US 9907350

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number and verify against the provided full text.

Let me verify a few specifics: the litigation references and current legal status.

US 9,907,350 B2 — quick-reference identification

Status / term — flagging a data conflict you should resolve against USPTO Patent Center before relying on it. Google Patents and Patexia both list the anticipated expiration as 2024‑03‑03 (20 years from the 2004 priority date) and Google Patents labels the patent "Expired – Fee Related" (https://patexia.com/us/patent/09907350). However, the Espacenet INPADOC legal-status record for this number shows maintenance‑fee activity that post‑dates that date — a 4th‑year fee paid 2021‑08‑25, a reminder mailed 2025‑10‑27, and a "lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" with an effective date of 2026‑03‑06 (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/inpadoc?CC=US&NR=2017311670A1&KC=A1&FT=D). A maintenance‑fee window closing on the 8‑year anniversary of the 2018 grant is inconsistent with a term ending in March 2024. I cannot reconcile the two from the available records; treat the exact expiration/lapse date as uncertain and verify at the USPTO.

Abstract (as issued)

"An article of footwear and a method of manufacturing the article of footwear are disclosed. The footwear may include an upper and a sole structure. The upper incorporates a textile element with edges that are joined together to define at least a portion of a void for receiving a foot. The textile element may have apertures formed by omitting stitches and non‑textile elements on the lateral side and in the heel area. Various warp or weft knitting processes, including flat knitting, may be utilized to form the textile element."

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — an upper for an article of footwear, consisting of three elements:

1. A flat knit textile element that has (a) "flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" — i.e., the knit edges are as‑knitted and are not surrounded by other textile from which the element had to be cut out — and (b) apertures created by omitting stitches in the forefoot region of the upper;
2. A non‑textile element attached to a portion of that knit element that defines the heel region; and
3. One or more strips of non‑textile material attached to a portion of the knit element on the lateral side of the upper.

Plain-English gist: a shoe upper whose knitted body is knit‑to‑shape (not die‑cut from a web), is ventilated in the forefoot by dropped/missed stitches, and is reinforced with non‑knit hardware — something at the heel and strip(s) on the lateral side.

Claim 9 — an article of footwear: the same upper as claim 1, plus a sole structure secured to the upper. Claim 9 is essentially claim 1 restated as a complete shoe.

Dependent claims (brief). Claims 2–8 (and 10–16, mirroring them for claim 9) add: the apertures vent the void to outside air (2/10); the strips are less stretchable than the knit element (3/11); the strips are leather or synthetic leather (4/12); two or more strips of varying lengths (5/14) and/or parallel to one another (6/13); the strips are located in the midfoot on the lateral side (7/15); and the strips run longitudinally with one end toward the forefoot and one toward the heel (8/16).

Note on the specification vs. the claims. The specification describes both a wide‑tube circular knitting route (Fig. 9, Santoni SM8 TOP1) and a flat jacquard double‑needle‑bar raschel route producing a flat textile structure. The issued claims here recite "flat knit," which tracks the flat‑knit disclosure and the Fig. 12 embodiment (lace + forefoot element 132, ankle element 133, heel element 134, inextensible lateral strips 135) — the same component set recited in claim 1.

Litigation and post‑grant proceedings

• Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23‑cv‑12666‑JEK (D. Mass., filed 2023‑11‑06). The '350 patent is one of nine asserted Flyknit patents. New Balance moved to dismiss as to the ’350, ’511 and ’758 patents on the theory that the accused shoes are "knit to cut" rather than "knit to shape"; the court denied the motion on 2024‑08‑13, deferring the "flat knit edges" scope question to claim construction. See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67981637/108/nike-inc-v-new-balance-athletics-inc/authorities/ and the opinion PDF at https://masslawyersweekly.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2024/08/02-380-24.pdf
• Claim-construction anchor: in Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 11, 2016), the Federal Circuit construed "flat knit textile element . . . having flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" (in the context of related U.S. Pat. No. 7,347,011, the original family member) to be limited to a flat‑knit element whose edges have not been removed/cut from a surrounding textile structure. Counsel for Nike argued in the New Balance case that this decision involved a different patent/claims and did not resolve how many flat knit edges the ’350 claims require.
• Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al., No. 3:21‑cv‑01780‑YY (D. Or., filed 2021‑12‑08), together with USITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1289 ("Certain Knitted Footwear") — an earlier Flyknit campaign in which nine Nike patents were asserted; the Oregon case, the ITC investigation and adidas's Texas counter‑suit (No. 2:22‑cv‑00198) were all settled/dismissed in August 2022. https://bdnews24.com/business/0m9ibwws5b. Google Patents lists the Oregon case as a litigation link for this patent.
• PTAB / Federal Circuit: I found no IPR or CAFC appeal naming US 9,907,350 specifically. The IPRs identified in the New Balance and Skechers matters target the ’749, ’932, ’484, ’562, ’636, ’511 and ’781 patents — not the ’350. The related IPR on family parent US 7,347,011 (adidas v. Nike, IPR2013‑00067, final written decision 2014‑04‑28) led to the Nike v. Adidas appeal; adidas also lost a challenge to two Nike Flyknit patents at the Federal Circuit in 2020.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I did not locate any 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming 9,907,350. The 2026 Federal Circuit activity I could see in this campaign is in Nike v. lululemon (S.D.N.Y. 1:23‑cv‑00771, jury verdict 2025‑03‑07; USCA No. 2025‑1709, mandate reported 2026‑04‑02), which concerns the ’749 patent, not the ’350 — https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66771157/nike-inc-v-lululemon-usa-inc/?page=3

Explicit uncertainties

1. Expiration/lapse date — unresolved conflict between a 2024‑03‑03 term end (Google Patents, Patexia) and an INPADOC maintenance‑fee lapse with effective date 2026‑03‑06. Verify on USPTO Patent Center.
2. Term at law (2024) vs. enforcement posture — the ’350 patent was still being asserted in D. Mass. as of the 2025 filings; if the term ended 2024‑03‑03, only pre‑expiration damages are in play, though claim charts and case schedules were built around it.
3. Claim-construction scope of "flat knit edges" — expressly left open by the D. Mass. court; the Federal Circuit construction above was rendered on a different (parent) patent's claims, so its application to claim 1 of US 9,907,350 is a contested issue, not settled law.
4. I did not retrieve the patent's front page for any Patent Term Adjustment entry, so I cannot independently confirm whether PTA shifts the 2024 date.

