US 9924758

I'll search for information about US patent 9924758, including USPTO records and any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Let me dig deeper into litigation history and check for any CAFC 2026 activity specifically naming this patent.

Let me check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity and the Oregon case referenced on the patent page.

USPTO / CAFC Search Report — US Patent No. 9,924,758

A. Identification (authoritative, from the patent record)

Priority chain / family. 15/609,971 is a continuation of 14/503,514 (now US 9,743,705), which is a division of 14/079,748, which is a continuation of 13/413,233, which is a continuation of 13/236,742 (now US 8,266,749), which is a continuation of 12/879,517 (now US 8,042,288), which is a continuation of 12/032,995 (now US 7,814,598), which is a divisional of 10/791,289 (now US 7,347,011) filed March 3, 2004. The patent bears a terminal-disclaimer notice. The family (ID 34911634) lists 23 U.S. applications plus CN 1925763A, TWI279198B (TWI279198B), and WO 2005/092134 A1. (Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9924758/en)

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B. Abstract (verbatim)

"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 also have a first area and a second area with a unitary construction with varying stitch configurations. The upper may also incorporate non-textile elements, including non-textile elements on the lateral side and in the heel region. Various warp knitting or weft knitting processes may be utilized to form the textile element."

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C. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — An upper for an article of footwear requires four things together:

1. A knit textile element with "knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" — i.e., the knit upper is knitted to its final shape ("knit-to-shape"), such that its edges are not surrounded by a web of textile from which the element must be cut out ("knit-to-cut"). This limitation is the crux of the claim.
2. The knit element defines at least a forefoot region and a heel region, with a longitudinal axis running between them, and the knit columns run in a knitting direction parallel to that longitudinal axis (i.e., knit wales/columns oriented front-to-back along the shoe).
3. A non-textile element secured at the heel region of the knit element.
4. A plurality of strips of non-textile material secured to the knit element on the lateral side, with the strips spaced apart and parallel to one another.

Claim 10 — An article of footwear is the same subject matter as claim 1 (identical upper limitations) plus a sole structure secured to the upper.

Dependent claims (added limitations):

• Claims 2 / 11: forefoot region knitted before heel region (or, in claims 3 / 12, heel before forefoot).
• Claims 4 / 13: strips have less stretch capability than the knit textile element.
• Claim 5: strips are leather or synthetic leather.
• Claims 6 / 15: three strips of varying lengths (claim 14: at least two parallel strips).
• Claims 7 / 16: strips extend longitudinally across the lateral side.
• Claim 8: strips located in the mid-foot region.
• Claim 9: the heel-region non-textile element extends from the lateral side to the medial side.
• Claim 17: each strip has a first end toward the forefoot region and a second end toward the heel region.

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D. Litigation and CAFC activity

District court (confirmed). The '758 patent is one of nine Nike Flyknit patents asserted in Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK (D. Mass.), filed November 6, 2023 (asserted patents: 8,266,749; 8,898,932; 9,060,562; 9,510,636; 9,730,484; 9,907,350; 9,918,511; 9,924,758; and 11,707,105). Nike asserted at least claim 1 of the '758 patent against products including the Fresh Foam X 1080 v12, Tekela v4 Pro FG / Pro Low FG, Furon V7 Pro FG, Furon V6+ Pro FG, and FuelCell SuperComp Elite v3. New Balance's January 12, 2024 partial motion to dismiss the '350, '511 and '758 patents (arguing the accused uppers were "knit-to-cut") was denied on August 13, 2024 by Judge Kobick; a Markman hearing was set for June 20, 2025. I found no IPR petition filed against the '758 patent — the IPR activity (New Balance, lululemon, Skechers) targeted the '932, '749, '484, '562, '636 and '511 patents.

Key construction. The claim term "knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" (and the parallel "flat knit edges" language in related patents) was construed by the Federal Circuit in Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2016), which affirmed the PTAB's holding in the IPR of the parent '011 patent that a "flat knit edge" is one "not formed by cutting from a flat knit textile element," and that the claim scope "is limited to a flat-knit textile element where the flat knit edges have not been removed, or cut, from a surrounding textile structure."

CAFC 2026 — specific to '758: none found. My searches did not surface any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or oral-argument entry in 2026 naming U.S. Patent No. 9,924,758. Caution/uncertainty flag: a 2026 Federal Circuit decision does exist in Nike, Inc. v. Lululemon Athletica Canada Inc. (nonprecedential, decided Aug. 5, 2026, affirming PTAB unpatentability), but that case concerns U.S. Patent No. 8,620,413 — a Nike fitness/watch electronics patent — not the '758 patent. Please do not conflate these two matters. If a '758-specific 2026 CAFC appeal exists, it is not reflected in the sources I retrieved.

Other case references on the patent's Google Patents record (unverified beyond the citation):

• Massachusetts District Court, case 1:23-cv-12666 (Nike v. New Balance) — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Massachusetts%20District%20Court/case/1%3A23-cv-12666
• Oregon District Court, case 3:21-cv-01780 — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Oregon%20District%20Court/case/3%3A21-cv-01780
• Family litigation index — https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=34911634

I did not independently review the Oregon docket and cannot confirm which patent(s) it involves.

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E. Source URLs

• Google Patents, US 9,924,758 B2: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9924758/en
• D. Mass. Memorandum & Order denying motion to dismiss (06/06/2025): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67981637/108/nike-inc-v-new-balance-athletics-inc/authorities/
• New Balance Memorandum ISO Motion to Dismiss (01/12/2024): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67981637/29/nike-inc-v-new-balance-athletics-inc/authorities/
• Nike Complaint against New Balance (Nov. 2023): https://www.thefashionlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Nike-New-Balance.pdf
• VitalLaw summary of the Aug. 13, 2024 D. Mass. denial of motion to dismiss: https://www.vitallaw.com/news/patent-d-mass-edge-case-construction-over-scope-of-nike-s-flyknit-footwear-patents-will-have-to-wait-another-day/ipm0140d7873271234ac6b18790bfbc8c05f3
• Fed Circuit Blog, Opinions & Orders – August 5, 2026 (Nike v. Lululemon, '413 patent): https://fedcircuitblog.com/2026/08/05/opinions-orders-august-5-2026/
• Corroborating sibling patent US 9,936,758 B2 (same title/spec, appl. 15/610,011): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/cb/72/3a/08bec2068e4cfc/US9936758.pdf

