, verified combination, and it needs a dedicated search (rotatable/latching cover plates in orthopedic fixation, e.g. antegrade femoral nail end caps, plate covers, or cam-lock retainers).

3.4 Four-screw anterior lumbar cage (four horizontally aligned guides; two middle screws superior, two lateral screws inferior)

Ground: Tisserand in view of Bonutti and further in view of Brantigan (or Mathieu). This is the same ground Globus pleaded for the dependent claims of the '022 patent, adding Brantigan for the cage/spacer teaching and Mathieu for the multi-hole, ~35–55° angulated-bore teaching. The '370 specification itself cites Mathieu and describes its borehole axes ("the disclosed preferred borehole axes are 35-55 degrees"), and admits the symmetric four-hole arrangement was selected for "symmetry and inherent stability" — i.e., a design choice with a predictable biomechanical rationale. Under KSR, arranging four known screw guides symmetrically for stability is a classic obvious design choice. Strong ground.

3.5 Pliers (upper/lower tips with stops 46, leaf spring 48 to pre-load, limiter 50 + limiting screw 52)

Ground: design choice over any conventional compound-leverage surgical plier/applier, alone or with Waugh/Fanger. Two spring-biased handles, a pre-load leaf spring, a mechanical stop to limit closure, and tip stops to grip a component are independent, well-understood, interchangeable mechanical expedients with no asserted unexpected interaction. The specification offers no technical effect beyond "prevent over-pressing the locking brackets" — a result guaranteed by a limiter screw. Under KSR (familiar elements arranged according to known methods, yielding predictable results), this aspect is a weak claim on obviousness grounds. My confidence is high on the legal theory; my confidence that a specific § 103 combination will be found is moderate, since this is an apparatus claim in a crowded art and the examiner would need only one appliance-tool reference.

3.6 Posterior lumbar facet staple — flexure-spring (ratchet pawl) embodiment, FIGS. 9A–B; torsional-spring + brake embodiment, FIGS. 10A–C

Ground: prior-art ratcheted bone staple in view of the known substitution of a flexure spring for a coil/leaf pawl.

This is the aspect where the applicant's own specification supplies the admission, which is the most potent § 103 material in the whole document:

• "the embodiments illustrated in the related applications included a ratchet. The staple could be incrementally closed with increased ratcheting…"
• "As the staple closes, the ratchet 540 works in standard fashion."
• "The ratchet mechanism 540 limits the opening force of the staple 500 by a force proportional to the stiffness of the flexure spring 530… The force can be tailored by making the pawl from different materials or varying the dimension of the flexure spring."
• Re the torsional embodiment: "the spring does not interfere with the motion. Once the staple 600 is closed there is a ratchet mechanism (brake) 680 that engages with the spring 630. At that point, the force required to open the staple 600 will depend on the stiffness of the spring 630."

Take the applicants at their word: the closure/ratchet function is admitted to be standard; the only delta is choosing a particular spring element (curved flexure vs. torsion spring) as the pawl/brake, selected by material and dimension. That is the KSR "substitution of one known element for another to obtain the predictable result" and, in the alternative, "obvious to try" given the specification's own statement that strength can be tailored by varying material or dimension. A POSITA designing a bone staple that must withstand greater Newtons with fewer parts would routinely evaluate a flexure/torsion spring in place of a discrete pawl-and-coil assembly. Strong § 103 ground. The claim survives only if it recites a specific geometric relationship (e.g., a pawl pivoting "on the claw," ridges 570 on both claws, four pins in a specific spacing) that no ratcheted bone staple shows — a narrow, likely-inconsequential distinction.

I did not verify a specific ratcheted-bone-staple reference in the record (a check of the sibling PTO-892 entries Groiso US 5,660,188, Finn US 5,667,472 and Boe US 5,960,522 should be the first step, since those are the staple-adjacent names in the family's citation lists).

