US 8353913

I'll research US patent 8353913, including any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Let me look for CAFC 2026 docket activity involving this patent's family.

Let me retrieve the independent claim text for the '913 patent.

US Patent 8,353,913 — Summary

Note on identifiers: I interpreted "8353913" literally as US 8,353,913 B2. All results below correspond to that patent; no near-number substitutions.

Date caveat: Your prompt states the current date as April 26, 2026, but my search results include a Federal Circuit decision dated September 11, 2026, and system time is later than April 2026. I report the search results as ground truth per instructions, and flag this discrepancy.

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Bibliographic data (Google Patents / USPTO)

Title (as granted): "Bi-directional fixating transvertebral body screws and posterior cervical and lumbar interarticulating joint calibrated stapling devices for spinal fusion" — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8353913/en

Abstract: "A self-drilling bone fusion screw apparatus is disclosed which includes at least first and second sliding boxes. A first screw member having a tapered end and a threaded body is disposed within the first sliding box, and a second screw member having a tapered end and a threaded body disposed within the second sliding box. An adjuster adjusts the height of the sliding boxes. The screw members are screwed into vertebral bodies in order to fuse the vertebral bodies together. A plurality of the self-drilling bone fusion screw apparatuses may be attached together and/or integrated via a plate or cage. Also disclosed is a cervical facet staple that includes a curved staple base and at least two prongs attached to the bottom surface of the curved staple base."

Important mismatch to flag: The granted title and abstract describe a screw box / cervical facet staple invention, but the granted claims are directed to a tool (and methods) for manipulating and inserting a "universal, intervertebral bone fusion spacer" — as the Federal Circuit itself characterized: "U.S. Patent No. 8,353,913 describes a tool for manipulating and inserting an intervertebral bone fusion spacer" (Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696).

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Independent claims — plain language

I have authoritative text for claim 1 and a near-complete reconstruction of claim 40, plus the Federal Circuit's characterization of claims 1, 10, and 15. I do not have verbatim, complete text of claims 10, 15, 38, and 39, so treat those as lower-confidence characterizations.

• Claim 1 — a tool for inserting a "universal" intervertebral bone fusion spacer.
  The spacer has an intervertebral cage with a first and second integral screw guide, and each longitudinal end of the cage has a slot or indentation near the edge of its upper surface. The tool has: (a) a gripper with multiple prongs, where each prong's distal end fits into a respective slot/indentation of the cage; and (b) a screw guide positioned between the prongs that controls the direction of screws threaded into the cage's integral screw guides. (Restated from the prosecution/PTAB record and the CAFC opinion.)

• Claim 10 — another tool/spacer combination claim in which "universal" appears only in the preamble (per the CAFC opinion). Body substance parallels the claim 1 concept; I cannot quote it verbatim with confidence.

• Claim 15 — a tool assembly claim that recites "universal" in the claim body (per the CAFC opinion). Claim 30 depends from claim 15 (addressing the angulation/proximity of the first and second integral screw guides). I do not have full verbatim text.

• Claim 38 — a method of inserting a "universal, intervertebral bone fusion spacer" into a disc space using the tool: measure the disc-space dimension; determine the disc space is lateral / anterior-lateral / posterior lumbar / anterior lumbar / or anterior cervical; select the spacer; engage the cage's slots/indentations with the prongs; insert the spacer into the midline of the disc space until flush or countersunk relative to the two vertebral bodies. (Restated from the PTAB petition record.)

• Claim 39 — a method of inserting the spacer and fusing the two vertebral bodies via biological bone fusion and screw fusion, including inserting first and second screws through the first/second integral screw guides and driving them into the respective vertebral bodies. (Restated.)

• Claim 40 — a tool assembly including the universal spacer, whose cage has a bone graft cavity, first and second screws disposed in respective integral screw guides that are angled bi-directionally in opposite directions, each screw guide forming a tunnel permitting only a predetermined angled trajectory, with the trajectories differing between the two guides; self-tapping/self-drilling screws with tapered ends and threaded bodies; ridges on a side of the cage; end slots/indentations for tool prongs; and a wall with four quadrants (defined by orthogonal first and second axes) governing placement of the screw-guide entry openings. (Reconstructed from the granted-claim text on Justia; near-complete but I am not certain it is fully verbatim.)

Many dependent claims cover: a handle (and a gripper with a tubular portion receiving the handle), a spring, an Allen key/adjuster for expanding the box, and flexible-shaft driver features.

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Litigation / PTAB (including CAFC 2026 dockets)

PTAB — IPR2020-01307, Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC (patent 8,353,913)

• Petition filed July 21, 2020; institution denied Dec. 21, 2020 (Google Patents lists "Not Instituted – Merits"); patent owner preliminary response Oct. 28, 2020; post-institution fee refund requested Mar. 7, 2021.
• Petition asserted Waugh (US 8,425,607) in view of Fanger (US 2004/0204717), and in further view of Neumann (US 6,752,832), against a long claim list including claims 1, 10, 15, 38, and 39.
• URL: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-01307 ; docket: https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-01307/Globus_Medical_Inc._v._Moskowitz_Family_LLC/

District court — Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc.

• Filed in W.D. Tex. as No. 6:19-cv-00672 (Nov. 2019), then transferred to E.D. Pa. as No. 2:20-cv-03271.
• The '913 patent was one of three (with the '022 and '319 patents) on appeal. District court construed "universal" to mean "an intervertebral bone fusion spacer designed to be inserted between [vertebrae/vertebral bodies] in any region of the spine, i.e., cervical, thoracic, or lumbar, using any approach, e.g., posterior, anterior, or lateral." Moskowitz conceded noninfringement under that construction; the district court held the preambles limiting and granted summary judgment of noninfringement as to the '913 and '022 patents (Dec. 22, 2022). Moskowitz had earlier withdrawn claim 15 (which recites "universal" in the body) but pressed claims 1 and 10 (preamble-only "universal").
• A jury returned a defense verdict on the '319 patent (Dec. 2023); JMOL denied.

CAFC 2026 dockets

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696 (Fed. Cir.) — precedential decision issued Sept. 11, 2026 (panel: Prost, Schall, Stoll; opinion by Prost), affirming the claim construction of "universal," the summary judgment of noninfringement as to US 8,353,913 and US 9,889,022, and the denial of JMOL as to US 10,478,319. Holding: the "universal" preambles are limiting because the claim bodies depend on them for antecedent basis (e.g., "the intervertebral cage," "the first integral screw guide") and because universality is a fundamental characteristic of the invention, not merely an intended use. The court rejected Moskowitz's argument that the construction demanded an impossible "one-size-fits-all" implant.
  • Oral-argument scheduling entries span early 2026 (conflict notices filed Jan.–Feb. 2026); docket entries #57–#71 in CourtListener.
  • URLs: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69935576/moskowitz-family-llc-v-globus-medical-inc/ ; https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01696/pdf/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01696-0.pdf ; https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/09/13/cafc-affirms-noninfringement-rulings-on-spinal-implant-patents/ ; https://fedcircuitblog.com/2026/09/11/opinions-orders-september-11-2026/
• A companion Federal Circuit docket, No. 24-1753, also appears in the Google Patents litigation links for this family (I did not retrieve its contents).