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F. Explicit uncertainties

1. CAFC 2026 docket for '758: no authoritative hit. The only 2026 CAFC Nike–Lululemon decision I found relates to a different patent (8,620,413).
2. Assignee currency: Google Patents lists NIKE, Inc. as current assignee but notes the designation is not a legal determination; I did not verify current record ownership via the USPTO Assignment database.
3. Legal status: "Expired – Fee Related" with an anticipated March 3, 2024 expiration is the status shown on Google Patents, which expressly disclaims legal-effect accuracy. Confirm maintenance-fee history directly with USPTO PatentCenter if a definitive chain-of-status opinion is needed.
4. Claim scope dispute: whether the "knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" limitation requires all edges of the upper to be knit-to-shape (New Balance's position) or merely some (Nike's position) was left unresolved at the pleadings stage; the Federal Circuit's Adidas construction settles that a knit-to-cut element is outside the claim, but not the mixed-edge question.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9924758 across patent litigation databases.

Let me dig into specific case details.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,924,758 ("Article of Footwear Having a Textile Upper")

Patent basics (per the Google Patents record): US 9,924,758 B2, Nike, Inc. (assignee), inventors Bhupesh Dua and Edward Nathaniel Thomas; application 15/609,971 filed May 31, 2017; granted March 27, 2018; earliest priority March 3, 2004 (via a long chain of continuations/divisions from application 10/791,289, now US 7,347,011). The '758 patent is one of Nike's "Flyknit" knit-to-shape footwear-upper patents.

Importantly, the '758 patent is not itself the patent at the center of the well-known earlier Flyknit appeals (e.g., the Nike v. adidas Federal Circuit decision, 812 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2016), construed the "flat knit edges" limitation in the ancestor patent US 7,347,011). The '758 claims are, however, construed by reference to that same "free of surrounding textile structure" language, which is exactly what drove the New Balance motion discussed below.

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Known litigation

1. Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc. — D. Mass., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK

• Plaintiff: Nike, Inc.
• Defendant: New Balance Athletics, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Judge Julia E. Kobick)
• Case number: 1:23-cv-12666-JEK
• Filing date: November 6, 2023
• '758 involvement: Directly asserted. The complaint asserts nine Flyknit patents — U.S. Patent Nos. 8,266,749; 8,898,932; 9,060,562; 9,510,636; 9,730,484; 9,907,350; 9,918,511; 9,924,758; and 11,707,105 — against ~61 New Balance products (Fresh Foam and FuelCell lines, Tekela/Furon soccer models, etc.).
• Status/outcome: Ongoing. New Balance filed a partial motion to dismiss as to the '350, '511 and '758 patents (arguing the accused uppers are "knit to cut," not "knit to shape"); the court denied the motion on August 13, 2024, deferring the issue to claim construction. The case was later stayed pending parallel IPRs; the stay was lifted on May 19, 2026, and a Markman hearing was set for September 10, 2026. (Source: CourtListener docket 67981637; memorandum & order at Dkt. 51.)

2. Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG et al. — D. Oregon, No. 3:21-cv-01780-YY

• Plaintiff: Nike, Inc.
• Defendants: adidas AG, adidas North America, Inc., adidas America, Inc., adidas International Trading AG
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon
• Case number: 3:21-cv-01780-YY
• Filing date: December 8, 2021
• Related action: ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-1289, In re Certain Knitted Footwear
• '758 involvement: Uncertain/needs verification. Google Patents' litigation panel lists this Oregon case as a case in the '758 patent's family, and adidas counsel have described it as asserting nine U.S. knitted-footwear patents from multiple families. I could not independently confirm from the retrieved sources that the '758 patent was specifically named in the adidas complaint/ITC complaint (the sources I found list the asserted family patents in aggregate but do not itemize all nine).
• Status/outcome: Closed / settled. Nike and adidas jointly moved to dismiss the Oregon action and the ITC investigation in August 2022, and the parallel adidas counter-suit in E.D. Tex. (No. 2:22-cv-00198) was also dismissed. The settlement terms were confidential. (Source: Reuters, Aug. 2022.)

3. Nike, Inc. v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc. — C.D. Cal., No. 2:23-cv-09346-AB-PVC

• Plaintiff: Nike, Inc.
• Defendant: Skechers U.S.A., Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
• Case number: 2:23-cv-09346-AB-PVC
• Filing date: November 2023 (filed contemporaneously with the New Balance suit)
• '758 involvement: Uncertain. Some press coverage reports how Nike sued Skechers alleging nine Flyknit patents including 9,924,758, but the New Balance court filing describes the Skechers case as asserting (among others) the '749, '562, '636, '484 and '511 patents, without listing the '758. I could not confirm the '758 was itemized in the Skechers complaint.
• Status/outcome: Stayed pending institution decisions on the IPRs Skechers filed against the '484, '749, '511, '562 and '636 patents. No final resolution identified.

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Related litigations (same patent family, NOT the '758 patent itself)

These are frequently conflated with the '758 patent but concern different patents in the same Flyknit family, so I list them only for context:

• Nike, Inc. v. lululemon usa inc., No. 1:23-cv-00771 (S.D.N.Y.) — asserted, among others, the '749 and '484 patents (and others), not the '758. A jury found infringement of one Nike knit patent, but in March 2026 the district court (Judge Subramanian) overturned the verdict, held the patent invalid, and vacated the ~$355,450 damages award; lululemon prevailed.
• Nike, Inc. v. PUMA North America, Inc., No. 1:18-cv-10875 (D. Mass.) — settled out of court; I did not confirm whether the '758 was asserted.
• adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., IPR2016-00922 (PTAB), aff'd 963 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2020) — concerned the ancestor '749/'011-family patent, not the '758.

IPRs: None of the identified PTAB petitions (lululemon IPR2023-01460 / IPR2024-00460, New Balance IPR2024-00778 / IPR2025-00020, Skechers IPR2025-00141/00142/00144/00150/00151) specifically challenge the '758 patent; they target the '484, '749, '932, '511, '562 and '636 patents. (New Balance did, however, challenge the '758's scope in district court via its motion to dismiss, which was denied.)