3.7 Lumbar facet staple gun — hollow cylinder + puller + return spring + independent puller tip that opens only when the puller extends and is caged by the cylinder when the handle closes

This is the lead/abstract aspect and, in my view, the least vulnerable to a § 103 attack on the record I have. Ground candidates:

1. The applicants' own earlier disclosure — US 2008/0177307 A1 (a Moskowitz-family publication, listed in the family's own reference lists) describes "an evolved and improved lumbar staple gun… which includes a spring return to bring the handles back to their original position after stapling, and a pull knob that opens the staple gun fingers to release a staple at will. The staple is also released automatically once it is closed." That is close to, but I am not certain it is coextensive with, the '370's claim. The timing problem is fundamental: the '370 characterizes this mechanism as new matter relative to its own parents, and a reference by the same inventive entity raises a § 102 "by another" / § 103 "same inventive entity" problem that must be worked through before it can be used.
2. Generic "constrained split-sleeve / collet" mechanical principle. The '370's stated mechanism is that the tip "can simply be opened only when the center shaft (puller) is extended completely," and when retracted "the release (puller tip) is constrained by the surrounding geometry i.e. it cannot move." A split sleeve captive within a bore is an ancient mechanical arrangement; a POSITA applying it to a staple-applying gun would predict confinement of the tip. On a KSR "known technique, predictable result" theory this is available — but it is a general-knowledge argument, not a specific-reference argument, and general-knowledge arguments are the ones most likely to fail without expert testimony.
3. The specification's own nonobviousness pitch — "the release mechanism doesn't have a spring" and "the main advantage of this mechanism is its simplicity" — is exactly the kind of argument KSR forecloses ("the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results"; simplicity is not a recognized secondary consideration).

Assessment: I would not assert a § 103 rejection of this aspect on the retrieved record. It is the aspect most likely to survive, absent a specific stapler reference that cages its staple-retaining fingers by retraction of the actuator.

3.8 Cervical facet staple gun (handle + central plunger + tip + retaining spring(s) 808 / 908, 909; hammer-impaction; button release; reload)

Ground: cervical staple impactor (the applicants' own earlier family disclosure — a handle 901, stem 902, screw insert 903, wings 904) in view of the ordinary spring-detent/retaining-spring expedient. The delta over the earlier impactor is replacing a threaded insert coupling with a spring-retained coupling releasable by a central plunger/button. Spring-loaded retention of a tool insert with push-button release is a notoriously well-known mechanical expedient, and the stated benefit (faster reload, simpler, cheaper) is the ordinary consequence. Under KSR, this is a strong obviousness position and a weak claim. Confidence: high on the theory, moderate on the specific reference (the '370's own family publication US 2008/0177307 A1 is the natural primary reference, subject to the same-entity caveat).

3.9 Method claims (insert cage to disc-space midline until flush/countersunk → insert first/second screws into the first/second internal guides → screw into the first and second vertebral bodies → lock; and the bracket-variant unlocking step)

Ground: Tisserand + Bonutti + Waugh render the apparatus; the method steps follow. A method of using a device is obvious when the device is obvious and the steps are the device's intended operation. Independently, the '370 specification discloses the surgical steps as conventional: anterior cervical placement is done "via previously described techniques for anterior cervical discectomy and fusion"; posterior lumbar implantation "can be performed via previously described… PLIF or TLIF procedures." Those are admissions that the procedural sequence is prior art ("Applicants' Admission of Prior Art"), usable against the method claims without any reference at all. Strong ground.

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4. Motivation to combine — the KSR rationales actually available here

1. Same field, same problem, same solution. Every pairing above stays within spinal fusion/stapling; the problems are identical (screw back-out, implant extrusion, staple dislodgement) and the solutions (an anti-back-out cover; angled bi-directional screws; a stronger spring-closed staple) are in the same family of mechanisms.
2. Explicit design incentive in the specification's own background. The '370's stated goal is less-invasive, percutaneous, faster, lower-morbidity fixation; that market/clinical pressure is itself a KSR motivation.
3. Substitution of known elements for predictable results. Spring type (flexure vs. torsion), retention means (threaded insert vs. retaining spring), and locking means (bracket vs. lever) are interchangeable options in a finite solution space.
4. "Obvious to try" with a reasonable expectation of success. The specification itself says staple-closing force "can be tailored by making the pawl from different materials or varying the dimension of the flexure spring" and that model selection matches "the needs of a given patient" — i.e., a routine, results-oriented optimization.
5. Admissions of prior art in the specification. (a) "the ratchet works in standard fashion"; (b) the staple gun features were "thoroughly described in the aforementioned related applications"; (c) the surgical steps are "previously described" techniques. These are usable as Applicant-Admitted Prior Art under § 103 regardless of the reference list.
6. Design choice / symmetry for stability. The four-hole symmetric lumbar arrangement is defended in the specification only as "selected because of their symmetry and inherent stability."