Other family litigation noted on the patent page: Darts-IP family link (family 39269006) and cases 2:20-cv-03271 (E.D. Pa.) and 6:19-cv-00672 (W.D. Tex.).

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Confidence and uncertainty

• High confidence: title, patent/app numbers, filing/issue dates, inventors, priority chain, abstract, PTAB IPR2020-01307 denial of institution, the district-court and Federal Circuit outcomes, and the Federal Circuit's holding on "universal"/preambles.
• Moderate confidence: the assignee history (original face lists "Individual"; current assignee Moskowitz Family LLC) and the expired-lifetime status/2025 expiry (Google Patents' assumptions, not a legal conclusion).
• Lower confidence / not fully verified: verbatim full text of independent claims 10, 15, 38, and 39, and the exact total number of granted claims. My claim 1 and claim 40 summaries come from the prosecution/PTAB record and Justia's rendering; I did not retrieve an official USPTO copy of the granted claim set, so I cannot guarantee they are word-for-word. If you need verbatim granted claims for a filing or opinion, pull the patent PDF from USPTO PatentCenter.

I'll research the litigation history of US patent 8353913 using multiple searches to gather the specific case details.

Let me gather more specific details on the CAFC appeals, the Globus case, and other identified litigations.

Let me confirm details on the Texas case, and check whether the '913 patent was asserted in the NuVasive and ZimVie litigations.

Based on my research across patent litigation databases (Unified Patents, Docket Alarm, CourtListener, Justia, CAFC opinions, and PTAB records), here is what is known about litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,353,913 ("Bi-directional fixating transvertebral body screws and posterior cervical and lumbar interarticulating joint calibrated stapling devices for spinal fusion"), owned by Moskowitz Family LLC.

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1. Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc. (the principal case)

This is the only court litigation I can confirm in which the '913 patent was actually asserted. It generated the two Federal Circuit appeals and the PTAB proceeding listed on the patent's face.

Original filing (Western District of Texas):

• Plaintiff: Moskowitz Family LLC
• Defendant: Globus Medical, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: [U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division](/courts/western-district-of-texas-waco) (Judge Alan D. Albright)
• Case No.: 6:19-cv-00672
• Filed: November 20, 2019 (served November 21, 2019)
• The complaint's Count I asserted the '913 patent (Exhibit Z), accusing Globus's COALITION, COALITION AGX, COALITION MIS, MONUMENT, and Independence devices/instrumentation. (Source: RPX litigation document 13845292; Docket Alarm.)

Transfer (Eastern District of Pennsylvania):

• Case No.: 2:20-cv-03271-MSG (Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg)
• Transferred by order of the WDTX dated July 2, 2020 (docketed/assigned in EDPA as 2:20-cv-03271). (Source: CourtListener recap 572950; Globus IPR2020-01307 petition papers.)

Asserted '913 claims and key rulings:

• At Markman, the court construed "universal" as "an intervertebral bone fusion spacer designed to be inserted between [vertebrae/vertebral bodies] in any region of the spine, i.e., cervical, thoracic, or lumbar, using any approach, e.g., posterior, anterior, or lateral." Moskowitz Fam. LLC v. Globus Med., Inc., No. CV 20-3271, 2021 WL 3784243 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 25, 2021).
• Moskowitz withdrew claim 15 of the '913 patent (which recites "universal" in the claim body) but maintained claims 1 and 10 (which recite "universal" only in their preambles).
• Summary judgment of noninfringement as to the '913 (and '022) patents granted, on the ground that the preambles are limiting and Moskowitz conceded it could not prove infringement under the court's construction. Moskowitz Fam. LLC v. Globus Med., Inc., No. CV 20-3271, 2022 WL 17876699 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 22, 2022).
• The case then proceeded to a jury trial in December 2023 on claim 1 of a different patent (the '319 patent). The jury returned a complete defense verdict of non-infringement, and the court denied Moskowitz's post-trial JMOL motion (Moskowitz Fam. LLC v. Globus Med., Inc., No. CV 20-3271, 2024 WL 3792390 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 13, 2024)). Moskowitz had sought more than $86 million in damages. (Source: Susman Godfrey.)

Outcome/Status: Resolved in favor of Globus — complete defense victory.

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2. Federal Circuit appeals (part of the Globus case)

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696 (Fed. Cir.) — Moskowitz's appeal of the summary judgment of noninfringement, the "universal" claim construction, and the denial of JMOL. Decided September 11, 2026 (precedential; Prost, Schall, Stoll, JJ.), affirming the district court in full, including that the '913 preambles are limiting and the construction of "universal." (Sources: CAFC opinion at govinfo.gov; IPWatchdog, Sept. 13, 2026; Nat'l Law Review, Sept. 24, 2026.)

  • Brief docketing: appeal received April 29, 2024.
  • Practical effect for the '913 patent: claims 1 and 10 were adjudicated not infringed by Globus, and that judgment is now final on appeal.

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1753 (Fed. Cir.) — Globus's cross-appeal (filed April 30, 2024), consolidated with 24-1696. Dismissed April 24, 2025 under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), each side bearing its own costs. (Source: CAFC order 24-1753, 4/24/2025.)

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3. PTAB proceeding (administrative, not court litigation)

• Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, IPR2020-01307 (P.T.A.B.) — Petition for inter partes review of the '913 patent filed July 21, 2020. Institution DENIED on the merits (decision dated December 21, 2020); a petitioner request for refund of post-institution fees was filed March 7, 2021. (Sources: PTAB records; GreyB/ipverse case page; Docket Alarm.) The '913 patent survived this challenge unmodified.

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Important caveats / potentially related matters

Moskowitz Family LLC has filed other patent suits that share the same patent family and specification but for which I could not confirm that the '913 patent itself is asserted:

• Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic, Inc. et al. (D. Minn., No. 0:25-cv-00769, filed 2025) — asserting later-generation Moskowitz patents (e.g., the '293, '674, '738, '505, '797 patents). The '913 patent does not appear among the asserted patents I located.
• Moskowitz Family LLC v. NuVasive, LLC et al. (D. Del.) and a 2022 matter against ZimVie — referenced in PTAB briefs, but I could not verify the '913 patent is among the patents asserted.

Because my search was constrained and I could not complete confirmation on those latter matters, I cannot state with confidence that the '913 patent is asserted in the Medtronic, NuVasive, or ZimVie cases. If you need certainty on those, the definitive check is the respective complaints/dockets and the Patent Center assignment records.

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Summary table

Bottom line: The only confirmed litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent 8,353,913 is Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., originally filed in the Western District of Texas (6:19-cv-00672) and litigated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (2:20-cv-03271), with the '913 claims ultimately held not infringed — a result the Federal Circuit affirmed on September 11, 2026. There is also a related PTAB IPR (IPR2020-01307) in which institution was denied. Verified litigation does not exist beyond this family of related proceedings based on the sources available to me.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed against US 8,353,913 — IPR2020-01307 — and it was never instituted. Breakdown: 0 active · 0 claims invalidated · 0 claims sustained · 0 settled · 1 institution denied.

