US 9980813

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Let me verify claims and check for any litigation docket specifically naming this patent.

US 9,980,813 B2 — Concise Summary

Important note on scope of verification: I searched for the specific number 9980813 (including its PTAB and litigation footprints). I found no Federal Circuit 2026 docket, appeal, or pending CAFC case naming this patent. What I did find is a PTAB exhibit use and a family of foreign counterparts. I could not confirm grant-stage claim numbering from an official USPTO claim listing, so I flag uncertainty on the exact count/content of the granted independent claims below.

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Bibliographic Data

Abstract (as published)

"Selective fluid barrier valve devices and methods of treatment are described herein. An embodiment of a selective fluid barrier valve device comprises a housing, an actuator, a sleeve, a wire member, and a connector. The sleeve defines a passageway that extends through the sleeve. The actuator is moveable between a first position and a second position. When the actuator is in the first position, the sleeve is in a first configuration such that fluid can pass through the passageway defined by the sleeve. When the actuator is in a second position, the sleeve is in a second configuration such that fluid is prevented from passing through the passageway defined by the sleeve."

Field / Purpose

A hemostasis/fluid-barrier valve for a medical introducer. Unlike conventional slit-elastomer valves that only seal within a narrow device-diameter range and can require the user to hold the device stationary, this device uses an actuator-driven wire cinch around an elastomeric sleeve so the user can selectively open/close the sleeve passageway, and can also pinch down onto a device of arbitrary diameter (or seal the passageway onto itself with nothing inserted) to prevent blood leakage during device exchange.

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Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

Claim 1 — Basic device (housing / actuator / sleeve / single wire member).
A selective fluid barrier valve having a lengthwise axis, comprising:

• Housing with proximal end, distal end, and a body defining a housing passageway running through it plus a first opening through the body into that passageway.
• Actuator moveably attached to the housing and moveable between a first position and a second position (in the illustrated embodiment, a rotatable ring; the specification also contemplates linear/slidable/pivotable actuators).
• Sleeve in the housing passageway, defining a sleeve passageway, moveable between a first (open) configuration permitting fluid flow and a second (closed) configuration preventing flow.
• First wire member with one end attached to the housing and the other end attached to the actuator, routed between the housing and the sleeve and out through the first opening.
• The relative-position limitation: in the first position the sleeve is in its first configuration and the sleeve proximal end sits a first distance from the housing proximal end; in the second position the sleeve is in its second configuration and the sleeve proximal end sits a second distance from the housing proximal end, and the second distance is different than the first. (In the illustrated FIG. 8A–8C embodiment the wire is obliquely wrapped around the sleeve, and closing the sleeve advances the sleeve's proximal end distally, so the second distance is greater than the first.)

Plain language: turning/sliding the actuator pulls a wire that is wrapped around an elastomeric sleeve, cinching the sleeve shut while simultaneously translating the sleeve's proximal end a different distance from the housing's proximal end.

Claim 3 — Three-wire-member device.
Same general structure, but the housing body defines first, second and third openings, and the device includes first, second and third wire members, each having a first end attached to the housing and a second end attached to the actuator, each running between housing and sleeve and out through its respective opening. The additional limitation here is that in the second position the second distance is greater than the first distance. This corresponds to the three-wire (120°-spaced) cinch arrangement of FIGS. 1–10C, where the sleeve is squeezed from three sides.

Claim 4 — Further independent device claim. Justia's listing shows a fourth claim also beginning "A selective fluid barrier valve device having a lengthwise axis and comprising: …" I could not verify its full text, so I cannot describe it reliably. Given the specification's disclosed alternatives, it most likely covers one of the variant embodiments (e.g., the single looped wire member wrapped >50%–100% around the sleeve of FIGS. 15–17, the interlinked looped wire members of FIGS. 18–19, or the dual-actuator/projection arrangement of FIGS. 24–27). Flagging this as uncertain.

Method claim (present in the disclosure and in the EP counterpart). A method of operating/using a selective fluid barrier valve: providing a wire arrangement that at least partially encircles the sleeve, and actuating the actuator to move the sleeve between its open and closed configurations. The specification's FIG. 23 method-of-treatment flow includes: attach valve device to a first medical device (sheath/cannula); insert that into a bodily passage; insert a second medical device (e.g., catheter, balloon catheter, suction device, delivery device, wire guide) through the valve and first device into the passage; navigate to a treatment point; move the actuator to close the sleeve; perform treatment; move the actuator back to open; withdraw the second device and then the first device.

Note: the granted claims may have been amended relative to the published application. In the pre-grant publication US 2015/0305859 A1, the independent claims were numbered 1 (basic device) and 12 (three-wire-member device); in the EP counterpart EP 2939704 A1 the independent claims were 1 (device) and 14 (method). I have not confirmed the final granted claim set against the official USPTO full text, so treat the claim numbering above (1, 3, 4) as the best available from secondary sources, not as an authoritative claim listing.

Notable Dependent-Claim Concepts (from the published claim set)

• First wire member disposed at an oblique angle to the lengthwise axis, with mid-portion closer to the housing proximal end than its ends.
• Sleeve body defining an internal protrusion projecting into the sleeve passageway (sealing aid; FIGS. 13–14).
• Housing cavity whose lengthwise axis is at an angle (obligue, ~35°) to the device axis, holding the wire member's first end.
• Actuator cavity whose lengthwise axis is parallel to the device axis, holding the wire member's second end.
• Housing body defining a plurality of grooves, sleeve body defining a plurality of protuberances seated in those grooves (anti-slip/support; FIG. 12).

