US 9743705

I'll search for authoritative information on US 9743705, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me dig into the litigation record and any Federal Circuit activity tied to this patent.

Let me verify which patents were at issue in the Lululemon case and check the Oregon docket referenced for this family.

US 9,743,705 — Identification and Record

Searches returned no exact-match record for the string "9743705" outside the records for US 9,743,705 B2 itself; I have not substituted any similar number.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9743705/en

Abstract (verbatim)

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

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — method of manufacturing:

1. Flat-knit the textile element in the shape of the upper, in a planar configuration — i.e., the element is knit to the finished upper shape rather than cut from a larger knit web.
2. The knit element has flat‑knit edges that define the upper's shape in the planar configuration, and those edges are characterized as being "free of surrounding material from which the knitted textile element must be removed" (knit‑to‑shape; no cut‑out step leaves raw cut edges).
3. The flat knitting step includes forming a plurality of apertures by omitting stitches (programmed needle selection, not a post‑knit punching/cutting operation).
4. The knitted element is then incorporated into the article of footwear.

Claim 11 — method of manufacturing (narrower/structured variant):

1. Same starting step: flat knit the textile element to the shape of the upper in a planar configuration, with the same "flat knit edges free of surrounding material" characterization.
2. The flat knitting affirmatively knits a lateral region, an opposite medial region, an instep region, a lower region, and a heel region.
3. The flat knitting also forms apertures by omitting stitches.
4. At least two of the flat knit edges are joined together to form the upper with an interior void for receiving a foot.
5. The knitted element "having the shape of the upper" is incorporated into the article of footwear.

Dependent claims add, e.g., unitary construction of the five regions (claim 3), edges of the lower region (claim 4) joined to overlap and form the void (claim 5), heel‑region edges (claims 6–7), differing textures (claim 8), differing stitch types (claim 9), differing yarn types (claim 10), and in the claim‑11 chain a fifth flat knit edge forming a u‑shaped area that becomes the ankle opening (claims 15–16), plus securing a sole structure to the lower region (claim 17), and the element forming both exterior and interior surfaces (claim 18).

Notably, the issued '705 claims are method claims and are built around "flat knit edges" and knit‑to‑shape — this differs from the original family member '011 patent, whose originally issued claims used "weft‑knitted." (Context for that shift appears in the PTAB record of adidas's IPR of US 7,347,011: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1556902](/patent/1556902)/download-documents)

Litigation / docket activity (2026 check)

ITC — confirmed, and specific to the '705 patent. Nike's complaint filed 2021‑12‑08 led to Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1289, "Certain Knitted Footwear," instituted 2022‑01‑10 against adidas AG / adidas North America, Inc. / adidas America, Inc. The notice of investigation asserts, among others, "claims 1–8 and 11–20 of the '705 patent" — i.e., both independent claims and most dependents. The investigation was terminated in its entirety on the basis of settlement (ALJ Monica Bhattacharyya's initial determination No. 17, dated 2022‑08‑24, not reviewed; Commission notice 2022‑09‑22).

• https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1289_notice01102022sgl.pdf
• https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2022-01-13/2022-00600

Federal Circuit, 2026 — I found no 2026 CAFC docket that specifically names the '705 patent. The 2026 CAFC activity I could locate in this technology space concerns other Nike patents, and I want to be explicit about that:

• Nike, Inc. v. Lululemon USA Inc., No. 2026‑1275 — nonprecedential order dated 2026‑05‑05 dismissing an appeal from PTAB IPR2024‑00460 under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) (https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/26-1275.ORDER.5-5-2026_2688630.pdf). The order does not identify the patent in the caption shown to me, so I cannot confirm whether IPR2024‑00460 involved the '705 patent — do not treat this as an '705 appeal.
• The S.D.N.Y. Flyknit decision of 2026‑03‑31 (Judge Arun Subramanian, Nike, Inc. v. Lululemon USA Inc., No. 1:23‑cv‑00771‑AS) held claims 1 and 14 of US 8,266,749 invalid as obvious and vacated the $355,450 verdict. That is a family member (the '749 patent), not the '705 patent, and the opinion speaks in terms of warp knitting and cut‑out elements. Nike's complaint had also asserted US 9,375,046; US 9,730,484 was held invalid in an earlier IPR. The court directed the Clerk to notify the Federal Circuit of the disposition, so a 2026 CAFC appeal of that judgment is plausible, but it would be an '749 appeal.
  • https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2023cv00771/[593182/356](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=593182-0356)/
  • https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66771157/356/nike-inc-v-lululemon-usa-inc/authorities/

Oregon District Court, case 3:21‑cv‑01780 is listed on the Google Patents page for this family as litigation. I could not retrieve an authoritative docket confirming which patents that case asserts, so I am flagging it as unverified rather than attributing it to the '705 patent.

Explicit uncertainties

1. I did not find any 2026 CAFC docket entry in which US 9,743,705 is a named patent. My negative result reflects the searches I ran, not a guarantee — CAFC dockets are often captioned by party name only, and the patent number may not appear in a docket caption.
2. The dismissal in 2026‑1275 is confirmed as to Nike v. Lululemon and IPR2024‑00460, but the patent at issue in that IPR is not confirmed from the material retrieved.
3. The Lululemon 2026 invalidity ruling is '749, not '705; no adjudication of the '705 claims appears in the retrieved record beyond the ITC complaint/institution and the settled termination.
4. The '705 patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2024‑04‑16), which limits the practical significance of any 2026 appellate activity to past damages/validity rather than prospective exclusion.
5. Inventor spelling/assignment details are taken from the patent's own front‑page and assignment records; I have not independently authenticated the USPTO assignment reel/frame.

I'll research litigation involving US 9,743,705 specifically. Let me run several targeted searches.

Now let me search for the Oregon district court case and the outcome of the ITC investigation, plus any other assertions of this patent.