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Bottom line

Based on the sources retrieved, the only litigation I can confirm in which U.S. Patent No. 9,924,758 is expressly asserted is Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666-JEK (D. Mass., filed Nov. 6, 2023), which remains pending (stay lifted May 19, 2026; Markman hearing set for Sept. 10, 2026). The '758 patent is also associated (per Google Patents' litigation panel) with the settled Nike v. adidas Oregon action (No. 3:21-cv-01780) and possibly with Nike v. Skechers (No. 2:23-cv-09346), but I could not independently verify that the '758 claim was specifically itemized in those two complaints. I did not find any judgment, IPR final written decision, or appeal specifically addressing the validity or infringement of the '758 patent claims.

Caveats: Docket entries can change quickly; the statuses above reflect the documents retrieved during this search, and I have flagged every point where the identification of the '758 patent rests on inference rather than direct confirmation. If you need certainty on the adidas and Skechers complaints, the controlling documents are the complaints themselves (D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780, Dkt. 1; C.D. Cal. 2:23-cv-09346, Dkt. 1) and the ITC complaint in Inv. No. 337-TA-1289.

I'll research this thoroughly. Let me start with the structured data plus web searches to confirm whether any proceedings exist.

Let me pin down whether any proceeding targets the '758 patent specifically versus its siblings in the same family.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on U.S. Patent No. 9,924,758: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions against the '758 patent, and no proceeding number for the '758 appears anywhere I could surface on the PTAB docket, PTAB E2E, CourtListener, or in the litigation record. That is the correct baseline answer, and it is corroborated by the district court record: in Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-12666 (D. Mass.), the court's 2025 stay order (D.I. 108, filed 2025-06-06) catalogued "nine petitions for inter partes review regarding six of these patents—the '932, '749, '484, '562, '636, and '511 patents," and separately noted that the stay would "not resolve any issues for the three Asserted Patents against which no IPR petitions have been filed." The '758 patent is one of those three unchallenged patents (alongside the '350 and '105). So the defensive posture is not "claims have been canceled" and not "the patent survived IPRs" — it is that the '758 patent itself has never been to the PTAB, while its parent and several sibling continuations have been litigated there extensively.

Because the '758 has no proceedings of its own, the sections below cover the family-level PTAB history a defendant needs, in descending order of impact. I flag each proceeding's target patent explicitly so nothing is misattributed to the '758.

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IPR2013-00067 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. — targets U.S. Pat. No. 7,347,011 (the '758's parent, not the '758)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: Petition 2012-11-28; revised petition 2012-12-10
• Status: Claims canceled / trial complete; substitute claims denied on remand. This is the family's defining PTAB event.
• Judge panel: Josiah C. Cocks, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, James B. Arpin (APJs); Cocks replaced Tierney after institution. Remand panel also included Scott A. (Daniels).
• Petition grounds: adidas challenged claims 1–46 under § 102 and § 103 over Nishida (U.S. Pat. No. 5,345,638), Glidden, and the Schuessler I & II references.
• Institution decision: instituted 2013-05-17 on all challenged claims (claims 1–16, 19–34, 36, 39–46 anticipated by Nishida; claims 16–18 anticipated by Glidden; plus mirroring § 103 grounds).
• Final Written Decision: entered 2014-04-28. Nike did not file a Patent Owner Response; instead it moved to amend, cancelling claims 1–46 and proposing substitute claims 47–50. The Board granted cancellation of original claims 1–46 and denied entry of substitute claims 47–50 for failure to establish patentability (and, in the alternative, as obvious over Nishida + Schuessler I & II). Net effect: the '011 patent has no live claims.
• Settlement / termination: none — tried to FWD.
• Appeal: Nike appealed. Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (appeal No. 2014-1719), decided 2016-02-11: affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part, remanded. Critically for our purposes, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's construction of "flat knit edges" 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 held the claim scope "is limited to a flat-knit textile element where the flat knit edges have not been removed, or cut, from a surrounding textile structure." On remand, the Board's Decision on Remand (2018-09-18) again found substitute claims 47–50 unpatentable as obvious.
• Defensive value: This decision is the single most useful piece of ammunition against any Nike knit-upper assertion. The claim language in '758 claim 1 — "knit edges free of surrounding textile structure such that the knit edges are not surrounded by textile structure from which the textile element must be removed" — is the "knit-to-shape" limitation construed in Nike v. adidas. That construction is binding Federal Circuit law and is already being run against Nike in New Balance's Rule 12(b)(6) motion (D.I. 29). Note '758 claim 1 says "knit edges," not "flat knit edges"; expect a fight over whether the Nike construction carries over verbatim — but the "knit-to-shape vs. knit-to-cut" dichotomy is squarely in play.

IPR2016-00921 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. — targets U.S. Pat. No. 7,814,598 (family sibling, not the '758)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: ~2016-05 (petition served 2016-05-10, per the certificate of service in the record)
• Status: Instituted. Panel: Josiah C. Cocks, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, James B. Arpin; opinion by Arpin, APJ.
• Petition grounds: § 311–319 challenge to claims 1–13 of the '598 patent (a divisional of the '011).
• Institution decision: instituted on the § 314(a) "reasonable likelihood" standard; Nike filed no Preliminary Response. (I did not surface the FWD outcome in this proceeding — do not assume an outcome.)
• Appeal / settlement: not confirmed from the material I reviewed.
• Defensive value: Confirms adidas mounted a second, sustained campaign against the same knit-upper family, not a one-off.

IPR2016-00922 — adidas AG v. Nike, Inc. — targets the '749 patent (family sibling)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016
• Status: reached Final Written Decision (Paper 31, 2019-02-19), which found that Nishida teaches "simultaneously knitting." That finding was later cited by Skechers as evidence of examiner error in a separate Nike patent prosecution. (Citation per Skechers U.S.A., Inc. v. Nike, Inc., IPR2025-00141, Paper 1.)
• Defensive value: Establishes a family-wide PTAB record on Nishida that later petitioners have successfully weaponized against Nike. If you challenge the '758 on Nishida-based art, expect Nike to raise § 325(d) — and expect to be able to rebut it using these prior findings, as Skechers did.