I'll research litigation involving US 9907350 using the sources you specified.

Let me search for the specific case numbers referenced on the patent page.

Let me verify which patents were asserted in the adidas and Skechers cases, and check for any IPR proceedings.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,907,350 ("the '350 patent")

Scope note: I searched for the exact number 9907350 / 9,907,350 and its litigation. This patent is one member (Family ID 34911634) of Nike's "Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper" / Flyknit knit-upper family, whose parent is U.S. 7,347,011 (filed March 3, 2004). Because litigation sources are generally indexed at the family level, I have flagged where a case is confirmed to assert the '350 patent versus where the '350 connection rests only on the family-level litigation link shown on the patent's Google Patents page.

The Google Patents page for US 9,907,350 itself lists two litigation items for the family: a Massachusetts District Court case (1:23-cv-12666) and an Oregon District Court case (3:21-cv-01780). Those correspond to the two cases below.

1. Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc. — CONFIRMED assertion of the '350 patent

Key developments (from the court's Memorandum & Order, Dkt. 108, and subsequent docket entries):

• Nike accused 61 New Balance products (Fresh Foam, FuelCell, Furon, Tekela, XC Seven lines, etc.) of infringement.
• New Balance's partial motion to dismiss (aimed at the '350, '511, and '758 patents, arguing the claims require all "flat knit edges" to be knit-to-shape per Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016)) was denied on August 13, 2024; the court deferred the "flat knit edge" scope question to claim construction.
• The case was stayed (order of June 6, 2025; stay extended August 22, 2025) pending IPR outcomes, particularly Nike's appeal of the PTAB's finding that the '749 patent is unpatentable.
• Claims/defenses relating to the '484 patent were dismissed (joint stipulation, Aug. 20, 2025) and relating to the '749 patent were dismissed (joint stipulation, May 19, 2026). The '350 patent was not among the dismissed patents and remains in the case.
• The stay was lifted; the court adopted the parties' schedule, with a Markman hearing on September 10, 2026.

Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67981637/nike-inc-v-new-balance-athletics-inc/ ; https://masslawyersweekly.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2025/06/02-308-25.pdf ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2023cv12666/[263327](/patent/263327)

2. Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al. — family-linked; '350 not independently confirmed

Related proceeding: ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-1289 ("Certain Knitted Footwear"), instituted January 10, 2022, based on Nike's December 8, 2021 complaint. The ITC complaint asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 9,918,511; 9,743,705; 8,266,749; 7,814,598; 9,060,562; and 8,898,932 — the '350 patent was not among them, and this investigation was also settled/discontinued.

Sources: https://bdnews24.com/business/0m9ibwws5b ; https://www.thefashionlaw.com/nike-adidas-settle-patent-lawsuit-over-their-respective-knitted-tech/ ; https://www.lexology.com/library/document.ashx?g=033b76e1-513c-4fc9-89f2-6e43e08354e1

Cases that do NOT involve the '350 patent (checked to avoid false positives)

• Nike, Inc. v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc., No. 2:23-cv-9346 (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 2023). The complaint I retrieved asserts only U.S. Patent Nos. 8,266,749; 9,060,562; 9,510,636; 9,730,484; 9,918,511; and 9,986,781 — the '350 patent is not asserted. (A secondary press article described the Nov. 2023 Nike suits collectively as asserting nine patents "including... 9,907,350"; that description does not match the Skechers complaint itself, and I have treated the complaint as controlling for Skechers.)
• IPR challenges: The Flyknit-family IPRs brought by lululemon, Skechers, and New Balance (IPR2024-00460; IPR2025-00020; IPR2025-00141; IPR2025-00142; IPR2025-00144; IPR2025-00150; IPR2025-00151) target the '749, '932, '484, '562, '636, and '511 patents — I found no IPR petition specifically challenging the '350 patent.
• Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) — construed the "flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" limitation, but in the context of the parent U.S. 7,347,011 patent (IPR2013-00067). It is applied by courts as informing the '350, '511, and '758 patents, but the '350 patent itself was not the patent on appeal.

Bottom line

• One case is confirmed to have asserted U.S. 9,907,350: Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK (D. Mass., filed Nov. 6, 2023), which remains pending with a Markman hearing scheduled for September 10, 2026.
• A second case is linked to the '350 patent at the family level: Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, No. 3:21-cv-01780-YY (D. Or., filed Dec. 8, 2021), which settled and was dismissed without prejudice in August 2022. I could not confirm from retrieved sources that the '350 patent was one of the nine patents Nike asserted in that case; treat that connection as probable but unverified.
• I found no litigation in which the '350 patent is the sole asserted patent, and no IPR, reissue, or reexamination directed specifically at the '350 patent.

Caveats / confidence: The New Balance case is documented with high confidence (court orders and docket entries). The adidas link rests on the family-level litigation indicator and secondary reporting, not on the adidas complaint's patent list, which I was unable to retrieve in full. If you need certainty on the adidas assertion, the authoritative step is to pull the adidas complaint (D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780, ECF No. 1) and its exhibit list from PACER.

I'll start by checking the web for any PTAB activity on US 9907350, since the structured block indicates ODP shows none.

PTAB Proceedings — U.S. Patent No. 9,907,350 ("Article of footwear having a textile upper")

Bottom line up front: The USPTO Open Data Portal returns zero AIA trial proceedings naming U.S. 9,907,350 as the challenged patent. My independent web sweep (PTAB E2E materials, docket filings, and press coverage of the Flyknit campaigns) also produced no IPR, PGR, or CBM against the '350 patent. Every Flyknit-family PTAB petition I could source targets a sibling patent in the same 2004-03-03 priority family (the '011, '749, '484, '932, '562, '636, and '511 patents) — not the '350. I flag that as a finding, not a placeholder.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on U.S. 9,907,350: 0 (0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials). The patent's issued claims 1–16 have never been tested at the Board, so there is no claim-level PTAB disposition to cite, no FWD to link, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against any party as to this patent — but the same structured data shows an anticipated expiration of 2024-03-03 and a legal status of "Expired – Fee Related," which is the more consequential fact for anyone receiving a demand letter today.