Let me check whether this patent was asserted in other Nike enforcement actions (Skechers, lululemon, New Balance, Puma) and whether it was subject to any PTAB challenges.

Patent identified

US 9,743,705 B2 — "Method of Manufacturing an Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper." Application 14/503,514, filed 2014‑10‑01; granted 2017‑08‑29; inventors Edward N. Thomas and Bhupesh Dua; assignee Nike, Inc.; priority date 2004‑03‑03 (division of 14/079,748, ultimately tracing to 10/791,289, now US 7,347,011). Google Patents lists two litigation entries for this specific patent (ITC 337‑TA‑1289 and D. Or. 3:21‑cv‑01780), and my searches confirm those are the only two matters in which the '705 patent itself was asserted. Note the patent expired on 2024‑03‑03 per Nike's complaint, with a listed adjusted expiration of 2024‑04‑16 on the Google Patents family page.

Litigation involving US 9,743,705

1. In the Matter of Certain Knitted Footwear — U.S. International Trade Commission, Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1289

Sources: ITC Notice of Institution (PDF); Federal Register 87 FR 2176 (Jan. 13, 2022) (Justia); ITC 337 Law Blog / Oblon (Mondaq); Commission termination notice reported at usitc.gov (cited by Chinese trade-remedy reporting of the Sept. 22, 2022 partial final determination terminating all investigation based on settlement).

2. Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al. — U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon

Sources: Reuters via bdnews24 and The Fashion Law; AO 120 form excerpted in Docket Alarm exhibit; Kilpatrick Townsend case description (PDF) describing the ITC/ Oregon matters as settled on confidential terms shortly before the ITC evidentiary hearing.

Enforcement programs where the '705 patent was not asserted (checked to avoid false positives)

These are Nike Flyknit-family suits I reviewed; none of the complaints/patent lists I retrieved include 9,743,705:

One caveat: I was unable to complete verification of Nike, Inc. v. lululemon usa inc., No. 1:23‑cv‑00771‑JPO (S.D.N.Y.) — searches for whether the '705 patent appears in that complaint's asserted-patent list returned no results before my search budget ran out. Treat this as unverified, not confirmed as excluding the '705 patent.

PTAB / appellate activity

I found no IPR, PGR, or Federal Circuit appeal directed at the '705 patent (9,743,705). The extensive PTAB and Federal Circuit activity in this patent family (adidas's IPR2013 challenges, later Skechers IPR2021/2025 petitions, lululemon's IPR against the '749 patent, and appeals) concerns other family members — principally 7,347,011, 8,266,749, 9,060,562, 9,730,484, and 9,986,781 — not the '705 patent. I state this with moderate confidence given I could not exhaustively search PTAB dockets.

Bottom line

Only two proceedings are documented as asserting US 9,743,705:

1. Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1289 (ITC) — Nike v. adidas entities; filed Dec. 8, 2021; instituted Jan. 2022; terminated Sept. 22, 2022 on settlement (with '705 claims 1‑8 and 11‑20 asserted).
2. Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al., No. 3:21‑cv‑01780 (D. Or.) — filed Dec. 2021; stayed pending the ITC case; dismissed without prejudice after settlement in August 2022.

Both had the same plaintiff (Nike) and same defendant group (adidas), arose from the same December 2021 enforcement campaign over Flyknit/Primeknit, and ended in the same confidential settlement — not by any merits ruling on the '705 patent's validity or infringement. No litigated judgment, injunction, or damages award involving this patent was found.

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings" default against live sources before writing anything.

Let me pin down whether the '705 itself (or its family members) drew IPR petitions, and by whom.

Now let me identify IPR2017-00263/-00264 and confirm no petition ever targeted the '705.

AIA Trial Landscape — US 9,743,705 B2 ("Method of manufacturing an article of footwear having a textile upper")

Bottom line up front: the canonical USPTO ODP list ("no AIA trial proceedings") is correct as best I can verify, and I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM ever filed against the '705 itself. The interesting story is one level up the family tree (Nike's Flyknit knitted-upper family), where adidas filed six AIA petitions between 2012 and 2016 against sibling patents — and won none of them at final written decision. That family history is a defendant's best guide to the '705's claim scope, but it provides no IPR estoppel and no canceled claims to lean on.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,743,705: 0 — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials; the '705 is entirely un-petitioned, so there is no Final Written Decision to cite, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against anyone, and no free-ride invalidity finding for a defendant — but the claim-construction law forged in the sibling-patent IPRs (notably the Federal Circuit's "flat knit edges" holding) applies directly to '705 claim 1 and is a real narrowing lever. Sources checked: the ODP-derived structured block in this prompt; Google Patents "PTAB proceedings" pane for the '705 (none listed) at https://patents.google.com/patent/US9743705/en; and live web search for petitions naming 9,743,705 (none surfaced).

No proceedings on US 9,743,705 itself

The ODP returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my independent searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal naming the '705. I flag the standard caveat: I could not exhaustively query PTAB E2E/PTAB Center for petitions filed in the last few quarters (research window), so a very recent filing cannot be ruled out — but there is no evidence of one, and none was surfaced by any secondary source (Unified Patents litigation portal entries for this patent reference ITC and district court cases only, not PTAB cases).

Why that is notable: the '705 is not a sleeping patent. It was asserted at the ITC in Certain Knitted Footwear, Inv. No. 337-TA-1289, on claims 1-8 and 11-20 (Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al., instituted 2022-01-07; notice published 2022-01-13 — https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1289_notice01102022sgl.pdf and https://regulations.justia.com/regulations/fedreg/2022/01/13/2022-00600.html). It expires 2024-03-03 per Nike's own ITC complaint ¶ 44 (Google Patents lists "Adjusted expiration 2024-04-16"). A widely-asserted patent that draws no IPR usually means (a) the accused parties were already IPR-estopped or time-barred under § 315(b), (b) the patent was left out of petition sets deliberately, or (c) the damages/injunction economics didn't justify the filing. Given adidas had already litigated this exact family hard, and given the case reportedly settled, (a)/(c) are the likely explanations.