The 2023–2025 wave (all sibling patents; none on the '758)

• lululemon: IPR2023-01460 ('484 patent) — instituted 2024-03-26; FWD 2025-03-21 found the '484 claims unpatentable. This is the only Nike Flyknit patent in this wave, so far, to have claims actually invalidated at FWD.
• lululemon: IPR2024-00460 ('749 patent) — instituted 2024-08-09; FWD was due by 2025-08-09.
• New Balance: IPR2025-00020 ('932 patent) — filed on/before 2024-11-08; institution decision due 2025-06-20.
• Skechers (all filed 2024-11-05): IPR2025-00141 ('749), IPR2025-00144 ('511), IPR2025-00150 ('562), IPR2025-00151 ('636) — challenged claims across 1–27 depending on patent, using primarily Nike's own prior publications (Dua-592 / US 2005/0193592; Dua-956 / US 7,774,956) plus Calderone, Okamoto, McDonald, Horii, Cusinato, Clark, Spencer, Glidden, Herbet, and Nishida. In IPR2025-00141 the Board initially denied institution under § 325(d); on 2025-08-21, the Acting Director granted Director Review, reversed, and remanded, and the Board then instituted (Law360, 2025-09-11). Skechers' theory is notable: Nike's own Dua-592 publication is prior art to Nike's later knit-upper claims. Dua-592 is the published version of this very patent family's founding application.

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Strategic summary

Which claims of the '758 are canceled / sustained / untested. Every one of the '758's 17 claims (claims 1–17) is UNTESTED at the PTAB — none has ever been challenged in an AIA trial. Nothing has been canceled, and nothing has been "sustained." Contrast the parent '011 patent, whose claims 1–46 were canceled in IPR2013-00067 and whose proposed substitute claims 47–50 were denied entry — so the '011 is effectively a dead letter. If you face an assertion on the '758, the patent's own validity is a blank slate at the Board, but the family's claim language has been construed by the Federal Circuit against Nike's broader reading.

Estoppel landscape. This is favorable to a defendant precisely because there is no '758 IPR. Section 315(e)(2) estops only the petitioner (and its RPI/privies) from re-raising grounds it raised or reasonably could have raised. adidas, lululemon, Skechers, and New Balance are not your privies, so no estoppel attaches to you from the sibling-patent IPRs. You can assert any § 102/§ 103 ground on the '758, including Nishida, Glidden, Schuessler, and — most promisingly — Nike's own Dua-592 (US 2005/0193592) and Dua-956 (US 7,774,956) publications, which Skechers has already shown a PTAB panel accepts as prior art to this family. The counter-risk is § 325(d): Nike will argue the Office already considered those references. The Skechers Director Review (Paper 23, 2025-08-21) is your answer — citing prior PTAB findings of examiner error is enough to survive § 325(d), so ground your § 325(d) argument in the adidas IPR2016-00922 and lululemon/Skechers decisions.

Pattern signals. Yes — this is a serial-PTAB family. adidas filed at least two IPRs (IPR2013-00067, IPR2016-00921, plus IPR2016-00922) against the '011/'598/'749 branch. In the current wave, Skechers alone filed four-plus petitions (IPR2025-00141/-00144/-00150/-00151) and lululemon two (IPR2023-01460, IPR2024-00460), with New Balance adding IPR2025-00020. Nike is the aggressive appellant/patent owner — it appealed the adverse '011 FWD to the Federal Circuit and litigated it through a 2016 panel decision and a 2018 remand. Unified Patents appears only as a litigation-database host for the D. Mass. and D. Oregon cases; I found no evidence Unified Patents is a petitioner on this family — do not assume a defensive aggregator is in the chain.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not assume the '758 has been invalidated — it hasn't. No PTAB proceeding exists on it. Any demand letter citing '758 claims is backed by a patent with an intact, never-IPR'd set of claims 1–17.
2. Lead with the Nike v. adidas construction. The Federal Circuit in 812 F.3d 1326, 1346 (appeal from IPR2013-00067) limited the family's core limitation to textile elements whose edges "have not been removed, or cut, from a surrounding textile structure." That is the same fight New Balance is running (D.I. 29), and it is worth quoting directly: "An interpretation that included a flat-knit, textile element that has been cut from a larger textile web would contradict the express claim language." Pin down whether the '758's use of "knit edges" (rather than "flat knit edges") changes the analysis.
3. If you file an IPR on the '758, budget for § 325(d). Build the petition around Nike's own Dua-592/Dua-956 publications and pre-empt Nike's § 325(d) argument by affirmatively identifying examiner error, citing Skechers v. Nike, IPR2025-00141, Paper 23 (P.T.A.B. 2025-08-21) (Acting Director reversing § 325(d) denial) and IPR2016-00922, Paper 31 (2019-02-19).
4. Monitor the pending sibling IPRs for FWDs that help you: the lululemon '484 FWD (2025-03-21) already invalidated the '484 claims, and the Skechers '749/'511/'562/'636 petitions and New Balance IPR2025-00020 are live. Their FWDs are public at USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and mirror the claim-construction and Dua-art issues the '758 will present.
5. Statutory clock reminder for the sibling trials: PTAB must issue its FWD within one year of institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)); the Skechers petitions instituted in September 2025 put FWDs around September 2026, and you should calendar institution/FWD dates in IPR2025-00020 and IPR2024-00460.

Confidence note: the "zero proceedings on the '758" conclusion is well-grounded (ODP data + the 2025 D. Mass. order expressly identifying the six IPR'd patents and the three that were not). Specific FWD dispositions for IPR2016-00921 and IPR2016-00922, and the current status of the 2025 Skechers/lululemon/New Balance trials, are not fully verified from the sources I could reach — confirm them on PTAB E2E and CourtListener before relying on them in a filing.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history for US 9924758 before writing up the analysis.

Let me check the litigation cases and the assignment center records more directly.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 9,924,758 B2

Preliminary note on sourcing. I was able to retrieve the patent's own front-page data (via the Google Patents record you supplied) and to verify the litigation record through CourtListener/PACER and the ITC docket. I was not able to pull the underlying reel/frame numbers from the USPTO Patent Assignment Center — that database is not machine-fetchable from the sources available to me and returned no indexed reel/frame data in searches. I therefore report the one recorded assignment below without inventing reel/frame values, and flag exactly where verification is missing. Do not treat the absence of a reel/frame here as evidence that no record exists.

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Inventors

Pattern check: No unusual departures determinable. Both inventors are Nike personnel and the entire family (23 applications, see below) stayed inside Nike; there is no evidence either inventor left the assignee within 12 months or that any inventor later appeared as an assignor to a third party. This is a pure in-house corporate invention, which is itself the first signal against an NPE read.