Caution on the status field. The Google Patents record for US9907350 lists "2024-03-03 Anticipated expiration" and current status "Expired - Fee Related." The 20-year term from the 2004-03-03 priority/filing date is 2024-03-03, which is consistent with term expiry. "Fee Related" normally denotes a lapsed maintenance fee rather than term expiry, and the two indicators are in tension. Confirm the actual lapse date and any petition to accept an unintentionally delayed payment on USPTO Patent Center before you rely on either. What is not in tension: the 2025 district court papers still treat the patent as assertable, which is consistent with a past-damages-only posture (35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year lookback), not with forward-looking injunctive relief.

Because there are no qualifying proceedings, the template's per-proceeding sections would be empty. Instead, below is the adjacent-proceeding intelligence a defendant actually needs — clearly labeled as not proceedings against the '350.

Adjacent PTAB proceedings in the same family (NOT proceedings on the '350)

IPR2013-00067 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,347,011 — the family's root patent)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2012-12-10 (revised petition)
• Patent challenged: U.S. 7,347,011 ("the '011 patent") — not the '350. The '350 is a later continuation in the same chain (10/791,289 → 12/032,995 → 12/879,517 → 13/236,742 → 13/413,233 → 14/079,748 → 14/503,514 → 15/610,089 → 15/650,488).
• Judge panel: APJs Josiah C. Cocks, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, and James B. Arpin (Arpin authored the FWD).
• Petition grounds: claims 1–46 of the '011 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, over Nishida (U.S. 5,345,638) in view of the Schuessler references (U.S. 2,178,941 and U.S. 2,150,730).
• Institution decision: instituted 2013-05-17 as to all challenged claims.
• Final Written Decision: entered 2014-04-28; the Board concluded all challenged claims 1–46 were unpatentable under § 103. Nike's contingent Motion to Amend (substitute claims 47–50) was denied.
• Aftermath / appeals: Nike noticed appeal 2014-06-30 (Fed. Cir. No. 2014-1719). The Federal Circuit's decision is reported as Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Two holdings from that decision drive the current litigation:
  • The court agreed with the Board's construction of "flat knit edge" — "an edge of [a] flat knit textile element . . . which is not formed by cutting from a flat knit textile element," so the 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." An interpretation covering a flat-knit element cut from a larger web "would contradict the express claim language." This construction is recited verbatim by the district court in the New Balance case and applied to claim 1 of the '350, '511, and '758 patents.
  • The motion-to-amend denial was vacated and remanded. The Board then issued a second FWD (2018-09-18) holding substitute claims 47–50 unpatentable; on appeal the court vacated as to substitute claim 49 on Administrative Procedure Act notice grounds (Nike II, 955 F.3d 51 (Fed. Cir. 2020)) and remanded; further Board and appellate proceedings followed (Nike sought Supreme Court review in the 2022–2023 timeframe; I could not confirm the final cert disposition from the sources retrieved and will not characterize it).
• Defensive value (for the '350): The '011's original claims are gone, but that does not invalidate the '350. What it does give a defendant is a Federal Circuit-affirmed claim construction that the '350's "flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" limitation excludes knit-to-cut uppers. That is a non-infringement tool, and New Balance has already tried to wield it (see below).

Post-2023 IPRs on sibling Flyknit patents (none on the '350)

The 2023–2025 enforcement campaign against New Balance, Skechers, and lululemon has generated a dense IPR cluster, but the petitions map to six patents — the '932, '749, '484, '562, '636, and '511 — never to the '350:

Sources: D. Mass. Memorandum & Order, Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK (ECF 108, 2025-06-06) and the stay briefing (ECF 82, 89) via CourtListener; the Board's 2025-09-10 remand institution decision in IPR2025-00141; Nike's Patent Owner Preliminary Response in IPR2025-00151. Proceeding-number-to-patent mappings above deserve a docket-level check on PTAB E2E before you rely on them in a brief.

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '350. All 16 issued claims — independent claims 1 and 9 and their dependents 2–8 and 10–16 — are UNTESTED. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been sustained through trial, and there is no FWD to quote. By contrast, the family's root patent ('011) was fully canceled through IPR2013-00067 and the follow-on appeals, and several sibling patents ('749, '484) now have adverse PTAB final written decisions. The practical read: Nike has progressively re-issued this disclosure as a chain of narrowing continuations, and the '350's claims are the narrowest generation — they expressly require "flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure," the very language the Federal Circuit construed against Nike's broader reading. A defendant's fastest path is not an IPR-shaped invalidity attack but a claim-construction/non-infringement attack built on Nike v. Adidas, 812 F.3d 1326, plus the expired term.

Estoppel landscape. Because the '350 itself has never been petitioned, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to the '350's claims. Every prior petitioner (adidas, lululemon, Skechers, New Balance) is estopped only as to the patents it actually petitioned. Two consequences: (a) if you are a new target served within the last year, the full prior-art field against the '350 is unencumbered; (b) prior art that was raised against the '011 or the siblings — including Nishida and the Schuessler references — is not estopped as to the '350, but it also may not travel well: the Board's and the Federal Circuit's reading of "flat knit edge" makes Nishida (which concerns uppers cut from a larger knit web, i.e., knit-to-cut) a problematic primary reference against the '350's asserted claims. Expect the same § 325(d) fight that sank Skechers' first round — the Dua/Nishida art was before the examiner during prosecution of this family, and the Director's willingness to grant review of a § 325(d) denial (as happened in IPR2025-00141) is a live variable.

Pattern signals. (1) No serial petitioner against the '350 — the prolific filers here (Skechers, lululemon, New Balance) each targeted other family members. (2) Nike is the patent owner, not a troll, and is pursuing PTAB appeals aggressively — it took the '011 loss to the Federal Circuit twice and to the Supreme Court. Do not assume it will roll over. (3) No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) appears anywhere in this chain. (4) Critically, the § 315(b) one-year clock has already run for the two defendants currently accused on the '350 — New Balance (suit filed 2023-11-06) and Skechers (suit filed 2023-11-06, 2:23-cv-09346) — which is why the '350 sits unchallenged while its siblings are under fire.