Family proceedings that shape the '705's defensive value

These are not proceedings on the '705 — I list them because the '705 shares the '011 specification, the same inventors (Thomas/Dua), and the same "flat knit edges … free of surrounding material" claim language, and because petitioner/estoppel chains run through this family.

IPR2016-00921 — adidas AG v. NIKE, Inc. (US 7,814,598) — closest analogue to '705 claim 1

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016 (institution decision issued 2016-10-21)
• Status: Terminated — all challenged claims sustained (petitioner lost at FWD and again on SAS remand); petitioner appealed
• Judge panel: not verified in this research window
• Petition grounds: § 103(a) over Reed (US 3,985,003) + Nishida (US 5,345,638); a separate asserted ground combined Castello + Fujiwara + Nishida. Record included a declaration from Lenny M. Holden.
• Institution decision: instituted 2016-10-21, but initially on fewer than all grounds — the second ground (Castello/Fujiwara/Nishida) was not instituted. After SAS Inst., Inc. v. Iancu, 138 S. Ct. 1348 (2018), the Federal Circuit (Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., 894 F.3d 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2018)) remanded with directions to issue a final written decision as to all grounds raised; the panel modified its institution decision to institute on all challenged claims and all grounds (Order Modifying Institution Decision, 2018-08-24) and took additional briefing and a supplemental hearing.
• Final Written Decision: 2017-10-19 — the panel determined petitioner had failed to demonstrate that any of the challenged claims were unpatentable.
• Decision on remand: 2019-02-19 — again "adidas did not meet its burden that NIKE's patent claims are unpatentable" (Banner & Witcoff case report: https://bannerwitcoff.com/in-adidas-ag-v-nike-inc-nos-ipr2016-00921-ipr2016-00922/).
• Settlement / termination: no settlement; decided on the merits.
• Appeal: Petitioner's Notice of Appeal filed 2019-04-19; Feb. Cir. Docket No. 19-1787 (Reply Brief for Appellant Adidas AG noted in later patent references), with a companion Nike appeal docketed as 19-1262. Nike's ITC complaint (¶ 3) characterizes the outcome: adidas' PTAB challenges "failed, as did adidas' subsequent appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court." I could not independently verify the final appellate dispositions within this research window and am flagging that rather than asserting them.
• Defensive value: the Board and the Federal Circuit both rejected the Reed/Nishida combination against knit-to-shape claims. A defendant attacking '705 claim 1 on Reed + Nishida is walking into a losing record.

IPR2016-00922 — adidas AG v. NIKE, Inc. (US 8,266,749)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016 (parallel to '921, same panel and same schedule; institution decision 2016-10-21)
• Status: Terminated — claims sustained (petitioner lost on the merits on remand)
• Judge panel: not verified in this research window
• Petition grounds: § 103(a) — Reed + Nishida as to claims 1-9, 11-19, and 21; a further § 103(a) ground combining Castello + Fujiwara + Nishida.
• Institution decision: instituted (2016-10-21); on SAS remand the institution was modified to cover all grounds and claims.
• Final Written Decision: issued October 2017 (the '921 FWD is dated 2017-10-19; I did not independently confirm the exact '922 FWD date — treat as October 2017). Consolidated oral hearing held 2017-07-12; supplemental hearing 2018-11-15.
• Decision on remand: 2019-02-19 — petitioner failed to show any challenged claim unpatentable. Decision available at Finnegan's posted copy: https://www.finnegan.com/a/web/[306918](/patent/306918)/2G4MLM/ipr201600922_adidasag_v_nike.pdf
• Settlement / termination: none; merits decision.
• Appeal: Petitioner's Notice of Appeal filed 2019-04-19.
• Defensive value: confirms the § 103 case against the knitted-upper claims is weak on this art set.

IPR2013-00067 — adidas AG v. NIKE, Inc. (US 7,347,011 — the family's root patent)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: revised petition 2012-12-10 (challenging claims 1-46)
• Status: Terminated — claims 1-46 canceled via Nike's own motion to amend; proposed substitute claims 47-50 denied
• Judge panel: Josiah C. Cocks, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, and James B. Arpin (per the FWD caption)
• Petition grounds: § 102 anticipation by Nishida (claims 1-16, 19-34, 36, 39-46) and Glidden (claims 16-18); § 103 over Nishida (claims 1-16, 19-46) and Glidden (claims 16-18). Other record art included McDonald, Whiting, Shiomura, Curley, and Osamu JP H06-113905.
• Institution decision: instituted 2013-05-17 on claims 1-16, 19-34, 36, 39-46 (Nishida) and 16-18 (Glidden), plus the obviousness grounds.
• Final Written Decision: 2014-04-28. Nike requested cancellation of claims 1-46 and proposed substitute claims 47-50; the panel granted cancellation of claims 1-46 but denied the motion to amend as to the substitute claims (holding the proposed claims obvious / Nike's burden not met).
• Settlement / termination: none.
• Appeal: Nike appealed; Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (decided 2016-02-11) affirmed-in-part and vacated-in-part, remanding on the status of the substitute claims. On remand the panel again denied the motion to amend on 2018-09-18, and Nike appealed again. A Supreme Court petition in the family is on file at No. 20-728 (filed 2020-11-20), reviewing the Board's motion-to-amend practice: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-728/[161469](/patent/161469)/20201120170447290_Petition.pdf — the disposition was not verified in this window.
• Defensive value: this is the source of the controlling claim construction discussed below. Nike paid for it with the original claims; the surviving family members (including the '705) are drafted around knit-to-shape edges.