Important discrepancy to flag: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block for this matter returned no AIA trials, and the default posture would be "no PTAB activity." That default is wrong in this case. The Google Patents litigation field for this patent lists "PTAB case IPR2020-01307 filed (Not Instituted - Merits)" (petitioner field blank), and my searches independently confirm a full 2020 Globus Medical petition against this patent. Treat IPR2020-01307 as on file.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this patent is neither PTAB-hardened nor PTAB-narrowed — it is PTAB-untested. Not one claim of the '913 patent has ever been canceled or adjudicated unpatentable, so the usual "claims X-Y are dead" defense is not available here. Conversely, because institution was denied, no IPR estoppel attaches, and the very art Globus used remains fully available to you. Your best asset is not the PTAB record at all — it is the Federal Circuit's precedential 2026-09-11 decision in Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 2024-1696, which held the "universal" preambles of claims 1 and 10 of the '913 patent limiting and affirmed summary judgment of noninfringement.

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IPR2020-01307 — Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2020-07-21 (Notice of Accord Filing Date 2020-07-28)
• Status: Institution Denied — § 314(a) ("Not Instituted – Merits" per the patent page); gloss: the Board found the petition failed to show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on any challenged claim, so no trial was ever instituted and no FWD exists.
• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges Meredith C. Petravick (opinion author), Neil T. Powell, and James J. Mayberry (Tech Center 3700, Art Unit 3733)
• Petition grounds (§ 103 obviousness only; no § 102 or § 112 grounds):
  • Ground 1 — Claims 1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26–28, 30, 32, 34–36, 38, 39 obvious over Waugh (U.S. Patent No. 8,425,607, EX1028) in view of Fanger (U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0204717, EX1029)
  • Ground 2 — Claims 6 and 20 obvious over Waugh + Fanger + Neumann (U.S. Patent No. 6,752,832, EX1030)
  • Challenged set: 1, 5–8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19–22, 24, 26–28, 30, 32, 34–36, 38, 39. Of these, claims 1, 15, 38, and 39 are independent; claims 5–8, 10, 11, 14 depend from claim 1; claims 19–22, 24, 26–28, 30, 32, 34–36 depend from claim 15. Supporting expert: Dr. Jorge A. Ochoa (EX1003, 67 pp.).
• Institution decision: Denied 2020-12-21 (Paper 7, 18 pages), within the six-month § 314(b) window (statutory deadline 2021-01-21). The Board expressly stated: "we conclude that the information presented in the Petition fails to establish that there is a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner would prevail in challenging at least one of claims 1, 5-8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19-22, 24, 26-28, 30, 32, 34-36, 38, and 39 of U.S. Patent No. 8,353,913 B2 as unpatentable under the grounds presented in the Petition," and "[p]ursuant to § 314, we decline to institute an inter partes review as to these claims."
  • The Board applied the Graham/KSR framework (level of ordinary skill, scope/content of prior art, differences; no secondary-considerations evidence in the record) and adopted Petitioner's proposed POSITA definition as reasonable. Its substantive analysis turned on Waugh's spacer (implant member 102 with recessed slots 120) and Fanger's guide device (guide member 518, pathways 520/522, tabs 524/526).
  • The Patent Owner's Preliminary Response (2020-10-28) had pressed, and the decision's record reflects, four recurring defects: (i) the Petition's proposed constructions were asserted with no supporting intrinsic or extrinsic evidence; (ii) no adequate motivation to combine Waugh and Fanger (only "could," not "would"); (iii) even on the Petition's own mapping, the combination did not show the claimed "screw guide" positioned between the plurality of prongs — Fanger's tabs 524/526 grip the implant, not a screw guide; and (iv) claims 38 and 39's affirmative method steps — "measuring a dimension of the disc space," "determining that the disc space is a lateral disc space, an anterior lateral disc space, a posterior lumbar disc space, an anterior lumbar disc space, or an anterior cervical disc space," and "selecting the universal, intervertebral bone fusion space based on the measured dimension" — were not shown in the prior art.
  • Docket-label caution: aggregator dockets display Paper 7 as "Trial Instituted Document / Board Institution Decision." That is an automated mislabel. Paper 7 is a Decision Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review 35 U.S.C. § 314 (18 pages). No trial was ever instituted.
• Final Written Decision: None. No FWD issued. No claim of the '913 patent was canceled, confirmed, or otherwise adjudicated on the merits at the PTAB. Do not let anyone tell you "the PTAB invalidated/upheld" anything here — it did neither.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The proceeding ended at the institution stage. Petitioner filed a Request for Refund of Post-Institution Fees on 2021-03-07, and the Board issued a Notice of Refund on 2021-03-12 — the standard administrative consequence of a denial.
• Appeal: No appeal of the IPR (nothing appealable without an FWD; Moskowitz's win was not appealable by Globus, and Moskowitz had no adverse ruling).
  • Related, and far more consequential: the parallel district court case went up. Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 2024-1696 (Fed. Cir. 2026-09-11) — precedential, panel of Judges Prost (author), Schall, and Stoll. The court affirmed (a) the E.D. Pa. construction of "universal" as "an intervertebral bone fusion spacer designed to be inserted between [vertebrae/vertebral bodies] in any region of the spine, i.e., cervical, thoracic, or lumbar, using any approach, e.g., posterior, anterior, or lateral," (b) the holding that the preambles of claims 1 and 10 of the '913 patent are limiting, and the resulting summary judgment of noninfringement of the '913 and '022 patents, and (c) the denial of JMOL on claim 1 of the '319 patent. Claims at issue on appeal: claims 1 and 10 of the '913 patent (claim 15, which recites "universal" in the claim body, had been withdrawn by the patent owner from the district court case).
  • The Google Patents page lists two CAFC cases in this family (24-1696 and 24-1753). I verified 24-1696 only; I could not verify the subject matter or disposition of 24-1753 and will not guess at it.
• Defensive value: Your leverage is inverted from the usual IPR story. The IPR bought you nothing — it was denied without an estoppel trigger, so Globus (and its privies) are not barred under § 315(e)(2) from re-running Waugh/Fanger/Neumann, and neither are you. What you actually get is (i) a public, precedential claim construction you can use offensively at the pleadings/Markman stage to defeat infringement of claims 1 and 10 of the '913 patent for any tool not designed for one-size-fits-all use across all spinal regions and approaches, and (ii) a denied-institution record showing that the leading commercial challenger with a $575/hr Exponent expert could not clear the § 314 threshold on a 69-page petition.