Term posture. If the 2024-03-03 anticipated expiration in the structured data is correct, every asserted claim of the '350 expired before any currently-pending case reaches trial. That converts the exposure from an injunction-plus-running-royalty case into a § 286 six-year-lookback damages case, and it materially changes settlement leverage.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and the demand letter cites the '350:

1. Verify the expiry first. Pull the '350 from USPTO Patent Center and confirm (i) the term calculation from the 2004-03-03 earliest filing in the continuation chain, and (ii) whether any maintenance fee was missed and whether a § 41(c) petition to accept a delayed payment was filed. The Google Patents record shows "Expired - Fee Related" and "Anticipated expiration 2024-03-03"; if the term lapsed, any claim is past-damages-only and time-barred outside § 286's window. This single fact can be dispositive.
2. Run the Nike v. Adidas construction against the accused product. Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) holds that claim 1's "flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" is limited to elements whose edges were knit to shape, not cut from a surrounding web. New Balance's partial motion to dismiss on this exact theory was denied on the pleadings on 2024-08-13 (D. Mass. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK, ECF 51), the court expressly deferring the issue to claim construction. That is a roadmap — but it must be made on a claim construction record, with manufacturing evidence, not on a 12(b)(6) motion. See the D. Mass. order via CourtListener.
3. Preserve the IPR option if you are newly served. If you were served with a complaint asserting the '350 within the last 12 months and are not a privy of adidas, lululemon, Skechers, or New Balance, you remain free to petition under § 311 — there is no estoppel and no prior trial on these claims. Ground your § 103 combinations on knit-to-shape-friendly art rather than Nishida, and pre-empt the § 325(d) discretionary-denial argument by explaining why the Examiner did not materially err.
4. Monitor the sibling FWDs for cross-reads. The '749 and '484 final written decisions (lululemon) and the Skechers IPRs are the closest thing to a validity signal for this family. Follow them on PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the Federal Circuit docket via CourtListener. Note that Nike has sought Director Review of the '749 FWD, so those outcomes are not yet final.

If no PTAB activity exists and you are the patent owner: the absence of proceedings on the '350 is not a hardening signal — it reflects that the one-year windows for the current defendants have closed while third parties focused on the broader sibling claims. Expect a § 325(d)-resistant petition the moment a new party is accused.

Key links

• Patent record (term/status fields relied on): https://patents.google.com/patent/US9907350/en
• PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board filings: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/
• Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK (D. Mass.) docket and stay/claim-construction orders: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67981637/nike-inc-v-new-balance-athletics-inc/

Nothing above should be treated as a legal conclusion on validity, infringement, or the current legal status of the patent. The proceeding numbers, panels, and claim dispositions for proceedings other than the '350 are drawn from public filings and should be confirmed against PTAB E2E before use in any filing. No AIA trial proceeding against U.S. 9,907,350 is on file with the USPTO as of the most recent ODP ingest.

I'll research this patent's assignment record and litigation history before writing up.

Good — I found a reel/frame reference. Let me verify it and pin down the litigation that actually asserts the '350 patent.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 9,907,350 B2

Patent: US 9,907,350 B2, "Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper"
App. No.: 15/650,488 · filed 2017-07-14 · granted 2018-03-06
Earliest priority: 2004-03-03 (via App. 10/791,289 → US 7,347,011)
Current assignee of record: Nike, Inc. (Beaverton, OR) — unchanged since 2004

Sourcing caveat, stated up front. I could not query assignmentcenter.uspto.gov interactively from this environment. The reel/frame values below are taken from Google Patents' legal-events record for this patent and the EPO INPADOC legal-status record for the same application/publication pair (US 2017/0311670 A1 → US 9,907,350 B2), which mirror the USPTO Assignment Center data. The "correspondent of record" field was not exposed in any source I could retrieve — see signal #3 below. Treat the recording date as having a ±1 record discrepancy noted in the timeline.

Inventors

Notes on patterns:

• Only two inventors across a 20-year continuation family — a small, stable inventorship group. There is no evidence of inventor departure and no subsequent assignment away from Nike, which is the classic precursor to a portfolio fire-sale. This signal is absent.
• Both inventors executed assignment of rights to Nike, Inc. in July 2004, roughly four months after the 2004-03-03 filing of the original application — the standard employment-obligation timing, not a negotiated transfer.
• The employer attribution is an inference from the assignment instrument itself (individuals conveying to Nike). I did not locate an independent employment record confirming job titles.

Original assignee

Nike, Inc. — a corporation organized under the laws of Oregon, principal place of business One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, Oregon 97005.

• Primary line of business: design, development, worldwide marketing and sale of athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment (NYSE: NKE).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, unambiguously. The asserted claims cover the knit-to-shape flat-knit textile upper commercialized as Nike Flyknit (Flyknit Racer, Flyknit Trainer+, and the platform's roll-out across Running, Basketball, Jordan Brand, Soccer, Training, Tennis, and Sportswear). Nike's own complaints state it "owns all right, title, and interest in" the asserted patents and that it virtually marks its products at nike.com/patentsvirtualmarking pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 287(a). See Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK (D. Mass.), Compl. ¶ 12.
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded, not in bankruptcy. However, the patent itself is recorded by Google Patents as "Expired – Fee Related," with an anticipated expiration of 2024-03-03 (20 years from the 2004-03-03 priority date). The "fee related" label implies a maintenance-fee lapse rather than a clean run to statutory term; I could not confirm which maintenance window was missed, so treat the reason for expiration as unverified. The term end date is nonetheless consistent with the § 120 chain running the full 20 years from 2004.

Assignment timeline

There is only one recorded assignment, and it is the original employee invention assignment to the operating company. There are no post-issuance assignments, no security interests, no mergers, no name changes, and no transfers of any kind in the USPTO record for US 9,907,350. That is itself the principal finding of this review.