IPR2017-00263 and IPR2017-00264 — adidas AG v. NIKE, Inc. (US 8,042,288)

• Type: Inter Partes Review (two petitions)
• Filed: 2016-11-14
• Status: Institution denied in both
• Judge panel: not verified in this research window
• Petition grounds: directed at the '288 patent; IPR2017-00263 challenged claims 8 and 14-20 (per Nike's Preliminary Response). Art included Reed, Nishida, Castello, Fujiwara and others via the Holden declaration.
• Institution decision: denied 2017-06-07 in both proceedings; Nike's winning arguments were § 325(d) (improper "second bite at the apple" over IPR2016-00920 on the same claims/grounds/art) and the petition's failure to identify grounds and evidence with particularity under 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(3), plus a § 312(a)(4) related-matters notice defect. Request for rehearing denied 2017-07-20.
• Final Written Decision: none — never instituted.
• Settlement / termination: none.
• Appeal: none (institution denials are non-appealable).
• Defensive value: shows the Board's willingness to refuse serial re-attacks in this family — useful if you're considering a second-wave petition against a sibling.

IPR2016-00920 — adidas AG v. NIKE, Inc. (US 8,042,288)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016-04-19 (challenged claims 1-38 on two § 103(a) grounds over six references: Nishida, Reed, Shiomura, Shepherd, Castello, Fujiwara)
• Status: Institution denied
• Institution decision: denied 2016-10-20 under § 312(a)(3) — the petition "fail[ed] to identify 'with particularity' the grounds and evidence that form the underlying basis for adidas' patentability challenge" (the Board was "left to guess" which limitations mapped to which references).
• Defensive value: a roadmap of pleading defects to avoid; also the predicate for the § 325(d) denial of the follow-on '263/'264 petitions.

Strategic summary

Claim status of the '705. Nothing is cancelled, nothing is sustained, nothing has been tested: all 20 claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB, and no PTAB finding constrains them. Asserted status is what matters for a defendant: Nike actually asserted claims 1-8 and 11-20 in ITC 337-TA-1289, leaving claims 9, 10, and 12-14 unasserted there (claim 11 is asserted; claims 19-20 asserted). The only adjudicated narrowing of the family's key language came from the sibling '598/'511/'350 line — the Federal Circuit's construction in Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) that "the scope of th[e] claim is limited to a flat-knit, textile element where the flat knit edges have not been removed, or cut, from a surrounding textile structure." The District of Massachusetts restated it in Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK, Dkt. 51 (2024-08-13): "'flat knit edge' is 'an edge of flat knit textile element … which is not formed by cutting from a flat knit textile element.'" That holding maps onto '705 claim 1's express requirement that the flat knit edges be "free of surrounding material from which the knitted textile element must be removed" — i.e., the accused product must be genuinely knit-to-shape. Nike's own ITC complaint ¶ 45 concedes the scope: the '705 "describes a method of manufacturing an upper that may be knit to shape without the need to remove the upper from a surrounding textile structure." (D. Mass decision: https://masslawyersweekly.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2024/08/02-380-24.pdf; family complaint: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zjpqkynodpx/IP%20NIKE%20ADIDAS%20PATENTS%20complaint.pdf)

Estoppel landscape. Because no AIA trial ever targeted the '705, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to the '705 — not for adidas, not for anyone. Estoppel from the six family IPRs attaches only to the patents those IPRs actually involved ('011, '288, '598, '749) and their grounds; a defendant facing the '705 is not barred by adidas' prior petitions, since estoppel is claim/patent-specific and cannot be borrowed from a sibling patent. Practically, the prior-art universe is therefore wide open on the '705: Reed, Nishida, Castello, Fujiwara, Shiomura, Spencer, and the whole knit-to-shape art are un-exhausted against these claims — nothing was "reasonably could have raised" and lost, because nothing was raised against this patent. Two threshold checks matter more than art selection: (i) § 315(b)'s one-year bar if your client was served with an infringement complaint on the '705 more than a year ago (the ITC complaint was filed 2021-12-08, so adidas-type respondents are long since time-barred); and (ii) the patent expired 2024-03-03 (Nike ITC complaint ¶ 44), which changes the cost/benefit calculus — IPR is still available for expired claims, but with no injunction risk and only § 286's six-year lookback damages exposure, and with no ability to amend.

Pattern signals. (1) Single serial petitioner: adidas AG filed all six family petitions (IPR2013-00067; IPR2016-00920, -00921, -00922; IPR2017-00263, -00264), and lost every merits decision; institution was denied outright in three ('920, '263, '264). (2) Patent owner fought and won at the PTAB — Nike defended successfully at FWD in '921/'922, then appealed the motion-to-amend ruling twice, ultimately to the Supreme Court (No. 20-728, filed 2020-11-20), so expect a sophisticated, well-funded patent owner response. (3) No defensive aggregator involvement on the '705 was identified — the Unified Patents links in the patent record are litigation-database references, not evidence that Unified filed a challenge. (4) The commercial dispute was broad (ITC 337-TA-1289; Oregon case 3:21-cv-01780; later Nike actions against New Balance and Skechers, and reportedly settled disputes with adidas and Puma), meaning the '705's assertion history is real but the family's PTAB exposure is now stale and time-barred for the original respondents.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not cite an IPR FWD for the '705 — there isn't one. Any brief or demand-letter response that references a "PTAB decision on the '705" would be citing a nonexistent record. The verifiable decision record for this family is IPR2013-00067 (FWD 2014-04-28; claims 1-46 canceled by amendment; substitute claims denied), IPR2016-00921 (FWD 2017-10-19 and decision on remand 2019-02-19 — all challenged claims sustained), IPR2016-00922 (October 2017 FWD; 2019-02-19 remand decision — claims sustained), and the three institution denials (2016-10-20; 2017-06-07; rehearing denied 2017-07-20). Use PTAB E2E for the authoritative papers: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ (portal landing: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabs-ui/); decisions also mirrored at https://www.uspto.gov/ptab/decisions.
2. Because the patent is expired (2024-03-03) and un-petitioned, run the economics before the art. If your client's exposure is post-2024 sales, there is none. If exposure is pre-expiry sales within § 286's six-year window, weigh an IPR (or ex parte reexamination, which avoids the § 315(b) bar and estoppel entirely) against the cost.
3. Attack scope, not just validity. The narrowest, cheapest defense is the Nike v. adidas construction of "flat knit edges" (812 F.3d at 1346) applied to '705 claim 1's "free of surrounding material from which the knitted textile element must be removed" limitation: if any accused upper's edges are cut from a web, there is no literal infringement. Verify with the D. Mass. Nike v. New Balance ruling (No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK, Dkt. 51, 2024-08-13) and note that the court there declined to resolve, at the pleading stage, whether all edges must be knit-to-shape — a live fight worth having.
4. Confirm in PTAB E2E before relying on any of this. My verification was limited to ODP plus public web sources; I could not exhaustively screen for petitions filed in the last few quarters, and I could not confirm the Federal Circuit/Supreme Court dispositions in the '921/'922 and '013-00067 appeal lines (Fed. Cir. Nos. 19-1262 / 19-1787; Sup. Ct. No. 20-728). Treat those two items as flagged, unverified rather than settled.