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Strategic summary

Claim status on 8353913. CANCELED: none. SUSTAINED (adjudicated patentable): none. UNTESTED: all of them. The IPR challenged claims 1, 5–8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19–22, 24, 26–28, 30, 32, 34–36, 38, and 39 and was denied before institution, so every one of those claims survives un-adjudicated; the same is true of the claims absent from the challenged list (e.g., 2–4, 9, 12–13, 16–18, 23, 25, 29, 31, 33, 37, assuming the patent's claims run continuously through claim 39 — claim 39 is challenged and independent, so the set runs at least that far). There is no IPR-driven narrowing to map. The only narrowing of real-world significance came from litigation: (a) the patent owner voluntarily withdrew claim 15 from the Globus case after the "universal" construction came down, and (b) claims 1 and 10 were held non-infringed as a matter of law, affirmed precedentially.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered only by a final written decision; because institution was denied, no IPR estoppel exists in either direction. Globus and its privies are free to assert Waugh (U.S. 8,425,607), Fanger (U.S. 2004/0204717), and Neumann (U.S. 6,752,832) in district court, and so are you — including in any new case involving this patent. Likewise, there was no § 315(a) or § 325(d) ruling of consequence. Practically: the entire prior-art field is open, with the caveat that the Board's stated reasons for denial (evidentiary gaps on claim construction, no articulated motivation to combine, failure to map the "screw guide between the plurality of prongs," and total failure on the claims 38/39 measurement/selection steps) are a roadmap of the defects a new petition would have to cure.

Pattern signals. The same petitioner — Globus Medical, Inc., a competitor-defendant sued by Moskowitz in W.D. Tex. (6:19-cv-00672, filed 2019-11-20) and refiled/transferred to E.D. Pa. (2:20-cv-03271) — filed a coordinated eight-petition volley on 2020-07-21 against six Moskowitz patents: IPR2020-01303/01304 ('268, both denied 2021-01-26/27), 01305/01306 ('319, both denied 2021-01-08), 01307 ('913, denied 2020-12-21), 01308 ('022, denied 2021-01-25), and petitions against U.S. 10,028,740 and 10,251,643 (final denial 2021-02-05). All eight were denied. So: no serial PTAB petitioner got traction, and there is no defensive aggregator in the chain — despite the "Unified Patents" URL on the Google Patents page, the IPR2020-01307 petitioner was Globus, and that link is merely the Unified Patents litigation-data source for the docket entry. The patent owner, Moskowitz Family LLC (represented by Fish & Richardson, Timothy Riffe), did not need PTAB appeals because it won at the institution stage; its appellate aggression ran through the district court case instead, culminating in the unsuccessful 2024-1696 appeal.

One more item any defendant must price in. Google Patents lists the '913 legal status as "Expired - Lifetime," with anticipated expiration 2025-08-23 (computed off the 2005-08-23 filing of the 11/208,644 ancestor). If that computation holds, the patent is past its term as of today (2026-10-01), which extinguishes injunctive exposure and limits damages to the pre-expiration, six-year-lookback window — but this family is a dense continuation/CIP thicket with multiple term drivers, so confirm the expiration date against the face of the patent (the § 154(b) adjustment and any terminal disclaimer notice) before relying on it.

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Recommended next steps

1. Get the denial order on the record now. Pull IPR2020-01307, Paper 7 (2020-12-21) — Decision Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review 35 U.S.C. § 314 — and cite it for the proposition that the Board found the Petitioner failed to show a reasonable likelihood as to any of claims 1, 5–8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19–22, 24, 26–28, 30, 32, 34–36, 38, 39. Available at the PTAB PTACTS public file, the Board's docket mirror (docketalarm IPR2020-01307 Paper 7) and via the Unified Patents PTAB docket entry. Use the actual title of the paper, not the aggregator's "Trial Instituted Document" label.
2. Lead your defense with the Federal Circuit, not the PTAB. Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 2024-1696 (Fed. Cir. 2026-09-11) (Prost, Schall, Stoll, JJ.) is precedential and holds the "universal" preambles of '913 claims 1 and 10 limiting, with "universal" construed as recited by the district court. If your accused instrumentality is a tool for a specific region/approach, that construction is a summary-judgment noninfringement argument. Opinion: govinfo · CourtListener.
3. Preserve your invalidity case in full. Because there is no FWD, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to Globus, its privies, or anyone else. Waugh + Fanger and Waugh + Fanger + Neumann are all still live. If you go to the PTAB, cure the four defects the record exposes: support every construction with intrinsic/extrinsic evidence; articulate a "would"-level motivation to combine; map a screw guide that is literally between the prongs (not Fanger's implant-retaining tabs 524/526); and address the claims 38/39 measurement/determination/selection steps head-on.
4. Verify term. Check the '913 face for § 154(b) adjustment and terminal disclaimers against the 2025-08-23 anticipated-expiration figure and "Expired - Lifetime" status reported by Google Patents before you assume either ongoing exposure or its absence.
5. No milestones to diary. There are no active proceedings on this patent — no institution decision deadline, no oral hearing, no 1-year FWD clock is running. The only live items are the district court matter (E.D. Pa. 2:20-cv-03271) and the unresolved CAFC Nos. 24-1696 / 24-1753 family docket entries, of which I verified only 24-1696 (decided) and could not verify 24-1753.

Confidence and gaps. High confidence on: the existence, parties, filing date, panel, grounds, challenged claims, denial date, and reasoning of IPR2020-01307; and on the 2026-09-11 CAFC affirmance. Lower confidence / unverified: the total claim count of the '913 patent; the subject matter and disposition of CAFC No. 24-1753; the definitive expiration date; and whether any additional petition against this patent exists that is not indexed in the Google Patents litigation field or the USPTO ODP ingest. Those should be confirmed against PAIR/PTAB E2E before being relied on in a filing.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation footprint for US 8,353,913.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and the litigation history.

Now let me pin down the specific assignment reel/frame records and the litigation timeline.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8,353,913 B2

Scope note / evidence limitation. The tools available to me for this engagement are web-search only — I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center record viewer directly. The four post-issuance legal events below are confirmed from the patent's own USPTO-derived legal-events data on the authoritative Google Patents record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8353913/en, fetched 2026-09-24). The reel/frame numbers and the correspondent of record for the '913 records specifically could not be retrieved, and I flag the candidate reel/frames I found — sourced from a related family chain-of-title statement — as unconfirmed for this patent. I have not fabricated any recording data.

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Inventors

Pattern note: there is no corporate employer of record. The face of the patent lists the original assignee as "Individual" — i.e., the four inventors held title personally, and no assignment was recorded at or near filing. This is not the "inventors depart the original assignee within 12 months" pattern; there was never an operating-company assignee to depart from. The three co-inventors' interests were instead consolidated into the lead inventor's hands, then into a family-owned LLC (see below).

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Original assignee

None — the patent issued to the four named inventors as individuals (USPTO record: Original Assignee = "Individual"). There is therefore no "shipped a product embodying the claims" question for an original assignee; the inventors are surgeons/engineers, not a product company. Current assignee of record is Moskowitz Family LLC (Rockville, MD) plus inventor Nathan C. Moskowitz, per the Google Patents legal-events listing. Moskowitz Family LLC is described in its own 2019 complaint as "a limited liability company organized … under the laws of the state of Maryland," at 212 North Adams Street, Suite 200, Rockville, MD 20850, "created for the purpose of developing human spine related devices, and for the protection and licensing of any resulting inventions and intellectual property," owning "over fifty issued United States patents." Status: operating as an asserting/licensing holding entity; no evidence of a commercialized product. It is also an active litigant (Globus; and Medtronic, per IPR2026-00121, Medtronic, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, filed Nov. 2025).