Litigation / Docket Findings (as of the search date)

• No CAFC 2026 appeal or docket naming 9980813 was found. No district-court complaint naming 9980813 was found either. Absence of a search hit is not proof of absence — a case may exist in a docket that isn't indexed in the sources I could reach.
• PTAB activity where the '813 patent appears as prior art, not as the challenged patent: In IPR2025-00289, petitioner Imperative Care, Inc. submitted an exhibit captioned Exhibit 1007 – "US Patent No 9,980,813 B1 to Eller ('Eller')" (dated Dec. 13, 2024), i.e., the '813 patent was used as a prior-art reference against another patent. Note the literal discrepancy in the docket caption: it renders the number as "9,980,813 B1" while the document cover page reads "US 9,980,813 B2." Per the operating rules I have not auto-corrected this; I report it as found. The official kind code for the granted patent is B2.
• The '813 patent also appears on prior-art reference lists in other pending PTAB prosecution-type documents (e.g., a petition document set listing "US-9980813-B2 | 05-2018 | Eller").
• Pre-existing Cook-family litigation I encountered (e.g., Boston Scientific Corp. v. Cook Group Inc., D. Del. 1:15-cv-00980; LifePort Sciences LLC v. Cook Inc.; Stone Basket Innovations v. Cook Medical) does not assert 9980813 and should not be conflated with it.

Confidence / Uncertainty Statement

• High confidence: title, inventor, assignee, application number, filing date, priority date, issue date, abstract, and the core disclosure/embodiments (all corroborated by the petition-hosted full-text copy of the patent, Google Patents, Justia, and the EP/JP/CN family).
• Medium confidence: the identity of the granted independent claims as claims 1, 3, and 4, and that claim 1's basic structure matches the published claim 1. Secondary sources (Justia) support this, but I did not retrieve a verified USPTO claim listing.
• Low confidence / unknown: the full text of granted claim 4; whether a granted method claim exists and under what number; and the existence or non-existence of any unindexed 2026 CAFC proceeding involving this patent.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 9980813.

Let me refine the search with more specific litigation-focused sources.

Let me dig into the IPR reference and search litigation databases more specifically.

Memorandum — Litigation Check for U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813

Subject patent (per the authoritative full text): U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 B2, "Selective fluid barrier valve device and method of treatment"; inventor Derek Eller; original assignee Cook Medical Technologies LLC (current assignees listed as Cook Inc. / Cook Medical Technologies LLC); Appl. No. 14/689,734; filed 2015-04-17; priority 2014-04-28; granted 2018-05-29; adjusted expiration 2036-05-23. I interpret the number literally as 9,980,813 and did not substitute any similar number.

Bottom line

No district court litigation (or Federal Circuit appeal) asserting U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 was found. I could not identify a plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, or filing date for any infringement action on this patent. The only adversarial proceedings in which this patent appears are PTAB proceedings where it is cited as prior art against someone else's patent, not proceedings involving the validity or infringement of the '813 patent itself.

1. Patent-office proceedings where the '813 patent appears (as prior art, not as the challenged patent)

Sources: Docket Alarm exhibit list for IPR2025-00289 (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-00289/Imperative_Care_Inc._v._Inari_Medical_Inc/docs/10-02-2025-Petitioner/Notice__Exhibit_list-19-2025_10_02_Petitioners_Updated_Exhibit_List.pdf) and the Petitioner's demonstratives referring to grounds 3 and 4 as "Garrison + Schaffer + Eller" / "Garrison + Hartley + Eller."

Two literal-reading notes, per the strict rule:

• The IPR papers label the exhibit "9,980,813 B1," while the granted patent (and the USPTO/Google Patents record) is "9,980,813 B2." I am reporting the "B1" designation exactly as it appears rather than correcting it; it is likely a typographical designation in the exhibit caption, but I have not verified the exhibit image itself.
• Parallel litigation to IPR2025-00289 is Inari Medical, Inc. v. Imperative Care, Inc., No. 5:24-cv-03117-EKL (N.D. Cal.) (initially docketed as 4:24-cv-03117-YGR). That case concerns the '005 patent, not the '813 patent. If you are looking for litigation touching this patent family, that case and IPR2025-00289 are the closest items, but neither asserts the '813 patent.

The '813 patent also surfaced as one of many patent numbers in a prior-art/patentability search string in a separate Inari-related PTAB petition (query string "…"9980813" OR "9999493" OR "RE43902"…"), which is again a prior-art citation, not an assertion.

2. Apparent false positives that I checked and excluded

Several search hits use the shorthand "the '081 patent" or list "9980813" in unrelated contexts. I confirmed these are different patents and not the subject patent:

• Veloxis Pharmaceuticals v. Accord Healthcare / Intas (D. Del., No. 22-cv-0909) and related Hatch-Waxman counterclaims referencing an "'081 patent" — a pharmaceutical patent, not U.S. 9,980,813.
• Resonant Systems, Inc. (d/b/a RevelHMI) v. Sony Group Corp. / Sony Interactive Entertainment (E.D. Tex., No. 2:22-cv-00424-JRG-RSP), which asserts U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,860,337, 9,369,081, and 9,941,830 — again not the subject patent.
• Boston Scientific v. Cook endoscopic-clip litigations (e.g., D. Del. 15-980) and various Cook v. Boston Scientific stent/IVC-filter matters — different patents entirely.

3. Limitations on this search (please note)

• I was able to run targeted open-web searches but could not directly query the Unified Patents litigation case list (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) or PACER/Docket Navigator/RPX with a logged-in interface; my tool budget for this session was exhausted before I could do so. A negative result here is therefore "not found," not a certified absence.
• The Unified Patents litigation caselist and RPX Insight are the appropriate sources to confirm the absence of a district court docket naming 9,980,813 as a patent-in-suit; PACER's "patent number" search field (in the newer PACER Case Locator "Patents" query) would also confirm.
• One source (exparte.com's PTAB page) lists IPR2025-00289 as having an institution date of 06/18/2025, a final written decision date of 06/09/2026, and an appeal docketed as 26-2140. I flag that these dates are later than the April 26, 2026 date stated in your instructions, so either the source is showing projected dates, or it reflects updates after your stated cutoff. Treat those entries as unverified for your timeframe.
• I cannot verify whether a sealing, protective order, or settlement has removed a docket from public view; nothing in my search suggests one exists.