If you want, I can run a targeted PTAB E2E party-name sweep ("NIKE, Inc." as patent owner, 2017-2026) to close out the residual risk of a recently-filed petition on the '705.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9,743,705, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center records and any indexed reel/frame data.

Let me try to retrieve the actual recorded assignment data (reel/frame) from USPTO-indexed sources.

Assignment Record — US 9,743,705 B2

Sourcing note up front (read before using any figure below): my searches surfaced the Google Patents legal-events entry for this patent and secondary indexes (Unified Patents portal, Golden, patentleaderboard), but they did not surface the underlying USPTO Assignment Center record image or its reel/frame caption — the USPTO assignment database is not exposed to text search in a form that returned the recorded cover sheet. I therefore report the one recorded conveyance I could confirm, with reel/frame and correspondent marked not retrieved rather than guessed. This is a retrieval limitation, not a statement that the records are absent. Verify at USPTO Assignment Center or the legacy Patent Assignment Search by patent number 9743705.

Inventors

Pattern assessment — no fire-sale precursor. The classic warning pattern (all inventors leaving the original assignee within 12 months of filing) is absent. Both inventors remained tied to Nike across the family's 16-year prosecution arc: Dua is the first-named inventor on Nike continuations of this very family (e.g., App. 15/610,089, filed 2017-05-31) and is still being named as a Nike inventor on applications filed in 2017 with priority into 2018 (PCT/US2017/064057, priority 62/454,474). This is consistent with career employees of a large corporate filer, not with a team dispersing before a portfolio sale.

Timing anomaly worth flagging (but benign): the inventors→Nike assignment was recorded 2016-11-30, i.e., roughly 12 years after the 2004-03-03 priority date and ~2 years after the filing of App. 14/503,514 (2014-10-01). A late-recorded inventor assignment in a sprawling continuation family is housekeeping by the original owner (confirming chain of title for the newly filed division), not a transfer away from Nike. There is no evidence of any conveyance from Nike to a third party at any point. The execution date on the cover sheet was not retrievable; do not assume it matches the recording date.

Original assignee

Nike, Inc. (original assignee Nike Inc.; assignment of interest recorded 2016-11-30 by assignors Dua and Thomas — per the patent record itself).

• Primary line of business: athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment; publicly traded (NYSE: NKE), headquartered One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, Oregon.
• Product embodying the claims: yes, and directly. The '705 claims are method claims for flat-knitting a textile element in the shape of an upper with flat-knit edges free of surrounding material, including apertures formed by omitted stitches, then incorporating it into footwear. This is the manufacturing description of Nike's Flyknit upper program, which Nike shipped commercially at scale from 2012 onward.
• Current status: operating — not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Nike remains the assignee of record and asserted the patent itself (see below), which is the opposite of a distressed-owner posture.
• Ownership evolution: no sale, divestiture, spin-out, or IP-holding-company transfer of this patent appears anywhere in the record. Every family application (23 members, per Google Patents family ID 34911634) is Nike-owned.

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded assignment I could confirm:

• Execution date not retrieved / recorded 2016-11-30 — Reel not retrieved / frame not retrieved
  • Conveyance: Assignment — recorded as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"
  • Assignor: DUA, BHUPESH; THOMAS, EDWARD NATHANIEL (the two named inventors)
  • Assignee: NIKE, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — the recording attorney/firm of record could not be read from any source I could reach; do not populate this field by inference from Nike's usual outside counsel.
  • Context: original acquisition by the operating company — inventors' rights confirmed to Nike for the division application; not a fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

No other assignment records were found. Specifically, I found no recorded Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, Release, or Correction for this patent, and no downstream assignment to any IP-holding or licensing entity. For a patent whose earliest priority is 2004 and whose family was re-filed/continued 23 times, that is itself a finding: ownership never left Nike.

Two cross-checks are consistent with this:

• Unified Patents portal lists the assignee for US-9743705-B2 as Nike Inc (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-9743705-B2) — no NPE assignee appears.
• The AO 120 patent-reporting form for D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780 (cited in the earlier litigation section, as reproduced in a Petitioner exhibit from a Skechers IPR) records the '705 as an added patent with holder Nike, confirming Nike as the asserting owner of record as of the 2021 enforcement campaign.