• 2004-07-15 / 2004-07-21 (executed) / recorded 2017-08-01 — Reel 043158 / 0297
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Dua, Bhupesh; Thomas, Edward Nathaniel
  • Assignee: Nike, Inc. (Oregon)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources available to me. I will not guess. This field should be read directly off the Assignment Center abstract for reel 043158/0297 before this review is treated as final, because it is the single most diagnostic field for the NPE question and, here, the entire chain rests on one link.
  • Context: Employee invention assignment to the operating company. Recorded ~13 years after execution as part of a batch confirmatory recording — the sibling continuation application 15/650,499 (→ US 9,930,923) was recorded the same day at reel 043158/0445, i.e., adjacent frames within a single reel used to paper the 2017 continuation filings. Internal administrative perfection of title, not a transfer of ownership.

Recorded-date discrepancy (flagged, not resolved): Google Patents lists the reassignment event as 2017-08-01; the EPO INPADOC entry for the same instrument carries a 2018-02-14 date, which is most likely the INPADOC legal-status update date rather than the USPTO recording date. The reel number itself (043158) is consistent with a 2017 recording series, which corroborates 2017-08-01.

Corroborating absence: Every litigation complaint in this family pleads that "Nike owns all right, title, and interest in" the asserted patents. No party has ever asserted standing through a successor entity. Nothing in the chain to Nike Innovate C.V. either — the patent sits with the parent, not the holding subsidiary.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9907350
    2004 : Original application filed by Nike
         : Inventors assign rights to Nike Inc
    2017 : Continuation filed as 15 650 488
         : Assignment recorded at reel 043158 frame 0297
    2018 : Patent issues to Nike Inc
    2021 : Nike sues adidas in Oregon
    2023 : Nike sues New Balance in Massachusetts
    2024 : Statutory term ends

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only recorded conveyance (reel 043158/0297) moves title from two individuals to an operating company, the opposite of the pattern. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity has ever appeared as assignee. No registered-agent service address appears anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. The assignee has been Nike, Inc. continuously since 2004-07-15. It matches no entry on the rosters named in the brief — Acacia, Marathon Patent Group, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity. Neither Unified Patents nor RPX lists this patent's owner as a high-frequency plaintiff. Both do index US 9,907,350 — Unified Patents' patent portal and RPX Empower both carry it — but in both cases only as third-party litigation trackers monitoring Nike's assertions against others, not as record owners. Do not misread those hits as NPE evidence.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT A FINDING. There is exactly one recorded link, so recurrence cannot exist by definition. The correspondent of record on reel 043158/0297 could not be retrieved from the sources available to me. Because a single appearance is not a signal under the brief's own standard, I record this as unclear and explicitly decline to infer anything from it.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. One assignment in 20 years, and it predates issuance by 14 years. There is no chain of LLCs, no shared correspondent address, no common principals, no sub-24-month sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The assignment was executed 2004-07-15/21 and recorded 2017-08-01. The first suit naming this patent was filed 2023-11-06 (D. Mass.) — roughly 6 years after recording and 19 years after execution. Nothing was rearranged to enable assertion. Note that the pre-suit conduct here is the reverse of the NPE pattern: Nike sent three infringement notice letters (2023-01-31, 2023-03-03, 2023-09-01) before filing, i.e., it built notice under § 287 rather than buying standing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Nike, Inc. has not filed Chapter 7 or 11. No trustee, receiver, or § 363 sale appears in the record.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no transfer to a third-party assertion vehicle. Nike litigates in its own name, on its own patents, against direct competitors in the same product market (adidas, New Balance, Skechers, lululemon, PUMA). That is the textbook anti-privateering posture.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Nike retained title through expiration.

Additional non-NPE context worth recording. The patent's validity is being actively contested against Nike — the inverse of an NPE holding. The related ’749, ’484, ’932, ’562, ’636, and ’511 patents have drawn IPRs from New Balance, Skechers, and lululemon; the PTAB found claims 1–19 of the ’484 patent unpatentable (lululemon v. Nike, IPR2023-01460, Mar. 21, 2025), and Judge Subramanian invalidated claims 1 and 14 of the ’749 patent for obviousness over the March 2025 lululemon jury verdict. The claim term that governs the ’350 ("flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure") was construed against Nike in Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and that construction drove New Balance's partial motion to dismiss the ’350, ’511, and ’758 claims (denied 2024-08-13). I found no IPR petition against the ’350 itself. Note: I could not independently confirm whether the ’350 was among the nine patents asserted in the December 2021 adidas action (D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780) / ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1289 — treat that as unverified.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Nike, Inc. has been the sole assignee of record since the 2004-07-15/21 inventor assignment recorded at reel 043158/0297, with no subsequent transfer, security interest, or change of name — a single link in 20 years, which is the opposite of a cascading NPE chain. Nike ships the claimed subject matter as Flyknit, virtually marks under § 287(a), and files under its own name against direct product-market competitors (Nike v. New Balance, D. Mass. 1:23-cv-12666, filed 2023-11-06, asserting the ’350 among nine patents). All eight NPE signals are absent or, in the case of the correspondent recurrence test, inapplicable because only one assignment exists.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search 9907350): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9907350/en
• Docket, Nike v. New Balance: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67981637/nike-inc-v-new-balance-athletics-inc/

Single open item: pull the correspondent-of-record field for reel 043158/0297 directly from the Assignment Center abstract. It cannot change the verdict — there is only one link and the assignee is an operating company — but the brief specifically asks for it and I will not fabricate a name.

I'll research US 9907350 and its cited prior art references. Let me run several searches.

Let me get the specific cited references for US 9907350.

Bottom line up front

I located the exact document you asked about and confirmed its identity. However, I must flag one important limitation before giving the prior‑art analysis: the authoritative full text I retrieved for US 9,907,350 does not render the front‑page "References Cited" (U.S. Patent Documents) list — that portion of the Google Patents page came through blank in the fetch. So I can give you (a) the reference list that is documented in the family's public litigation/IPR record, and (b) the background references cited in the patent's own specification, but I cannot responsibly claim to reproduce the examiner's complete front‑page citation list from this fetch. Where I could not verify a citation number, I say so rather than guessing.