Recommendation

If you need a litigation-clearance statement on the '813 patent, run a confirmatory search in (a) the Unified Patents litigation portal case list, (b) RPX Insight "Patent Search" by patent number, and (c) PACER Case Locator patent-number query and the PTAB's P-TACTS/PTAB API. Based on everything I could retrieve, however, my current answer is: no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 as an asserted patent; the only litigation-adjacent activity is its use as an invalidity reference (Eller) in IPR2025-00289, Imperative Care v. Inari Medical, concerning U.S. Pat. No. 11,554,005.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings naming U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 as the challenged patent: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block supplied with this task returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings, and my independent web checks (Google Patents family/related-matters page, PTAB-related docket mirrors, PTAB petition documents surfaced via ptacts.uspto.gov, and general searches for petitioner/patent-owner pairings) surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal in which Cook Medical Technologies LLC / Cook Inc. is the patent owner and the '813 is the patent under review. The breakdown is therefore: active 0 / invalidated 0 / sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this is not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened," and it is not "claims 1–5 are canceled." It is the third case: the '813 is wholly untested at the Board. Every claim is live, no petitioner has been estopped under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), and no prior-art ground has been narrowed by a PTAB record. A defendant facing assertion gets a clean slate — but also no free ride: it has to build the invalidity case from scratch, and it should assume Cook's litigation counsel has never had to defend these claims in an AIA trial.

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Flagged sighting — not a proceeding against the '813

IPR2025-00289 — Imperative Care, Inc. (captioned petitioner) — [U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 appears as Petitioner's Exhibit 1007]

• Type: Inter Partes Review (of a different patent — the '813 does not appear to be the challenged patent)
• Filed: 2024-12-13 (exhibit served/filed date per the docket entry)
• Status: Not a proceeding on the '813. Listed here only because it is the one place the '813 surfaced in AIA trial papers.
• Judge panel: Not retrieved / not applicable.
• Petition grounds: Not applicable to the '813.
• Institution decision: Unknown to me.
• Final Written Decision: None identified affecting the '813.
• Settlement / termination: Not applicable.
• Appeal: None identified.
• Defensive value: Inverse of the usual. The '813 is being used as prior art — Exhibit 1007, captioned "US Patent No. 9,980,813 B1 to Eller 'Eller'" — in IPR2025-00289. Standard PTAB practice is to file the challenged patent as Exhibit 1001, so an exhibit number of 1007 is strong (though not conclusive) evidence the '813 is a reference, not the target. Source: Docket Alarm PTAB mirror, https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-00289/Imperative_Care_Inc/12-13-2024-Petitioner/Exhibit-1007-US_Patent_No_9,980,813_B1_to_Eller_%E2%80%9CEller%E2%80%9D/ . Note the exhibit caption says "B1" while the patent issued as US 9,980,813 B2; I am reporting the caption literally and am not treating it as a separate document. Practical takeaway: Cook's own patent has become a citation in the crowded hemostasis/aspiration-valve fight (Inari Medical / Imperative Care / Stryker-type parties), which tells you where the art cluster is — and gives you a ready-made prior-art bibliography to mine against the '813 itself.
• Caveat: I could not open the IPR2025-00289 petition body or confirm the patent owner, real parties in interest, or the challenged patent. Treat the identification above as a lead to verify in PTAB E2E, not as a finding.

Secondary, weaker signal along the same lines: an IDS/prior-art-search document filed in another PTAB petition lists US-9980813-B2 (05-2018) Eller in a hit table (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1556918](/patent/1556918)/download-documents?artifactId=t7tYeScenZT_AjMZfJmHGJDwIbghTEymtL3-nEqf1PUj7NKPod4dX7k#152#17), and a 2023 third-party prior-art search string run in yet another petition explicitly queries "9980813" among a list of hemostasis-valve patents (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557876](/patent/1557876)/download-documents?artifactId=jn70ken5u_MLp3WchaNXxUFnwjILubG8BF8KJD3vSQ8vMpxu3jf7_pU#201#194). Again: cited art, not challenged patent.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. CANCELED: none. SUSTAINED: none. UNTESTED: all claims. From the claim text reproduced at https://patents.justia.com/patent/9980813, the independent claims visible in that reproduction are claims 1, 3, 4, 12, and 20, with dependent claims in the 5–11 and 13–19 ranges; I did not independently verify the total claim count, so treat the claim set as "at least 1–20" pending a look at the printed patent. Because the independent claims recite both the sleeve-movement limitation and, in claims 3 and 12, the second and third wire members, an invalidity theory has to defeat multiple independent claims — there is no single-claim kill shot available. Note also the family: Google Patents shows priority to US 15/960,899 (filed 2018-04-24, published as US20180243085A1), i.e., Cook has a continuation-lineage filing off the same disclosure. A defense that only addresses the '813 leaves the continuation untouched.

Estoppel landscape. There is no estoppel to work around, in either direction. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtains a Final Written Decision; no IPR on the '813 has gone to FWD, so no party is barred from raising any ground in district court, and no ground is "off the table" for a new petitioner at the Board. Conversely, a defendant filing today gets no benefit from a prior petitioner's work product or stipulated Sotera-type carve-outs. Two timing constraints matter: (i) § 315(b) — a defendant served with a complaint alleging infringement more than one year ago is time-barred from filing; and (ii) the PGR window closed nine months after grant, i.e., 2019-02-28, so § 112 grounds are effectively unavailable in an AIA petition now (IPR reaches only §§ 102/103 on patents and printed publications). CBM is unavailable (patent granted 2018-05-29, after the CBM sunset for new petitions). The practical consequence: if you file, file IPR, file on §§ 102/103, and file early.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, because there is no petitioner at all. No PTAB appeals, because there is no FWD to appeal — searches for a Federal Circuit appeal involving the '813 returned nothing, and CourtListener has no opinion citing it. No Unified Patents or other defensive aggregator involvement is visible in the record I could reach. The only pattern is directional: the '813 is current, live prior art in the hemostasis-valve/aspiration-catheter space, which is where competitor IPRs are being filed. Ownership is Cook Medical (Cook Medical Technologies LLC; Cook Inc. as co-assignee), with a security interest recorded to Wilmington Trust, National Association as collateral agent on 2024-02-28 (Google Patents reassignment record) — a sign the portfolio is collateralized, not that it is being worked by a non-practicing entity. This looks like a practicing-manufacturer patent, which raises real § 315(b) and Fintiv (discretionary-denial) considerations if a parallel district court case exists.