Caveat / contradiction flag: the previously generated sections state the adjusted expiration as 2024-04-16 (Google Patents family page) while also noting Nike's own complaint described the patent as expired 2024-03-03. That discrepancy is carried forward unresolved; it does not affect ownership.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9743705
    2004 : Inventors file parent at Nike
    2014 : Division application filed
    2016 : Inventor assignment recorded to Nike
    2017 : Patent issued
    2021 : Nike asserts patent against adidas
    2022 : Settled and dismissed
    2024 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The sole recorded assignee is Nike, Inc., an operating manufacturer at One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, OR. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity appears; no registered-agent service address appears in any record I retrieved.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither current nor any prior assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, MPHJ, Lumen View, Spangenberg entities, or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff list. The Unified Patents portal entry for this patent names Nike Inc as assignee.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. No correspondent name could be retrieved for the 2016-11-30 recording, so I cannot test for recurrence, and with a single recorded conveyance there is no chain in which recurrence could appear. This signal is a non-issue here regardless of who the correspondent was.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. One recorded assignment total; zero chained LLC transfers in any time window, let alone <24 months.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The only assignment is dated/recorded 2016-11-30, more than five years before the first suits naming this patent (ITC complaint 2021-12-08; D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780, Dec. 2021). More decisively, that assignment ran inventors → operating company, not operating company → asserter, so it cannot have been arranged to create standing for a third-party plaintiff.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Nike has never filed Chapter 7/11 and no patent-sale proceeding involving this patent exists.
7. Privateering — not present. Nike did not hand this patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf. Nike asserted it in its own name — ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1289 (claims 1-8 and 11-20) and D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780 — against a direct commercial competitor, adidas, over Primeknit. That is classic operating-company assertion, and the matters ended in the same confidential settlement in Aug./Sept. 2022 with no merits ruling.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Note the distinction: Unified Patents appears here only as a data aggregator/index that lists Nike as assignee; appearance in Unified's patent portal is not a transfer to Unified.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: the only recorded conveyance in the chain is the 2016-11-30 recording in which inventors Bhupesh Dua and Edward N. Thomas assigned to NIKE, INC. — i.e., the operating manufacturer acquired the invention from its own employees, and no subsequent assignment to any licensing entity exists in the record. Nike ships products embodying the claims (Flyknit uppers made by flat knitting a shaped textile element with omitted-stitch apertures) and asserted the patent in its own name against a direct competitor in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1289 and D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780, both resolved by confidential settlement in 2022. Every NPE signal in the checklist is absent or, in the case of the correspondent check, unverifiable because there is only a single inventor-to-Nike link to examine.

Verification links: USPTO Assignment Center · USPTO Patent Assignment Search (search patent 9743705) · Google Patents legal events · Unified Patents portal record

One open item for a human follow-up: pull the reel/frame and correspondent off the 2016-11-30 cover sheet directly from Assignment Center. I could not retrieve them, and they are the only fields in this analysis left blank rather than fabricated.

I'll research the prior art cited for US 9,743,705 specifically. Let me run targeted searches on the patent's citation record.

I have partial citation data. Let me retrieve the full cited-references list for US 9,743,705 specifically.

Let me dig for the '705 patent's own front-page references and any PTAB challenge naming it.

I hit the search-step limit, so here is the analysis built on the records I did retrieve — with explicit confidence labels and no invented identifiers.

Prior art for US 9,743,705 B2 — citation-by-citation analysis

0. Scope and verification caveats (read first)

• What I searched: Google Patents' mirror of the USPTO record for US 9,743,705 (patents.google.com/patent/US9743705/en), the sibling family publication pages that carry the shared citation table, Justia's copy of pre-grant pub. US 2015/0013080 A1, and the PTAB/IPR record for the common specification (IPR2013‑00067 on US 7,347,011; IPR2016‑00921 on US 7,814,598). I did not have direct USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR access; the "front page" citation list below is reconstructed from the family's citation table as surfaced through Google Patents.
• Confidence flag: The 22-entry patent-citation table I recovered was returned on a sibling family page that references US 14/503,514 → US 9,743,705. Because the '705 patent shares the '011 specification verbatim, the same art is of record, but I cannot certify that every item below appears on the '705 front page itself as opposed to the sibling's. Treat the citations as "of record in this family/specification" with moderate-to-high confidence, and the exact per-patent face assignment with moderate confidence.
• Numbers I could not verify are not guessed. Where a reference is cited in the IPR record only under a party's short name (McDonald, Whiting, Curley, Reed, Fujiwara, Osamu), I give the citation I can source and flag the missing patent number rather than filling it in.
• Forward citations ("Cited By") are not prior art and are excluded: US 10,834,989 B2 (Nike), US 11,291,273 B2 (Puma), USD944504S1 (Puma), USD953709S1.
• Same-family documents are not prior art to '705: US 7,347,011; US 7,814,598; US 8,042,288; US 8,266,749; US 2004/0118018 A1's sibling US 2005/0193592 A1 (the '011 pre-grant publication) is the parent application publication and, being commonly owned same-family subject matter claiming the same 2004‑03‑03 date, is not a §102 reference against '705.

1. The controlling §102 point that drives everything else

Every one of claims 1–20 of the '705 patent descends from claim 1 or claim 11. Both independent claims contain the same two hard limitations:

1. "flat knitting a textile element having a shape of an upper in a planar configuration … a plurality of flat knit edges defining the shape of the upper … the flat knit edges being free of surrounding material from which the knitted textile element must be removed" (i.e., knit-to-shape / selvedge edges), and
2. "forming a plurality of apertures … by omitting stitches."

Consequence: because each dependent claim incorporates every limitation of its parent, a reference that lacks the knit-to-shape flat-knit-edge element cannot anticipate any claim of the '705 patent — not even the dependent ones. It can only be §103 art. This is the same structural reason adidas lost the anticipation theory on the shared specification: adidas conceded Nishida does not disclose a knit-to-shape upper (PTAB record, IPR2013‑00067/related papers). The anticipation universe for '705 is therefore restricted to art that knits an upper to final shape with selvedge edges — and even then, the reference must also disclose apertures formed by omitted stitches.