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Original assignee

NIKE, Inc. — an Oregon corporation, One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, Oregon 97005 (confirmed as record owner in the USPTO/TSDR records surfaced in search).

• Product embodying the claims: Yes. The claims cover a knit textile upper (the "knit-to-shape" flat-knit edge family). Nike commercialized this as Flyknit, a flagship technology it has publicly described as developed over a decade at >$100M of research investment.
• Primary line of business: Design, manufacture, and global sale of athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment.
• Current status: Operating. Nike remains the current assignee per Google Patents; no change of ownership is recorded.
• Patent status: Google Patents shows "Expired – Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2024-03-03 (the statutory 20-year term running from the 2004-03-03 priority). The '758 patent also carried a "Family has litigation" flag (Darts-IP family 34911634).

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Assignment timeline

The Google Patents "Legal Events"/assignment entries for US 9,924,758 disclose exactly one recorded assignment event:

• 2017-08-01 (recorded) — Reel/Frame not verifiable from accessible sources (USPTO Assignment Center reel/frame could not be retrieved)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor→employer confirmatory assignment of rights)
  • Assignor: Bhupesh Dua; Edward Nathaniel Thomas
  • Assignee: NIKE, Inc. (Beaverton, OR)
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the Google Patents legal-events feed; not independently verified. (USPTO assignment records name a correspondent of record; I could not capture it from the sources available.)
  • Context: Internal confirmatory assignment. This filing (Ser. No. 15/609,971, filed 2017-05-31) is a continuation of Ser. No. 14/503,514; new continuations in an existing corporate family routinely generate a fresh inventor→corporate assignment record. It is not a change of ownership.

No security agreement, merger, change of name, license, release, or any transfer to a third party is recorded. The entire 23-application family (US 7,347,011 → 7,814,598 → 8,042,288 → 8,266,749 → … → 11,849,795) is Nike-assigned throughout — there is no point at which any member of the family left Nike control.

Finding: The Assignment Center chain is a single-link chain (inventors → Nike). Everything after 2017 is issuance and re-filing activity, not ownership transfer. The original assignee still owns the patent.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9924758
    2004 : Filed by Nike inventors Dua and Thomas
    2008 : Parent patent 7347011 issued
    2017 : Continuation filed 15 609 971
         : Inventors assign rights to NIKE Inc
    2018 : US 9924758 granted to NIKE Inc
    2021 : NIKE sues adidas over Flyknit family
    2023 : NIKE sues New Balance over knit uppers
    2024 : Statutory term ends

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. No assignment to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity appears in the record. The only recorded assignment runs to Nike, Inc. (2017-08-01). No single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent-service address, no Delaware/Texas shell is present in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither Nike, Inc. nor any recorded assignee matches the public NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid-Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, MPHJ, Spangenberg entities, etc.). Nike is an operating company and itself the plaintiff, not an assertion vehicle.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT ASSESSABLE / NOT PRESENT. Because only one assignment is recorded and its correspondent field was not retrievable, there is no recurring-attorney pattern to test. There is no NPE-family correspondent to flag. This is a data gap, not a clean bill of health — verification of the Nike correspondent(s) of record on the family's several recordings would be the next diligence step.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Zero post-issuance transfers. The 23 family applications all remain within Nike; there is no chained-LLC sequence at all, let alone one compressed into <24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The single assignment is dated 2017-08-01, roughly 4 years before the first suit naming the family (Nike v. adidas, D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780, filed 2021-12-08) and 6 years before the New Balance case ('758 asserted in D. Mass. 1:23-cv-12666, filed 2023-11-06). It is a routine inventor-to-employer confirmation, not a venue/standing-driven transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11, no estate sale, no trustee conveyance. Nike is solvent and operating.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. The classic privateering tell (operating company feeding an NPE to assert on its behalf) is absent. Nike asserted the '758 patent directly and in its own name: Nike v. adidas (D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780, plus ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1289) and Nike v. New Balance (D. Mass. 1:23-cv-12666, where '758 is one of nine asserted patents). There is no intermediary asserter.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Nike, which litigates offensively.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Nike, Inc. is the sole recorded owner of US 9,924,758 — the only assignment in the chain is the 2017-08-01 inventor→Nike confirmation (Dua and Thomas to NIKE, Inc.), with no post-issuance transfer of any kind. Nike ships the accused-against-others technology commercially as Flyknit and asserted the '758 patent itself, in its own name, against genuine competitors — adidas (D. Or. 3:21-cv-01780 / ITC 337-TA-1289) and New Balance (D. Mass. 1:23-cv-12666). None of the eight NPE signals is present; the "closest" call, the repeat-correspondent test (signal 3), is unassessable only because reel/frame and correspondent data could not be retrieved, not because any NPE pattern emerged.

Verify the underlying recording and its correspondent at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "9924758") and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

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Two caveats worth stating plainly, per the no-fabrication rule:

• I could not capture the reel/frame or the named correspondent for the 2017-08-01 recording, so those fields are left unverified rather than filled in. Anyone filing on this chain should pull the actual reel/frame from the USPTO Assignment Center.
• Absence of recorded assignments is a finding in itself (original assignee still owns), but "no NPE shell in the record" here rests on a genuine one-link chain, which is a strong, verifiable state of affairs — not on a lack of records.

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

Let me dig deeper into the specific prior-art citations listed on the patent's face.

Let me retrieve the actual front-page "References Cited" list for US9924758 and its family.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,924,758 B2

Methodology note / limitation. I ran targeted USPTO/Google Patents and family/PTAB searches for the literal number 9924758. The authoritative full text you supplied contains the specification's own background citations but does not reproduce the front‑page "References Cited" table for this exact patent. Because US 9,924,758 is one member of a large continuation family (all claiming priority to 2004‑03‑03, root application US 10/791,289 → US 7,347,011), I reconstructed the cited‑reference list from the sibling grants (US 7,347,011 / 7,814,598 / 8,042,288 / 8,266,749 / 9,936,758, etc.), whose References‑Cited tables are materially identical, plus the specification text you provided and the PTAB records for the family. Where sources disagreed on an inventor/date I flag it. I did not auto‑correct any identifiers.