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Recommended next steps

1. Verify the zero-count independently before you rely on it. The ODP block is canonical, and I confirmed it only through secondary sources. Run a patent-number search on PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and on Patent Center for 9,980,813, and check the ODP "proceedings" endpoint directly. I hit a tool-step cap partway through research and one search returned a rate-limit message, so my negative result is well-supported but not exhaustively negative.
2. Mine the competitor IPRs for art against the '813. Because the '813 is being cited as prior art by other petitioners (IPR2025-00289 Ex. 1007, above), those very petitions contain invalidity theories over the same underlying hemostasis-valve art you would need. Pull the IPR2025-00289 petition and exhibit set and the Inari-family hemostasis-valve petitions (see the ptacts links above) and reverse-engineer the references.
3. Read the file history before drafting anything. The '813 issued 2018-05-29 with primary examiner Kami A. Bosworth. What the examiner did not have before it — and whether any of the references now being cited against the competitor patents was of record — drives both § 325(d) risk and your best § 103 combination.
4. Cover the family, not just the '813. Include US 15/960,899 / US20180243085A1 in any invalidity or FTO analysis; defeating the '813 alone does not clear the continuation.
5. If you are a defendant with a live case: confirm your § 315(b) service date immediately, and calendar the statutory deadlines — institution decision within six months of the petition's filing date, and FWD within one year of institution (35 U.S.C. § 314(b) and § 316(a)(11)). If there is a parallel district court action with a trial date inside the IPR window, prepare a Fintiv/Sotera stipulation strategy as part of the petition package.
6. If no proceeding is filed and you need leverage: the absence of PTAB history is itself the signal. This patent has never been stress-tested at the Board; there is no institution denial to rehabilitate and no FWD holding to distinguish. That cuts both ways — an IPR-based defense is genuinely open, and there is no "hardened patent" story for plaintiff's counsel to tell.

Nothing in this section should be treated as a finding that no proceeding exists beyond the sources identified. The canonical answer is the ODP block: no AIA trial proceedings on file for US 9,980,813 as of the most recent ingest.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9980813 using the available tools, then reconstruct the chain.

US 9980813 — Assignment & Ownership Analysis

Patent: US 9,980,813 B2 — "Selective fluid barrier valve device and method of treatment"
App. No.: 14/689,734 · Filed: 2015-04-17 · Granted/Published: 2018-05-29 · Priority: 2014-04-28
Family: US 2015/0305859 A1 · EP 2939704 A1 · JP 2015-208685 A · CN 105013077 A · continuation US 15/960,899 (US 2018/0243085 A1)
Current assignee (bibliographic): Cook Medical Technologies LLC (primary); Cook Inc. also listed.

Sourcing caveat up front: I was able to confirm the conveyances, parties, and event dates from the Google Patents legal‑events record for US 9,980,813 and corroborating Cook corporate filings/judicial records. I was not able to retrieve the specific reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record for the recordings from the sources available to me (Assignment Center pages did not render in the material I could access). I will not fabricate reel/frame or correspondent data. Where those fields are unknown I mark them [not captured] and point to the Assignment Center for verification.

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Inventors

• Sole named inventor. Address is Cook's home city (750 N. Daniels Way, Bloomington, IN 47404).
• No "inventor departure" pattern: Eller is a repeat Cook inventor across the same era — e.g., co‑inventor on EP 3064173 B1 "Prosthesis delivery device" (priority 2015‑03‑05, Cook Medical Technologies LLC), EP 3449871 A3 "Endoluminal prosthesis with an aortic sinus stent assembly" (priority 2017‑09‑01, same assignee), and U.S. Pub. 2017/0189212 "Hybrid trigger wire for endografts" (filed 2015‑12‑30, Cook assignee). He stayed inside the Cook organization and kept assigning to Cook entities — the opposite of the fire‑sale precursor pattern.

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Original assignee

Cook Medical Technologies LLC — 750 North Daniels Way, Bloomington, IN 47404 (Indiana LLC).

• Role/line of business: Cook Medical Technologies LLC ("CMT") is the intra‑group IP‑holding subsidiary of the Cook group. Per the court's findings in Security Medical Systems v. Cook (D. Minn. No. 21‑cv‑02572), "CMT was formed in 2010 to hold the intellectual‑property rights of all of the Cook‑related entities," with Cook Inc. as majority owner. Cook Incorporated manufactures; Cook Medical LLC is the North‑American distributor.
• Product embodying the claims: Yes — the claimed subject matter is a hemostatic/iris‑type selective fluid barrier valve for introducers and sheaths, squarely within Cook's commercial device lines (hemostatic valve introducers, vascular/endoscopy access products). Cook is an operating medical‑device manufacturer, not a licensor.
• Status: Operating. Cook Group is a large privately held (family‑owned) medtech company with continuous patenting activity (≈1,000+ granted U.S. patents; last grant activity still current in 2026). No bankruptcy, no wind‑down. (A search hit showing "COOK MEDICAL" in a Chapter 11 Schedule G is a third‑party debtor's vendor list — Cook appears as a counterparty/creditor, not as a debtor. Not a Cook insolvency.)

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Assignment timeline

Chronological record as reflected in the patent's legal‑events/reassignment history. All reel/frame numbers and correspondents [not captured] — see caveat.

• 2015‑05‑01 (recorded; execution date not separately shown) — Reel [not captured]/[not captured]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (employee/inventor assignment)
  • Assignor: Derek Eller (inventor)
  • Assignee: Cook Incorporated
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: Standard employment invention assignment — inventor assigns to the Cook operating entity.