Note a useful prosecution fact I can confirm from the two texts: the pre-grant publication's claim 1 (US 2015/0013080 A1, Justia copy) does not recite the omitted-stitch apertures limitation, while the granted claim 1 does. That limitation was added during prosecution, which tells you the examiner's art drove it (most plausibly the Nishida "net-like structure" and the knitting-textbook teaching that empty needles create apertures).

2. Group A — The only references that could anticipate under §102 (knit-to-shape art)

Bottom line for Group A: on the record I retrieved, no single reference anticipates claim 1 or claim 11, because no reference discloses both knit-to-shape selvedge edges and apertures formed by omitting stitches. Glidden is the closest and is the best §102 argument; the realistic posture is §103 (Glidden/Nishida + the empty-needle knitting teaching).

3. Group B — References that cannot anticipate the '705 claims but are core §102(e)/§103 art

Each of these fails at least one of the two gateway limitations of claims 1/11 (usually the knit-to-shape element), so under §102 they cannot reach even the dependent claims. They remain the substantive art.

4. References cited inside the '705 specification text (Background/description)

These are "cited" only as prose citations, but they are part of the prior-art record the patent itself characterizes:

5. Cross-check against the previously generated sections

• No contradiction found with the earlier sections: the prior sections correctly identify the ITC assertion of claims 1–8 and 11–20 in Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1289 and the D. Or. 3:21‑cv‑01780 assertion, and correctly note the family's PTAB history on other members. The prior-art picture here reinforces that account: the family's validity fights (IPR2013‑00067 on the '011; IPR2016‑00921 on the '598; the 2026 S.D.N.Y. '749 ruling referenced earlier) turned on Nishida‑based §103 combinations, which is exactly the posture the '705 claims would face.
• One clarification to add, not a contradiction: the earlier section noted the '011's originally issued claims used "weft‑knitted." That matters here: the '705 claims take a different tack — they drop "weft‑knitted" and instead require "flat knitting" plus knit-to-shape edges. That changes which references bite: Nishida/Castello (cut-from-web) attack the knitting-type and aperture elements, while Glidden/Schuessler attack the knit-to-shape element. No single one of them does both.
• Open §112 flag (surfaced from the record, not adjudicated): the shared specification's principal worked example is a wide-tube circular knit (Santoni SM8 TOP1), while the '705 claims recite flat knitting. The family's 2026 '749 ruling in S.D.N.Y. (per the earlier section) spoke in terms of warp knitting and cut-out elements. Whether the '705 claims' "flat knitting" and "free of surrounding material" limitations are supported by the 2004 disclosure is a genuine vulnerability, but I have no adjudication of the '705 claims on that or any other ground.

6. Explicit uncertainties (do not treat as settled)

1. I could not retrieve the '705 patent's own (56) References Cited front-page block. The citation items in Groups A/B come from the family's citation table plus the PTAB record. A few items may be present on the sibling's face rather than the '705's.
2. Schuessler I (US 2,150,730) and Schuessler II (US 2,178,941) issue dates, and the patent numbers for McDonald, Whiting, Curley, Reed, Fujiwara, and Osamu beyond the JP publication number, were not verified in this run. I did not substitute any numbers.
3. Glidden's exact issue date (1939‑02‑14) is from long-standing citation practice, not re-verified here.
4. Nike's own US 6,910,288 / US 6,931,762 are §102(e)-dated art only if the common-ownership/§103(c) issues are resolved against Nike; as anticipatory references they also fail on the knit-to-shape and omitted-stitch elements.
5. No §102 anticipation of claims 1–20 by a single reference was identified. That conclusion rests on the limitations as issued; if a reference's plain-knit fabric inherently contains stitch gaps that read on "apertures … formed by omitting stitches," the analysis for Glidden could change, and I have not seen Glidden's full specification to rule that out.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in actual prior-art records rather than memory. Let me search for the references cited during prosecution and the closest knit‑to‑shape footwear art.

Key prior art is surfacing (Nishida, Schuessler I/II, Glidden). Let me pin down the exact reference numbers and disclosures.

Let me pin down the remaining references (Spencer, Reed, Glidden, Castello, Fujiwara) and the "omitted stitches" teaching.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,743,705 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note on sourcing. The "Prior Art" material available for this page is (a) the art cited on the face of the '705 patent and its specification's Background (Zaino, Brown, Boggia, Rudy, Kilgore; plus the foreign references and the Santoni SM8 TOP1 publication cited in the parent '011 patent), and (b) the prior art of record in the family's PTAB proceedings — which, because the '705 is a later continuation of the same disclosure, is the same art that has already been adjudicated against the '705's claim language. The '705 patent itself has never been the subject of an IPR/PGR or a validity judgment (consistent with the previously generated Litigation and Patent-summary sections); everything below is therefore an extrapolation from the family record, and I flag where it is strong versus where it is speculative.

1. Legal frame

Two consequences follow. First, the narrowing helps validity against Nishida alone. Second, it defines exactly the gap a § 103 combination must fill — and the Board already held that gap is filled by the Schuessler references. The '705 claims are, in substance, the substitute claims 47–50 of the '011 patent that the Board found unpatentable in IPR2013‑00067.

2. The reference set

Everything above predates 2004‑03‑03 and is § 102(b) art.

3. Proposed grounds

Ground 1 — Claim 1 obvious over Nishida + Schuessler I + Schuessler II + Spencer

Ground 2 — Claim 11 (and 12–18) obvious over Nishida + Schuessler I/II + Spencer

Claim 11 adds affirmative knitting of the lateral, medial, instep, lower, and heel regions, which Nishida supplies directly (its layout includes toe, side, heel-pan sections and separate sole-part sections 29.1/29.2), and adds joining at least two flat knit edges to form an interior void — the precise function Schuessler I assigns to its stitched swatch edges (and which Nishida also performs, albeit on cut edges). Claim 12's four specified edges map to Nishida's side/heel sections; claims 13–14 (first/second seams) and 15–16 (a fifth edge forming a u-shaped area that becomes the ankle opening) map to the Schuessler I cap opening and to Nishida's open space 41 / heel sections 42–43; claim 17 (sole structure secured to the lower region) maps to Nishida's molded midsole/outsole; claim 18 (element forms both exterior and interior surfaces) maps to Nishida's single-layer knit upper and to Glidden's sock.