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Assignment timeline

Chronological, from the confirmed legal events on the '913 record. Conveyance type for all four events is Assignment. Reel/frame and correspondent columns are marked as unverified where I could not obtain them.

Not confirmed for this patent: reel/frame numbers. A 37 CFR 3.73(c) chain-of-title statement filed by the family in PTAB petition papers (ptacts.uspto.gov petition 1558745) cites candidate recordings — Reel 045636/0075 (Valdivia y Alvarado → Nathan C. Moskowitz), Reel 045997/0805 (Mosheh T. Moskowitz → Nathan C. Moskowitz), Reel 046069/0540 (Ahmnon D. Moskowitz → Nathan C. Moskowitz), and Reel 045586/0373 (Nathan C. Moskowitz → Moskowitz Family LLC). Those are family recordings and I could not confirm they are the records attached to the '913 patent; the 045586 reel number is also numerically lower than the 045636 reel while its subject is a later-dated conveyance, which suggests 045586/0373 may belong to a different family member. Treat all four as unverified candidates.

• 2015-05-04 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-04 — Reel unverified

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: ALVARADO, PABLO A. VALDIVIA Y
  • Assignee: MOSKOWITZ, NATHAN C.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources. No recurrence finding can be made.
  • Context: Consolidation of one co-inventor's undivided interest into the lead inventor — housekeeping for a family-held portfolio, not an arm's-length acquisition.

• 2016-08-03 (executed) / recorded 2016-08-03 — Reel unverified (candidate 045997/0805)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: MOSKOWITZ, MOSHEH T.
  • Assignee: MOSKOWITZ, NATHAN C.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable. No recurrence finding can be made.
  • Context: Further consolidation of co-inventor interests into the lead inventor.

• 2016-08-03 (executed) / recorded 2016-08-03 — Reel unverified (candidate 046069/0540)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: MOSKOWITZ, AHMNON D.
  • Assignee: MOSKOWTIZ, NATHAN C. (name spelled exactly as it appears in the source record; the transposition is in the originating data and is not corrected here)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable. No recurrence finding can be made.
  • Context: Completion of the consolidation — after this date all four inventors' interests sit with Nathan C. Moskowitz.

• 2018-03-14 (executed) / recorded 2018-03-14 — Reel unverified (candidate 045586/0373)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: MOSKOWITZ, NATHAN C.
  • Assignee: MOSKOWITZ FAMILY LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable. Note for the record: Fish & Richardson P.C. (Lauren A. Degnan) is Moskowitz's CAFC counsel and Kiersten M. Batzli signed PTAB powers of attorney across the family — but those are litigation/prosecution counsel, not assignment correspondents of record, and must not be conflated.
  • Context: Transfer of the whole family portfolio from the lead inventor into the family-owned licensing/assertion LLC (internal, inventor-controlled reorganization; not a sale to a third party).

No other assignments, security interests, licenses, releases, mergers, or name changes appear on this patent's legal-events record. In particular there is no Security Agreement, no Release, and no third-party acquirer anywhere in the chain.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership and assertion of US 8353913
    2005 : Priority provisional filed
    2011 : Application filed by four inventors
    2013 : Patent issues to individual inventors
    2015 : Alvarado interest assigned to N C Moskowitz
    2016 : Mosheh Moskowitz interest assigned
         : Ahmnon Moskowitz interest assigned
    2018 : Moskowitz Family LLC takes title
    2019 : Globus suit filed in W D Texas
    2020 : Case transferred to E D Pennsylvania
         : Globus IPR institution denied
    2026 : Federal Circuit affirms no infringement

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The classic tell (operating assignee sells to an anonymous licensing LLC with a registered-agent address) does not exist here: the '913 issued to individuals, and the 2018-03-14 conveyance to Moskowitz Family LLC was executed by the inventors themselves for their own family LLC at a real Rockville, MD office suite. There is no operating-company seller, no anonymity, and no evidence of a single-purpose Delaware/Texas shell. The LLC's name suffix does not convert this into a finding.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present (not on the enumerated lists). Moskowitz Family LLC does not match Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or an Erich Spangenberg entity on any source reviewed. It is, however, a non-practicing asserting entity in fact: it sued Globus Medical (W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-00672, filed 2019-11-20) seeking more than $86 million, and is the respondent in IPR2026-00121 filed by Medtronic, Inc. (Nov. 2025).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for any of the four recordings, so I can neither confirm nor exclude a repeat recording attorney. This is a genuine data gap, not a negative finding; it should be re-run against the Assignment Center viewer.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Four assignments over roughly 35 months, and three of them (2015-05-04 through 2016-08-03) are intra-inventor consolidations, not chained LLC-to-LLC hops. No shared-address or common-principal LLC chain; the only LLC in the chain is the inventors' own.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The conveyance to Moskowitz Family LLC recorded 2018-03-14; the first asserted suit against Globus was filed 2019-11-20 — approximately 20 months later, outside the 6-month window. (The 2015/2016 consolidations predate the suit by 3–4 years.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 record, no trustee sale, no security interest recorded against the '913.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating-company transferor exists, so there is no operating company using an NPE as a proxy. The assertion is brought by the inventors' own holding entity.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain terminates at Moskowitz Family LLC, an active asserter — not at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent is not neutralized. (Unified Patents' litigation portal does index the resulting appeals, 24-1696 and 24-1753, in a data-provider capacity only.)

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: the chain terminates at Moskowitz Family LLC, an entity with no product in commerce whose stated purpose is "the protection and licensing of any resulting inventions and intellectual property," and which has asserted the '913 against Globus Medical (W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-00672 filed 2019-11-20, later E.D. Pa. 2:20-cv-03271) and is now in proceedings with Medtronic (IPR2026-00121). That is a functional non-practicing-entity posture. It is moderate rather than high confidence because none of the enumerated troll-pattern mechanics are present: no shell-entity transfer reel, no known-asserter match, no cascading LLC chain, and the pre-litigation transfer window is not met — the 2018-03-14 recording (candidate Reel 045586/0373, unverified) precedes the first suit by ~20 months. This looks like an inventor-founded, family-owned assertion vehicle, not an acquired-portfolio troll chain.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — search patent number 8353913). The one item I recommend retrieving by hand before relying on this memo is the correspondent of record on all four recordings, which is the single unresolved field in this chain.

I'll research the prior art cited against/within US 8,353,913. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me dig into the patent's front-page references and the IPR petition's invalidity references.

Let me get more specifics on the examiner-cited references and the IPR's asserted art.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,353,913 (literal ID; no normalizations)

0. Contradiction flagged (per operating rules)

Before anything else: the date metadata in this workflow is internally inconsistent, and I am flagging it rather than silently resolving it.

• The system context states today is 2026-10-01.
• This task header states Current Date: April 26, 2026.
• The previously generated "Litigation summary" cites a Federal Circuit decision dated September 11, 2026 and follow-on commentary dated Sept. 13/24, 2026.

These cannot all be simultaneously true. This does not change the prior-art analysis below (all cited art predates the '913's 2005 priority), but the "current date" should be reconciled before the litigation timeline is relied upon.