1. Confirmed identity of the document searched

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9907350/en ; https://patexia.com/us/patent/09907350

Note the claim set is narrow: independent claims 1 and 9 require a flat knit textile element whose "flat knit edges [are] free of surrounding textile structure such that the flat knit edges are not surrounded by textile structure from which the flat knit textile element must be removed," plus apertures formed by omitting stitches in the forefoot region, a non‑textile heel element, and non‑textile strips on the lateral side. Claims 2–8 and 10–16 are dependent. This claim language is materially different from the older family members (e.g., the '011, '598, '749 patents) and it materially changes the § 102 analysis, as discussed below.

2. A necessary distinction: "citations" that are prior art vs. forward citations

The Google Patents page for US 9,907,350 carries a "Cited By" table and a "Families Citing this family (300)" table. Items in those tables are documents that cite the '350 family — i.e., later, mostly Nike, patents/applications with the same 2004 priority. They are not prior art against US 9,907,350 and cannot anticipate it under § 102. Examples wrongly surfaced by search: US 10,834,989 B2, US 10,130,135 B2, US 10,130,136 B2, US 11,849,795 B2, US 9,936,758 B2, US 9,924,758 B2, US 9,918,510 B2, US 9,943,130 B2, US 9,974,705 B2 — all Nike family members with the same 3 Mar 2004 priority. Treating any of these as § 102 art for the '350 would be an error.

The true prior‑art citations for this family fall into two buckets, below.

3. Prior art of record — references applied/cited in the family's prosecution and IPR record

The following references are documented in the public record of US 9,907,350's patent family (prosecution of the '011 patent and the adidas v. Nike IPRs). I give verification status for each:

§ 102 assessment for the record references above. None of these was applied as a standalone § 102 anticipation of the claims that issued in US 9,907,350. The Board did find, in the IPR on sibling US 8,266,749, that Nishida anticipated independent claims 1 and 13 of that patent ("we determine that Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that independent claim 1 is anticipated by Nishida"). But the '749 claims are method claims with different language (they recite "simultaneously knitting a textile element with a surrounding textile structure" — i.e., the opposite architecture from the '350's "edges free of surrounding textile structure"). Applying Nishida as § 102 art against the '350 claim 1/9 "free edges" limitation would be directly contrary to the reference's own teaching. See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.[593182](/patent/593182)/gov.uscourts.nysd.593182.349.1.pdf

The IPRs otherwise relied on § 103 obviousness combinations (Reed + Nishida; Castello + Fujiwara + Nishida), not pure § 102. See IPR2016‑00921 / ‑00922 (adidas AG v. Nike, Inc.) and IPR2013‑00067 (Final Written Decision; remand decision on substituted claim 49, relying on Nishida + Schuessler + a knitting‑technology text, Ex. 1012). Petitions IPR2017‑00263 and ‑00264 were not instituted.

4. Background references cited in the specification of US 9,907,350

US 9,907,350's own text cites these U.S. patents in its Background/Description:

These are specification/background citations, not examiner prior‑art rejections, and none addresses the "flat knit … free edges / omitted‑stitch apertures / lateral non‑textile strips" combination of claims 1 and 9.

5. Foreign patent documents of record in the family

The family's reference list (as published on a later family member, US 10,834,989 B2) includes these foreign documents — I reproduce them literally with the dates shown and make no attempt to correct or re‑title them:

DE 19728848 (Jan 1999); EP 0279950 (Aug 1988); EP 0448714 (Oct 1991); EP 728860 (Aug 1996); EP 0758693 (Feb 1997); EP 0898002 (Feb 1999); EP 1233091 (Aug 2002); EP 1437057 (Jul 2004); EP 1563752 (Aug 2005); EP 1602762 (Dec 2005); EP 1972706 (Sep 2008); FR 2171172 (Sep 1973); GB 538865 (Aug 1941); GB 1539886 (Feb 1979); GB 2018837 (Oct 1979); GB 1603487 (Nov 1981); JP H06113905 (Apr 1994); JP H08109553 (Apr 1996); JP H11302943 (Nov 1999); NL 7304678 (Oct 1974); WO 9003744 (Apr 1990); WO 00132861 (Jun 2000); WO 0231247 (Apr 2002). Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10834989](/patent/10834989)

Two cautions: (i) several of these are dated after the 3 Mar 2004 priority date and therefore cannot be § 102(1)/102(a) prior art against the '350 claims unless they qualify on another basis; and (ii) I could not verify via search which of these (if any) corresponds to "Nishida," so I decline to map them.

6. What I could not confirm (stated explicitly, per your rules)

• The complete, verbatim front‑page "References Cited" list of US 9,907,350 itself — the fetched text did not include it.
• The exact publication numbers/dates for Nishida, Reed, Castello, Fujiwara, Schuessler I/II, Curley, and Shiomura. The record refers to them by name and column:line cites, and my searches confirmed the substance and the reliance on them but not the numeric identifiers. I will not guess these numbers.
• Whether any reference was ever applied as a § 102 anticipation of the specific claims of US 9,907,350 (as opposed to obviousness combinations, or anticipation findings on the differently‑worded '749 claims).

7. Practical conclusion

For US 9,907,350's actual claims 1 and 9 — which require flat knit edges that are not part of, and are not cut from, a surrounding textile structure — the most closely analogous prior art in the record (Nishida, Reed, Castello, Fujiwara) teaches the inverse architecture (elements formed within a web/tube and then removed). Under § 102, none of them appears to disclose that limitation, so they are better characterized as § 103 obviousness material (and, in the record, that is exactly how they were used) than as anticipating references. The specification's background patents (Zaino, Brown, Boggia, Rudy, Kilgore) likewise do not touch claims 1 or 9; Brown/Boggia could at most bear on the "less stretch capabilities" dependent claim 3.

If you need the authoritative examiner citation list, the reliable next steps are the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper for application 15/650,488 (front‑page "References Cited"/PTO‑892 and any PTO‑1449), or the printed patent PDF front page, neither of which rendered in the text I retrieved.

I'll start by gathering corroborating information on this patent and the prior art cited on its page.