Ground 3 — Claims 2–10, 19–20 obvious over Nishida (+ Zaino/Brown/Boggia)

The "different texture / different stitch type / different yarn type / different set of properties" limitations are squarely met by Nishida's express disclosure of multi-pattern layouts with different fibers, yarns, colors, and weave/knit types in a single layout (including "at least five, preferably more than ten, patterns … different from one another"). Claim 3's "unitary construction" is satisfied because a layout is a single knit piece (no seams within the element) even though its outer edge is later cut. Zaino/Brown/Boggia supply the motivation for zone-differentiated properties in a footwear upper (abrasion resistance, stretch control) and are of record on the '705 face.

4. Motivation to combine (KSR rationales)

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's motivation findings on this exact combination, and its reasoning transfers to the '705:

1. Same field, same problem. Nishida and Schuessler "are both in similar fields and address the same problem, namely the formation of two-dimensional textile elements having edges that are joined to form three-dimensional, wearable items."
2. KSR, known technique on a similar device. "If a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill." Knit-to-shape flat knitting (Schuessler) applied to a knit shoe upper (Nishida) is exactly that.
3. Design need expressly recognized in the art. Nishida itself frames the problem as "cutting waste" and seeks to minimize it; shifting from cut-from-web to knit-to-shape eliminates it outright. That is a stated problem in the primary reference pointing toward the Schuessler solution.
4. Predictable solutions. The Board found "there are a finite number of predictable solutions for forming holes" (punch, melt, embroider, or omit stitches), and omitting stitches "accomplishes" both hole-formation and waste-minimization "particularly as compared to punching out openings." That is classic KSR "obvious to try."
5. Spencer in particular. Omitting stitches/empty needles was a well-known knitting technique for apertures (Spencer 57–58; Ex. 1012, 84–85), and the motivation to use it in Nishida's net-like knit areas is supplied by Nishida's own air-permeability/air-exchange disclosure.

5. Counterarguments a patent owner would raise — and how they fare

6. Where the '705 claims are stronger than the '011 substitute claims

Two honest caveats against a blanket "clearly obvious" conclusion:

1. Claim 1 is broader, not narrower, in one respect, and narrower in another. It requires the apertures but does not require them to be "positioned in the upper for receiving laces" (that limitation appears only in the '011 substitute claim 49, not in '705 claims 1 or 11). That makes the Spencer mapping easier for the '705. Conversely, claim 1 drops the '011's "some of the flat knit edges joined together to form an ankle opening," so claims 1–10 arguably need no ankle-opening showing at all.
2. Claim 15/16's "fifth flat knit edge … u-shaped area" (the FIG. 8 edge 45 → ankle opening geometry) is the most fact-intensive limitation. Schuessler I's cap opening and Nishida's heel-pan sections 42/43 with open space 41 are the best mappings, but a patent owner would argue neither teaches a fifth edge whose closure creates the opening. This is where an obviousness case is most vulnerable.
3. No institution history to lean on. Unlike the '011, there is no Board institution decision or claim construction directed at the '705's own claim terms; a challenger would have to build the record from scratch, and the "free of surrounding material" narrowing (Nike I, 812 F.3d at 1346) would be imported by both sides.

7. Cross-checks against the previously generated sections

• The earlier Patent-summary statement that the '705 claims are method claims "built around 'flat knit edges' and knit-to-shape," unlike the '011's originally issued "weft-knitted" claims, is consistent with, and here confirmed by, the IPR record: Nike's substitute claim 47 replaced "weft-knitted" with "flat knit … free of surrounding textile structure," i.e., the '705 claim language was itself the unsuccessful amendment.
• The earlier Litigation summary's statement that the family's PTAB activity (adidas IPR2013, Skechers, Lululemon's IPR against the '749) does not name the '705 is consistent with this analysis: my § 103 grounds for the '705 are borrowed from the '011 record, not adjudications of the '705.
• No contradictions found. One clarification worth stating: the '749 invalidity ruling and the '011 IPR findings are family-member findings; a court could still reach a different result on the '705's own claim text, particularly claims 15–16.

8. Bottom line

• Claims 1–14 and 17–20 are, on the family record, strongly vulnerable under § 103 over Nishida + Schuessler I + Schuessler II, with Spencer supplying apertures-by-omitted-stitches. The motivation is supported by Nishida's own "cutting waste" problem statement, the shared field/function of the knit-to-shape swatch art, and KSR's known-technique and predictable-solutions rationales. The Federal Circuit has already affirmed materially identical findings.
• Claims 15–16 (fifth edge / u-shaped area / ankle opening) are the weakest link in an obviousness case and would require additional art (e.g., Glidden's sock-shaped upper, or Nishida's heel sections 42/43 read with its open space 41) and expert testimony.
• Because the '705 expired (adjusted expiration 2024‑04‑16) and has not itself been challenged, this analysis is retrospective: its practical value is to explain why the '705 was likely never worth a standalone IPR, not to predict a live judgment.

Confidence: High on the reference identities and their teachings (they are quoted verbatim in PTAB and Federal Circuit filings). Moderate on the claim-15/16 mapping. I did not locate any adjudication of the '705's own claims, and I could not retrieve the Glidden, Reed, Castello, or Fujiwara specifications directly, so their descriptions above are drawn from the IPR/Fed. Cir. characterizations rather than from the primary documents.