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1. Confirming the exact patent (no similar numbers substituted)

I excluded all other numbers (e.g., 8,353,913 was surfaced near unrelated PubMed IDs and near the Moskowitz sibling patents such as 7,704,279; 7,846,188; 7,942,903 — those are the priority chain, not the patent in question, so they are treated as family, not prior art against the '913 in the strict sense, though under §102(b)/§102(e) a family member with an earlier effective date can be art if it qualifies).

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2. Important sourcing limitation (stated up front, not hidden)

I could not retrieve the front-page "(56) References Cited" list from the authoritative full text. The Google Patents fetch supplied in this workflow jumps from the abstract/description material without the examiner's cited-reference block, and my targeted searches for that block returned only classifier and family data, not the cited U.S. Patent Documents list.

Because I will not fabricate examiner citations, I have grounded the analysis in the best-documented prior-art record that actually exists for this specific patent: the petition and exhibit list from Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, IPR2020-01307 (P.T.A.B.), which is the one formal prior-art challenge filed against the '913 (see the face of the patent: "PTAB case IPR2020-01307 filed (Not Instituted – Merits)"). That record identifies precisely which references the Petitioner contended were the most relevant art. Where a reference is a patent citation, I mark it as such. Where the item is a printed publication, I mark it as NPL. The examiner-cited (56) list should still be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter/Global Dossier for a complete answer; I flag this as the one definitive gap.

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3. The prior-art record asserted against the '913 (IPR2020-01307)

Sources: IPR2020-01307 docket/exhibit list (Petitioner Exhibits 1001–1033) — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-01307 and the mirrored PTAB docket; PTAB "Decision Denying Institution," Paper 7, Dec. 21, 2020 (18 pp.).

3A. Patent / patent-application-publication references ("patent citations")

Note on dating: The '913’s effective date for its screw-box claims is contested (the disclosure is a CIP chain running 2005 → 2006 → 2007). References published after 2005 are only §102 art if the asserted claims do not get the earlier priority — which is exactly the priority-determinative fight the Petitioner had to win. The Board ultimately denied institution, meaning none of the above was adjudicated to anticipate or render obvious the '913 claims.

3B. Non-patent literature (printed publications) in the record

These were cited essentially as background/state-of-the-art, and in §103 combinations; they are not standalone §102 anticipatory art in the petition as I can reconstruct it.

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4. §102 assessment

• No reference in the public record was adjudicated to anticipate the '913. The only formal challenge (IPR2020-01307) was denied institution on the merits (Dec. 21, 2020); the patent issued with claims 1–15 and was never amended through the IPR.
• Closest §102 candidates by type: the patent/patent-publication references EX1005 (US 2005/0177236), EX1028 (Waugh 8,425,607), EX1029 (Fanger 2004/0204717) and EX1030 (Neumann 6,752,832). Any genuine §102 anticipation would have to come from one of these, mapping every element of independent claim 1 (the two-sliding-box "self-drilling bone fusion screw apparatus" with first/second tapered-threaded screw members and an adjuster) and, for the separate independent claim, the multi-box/attachment-member subject matter.
• Everything else (Section 3B) is, as pleaded, background or §103-combination material — a collection of interbody-cage and fusion-technique literature spanning 1948–2006, not single-reference anticipatory art.
• Preamble caution: In the parallel Moskowitz v. Globus litigation, the E.D. Pa. court held the "universal" preambles limiting and granted summary judgment of noninfringement as to the '913, and the Federal Circuit affirmed. That claim-construction/limitation holding is relevant to how narrow the §102 field actually is for the surviving claims — an anticipatory reference must also meet the limiting preamble.

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5. Explicit uncertainties

1. The examiner's front-page (56) citation list was not available to me in the authoritative text or via search; Section 3 is the petitioner-identified art, which is the strongest documented proxy but is not identical to the examiner's citations. Retrieve the (56) block from USPTO PatentCenter/Global Dossier to close this gap.
2. I could not confirm the title/subject matter of US 2005/0177236 A1 (EX1005) with high confidence from the snippets retrieved; I have described its role in the petition but not asserted its contents.
3. The item listed as "Schimmel 2016" (EX1019) is date-inconsistent with §102 art against a 2005-priority patent and should be re-verified.
4. Dates for the commercial/regulatory items (Centinel Spine, SynFix/SYNFIX, K053508) are not published in the snippets I obtained and are left unspecified rather than guessed.

Bottom line: For US 8,353,913, the documented, most-relevant prior art is the IPR2020-01307 set — led by patent publications US 2005/0177236 (EX1005), US 8,425,607 (Waugh, EX1028), US 2004/0204717 (Fanger, EX1029) and US 6,752,832 (Neumann, EX1030) as the only plausible §102 single-reference candidates against independent claim 1, with the remaining 20+ references serving as §103/background art. None was held to anticipate, because institution was denied.

I'll research the prior-art references associated with this patent before building the §103 analysis.

Let me retrieve the Neumann reference and the petition's treatment of the remaining independent claims (15, 40).

Let me pull the granted claim set text and the petition's mapping for the remaining independent claims.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,353,913 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Provenance note (important). The authoritative page text supplied to me does not include the patent's own "Prior Art" citation list (the Google Patents citations/"Cited By" tab). The prior art I apply below is drawn from the prior-art record of this exact patent that appears in search results: the IPR2020-01307 petition and its claim chart (Globus Medical, Inc. v. Moskowitz Family LLC, Patent 8,353,913), which relies on Waugh (US 8,425,607), Fanger (US 2004/0204717), and Neumann (US 6,752,832), plus the secondary references cited in that petition's exhibit list. For the spacer-structure claims I also use the mapping from the sibling family IPR petition record (petition 1539287, mapping "four quadrants"/bi-directional internal screw guides to Tisserand and Bonutti). I flag where I could not verify verbatim claim text.

Date discrepancy (already flagged in the prior sections, restated): the task states April 26, 2026; the search results include a Federal Circuit decision dated September 11, 2026. I treat the search results as ground truth per instructions.

Governing law: The '913 patent's application (13/084,543) was filed April 11, 2011 and claims pre-March 16, 2013 priority, so pre-AIA § 102/§ 103 apply. Pre-AIA § 102(e) prior-art dates are highly material here (see § 6, "Priority").

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1. The claims to be analyzed (as characterized in the prior sections)

The granted claims are tool/insertion-method claims, not the screw-box claims of the abstract:

Confidence: claim 1 high; claims 10/15/38/39 moderate (reconstructed); claim 40 moderate (reconstructed from the publication/Justia rendering at https://patents.justia.com/patent/20110295327 — the quadrant language appears verbatim there in the "tool assembly" series).

Because the CAFC held the "universal" preambles limiting (Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc., No. 24-1696, Fed. Cir. Sept. 11, 2026), the § 103 analysis must treat "universal … designed to be inserted … in any region of the spine … using any approach" as a claim limitation, not an intended use.