• 2015‑05‑01 (recorded; same day) — Reel [not captured]/[not captured]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Cook Incorporated
  • Assignee: Cook Medical Technologies LLC
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: Internal corporate reorg / IP‑consolidation — transfer from the manufacturing entity into CMT, the Cook group's IP‑holding vehicle.

• 2024‑02‑28 (recorded) — Reel [not captured]/[not captured]

  • Conveyance: Security Interest ("SECURITY INTEREST — SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS")
  • Assignor: Cook Medical Technologies LLC
  • Assignee: Wilmington Trust, National Association, as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: Securitization / collateral financing — a lien recorded against Cook's patent portfolio to secure a credit/notes facility. Not an ownership transfer; CMT remains the beneficial owner.

(No other post‑issuance assignments to any third party were found. If a complete Assignment Center pull yields additional security‑interest filings across the Cook portfolio, they would be collateral records of the same financing, not ownership changes.)

If the Assignment Center ultimately shows no reel/frame records beyond the two 2015 entries, the fallback finding is identical: the patent never left the Cook family.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9980813
    2014 : Inventor Derek Eller files application
    2015 : Employee assignment to Cook Incorporated
         : Internal transfer to Cook Medical Tech LLC
    2018 : Patent issued to Cook Medical Tech LLC
    2024 : Security interest lien to Wilmington Trust

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. No licensing‑only LLC ever appears. The only 2015 assignees are Cook Incorporated (manufacturer) and Cook Medical Technologies LLC (Cook's own IP‑holding subsidiary, formed 2010, majority‑owned by Cook Inc.). CMT is not a single‑purpose Delaware/Texas assertion shell; it is the consolidated IP holder for a $2B+ operating device group.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither Cook Incorporated nor Cook Medical Technologies LLC appears on any public NPE list (no Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg, etc.). Cook is a genuine manufacturer that both asserts and defends patents against real competitors (e.g., Cook Inc. v. Endologix (S.D. Ind.); Cook's cross‑border hemostatic‑clip disputes with Boston Scientific / Medtronic), which is the definitional opposite of an NPE.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT DETERMINABLE. No correspondent of record was retrievable for the 2015 or 2024 recordings, so recurrence cannot be assessed. Note for context only (not a finding): Cook's prosecution/trademark correspondence is handled by Woodard, Emhardt, Henry, Reeves & Wagner LLP (Indianapolis) and Crowell & Moring ("Crowell/Cook – Chicago"), both mainstream operating‑company counsel — but I have no evidence tying either to these assignment recordings.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Only two assignments, both recorded 2015‑05‑01, both internal to the Cook group; then a 9‑year gap to a collateral lien in 2024. No chained LLCs, no shared‑address succession, no <24‑month multi‑hop sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No infringement suit naming US 9,980,813 was found, and no assignment sits within six months before any such suit. The 2024 security interest (2024‑02‑28) is a financing record, not a title transfer, and is not tied to any assertion of this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT. No Cook‑entity Chapter 7/11 was identified (a Schedule G mention of "COOK MEDICAL" is a third party's vendor schedule; Cook is listed as counterparty, not debtor). No sale of this patent in any proceeding.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer to a third‑party NPE asserting on Cook's behalf; the patent has stayed in‑house.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti‑NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Ownership is retained by the operating manufacturer.

Inverse observation (relevant to the NPE question): US 9,980,813 has been cited as prior art in third‑party PTAB petitions — e.g., IPR2025‑00289 (Imperative Care, Inc.), where it is Petitioner's Exhibit 1007, and in the search strings of PTAB petitions 1556918 / 1557876 addressing hemostasis‑valve art. That is the profile of a heavily‑cited technical reference owned by a practicing entity, not that of an assertion vehicle.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The entire recorded chain — the inventor assignment to Cook Incorporated and the same‑day internal transfer to Cook Medical Technologies LLC (both 2015‑05‑01) — stays inside a large, profitable, product‑shipping medtech group whose IP subsidiary (CMT) exists solely to hold the Cook family's patents; the only post‑issuance record is a 2024‑02‑28 collateral security interest to Wilmington Trust, N.A. as Collateral Agent, i.e., a financing lien rather than a title change. Zero of the eight NPE signals are present, and the patent's real footprint is as a cited prior‑art reference in third‑party IPRs (e.g., Imperative Care IPR2025‑00289, Ex. 1007), not as an assertion asset. Caveat for honesty of record: I found no lawsuit asserting US 9,980,813; the "assertion" element of this verdict therefore rests on Cook's established posture as a repeat patent enforcer in this exact space (endoscopy/vascular devices), and if a strict "must be litigating this patent" test is applied, the chain should be read as operating‑company‑held and non‑asserted rather than asserted.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "9980813"), cross‑checked against https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html and the Google Patents legal‑events tab for US 9,980,813.

Reel/frame and correspondent confirmations are the two fields I could not verify from the sources available; they should be pulled directly from Assignment Center before this analysis is relied on for any standing/ownership opinion.

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

Let me retrieve the specific citation lists from the patent's Google Patents and Justia pages.

Let me pull the front‑page "References Cited" tables for this specific patent.

I have a partial citation list. Let me try to retrieve the remainder of the front‑page references.

I'll research the prior-art references cited on the face of US 9,980,813 to ground the § 103 analysis, since the "Prior art" section above was truncated before its results were captured.