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5. Where the § 103 case is weak, and what would defeat it

• The central rotatable screw locking lever (aspect 3.3). No retrieved reference discloses it. This is the single most likely claim family to survive a § 103 challenge on the record I have.
• The puller-tip caged-release staple gun (aspect 3.7) — the lead claim. My best grounds are general mechanical knowledge, not a verified reference; without an expert declaration and a specific stapler reference, a rejection here is speculative.
• Effective filing date. Several otherwise-strong references (Waugh 2008; the Moskowitz 2008 publications) are post-2005. If the cage claims carry the April 12, 2005 date, those references drop out entirely. Sorting claims by effective date is not optional; it is dispositive.
• The same-inventive-entity problem. The Moskowitz family's own earlier applications/publications (2006/0241621; 2007/0049943; 2007/0198089; 2008/0033440; 2008/0177307; 2008/0249569-adjacent Waugh family) are the most on-point art for the stapler aspects, yet pre-AIA § 102(a)/(e) and § 103 "by another" requirements create real obstacles. The Medtronic IPR2026-00265 ground using Moskowitz 440 shows petitioners are willing to assert them, but I have not verified that the Board instituted on that ground.
• No secondary considerations in the record. No evidence of commercial success, long-felt need, or unexpected results was located; the patent was never asserted, and it expired, so no damages-based record exists to support a nexus argument. That does not help the patent owner.

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6. Recommended verification steps (in order)

1. Pull the numbered claims of US 8,257,370 from USPTO PatentCenter for 12/471,345, and the PTO-892 / References Cited list for that application — still the binding gap identified in the Prior Art section.
2. Pull the complete exhibit list from Globus petitions 1539286 ('913) and 1539287 ('022) to obtain the full citations (number, date, assignee) for Tisserand (EX1029), Bonutti (EX1030), Waugh (EX1028/EX1032), Fanger, Mathieu, Brantigan and Neumann.
3. Map each claim to its effective filing date (2005 parent vs. 2009 CIP new matter), then re-test the reference dates against that date.
4. Retrieve Groiso US 5,660,188, Finn US 5,667,472 and Boe US 5,960,522 to confirm whether they are surgical-staple art — the missing link for the staple and staple-gun aspects.
5. Search specifically for rotatable/cam lock covers over bone screws and for split-sleeve, retraction-caged staple retainers, the two aspects for which I have no verified art.

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7. Sources cited

• Authoritative patent text: patents.google.com/patent/US8257370/en (classification, prior-art keywords "staple, puller, handle, facet joint, tip," continuity, expiration).
• Globus Medical IPR petition against the '022 patent (Tisserand/Bonutti/Waugh/Mathieu/Brantigan): ptacts.uspto.gov …/petitions/1539287.
• Globus Medical IPR petition against the '913 patent (Waugh/Fanger/Neumann): ptacts.uspto.gov …/petitions/1539286.
• Medtronic IPR2026-00265 against US 10,064,738 (Moskowitz 440 + Waugh back-out ground): ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2026-00265.
• Sibling-patent References Cited list (basis for the PTO-892-style list in § 2): patents.justia.com/patent/8734516.
• Sibling specification confirming the staple-gun and staple embodiments as shared family disclosure: patents.google.com/patent/US10064738 and patents.google.com/patent/US10149703B2.

Bottom line: On the retrieved record, the strongest § 103 grounds are (1) Tisserand + Bonutti (+ Waugh / Brantigan / Mathieu) against the bi-directional-screw cage and four-screw lumbar aspects; (2) Waugh + Fanger against the screw-locking horizontal bracket; (3) prior ratcheted bone staple + flexure/torsion-spring substitution, supported by the applicant's own admissions, against the FIGS. 9–10 staples; (4) spring-retained insert in an impaction tool against the cervical staple gun; and (5) the method claims, aided by the applicant's admissions of the conventional surgical steps. The central rotatable screw locking lever and the puller-tip caged-release staple gun are the aspects I cannot render obvious on the available art, and I decline to assert them. This entire analysis is claim-text-blind and must be re-run once the numbered claims and the '370's own PTO-892 are in hand.