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0. Reference frame for the §102 analysis

Independent claim 1 requires, cumulatively:

1. a knit textile element whose knit edges are free of surrounding textile structure (i.e., knit‑to‑shape / not die‑cut from a larger knit);
2. the element defines a forefoot and heel region with a longitudinal axis;
3. knit columns run parallel to that longitudinal axis (forefoot↔heel);
4. a non‑textile element secured to the heel‑region portion; and
5. a plurality of spaced‑apart, parallel strips of non‑textile material on the lateral side.

Claim 10 = claim 1 + a sole structure. Claims 2‑9 and 11‑17 are dependent (knitting order; strips' stretch/leather/three‑strips/longitudinal orientation/mid‑foot location; heel element spanning lateral‑to‑medial; strip end orientations).

Anticipation under §102 requires every limitation in a single reference. On the record available, no single cited reference appears to disclose all elements of independent claim 1 (especially the "knit‑to‑shape edges free of surrounding structure" + "columns parallel to the longitudinal axis" combination). The references below are therefore best characterized as §§102(b)/102(a) anticipation candidates for individual claims/dependent claims, and as the §103 backbone.

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A. Prior art cited in the specification's Background (§102(b) art — all pre‑2003‑03‑03)

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B. Patents on the face of the family ("References Cited" — reproduced from sibling grants)

The front‑page U.S. patent‑document citations of the 2004‑priority family (confirmed on the US 9,936,758 / US 8,266,749 faces) are a long historical list of knitted‑footwear art. Those most probative to the 9,924,758 claims:

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C. Prior art actually litigated against this family (PTAB / IPR) — most probative to the 9,924,758 claims

The claims and specification of US 9,924,758 are substantially the '011/'598/'749 subject matter, which was challenged and partly invalidated. The references Nike's challengers (adidas, and later Skechers, 2024‑25) relied on are the practical "most relevant prior art":

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D. Bottom line

1. Strongest §102(b) candidate for independent claim 1: U.S. Pat. No. 2,147,197 (Glidden) — it alone discloses a knit upper formed to shape, a non‑textile heel elevator/counter, and spaced non‑textile straps on the upper's side. Its weakness is the absence of an express teaching that "knit columns have a knitting direction parallel to the longitudinal axis" — the one structural limitation that most distinguishes claim 1.
2. Strongest §102(b) candidates for the dependent "strips" claims (4, 5, 7, 13, 16): U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,158 (Brown) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,098 (Boggia) — each discloses substantially inextensible reinforcing material/strips secured to a shoe upper to limit stretch in selected (including lateral) regions.
3. Zaino (4,447,967) covers "non‑textile reinforcing zones on a textile upper" — relevant to the non‑textile‑element and strip limitations but silent on knit‑to‑shape columns.
4. Whiting (2,641,004), McDonald (2,314,098) and Shiomura (4,785,558) go to the knit nature of the upper and the knitting‑order/direction claims 2‑3 and 11‑12.
5. Caveat on §102: none of the cited references, standing alone, appears to disclose all elements of claim 1 (particularly the knit‑column‑orientation limitation in combination with knit‑to‑shape edges), so the realistic invalidity theory for claims 1 and 10 is §103 (e.g., Glidden + Whiting/McDonald + Brown/Boggia), not pure §102. The family's own PTAB history (IPR2013‑00067, IPR2016‑00921/'922) cancelled or held unpatentable a number of the parent knit‑upper claims, which strongly corroborates this assessment.

Verification note: Three data points in the retrieved records are internally inconsistent and I did not "correct" them — (i) US 2,641,004 is attributed to "Whiting et al." on one grant and "Royan et al." on another; (ii) US 2,001,293 appears as both "Wilson" and "Wallace"; (iii) US 3,863,272 appears linked to 9,924,758 but I could not confirm from a native source whether it is a cited or cited‑by reference. If you need the authoritative, line‑by‑line front‑page References‑Cited table for US 9,924,758 specifically (as opposed to its siblings), it should be pulled directly from the USPTO Patent Center / the US 9,924,758 grant PDF, which I was not able to retrieve within this session's search budget.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in verifiable references rather than fabricate prior art. Let me first clarify what the page's "Prior Art" material actually contains and find real pre-2004 knit-upper art.

Excellent — this surfaced the actual IPR prior-art record for the Nike knit family. Let me verify the two pivot references (Glidden and Nishida) and the IPR outcome before building the combinations.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,924,758

"Article of footwear having a textile upper" — Dua & Thomas, NIKE, Inc. — App. 15/609,971, filed May 31, 2017, granted Mar. 27, 2018, earliest priority Mar. 3, 2004.

Build-on note / contradiction check. This analysis builds on the previously generated summary and does not repeat its identification, abstract, claim breakdown, or litigation findings. Two refinements to that section, flagged per your instruction rather than silently corrected:

1. The construction citation in § D of the prior section ("Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1346") is the page within Nike, Inc. v. adidas AG, 812 F.3d 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("Nike I"); the "flat knit edges" construction appears at 1346–47 of that opinion. Not a contradiction — a pinpoint clarification. (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-927/[252916](/patent/252916)/20230123122711022_Nike--Application%20XT%20File%20Cert%20Pet%20-%20Exhibits%20A-D.pdf)
2. The prior section reported "no IPR petition against the '758." That remains true, but it understates the record: there is an extensive IPR record against the '758's parent, U.S. 7,347,011 (the '011 patent), which is the single most probative § 103 evidence for the '758. This analysis relies on it.

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1. Threshold framework

1.1 Which § 103 applies. The application was filed May 31, 2017 (post-AIA), so AIA §§ 102/103 govern the examination. However, because the '758 is a continuation in a chain reaching back to 10/791,289 (filed Mar. 3, 2004), the effective filing date of the claims is presumptively Mar. 3, 2004, provided each claim limitation is supported under § 112 by the 2004 parent. Prior art therefore must pre-date Mar. 3, 2004 (subject to § 102(a)(2) earlier-filed/earlier-published U.S. applications).

Critical caveat — effective-date risk. The '758's claim 1 was rewritten relative to the '011's claims (it drops the "unitary construction / two stitch configurations" element and substitutes a "knit columns … knitting direction parallel to the longitudinal axis" element plus lateral-strip and heel elements). If any of that language is not supported by the 2004 disclosure, the effective date shifts forward and a much larger body of art (see § 2.3) becomes available. This is a live, unresolved question that I cannot settle without a limitation-by-limitation § 112 support analysis of the parent. Flagged as an uncertainty, not resolved.