I have the full granted claim set and a partial prior-art list. Let me verify the content of the most technically relevant references (the wire/filament-cinch valve art) to ground the motivation-to-combine analysis.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,980,813 B2

Title: Selective fluid barrier valve device and method of treatment
Inventor: Derek Eller · Original assignee: Cook Medical Technologies LLC
Appl. No. 14/689,734 · Filed 2015-04-17 · Priority 2014-04-28 (Prov. 61/985,134) · Granted 2018-05-29

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0. Scope, sourcing, and two flagged contradictions

0.1 The "Prior art" section of this page was truncated in the input — it contains only the search steps, not the results. I therefore rebuilt the reference inventory from (a) the front-page "References Cited" material of the '813 patent as reproduced in the IPR2025-00289 Petitioner's Exhibit 1007 (a copy of the printed patent), (b) the Justia front-page citation table, and (c) the published claim set at patentsencyclopedia/FPO. The full examiner-cited list was not verified against the USPTO printed patent — that is the single biggest limitation on this memo. I flag every place where the analysis depends on unverified reference content rather than reference identity.

0.2 Contradiction to flag explicitly (per the cross-reference rule). The earlier "Patent summary" section states that the granted independent claims are 1, 3, 4, 12, and 20, and describes "claim 3" as an independent three-wire-member claim and "claim 4" as "another independent device claim." That is inconsistent with the claim text I retrieved. In the reproduced claim set the independent claims are 1, 12, and 20; claim 3 is dependent on claim 1 ("The selective fluid barrier valve device of claim 1, further comprising a second wire member…") and claim 4 depends from claim 3. The "three-wire-member / second distance greater than first" subject matter the earlier summary attributed to claim 3 is in fact claim 12 (and claim 20). I treat the reproduced text as controlling and flag the discrepancy rather than silently adopting either version.

0.3 No granted method claim is visible in the reproduced set; all twenty claims begin "A selective fluid barrier valve device having a lengthwise axis and comprising…". This resolves, at medium confidence, the earlier summary's open question about a granted method claim. The FIG. 23 method of treatment is disclosed but appears unclaimed.

0.4 A further literal-reading note carried forward from the prior sections: the IPR exhibit caption reads "US Patent No. 9,980,813 B1 to Eller," while the granted patent is B2. I do not auto-correct this; it is reported as found.

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1. Legal framework applied

Governing statute. 35 U.S.C. § 103; Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) (scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations); KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (motivation may be found in design incentives, market pressures, and "the background knowledge, creativity, and common sense of the person of ordinary skill"; where "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions" exist, following one is likely obvious); MPEP §§ 2141–2143.01 (rationales, including (A) design incentive, (B) simple substitution of a known element, (C) predictable use of prior-art elements according to known methods, (D) "obvious to try" where solutions are finite and predictable).

Level of ordinary skill (proposed). A person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical or biomedical engineering (or equivalent), plus 2–4 years of experience designing percutaneous introducer sheaths/hemostasis valves, or a master's degree with 1–2 years. This is the level reflected in the Inari/Imperative Care expert record, which treats a POSITA in this art as able to reason about filament-based valve constriction from mechanical first principles.

What is in dispute is narrow. The '813 is, functionally, a garrote/cinch valve: a rotatable ring pulls a wire wrapped around an elastomeric sleeve, collapsing the sleeve lumen. That concept is squarely and repeatedly in the prior art. The only claim features that are not plainly anticipated in substance are (i) which end of the wire is anchored to the housing rather than the actuator, and (ii) the "sleeve proximal end sits a different distance from the housing proximal end" relative-position limitation. Everything else is mechanical arrangement.

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2. The claim set, grouped for analysis

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3. Prior-art inventory and assigned role

3.1 Verified content (I read the disclosure)

3.2 Identified but content not verified (listed on the '813 front page)

US-published/patented documents reproduced in Ex. 1007's copy of the '813 front page include, by inventor and month/year as printed: Cull 4/2006 and 2/2012; Matsumura 1/2009; Kota et al. 1/2010; Childers et al. 6/2010; Gertner 7/2010; Byrum 7/2010; Buffard et al. 1/2012; Gross 4/2012; Widenhouse et al. 6/2012; Brenneman et al. 7/2012; Stergiopulos 8/2013; Koehler 10/2012 and 4/2014; Aguirre 5/2014; Moore 9/2016; Sterner et al. 1/2004; Slater et al. 1/2004; Smith 4/2004; Taylor et al. 8/2004; Case et al. 2/2007; Valaie 4/2007; Becker et al. 5/2007; Blier 12/2009; Landry 5/2010; Huff 12/2012. Non-patent literature on the face includes a Gore DrySeal Valve product information sheet (2010), a Medtronic Strata II valve video, and USPTO Office Actions in application 13/092,410 (first named inventor Cleve Koehler, dated Jun. 21, 2013 and Nov. 6, 2013). The Koehler office actions are notable because they establish that Koehler's 13/092,410 was itself a hemostasis-valve prosecution — i.e., Koehler is likely the closest Cook-family hemostasis-valve art on the face and should be pulled first (see § 8).

A separate long list of numbers appears on the face ("2434835 Colley 1948" … "5891113" …), consistent with a deep historical citation set for the general "constrictable-tube valve" concept.

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4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claim 1 (and claims 2, 5, 6, 8–10) obvious over Hartley

Claim 1 maps almost element-for-element onto Hartley:

Rationales.

• (KSR rationale C — predictable use of known elements). Constricting a resilient cylindrical diaphragm by tensioning a filament wound circumferentially around it is the entire disclosed mechanism of Hartley. The '813's sleeve 20, wire members 22/24/26, and actuator 18 perform the identical mechanical function in the identical way to achieve the identical result (selectively closing a hemostasis-valve lumen around a range of device diameters). The differences are matters of arrangement, not of operation.
• (KSR rationale B — substitution of a known element). Anchoring one wire end to the stationary housing and the other to the moving actuator, rather than anchoring both to the actuator, is the substitution of one known anchoring scheme for another in a device where the housing and actuator are already the two relatively-moving bodies. Both anchoring schemes are disclosed in the '813 itself as alternatives (the FIG. 1–10C embodiment anchors first ends in housing cavities 62/64/66 and second ends in actuator cavities 90/92/94; the FIG. 18–19 embodiment instead loops wire ends through inter-engaged loops). A POSITA would recognize only a finite number of ways to anchor a tensioning filament in this two-body assembly (both ends to the mover; one end to each body; ends linked to each other), and each yields the same predictable result — filament tension constricts the sleeve.
• (Inherency / predictable physical result). The relative-position limitation is a natural consequence of the geometry: once a compliant, essentially incompressible elastomeric sleeve is cinched radially by a tensioned filament, material must be displaced axially. The '813's own disclosure confirms this is not an unexpected phenomenon but the ordinary behavior of the constrained sleeve — its specification states the second distance is merely "different than the first," and expressly contemplates both greater (FIG. 8A–8C) and lesser (¶ [0098]) outcomes. Where a claim recites a relationship ("different than") rather than a value, and the relationship is the automatic by-product of the recited structure, the limitation cannot supply patentability. See MPEP § 2111.02 (inherently disclosed); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260 (Fed. Cir. 1992).