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2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA here is a spinal surgeon or a mechanical/orthopedic-device engineer with 2–4 years' experience in spinal fusion instrumentation, familiar with interbody cages, integral screw-guide cages (e.g., the SYNFIX-type stand-alone anterior/lateral cages the petition cites as background), insertion/impaction tools, drill and screw guides, and cannulated/flexible-shaft screwdriver drivers. The petition's expert declaration (EX1003) supports essentially this level.

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3. The prior-art references (scope and content)

(A) Waugh, US 8,425,607 B2 ("Anchor member locking features"; Warsaw Orthopedic; filed Apr. 3, 2007; pub. US 2008/0249575 A1, Oct. 9, 2008; issued Apr. 23, 2013). Per the IPR claim chart (EX1027/EX1028):

• An intervertebral implant device 100/200/300 with a spacer 102/202/302 and anchors 104/204/304 (bone screws);
• Spacer is a cage with upper/lower/side/rear/front surfaces and a hollow center 116 for bone-growth material;
• A plurality of apertures 122, 206 integral to the spacer that receive and direct the bone screws to act as screw guides — i.e., integral screw guides;
• The screws extend out of the hollow center and engage the vertebral endplates — a cage + transvertebral screw fusion construct;
• Each of the side surfaces includes a recessed slot 120 configured to cooperate with an insertion tool that selectively connects to the spacer; the slot is at a longitudinal end, adjacent an edge of the upper surface (FIGS. 5, 7);
• Waugh's spec states the implant is usable in cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions and via lateral, antero-lateral and posterior approaches (3:10–18; 9:12–21) — the petitioner's vehicle for "universal."

Source: EX1028 (Waugh PDF) at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2020-01307/.../Exhibit-1028-EX1028_US_Patent_8425607_Waugh.pdf ; claim chart at .../Exhibit-1027-27-EX1027_Invalidity_Claim_Chart_US8353913.pdf.

(B) Fanger, US 2004/0204717 A1 ("Guide for spinal tools, implants, and devices"; DePuy Spine; filed Feb. 10/11, 2004; pub. Oct. 14, 2004). Per the chart (EX1029) and the publication text (https://uspto.report/patent/app/20040204717):

• A guide device 10/510 with elongate shaft 512 (proximal 512a, distal 512b) and a guide member 518 at the distal end containing first and second pathways/lumens 520, 522 aligned with thru bores of a spinal fixation element;
• Distally-extending tabs 524, 526 on each sidewall that engage opposed outer surfaces/edges of the element (and, per Fanger's own claim 5/8/9, can extend into corresponding slots of the element, or snap-fit), with the pathways positioned between the tabs (Fanger claim 6: tabs "at positions substantially between the first and second lumens"; claim 7: lumens "positioned between the first and second alignment tabs");
• The pathways constrain tool/fastener paths and "provide a fixed entry angle," i.e., a screw/drill guide; the tool is used to "drill, awl, tap, and insert … bone screws";
• Handle 28 on the proximal portion, and a spinal fixation kit (claim 44) consisting of the fixation element plus the guide member.

(C) Neumann, US 6,752,832 B2 ("Vertebral implant and setting tool therefor"; Ulrich GmbH; filed Dec. 26, 2001; issued June 22, 2004). A vertebral implant with relatively displaceable parts and a setting tool having a holder (double fork with four tines) fittable to the implant, a rotary member, and a gear (bevel gear) for expanding the implant; the tool has an outer tubular shaft and a cannulated core rod; the implant interior can be filled with bone chips/cement (source: EX1030, .../Exhibit-1030-30-EX1030_US_Patent_6752832_Neumann.pdf).

(D) Tisserand and Bonutti (used in the sibling-family petition record, petition 1539287, for the "quadrant"/bi-directional internal-guide claims): Tisserand discloses an intervertebral cage 1 with pre-formed through-holes/recesses 1g, 1h ("internal recesses … pre-formed in the cage") through which screws 2, 3 are directed one downward and the other upward — the classic bi-directional transvertebral construct; Waugh is there mapped for integral screw guides located in diagonally opposed quadrants of a wall of the spacer; Bonutti supplies complementary expandable-implant/guide structure. (Source: ptacts.uspto.gov petition 1539287 documents.)

(E) Background references cited in the IPR exhibit list (Wilke 2000; Folman 2003; Guyer 2004; Dickman 1997; Boakye 2005; the SYNFIX LR / SYNFIX Evolution technique guides, EX1020–1022) establish that stand-alone interbody cages with integral angled screw guides were well known before the '913's 2011 filing.

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4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Waugh + Fanger (claims 1–5, 8–10, 15, 38, 39)

Claim 1 mapping:

Motivation to combine (articulated reasons):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution mechanism. Both references are spinal-fusion interbody systems; the problem addressed by both is accurate, repeatable screw placement into vertebral bodies through/at an interbody implant.
2. Waugh itself creates the need. Waugh expressly discloses a tool that "selectively connects to the spacer" via side slots 120 to manipulate and insert it (3:59–64). A POSITA seeking to also guide the screws (which Waugh already places through integral apertures) would look to a known spinal-screw guide — exactly Fanger.
3. Fanger is an explicit, art-recognized "guide + implant kit" teaching. Fanger's kit claim 44 and its stated purpose ("guide tools, devices, and/or implants through each pathway … and into bone") supply the very function the '913 claims, with predictable results (KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–417: "a known technique … applied to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results"; 550 U.S. at 421: "design incentives and other market forces").
4. The "between the prongs" relationship is expressly suggested by Fanger's own claims 6–7 (tabs between lumens / lumens between tabs), so no hindsight reconstruction is required.
5. Reducing instrumentation — Fanger's guide "eliminat[es] several unnecessary steps and instruments," the same efficiency rationale disclosed in the '913 spec (the combined positioning tool/screw guide). This is a recognized, non-hindsight motivation.

Method claims 38, 39: Waugh supplies cage selection by measured disc-space height and its stated usability across cervical/thoracic/lumbar regions and lateral/antero-lateral/posterior approaches; "measuring a dimension of the disc space" and "determining the disc space [region]" are routine steps that a POSITA performs with radiographs, fluoroscopy, or trial implants — the petition argues these are inherent/obvious (EX1027, claim 38 chart). Claim 39's screw-fusion step is met by Waugh's bone screws + hollow-center bone packing.

Ground 2 — Waugh + Fanger + Neumann (claims 6, 7, 20, 21 and expansion-related dependents)

Neumann supplies, with predictable mechanics: a holder/fork gripper (four tines) fittable to the implant, a cannulated core rod and tubular outer shaft, and a gear/rotary expander. Mapping: "handle wherein the gripper includes a tubular portion that is capable of receiving and guiding a portion of the handle therein" (claim 6/20) and rectangular/circular handle portions (claims 7/21) are met by Neumann's tubular setting tool + Fanger's handle 28 (the petition chart expressly makes this combination). Motivations: (i) Neumann addresses the same problem of implant manipulation/expansion through a minimally sized opening, providing the predictable benefit of guided delivery of instruments from the surgeon's hand to the intrasurgical site; (ii) cannulated/off-the-shelf handles were in common use (KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods").

Ground 3 — Waugh (+ Tisserand, Bonutti) for the spacer-structure claims (claim 40 et seq.)