1.2 Level of ordinary skill (POSITA). A person having ordinary skill would have a bachelor's degree in textile engineering or mechanical engineering, or equivalent experience, plus 2–5 years in footwear upper design and/or weft/warp knitting machine operation (flat/circular). This is consistent with the expert framing in the family's IPRs (e.g., Dr. Adanur, Dr. Frederick).

1.3 Claim-construction anchors. Under Nike I, 812 F.3d at 1346–47, a "flat knit edge" (and, by parity of reasoning, the '758's "knit edges free of surrounding textile structure") is an edge "not formed by cutting from a … knit textile element." This is the lynchpin: any prior art that knits an upper to shape reads on the limitation; any art that cuts an upper out of a web does not.

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2. What the page's "Prior Art" material actually contains — and what is legally usable

The Google Patents record for the '758 presents prior-art information in four places. It is important to sort them, because most of the visible citation mass is legally unusable as § 103 art.

2.1 The page's explicit "Prior Art" indicators

2.2 Admitted prior art of record in the '758's own Background (usable; § 103 art)

These five are Nike's own cited art and are admitted prior art. Zaino + Brown + Boggia are the key ones: they supply the motivation and teaching for putting non-textile reinforcement/stretch-resistance on specific zones of a textile upper, including as strips on a side.

2.3 True prior art developed against this family in IPR (the strongest § 103 art; all pre-2004)

These references were assembled by adidas and Skechers and adjudicated by the PTAB/ Federal Circuit against the '011 and sibling patents. They are directly usable against the '758:

2.4 Additional pre-2004 knit-upper art surfaced in the citation graph (usable, corroborative)

• Onitsuka, US 3,583,081 — "Upper Material for Shoes" (1967)
• Jakut, DE 29700546 U1 — "Knit Shoe" (priority 1997)
• Horii, JP H3-3203 (Mizuno, 1991) — "entire upper constructed of a single piece of upper member made through weft knitting or circular knitting"; discusses direction of stitches/wales relative to the shoe
• US 2,585,345 / US 2,586,045 — "Sock-type Footwear" (1950)
• US 4,373,361 — ski sock with integrally knit thickened fabric areas (1981)
• US 5,461,884 (Guilford Mills) — warp-knitted shoe liner (1994)
• US 6,558,784 (ADC Composites) — composite footwear upper (1999) — this is the closest "composite upper" concept
• US 4,607,439 (Achilles) — laminated sheet (1983)

2.5 Material that is NOT prior art (must be excluded from any § 103 ground)

⚠️ Explicit warning to the reader. Anyone building a § 103 ground must not rely on the "Families Citing this family" list. Roughly 300 of the ~318 references visible on the page are later patents/applications that cite the '758 family; they are evidence of the family's impact, not of obviousness. The usable universe is § 2.2–2.4 above.

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3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Claim 10 = claim 1 + a sole structure. Glidden discloses an outsole 17 / sole 32; Rudy/Kilgore (admitted art) disclose modern sole structures. Trivial addition.

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4. Proposed § 103 combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination A (primary, two-reference-plus) — Glidden + Boggia (or Brown)

Renders claim 1, and claims 4–9, 13–17 obvious.

• Glidden supplies (a), (b), (d), and (e)-in-substance: a knit-to-shape sock-like upper with a rubber heel counter and reinforcing straps.
• Boggia / Brown supply the express teaching that substantially inextensible material (leather, synthetic leather) may be secured to specific portions of a shoe upper to limit stretch — precisely the function the '758 assigns to strips 135.
• Motivation: Same field (footwear uppers), same problem (localized stretch control and durability on a lightweight knit upper), and a finite, predictable set of solutions. A POSITA improving Glidden's knit upper for athletic use would look to Boggia/Brown and implement the inextensible elements as a plurality of parallel, spaced strips on the lateral side to allow differential flex while resisting lateral stretch — an obvious design choice. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416–17 (2007) ("combination of familiar elements according to known methods … when it does no more than yield predictable results").

Combination B (primary, three-reference) — Nishida + Spencer (+ Schuessler) + Boggia/Brown

Renders claim 1 and all dependents obvious; supported by a Federal Circuit affirmance.

• Nishida discloses a knit upper with forefoot/heel regions, apertures, and (with Spencer) stitch-omission to form apertures.
• Spencer teaches that knitting-to-shape eliminates the need to cut the workpiece from surrounding textile structure — and the Board found a POSITA "interested in Nishida's preference to minimize waste … would have logically consulted the well-known practice of flat-knitting." Nike I, 812 F.3d at 1335–38. That squarely supplies limitation (a).
• Schuessler I/II supply knit-to-shape upper construction.
• Boggia/Brown/Zaino supply (d)/(e).
• Motivation: waste reduction + elimination of cut-and-sew labor + localized stretch resistance. This is the same motivation chain the Federal Circuit found substantial-evidence-supported for the parent's substitute claims.

Precedential weight. In IPR2013-00067 the PTAB instituted on Glidden and Nishida and cancelled the '011's original claims 1–46; on remand the Board held the substitute claims unpatentable over Nishida + Schuessler + Spencer, and the Federal Circuit affirmed. (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2013-00067/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7347011/docs/04-28-2014-Board/Final_Decision-60-Final_Written_Decision.pdf; https://www.mintz.com/sites/default/files/media/documents/2020-04-14/IPR2013-00067%2069%20-%20Decision%20on%20Remand%20-%2035%20USC%20144%20and%2037%20CFR%2042.5%28a%29.pdf) Because the '758 shares the '011's specification and simply re-claims a knit-to-shape upper, this record is highly probative — though not dispositive, because the '758's claim 1 adds the knit-column-orientation and lateral-strip/heel-element limitations that were not before the Board.

Combination C (supporting) — Horii + Glidden + Zaino

Directs limitation (c).

• Horii (1991) discloses an entire upper of a single knit member and expressly addresses stitch/wale direction relative to the shoe.
• Spencer establishes that wale orientation is a function of knitting direction (a programming variable), not a structural discovery.
• Motivation: selecting wale orientation parallel to the longitudinal axis is an obvious design choice among a finite number of orientations, with predictable effects on stretch/fit — squarely a "design choice" under KSR and In re Harza.