Claim 2 (second distance greater than first) is likewise met or rendered obvious: the direction of axial displacement follows directly from the angle and the anchor points selected, and the '813 specification itself picks the "greater" direction as the illustrated result. Selecting one of the two disclosed directions is the very definition of an obvious design choice.

Claims 5–6 (wire at an oblique angle; mid-portion nearer the housing proximal end). Hartley's string is wound in a recessed region 22 around the diaphragm and passes through two axially separated apertures (20 and 24) — necessarily running at a non-zero angle to the axis over at least part of its wrap. Independent of Hartley, the motivation to angle the wire is supplied by the '813's own stated purpose: the specification explains that the angle must be one that "does not impart kinking or excessive stress on the wire member," and expressly recites a 35° oblique angle as illustrative and "any … angle … considered suitable." Optimizing a wire-wrap angle to avoid kinking is routine engineering, and the claim does not recite any criticality or unexpected result. MPEP § 2144.04 (obvious design choice / optimization).

Claims 8–10 (angled housing cavity for wire end 1; axially parallel actuator cavity for wire end 2). These recite where the filament ends are captured and at what angle — nothing more. Hartley captures both filament ends in the actuator body ("fixed by knot … in the rotary actuator"). Capturing a filament end in a molded bore of a polymer housing/actuator is the most elementary way to anchor a wire; the bore's orientation (oblique for the housing end, axial for the actuator end) is dictated by the wire's run and is a mere design choice. The '813 specification concedes as much ("Any angle that is capable of securing an end of a wire member and does not impart kinking … is considered suitable").

Net Ground 1: Claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 are rendered obvious by Hartley in view of the ordinary skill of the art.

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Ground 2 — Claims 3, 4, 12, 20 obvious over Hartley (plus optional secondary reference)

Claim 3 adds a second wire member and a second opening; claim 4 adds a third of each; claim 12 and claim 20 bake in the three-wire / three-opening arrangement (12 with the "greater than" limitation; 20 additionally requiring all three wires oblique).

• Hartley already discloses the plural-wrap concept: the string "is wound preferably twice around the cylindrical diaphragm." Adding a second and third distinct filament (rather than extra turns of one) to distribute the constricting force symmetrically around the sleeve circumference is a classical mechanical design move — the same reason a three-jaw chuck, an iris, or a collet uses three (120°-spaced) or more compressing elements rather than one. Spacing constricting members evenly about a circular body to equalize radial compression is within the ordinary creativity of a POSITA and produces no more than the predictable result of a more uniform seal.
• Motivation is also express in the art. Hartley states the objective is to "close over a range of diameters of devices passed through the valve or … completely down to be self sealing." A POSITA seeking a more robust seal would naturally add constricting filaments. The '813 itself treats the number of wire members as an unfettered design variable ("Example number of wire members … include one, at least one, two, a plurality, three, four, five"), which is fatal to any argument that "three" is inventive.
• Secondary reference (optional): US 5,429,616 (Schaffer) discloses a hemostasis valve with two compressing actuating members and a spring-biased actuator — corroborating that multiple compressing members arranged about a seal module was known. Caveat: Schaffer's presence on the '813 face is unverified; do not rely on it without confirming.

Net Ground 2: Claims 3, 4, 12, 20 (and dependents 13, 14 — the oblique-wire relationship, see Ground 1) are rendered obvious.

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Ground 3 — Claims 7 and 15 (sleeve protrusion) obvious over Hartley in view of Myers

Claim 7 / claim 15 add "the sleeve body defines a protrusion extending into the sleeve passageway and toward the lengthwise axis."

• Myers (US 9,216,277 B2, Cook, assigned to the same family of art) discloses a plurality of radially inward projecting sealing protrusions 46 on the inner seal wall that "form a tricuspid sealing pattern about the transluminal device." That is a protrusion into the seal passageway for the same purpose recited in the '813 ("provide[s] structure within the passageway … that prevents fluid from passing through").
• Motivation: Both references are hemostasis valves; both confront the same problem — achieving a no-leak seal when a device is, and is not, present in the lumen. Adding a sealing ridge to an elastomeric sleeve that is being radially compressed is a predictable structural addition with a predictable benefit (higher local contact pressure / redundant seal), and is a "simple substitution of one known element for another." KSR; MPEP § 2143.
• Alternative single-reference route: If the angled/uneven geometry of the '813's own protrusions (FIG. 13–14: two opposed tapered protrusions) is at issue, the motivation is provided by Hartley's own apertured diaphragm 40 with a slitted aperture 41 ([0035]) — Hartley already teaches adding an augmented sealing element to reduce leakage, so combining a sleeve-integral sealing protrusion is a natural extension.

Net Ground 3: Claims 7 and 15 are rendered obvious.

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Ground 4 — Claim 11 and claim 19 (housing grooves + sleeve protuberances) obvious over Hartley

Claim 11 / claim 19 require a housing body defining plurality of grooves in the housing passageway and a sleeve body defining plurality of protuberances each seated in one of those grooves.