Let me verify specifics of the key prior-art references cited on the page.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,907,350 B2

“Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper” · Inventors Dua & Thomas · Assignee Nike, Inc. · Priority 2004‑03‑03 · Continuation filed 2017‑07‑14 · Issued 2018‑03‑06
Analysis date: April 26, 2026 · Governing law: pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103 (priority date 2004‑03‑03)

1. Scope note on the “Prior Art” material used

The Google Patents page you directed me to (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9907350](/patent/US9907350)/en) does not render a single, discrete “Prior Art” bibliography. The prior‑art‑relevant content on that page is:

Because those examiner‑cited documents are dated after 2004, they are not prior art to these claims unless the 2004 priority claim fails (see §6). I therefore build the grounds primarily on the references named in the patent’s own “Prior Art” discussion and on the prior art of record for this patent family (the art the USPTO applied against the ’598/’749/’011 patents and that the PTAB/Federal Circuit adjudicated), and I flag the latter as such. Identifiers I could not verify from an authoritative source are noted as unverified — I have not auto‑corrected any number.

2. The claims to be evaluated

Claim 1 (independent, product):

1. an upper comprising:

• (a) a flat knit textile element having
  • (a1) flat knit edges free of surrounding textile structure such that the edges are not surrounded by textile structure from which the element must be removed, and
  • (a2) a plurality of apertures formed by omitting stitches in a first portion defining a forefoot region;
• (b) a non‑textile element secured to a second portion defining the heel region; and
• (c) one or more strips of non‑textile material secured to a third portion on a lateral side.

Claim 9 = claim 1 + a sole structure secured to the upper (the remainder is identical).

Dependents: 2/10 apertures facilitate air transfer; 3/11 strips have less stretch capability than the knit; 4/12 strips are leather/synthetic leather; 5/14 at least two strips of varying lengths; 6/13 at least two parallel strips; 7/15 strips in the mid‑foot region on the lateral side; 8/16 strips extend longitudinally, one end toward the forefoot and one toward the heel.

Construction note. “Flat knit edges” was construed in the family’s IPR (IPR2013‑00067, on parent U.S. 7,347,011) as “an edge of a flat knit textile element, which is itself flat knit, e.g., which is not formed by cutting from a flat knit textile element,” and that construction was affirmed by the Federal Circuit in Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326, 1346–47 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“Nike I”). The claims carry no method steps; they are product claims to an assembled upper and are therefore exposed to product‑by‑process treatment of the negative limitation in (a1) (In re Thorpe, 777 F.2d 695 (Fed. Cir. 1985)) — a point discussed in §5.

3. Prior art inventory and what each reference supplies

Structural mapping to Figure 12 of the patent itself is exact and worth stating: claim elements (b) and (c) read on Nike’s own element 134 (heel counter) and elements 135 (“substantially inextensible strips of material, such as leather or synthetic leather, that limit stretch on the lateral side”), and (a2) reads on element 48″ of Figure 11 (“a plurality of apertures… formed by omitting stitches”). The issued claim is thus a compilation of features the specification presents as separately known.

4. Grounds of rejection and motivations to combine

Ground 1 (primary): Nishida + Schuessler I & II — the flat‑knit, knit‑to‑shape element

• Discloses: a knitted footwear upper formed as a unitary textile element (Nishida) plus an element whose edges are knit to final shape with no surrounding material to remove (Schuessler).
• Motivation (this is the strongest, non‑hindsight ground in the corpus): Nike I held there was substantial evidence of a reason to modify Nishida with the Schuessler references to reach “the unitary, flat‑knitted textile upper,” because a skilled artisan “[i]nterested in Nishida’s preference to minimize waste in the production process would have logically consulted the well‑known practice of flat‑knitting, which eliminates the cutting process altogether.” That holding was reaffirmed in Nike II (955 F.3d 43 (Fed. Cir. 2020)) and restated in Nike’s own cert filings (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-927/[252916](/patent/252916)/20230123122711022_Nike--Application%20XT%20File%20Cert%20Pet%20-%20Exhibits%20A-D.pdf). The same reasoning disposes of limitation (a1): once the element is flat knit to shape, its edges are, by definition, “free of surrounding textile structure.”
• Reed may be substituted for or added to Schuessler as the same-field, cost-reduction motivation (both were held to be in a similar field with the same objective in the ’598/’749 IPRs), and Joha independently supplies a flat‑knit blank folded and stitched into a foot covering.

Ground 2: Ground 1 + Spencer (and/or Santoni) — apertures formed by omitting stitches in the forefoot

• Discloses (a2): the Board in IPR2013‑00067 found on remand that Spencer “demonstrates that skipping stitches to form apertures was a well‑known technique” and that, “[b]ecause the omission of stitches was a well‑known technique in the field of knitting for forming… apertures,” a skilled artisan “would have had reason to use such a known technique… to form the plurality of apertures taught by Nishida.” Santoni supplies the same capability structurally (needle selection ⇒ specific needles accept or refuse yarn at each stitch location — a passage the ’350 specification itself reproduces).
• Motivation: ventilation of the forefoot. The patent’s own Background concedes that the reason to limit leather/rubber is that these “are not generally permeable to air,” and Nishida expressly teaches a net‑like knit in the toe area for air exchange. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 (known technique to improve a similar device).

Ground 3: Grounds 1–2 + Zaino — the non‑textile heel element and the lateral strips

• Discloses (b) and (c): Zaino’s injected plastic structure forms a toe region, a heel reinforcement 11, an edging around the opening, and two sets of bands 14, one on each side of the shoe, extending between the edging and the sole/welt — i.e., non‑textile elements fixed at the heel and as lateral bands on a textile vamp (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/4b/c8/e7/cc5fb09dc4353d/US4447967.pdf).
• Motivation: Zaino states its purpose is to give strength and longer life while eliminating the manual cutting, gluing and sewing of leather elements, and to leave fabric zones uncovered so “perspiration can take place.” That is precisely the trade‑off the ’350 claims embody. Reinforcements at the toe/heel and along the lateral side are also admitted in the ’350 specification itself (leather/synthetic leather/rubber at toe and heel “to impart a relatively high degree of wear‑resistance”; “the upper may include a heel counter to limit movement of the heel”).