Dependent-claim mapping

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5. Motivation to combine — consolidated (KSR factors)

1. Same field of endeavor — every reference is a footwear upper or a knitted textile therefor.
2. Same problem — the '758's own Background frames the problem as the inefficiency and breathability penalty of multiple joined material elements; the art (Glidden, Nishida, Horii) attacks the identical problem via knit-to-shape.
3. Predictable results / finite solutions — knit-to-shape (vs. knit-to-cut), wale orientation, and parallel strips are each a selection from a small, known set with predictable outcomes.
4. Known technique — Spencer (a learned treatise) and Horii establish that knitting-to-shape, stitch-omission, and wale orientation were ordinary knitting techniques long before 2004.
5. Market forces — the well-documented industry drive toward lighter, breathable, waste-minimizing athletic uppers supplies the commercial incentive.

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6. Counterarguments a challenger will face (why the '758 is not a slam-dunk invalid)

1. The 2004 priority date guts most of the visible citation graph. ~300 forward citations are unusable (§ 2.5). The closest-looking art (Dua-592, the '956/'484/'932/'562 siblings, Shima Seiki, Greene) is excluded or is Nike's own family.
2. New-matter risk cuts both ways. Nike can be expected to argue (successfully or not) that claim 1 is entitled to Mar. 3, 2004; a challenger must either accept that date and rely on Glidden/Nishida-era art, or prove a later effective date — which is itself an admission that the claim was broadened beyond the parent.
3. Nishida "teaches away" from knit-to-shape for the specific purpose of minimizing waste (it optimizes the cut-out layout instead). Nike made exactly this argument in the '011 IPR. The Federal Circuit rejected it as a teach-away but the argument has surface appeal and will recur.
4. Limitation (c) is the weakest point in the art record. No single pre-2004 reference I retrieved expressly recites a knit upper whose wales run parallel to the shoe's longitudinal axis. A challenger must prove this is a design choice (via Horii/Spencer), not a structural innovation. If a POSITA record cannot establish that orientation is machine-programmable and functionally arbitrary, this limitation may survive.
5. Secondary considerations. Nike has historically adduced long-felt need and commercial success (Flyknit); the Board in IPR2013-00067 was faulted (Nike I) for not expressly weighing Nike's long-felt-need evidence. Expect the same playbook. Any challenger must rebut the nexus between Flyknit's success and the specific claim elements.
6. The '758 was never itself IPR'd. All the § 103 jurisprudence above is about sibling/parent patents with different claim scope. A petitioner must build the record against claim 1's specific combination from scratch.

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7. Bottom line

• Most likely invalid grounds (if a challenge were mounted):
  • Ground 1: Glidden in view of Boggia and/or Brown — renders claim 1 (and 4–9, 10, 13–17) obvious.
  • Ground 2: Nishida in view of Spencer and Schuessler I/II, further in view of Boggia/Brown/Zaino — renders claim 1 and all dependents obvious.
  • Ground 3: Horii and/or Glidden in view of Spencer and Zaino — targets the knit-column-orientation and heel/non-textile limitations.
• Confidence: Moderate-to-high that claim 1 is obvious over Glidden + Boggia/Brown (the knit-to-shape + heel-counter + lateral-strap teaching is a close factual fit and the motivation is strong). Moderate for the Nishida-based ground, because it depends on importing the "flat-knit-to-shape" technique that the Federal Circuit has already accepted as an obvious modification of Nishida. Low-to-moderate on limitation (c) standing alone — expect that limitation to be the focus of any validity fight.
• The single most powerful lever is the family's own adjudicated record: the PTAB's institution on Glidden/Nishida against the '011 and the Federal Circuit's affirmance that a POSITA minimizing Nishida's waste would adopt flat-knitting-to-shape. That reasoning transfers directly to the '758's "knit edges free of surrounding textile structure" limitation.

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8. Explicit uncertainties (per operating rules)

1. I did not retrieve the full text of Glidden, Nishida, Schuessler I/II, Horii, McDonald, Whiting, Shiomura, Curley, Osamu, or Spencer. My characterizations are taken from the PTAB and Federal Circuit records (reliable, but second-hand). Each should be read directly before a ground is finalized.
2. The '758's effective filing date is assumed to be Mar. 3, 2004. I have not performed a § 112 support analysis of claim 1's "knit columns … knitting direction parallel to the longitudinal axis" and "spiral/strip" language against the 10/791,289 disclosure. If that language is new matter, post-2004 art (Dua-592 excluded, but the 2005–2012 sibling patents and Shima Seiki art) becomes available and the obviousness case materially strengthens.
3. Claim 1 does not contain the "unitary construction / first and second stitch configuration" element that was central to the '011 IPR. I flagged this because it means the '011 line of authority does not map 1:1 onto the '758; a challenger cannot simply import the '011 result.
4. The lateral-strip limitation (e). The closest express disclosure of "a plurality of spaced-apart parallel strips on the lateral side" I could ground in pre-2004 art is Glidden's straps/saddle plus Boggia/Brown's inextensible-material-on-upper teaching. If a narrower, more exact pre-2004 strip reference exists (e.g., a design patent or a non-U.S. publication), I did not find it. Do not represent Glidden's straps as an exact anticipation of the strip limitation — it is a § 103 combination.
5. Litigation status is as of the prior section. I did not re-verify the D. Mass. Markman outcome or any 2026 CAFC activity beyond what the prior section reported.

Primary sources used: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9924758](/patent/US9924758)/en • IPR2013-00067 Final Written Decision (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2013-00067/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7347011/docs/04-28-2014-Board/Final_Decision-60-Final_Written_Decision.pdf) • IPR2013-00067 Decision on Remand (https://www.mintz.com/sites/default/files/media/documents/2020-04-14/IPR2013-00067%2069%20-%20Decision%20on%20Remand%20-%2035%20USC%20144%20and%2037%20CFR%2042.5%28a%29.pdf) • Nike v. adidas cert exhibits (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-927/252916/20230123122711022_Nike--Application%20XT%20File%20Cert%20Pet%20-%20Exhibits%20A-D.pdf) • Fed. Cir. 21-1903 petition (https://fedcircuitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/21-1903-Petition.pdf) • IPR2016-00921 (https://www.finnegan.com/a/web/[306918](/patent/306918)/2G4MLM/ipr201600922_adidasag_v_nike.pdf) • EP 2 803 283 A3 search report (Glidden/Zuckerman/Dua-592 citations).