• Bone graft cavity: Waugh's hollow center 116; Neumann's bone-chip-fillable interior.
• First/second screws angled bi-directionally in opposite directions through guides with predetermined, differing angled trajectories: Tisserand's recesses 1g/1h oriented up/down with screws 2/3 driven in opposing directions; Waugh's apertures 122 "receive and direct" screws along the cage's fixed angles. The '913 spec itself calls these the "built-in prescribed angles of the integral screw guides" — a disclosed design parameter, not an inventive concept.
• "Tunnel permitting only a predetermined angled trajectory": the tunnel/bore walls of Waugh's apertures 122 and Tisserand's recesses, which by their geometry fix the trajectory.
• Ridges on a side of the cage: Waugh's implant includes surface/engagement features for bone integration; the '913 addresses this with ridges — a common anchoring expedient (Waugh's own cited art includes serrated/ribbed bone-engagement structures).
• Four-quadrant wall / entry openings diagonally opposed in Q1 and Q3: the sibling-family petition record maps this precisely to Waugh (integral screw guides "located in diagonally opposed quadrants of a wall of the spacer," FIGS. 3, 5, 9) and Tisserand.

Motivation: the diagonal-opposition geometry is the direct structural consequence of the bi-directional (up/down) screw function already disclosed by Tisserand/Waugh; a POSITA placing a superior-directed guide and an inferior-directed guide in one cage wall would necessarily place their entry openings in diagonally opposed quadrants to keep the trajectories diverging and to maximize bone purchase — a predictable design choice, not an invention (KSR at 421).

Ground 4 — Waugh + Fanger + POSITA knowledge (the "confirming position," "midline," and "flush or countersunk" steps of claims 38/39)

These recite routine surgical verification (fluoroscopic confirmation of implant position) and the conventional objective of a zero-profile stand-alone cage (the background SYNFIX-type guides, EX1020–1022, describe zero-profile, countersunk stand-alone cages). They add nothing patentable over the combination; "[p]atentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made" (35 U.S.C. § 103(a)); KSR, 550 U.S. at 421 ("if a technique has been used to improve one device … using the technique [in the related device] is obvious").

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5. Counterarguments and the strongest defenses (required for a fair analysis)

(1) The PTAB already denied institution on this art. In IPR2020-01307, the Board denied institution on the merits (Dec. 21, 2020) (see https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2020-01307). Patent Owner's preliminary response attacked the petition on four grounds: (a) improper claim construction of "universal, intervertebral bone fusion spacer" and "gripper having a plurality of prongs"; (b) failure to show motivation to modify Waugh in view of Fanger (ignoring what Waugh already achieves; ignoring detrimental effects/compatibility); (c) failure to show a "screw guide for controlling a direction of screws that are inserted into the first and second integral screw guides" (not just any pathway); and (d) failure on the measuring/determining/selecting steps of claims 38–39. This is persuasive evidence against a prima facie obviousness case as presented, though a denial of institution is not a merits adjudication, creates no estoppel, and is not binding in litigation or reexamination.

(2) "Universal" is now a limiting claim limitation (CAFC 2026). The construction requires a spacer designed to be inserted between vertebral bodies in any region (cervical, thoracic, lumbar) using any approach (posterior, anterior, lateral). Waugh's applicability statement (3:10–18; 9:12–21) is the petitioner's only support; if Waugh's disclosed embodiments are tied to a particular approach/orientation, a fact-finder could find the limitation unmet. This is the single most contested factual issue.

(3) Bodily-incorporation / teaching-away. Waugh's implant anchors itself with its own screws through apertures 122 and provides side slots 120 strictly for an insertion tool; Fanger's tabs seat "against" a fixation plate and can flex/snap. Patent Owner's argument that adding Fanger's tabs to Waugh's spacer would interfere with the existing screw apertures/slots is a classic "the combination would not work / detrimental effects" defense and is the Board's apparent basis for denial.

(4) Priority / pre-AIA § 102(e) date of Waugh (material, and flagged as unresolved in the record I reviewed). Waugh's US filing date is April 3, 2007. The '913's § 120 chain is: 13/084,543 (Apr. 11, 2011) → CON of 11/842,855 (Aug. 21, 2007) → CIP of 11/536,815 (Sept. 29, 2006) → CIP of 11/208,644 (Aug. 23, 2005) → prov. 60/670,231 (Apr. 12, 2005). Crucially, 11/842,855 is a continuation-in-part, so matter first added in '855 receives only an Aug. 21, 2007 effective date. If the "universal tool" claims are supported only from '855 forward, Waugh (Apr. 3, 2007) is § 102(e) prior art; if the claims are fully supported in '815 (Sept. 2006) or '644 (Aug. 2005), Waugh is not prior art at all and Grounds 1–2 collapse. I could not confirm from the sources retrieved whether the priority dispute was briefed or resolved. This is the threshold issue a challenger must win.

(5) Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4). Potential Patent Owner evidence: long-felt need to avoid pedicle-screw morbidity; industry adoption/licensing; copying by accused products; praise of the stand-alone BDFT concept. Weaknesses: little apparent nexus between such evidence and the narrowly claimed tool structure; the claimed tools are asserted to be conventional guide instruments; and the district court/CAFC record shows the claims were adjudicated not infringed rather than validated.

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6. Bottom line

• A prima facie § 103 case can be articulated for the tool claims 1–10 and 15 and method claims 38–39 over Waugh + Fanger (with Neumann for the handle/cannulation/expansion dependents), because: (i) Waugh discloses the cage with integral screw guides, end slots/indentations adjacent the upper-surface edge, and an insertion tool that connects to those slots; (ii) Fanger discloses a gripper with distally extending tabs engaging slots/edges, with guide pathways positioned between the tabs — the "screw guide between the prongs" limitation is essentially Fanger's own claimed geometry; and (iii) the motivation is supplied by the art itself (instrumentation designed to match a given implant; fewer instruments; fixed entry angle for screws), satisfying KSR.
• For the spacer-structure claims (claim 40 et seq.), a strong combination is Waugh + Tisserand (+ Bonutti): bi-directional, oppositely angled screws through pre-formed cage guides with diagonally opposed entry openings, a bone-graft cavity, and bone-engagement surface features are all disclosed or are predictable design choices.
• The two decisive vulnerabilities are (a) the now-controlling "universal" limitation, and (b) the § 102(e) date of Waugh, which turns entirely on whether the challenged claims are entitled to the 2005/2006 priority dates or only to the Aug. 21, 2007 CIP date.
• Evidentiary caution: the only adjudicated PTAB record on this exact art (IPR2020-01307) resulted in institution denied (Dec. 21, 2020); the analysis above is a reconstruction of the petitioner's theory and the counter-arguments, not a prediction of outcome. Confidence: moderate on Grounds 1–3 as an articulated prima facie case; low-to-moderate on whether it would survive the motivation-to-combine and teaching-away attacks on this record; high on the identification of the two threshold issues (universal/preambles and the Waugh § 102(e) priority date). Verbatim claim text for claims 10, 15, 38, 39, and 40 should be confirmed against the USPTO PatentCenter PDF before any filing.