Ground 4 (for the stretch‑limiting dependents): Ground 3 with Boggia (or Brown)

• Discloses (claim 3/11): strips that are “not capable of being elongated or stretched,” secured to the upper and running from the lace area into the sole; and (claims 4/12) suitable materials include leather‑type/encapsulated fibrous materials.
• Motivation: the ’350 specification admits that Brown and Boggia “both disclose a substantially inextensible material that is secured to the upper, thereby limiting the degree of stretch in specific portions of the upper,” and that combining additional materials with a textile “to impart other properties… including durability and stretch‑resistance” was conventional. A knit upper (elastic, deformable) presents the very problem Boggia/Brown solve; applying their known strips to a knit upper is the “predictable variation” of KSR at 417.

Ground 5 (alternative, narrower): Joha + Santoni (+ Spencer)

• Discloses: flat‑knit blank → foot covering (Joha), with stitch selection/apertures (Santoni/Spencer). Why this matters strategically: during prosecution of the ’598 patent, applicants distinguished Joha/Santoni on the ground that no textile element is removed from a textile structure — i.e., the pre‑2010 claims were directed to cutting a shaped element out of a knit structure. The ’350 claims went the other way, expressly requiring edges “free of surrounding textile structure… not surrounded by textile structure from which the flat knit textile element must be removed.” The narrowing that was intended to escape Nishida‑style cutting art simultaneously concedes the point that makes Joha‑style knit‑to‑shape art more, not less, relevant. (See the ’598 prosecution response at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1556902](/patent/1556902)/download-documents?artifactId=C1g16QeB_Vw_IGp3U_U8KUJx_5VzBoAHzu0TRdRXWbQYSOycGGvf_58.)

5. Claim‑by‑claim application

Two doctrinal points worth flagging. (i) Limitation (a1) is negative and process‑flavored; to the extent it merely recites how the element was made rather than a structural difference, it does not patentably distinguish an otherwise identical product (In re Thorpe). The Federal Circuit’s construction, however, gives the limitation arguable structural weight because a knit (looped) edge differs from a cut (severed‑yarn) edge — which is why Ground 1 must be built on flat‑knitting‑to‑shape art rather than on Nishida alone. (ii) There is no evident teaching away: the ’350 Background’s complaint about the inefficiency and breathability cost of multi‑material uppers is a general preference, and the claims themselves require non‑textile heel and lateral elements, so the Background cannot be read as discouraging the claimed combination.

6. The priority question — the largest single vulnerability

The strength of every ground above depends on whether claims 1–16 are entitled to the 2004‑03‑03 filing date under § 120. If they are, the 2005–2012 references sitting in the page’s “Cited By”/“Citing” tables (e.g., US 7,637,032; US 7,546,698; US 7,574,818; US 7,774,956; US 8,225,530; US 8,490,299; US 2011/0078922; WO 2012/166244; DE 102011086742) are not prior art. If the “flat knit / knit‑to‑shape” subject matter is not supported by the 2004 disclosure with respect to the claimed combination — a question on which I have no determination from an adjudicating body — the effective date shifts to 2017 and those documents become highly material, several being knit uppers with reinforced zones and knit‑formed openings. I flag this as the highest‑impact issue but expressly state that I cannot confirm the support question from the sources available to me.

7. Secondary considerations and counter‑arguments

• Long‑felt need / failure of others: Nike has argued this, but in Nike II the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s finding that Nike failed to show long‑felt need, because skilled artisans already knew of the waste problem (Nishida) and already had cut‑free solutions (Schuessler; Joha‑type flat‑knit blanks).
• Commercial success (Flyknit) — no nexus evidence in the record I reviewed, and the commercial product is separated from these 2004‑priority claims by roughly a decade; any nexus argument would need to attribute the success to the specific combination in claim 1.
• Copying — the litigation record (Nike v. Lululemon; the Massachusetts and Oregon dockets listed on the Google Patents page) shows assertion of the ’749 patent, not the ’350. I found no IPR or court validity determination on the ’350 itself; the adjudicated validity fights concern its siblings (’011 — original claims 1–46 cancelled by Nike in IPR2013‑00067; substitute claims 47–50 found unpatentable) and the ’598/’749 IPRs.
• Status: the page reports “Expired – Fee Related” / anticipated expiration 2024‑03‑03, and Espacenet’s INPADOC record reports a lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2026‑03‑06 (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/inpadoc?CC=US&NR=2017311670A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=&date=20171102&DB=&locale=). The § 103 question therefore now has limited practical stakes, but the analysis above is unaffected.

8. Conclusion and confidence

1. Claims 1 and 9 (independent) are more likely than not obvious under § 103 over Nishida + Schuessler I & II + Spencer + Zaino (optionally substituting Reed for Schuessler and Santoni for Spencer). The motivation for the flat‑knit/knit‑to‑shape aspect is not speculative — a Federal Circuit decision on this exact family supplies it — and the motivations for the reinforcement elements (wear resistance at toe/heel, stretch resistance on the lateral side, elimination of manual cut/glue/stitch steps, retained breathability via knit apertures) come from the references themselves and from admissions in the ’350 Background.
2. Dependent claims 2–4, 6, 7, 10–13, 15 are also likely obvious on the same or a slightly augmented combination (Boggia/Brown for the stretch‑limiting strips; Spencer/Santoni for the apertures).
3. Claims 5, 8, 14 and 16 are the most defensible, chiefly claim 8/16’s requirement that the lateral strips run longitudinally with ends toward the forefoot and the heel. No reference on the page squarely discloses that orientation; the mapping rests on the Boggia strips’ forefoot‑to‑heel diagonal run plus design‑choice reasoning, which is the part of this analysis I hold with the least confidence.
4. Nothing in the search results contradicts the full text above; where I relied on the family’s IPR/prosecution record rather than the page’s own listings, I have said so. Identifiers I could not verify (the Nishida, Schuessler, Reed, Castello and Fujiwara document numbers; the “Joha” reference’s number) are flagged as unverified rather than guessed.

This is a technical obviousness assessment, not a legal opinion. A formal invalidity position would require (i) confirming the prior‑art dates and citations from the certified prosecution histories, (ii) a priority/support determination under § 112 ¶ 1 for the “flat knit” limitations, and (iii) expert testimony on the level of ordinary skill and motivations to combine.