• Hartley discloses a "recessed region 22" on the diaphragm in which the string is seated, and a circumferential groove 15 on the actuator's internal surface (or alternatively on the housing's outer surface) "to allow the string … to extend around the outside of the cylindrical housing." The concept of grooves that guide and locate the constricting member / seat a component in mating relation is thus expressly in Hartley.
• The party-specific inversion — groove on the housing, protuberance on the sleeve — is a mirror-image design choice of the identical mating structure. Anti-rotation and anti-slip indexing by rib-and-groove engagement is standard mechanical practice; the '813 itself notes the reciprocal arrangement is an obvious alternative ("a housing body can define a protuberance … and a sleeve body can define a groove"). A claim cannot be saved by flipping which of two mating parts carries the male versus female feature. MPEP § 2144.04.

Net Ground 4: Claims 11 and 19 are rendered obvious.

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5. Consolidated motivation to combine

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem, same solution class. All of Hartley, Wong, Myers, and Schaffer are hemostasis/fluid-barrier valves for percutaneous introducers and catheters. The '813's own "Background" frames the problem identically to Hartley's "Field": elastomeric slit valves "can only accommodate interventional devices that have outside diameters that fall within a small range," and the user "may be required to hold an interventional device … stationary." Hartley's stated object is precisely the cure — a valve that closes "over a range of diameters … or … completely down to be self sealing."
2. Predictable results / no change in principle of operation. Substituting a filament cinch for a slider- or U-member compressor (Wong, Schaffer) is a mere substitution of known elements; each retains a resilient, collapsible sleeve and each seals by radially compressing it.
3. Finite, identified, predictable solutions (KSR). As a PTAB petition in the adjacent litigation put it, "[t]here were a finite number of ways to compress the resilient material in a hemostasis valve to create a seal" — Hartley's single string and Schaffer's two U-members being two, and the '813's wire members a third. The '813 does not claim a new mechanism of closure; it claims a wire cinch that Hartley already disclosed.
4. Explicit guidance in the primary reference. Hartley teaches the exact routing the '813 claims: filament end fixed to the actuator → housing aperture → circumferential wrap around the sleeve → second housing aperture → back to the actuator. The only claim-1 difference (anchoring one end to the housing instead of the actuator) is an express alternative in the '813 itself.
5. No teaching away. Nothing in Hartley, Wong, Myers, or Schaffer teaches away from a filament-cinch sleeve or from multiple filmaments; Hartley affirmatively embraces the widest possible range of seal diameters.

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6. Secondary considerations

None are documented in what I could retrieve, and the one candidate fails on the claim-nexus requirement.

• The '813's Example (Table 1, ¶¶ [0173]–[0178]) reports a quantitative leak study and concludes that sleeves formed of about 70–80% NuSil MED-4755 with 20–30% NuSil MED-4014 are suitable. This is evidence of material optimization, and one could try to cast it as a "critical range" argument (cf. In re Gaillard). But the claims recite no sleeve material composition, no hardness, and no blend ratio. The Example therefore has no nexus to any claimed limitation and cannot rebut the § 103 case. If anything, it supports the opponents' point: the inventors' contribution lies in a material-selection detail that the claims do not capture.
• The '813's "protrusions," "grooves," "cavities," and "angles" are all expressly optional and range-bound in the specification ("one, at least one, two, a plurality, three…"; "any … angle considered suitable"), which undercuts any criticality/unexpected-results argument for those features.
• No evidence of commercial success, licensing, copying, long-felt-but-unsolved need, or industry praise was found with a nexus to the claims. (Consistent with the earlier sections: no litigation asserting the '813 was found; the patent's visible footprint is as a cited prior-art reference — e.g., IPR2025-00289 Ex. 1007 — not as an asserted asset.)

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7. Weak points — where Cook's rebuttal will land

1. Hartley anchors both ends to the actuator. Claim 1 requires the first end attached to the housing. Expect Cook to argue that Hartley gives no reason to move an anchor point to the housing, and that doing so changes the tensioning mechanics. Response: the '813's own FIG. 1–10C embodiment anchors the first ends in housing cavities 62/64/66 and its specification presents that as the primary design — proof that the alternative was known and available; and the change is a pure substitution of anchoring sites between the only two relatively-moving bodies.
2. The relative-position limitation. Cook will argue Hartley's clamped diaphragm ends prevent any axial translation, so the "second distance different than first" is neither disclosed nor inherent. This is the most litigable limitation, and it is worth testing directly. Response options: (a) inherency — a cinched, near-incompressible elastomeric sleeve must displace axially, and the '813 itself treats the direction as either greater or lesser depending on embodiment; (b) combine with a secondary reference whose sleeve end demonstrably translates on actuation (candidate: US 2011/0144592 Wong, whose sliders displace the elastic member, or US 5,429,616 Schaffer, whose actuating members forcibly compress and displace the seal module) — though Wong must be evaluated against the examiner's prior findings that Wong lacks a "filament."
3. "Wire member" vs. "string." A POSITA could argue Hartley's string/suture is not a wire member. This is weak: the '813 expressly states a wire member "can comprise a suture or a cable" and lists "braided … wound … twisted … polymers … Nylon" among suitable materials, and the difference (if any) is immaterial to the claimed function.
4. Claim construction of "opening." Hartley's apertures 20/24 are unambiguously openings through the housing body giving access to the interior passageway — this element is strong for the challenger.
5. § 325(d) / § 102 vs. § 103 posture. Because Hartley appears to be of record on the '813 face, a petition built solely on Hartley risks discretionary denial under § 325(d) (art previously presented to the Office). The better PTAB framing is Hartley as the primary reference plus Myers (or a non-record reference), or use Hartley as the backbone in district court, where § 325(d) does not apply.

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8. Verification needed before this analysis is relied on

1. Pull the printed '813 front page and the examiner's PTO-892 to confirm the complete "References Cited" list and which references were examiner-cited by asterisk. The Ex. 1007 OCR was partial.
2. Retrieve and read Koehler's application 13/092,410 (the two Office Actions cited on the '813 face, dated 2013-06-21 and 2013-11-06). Because Koehler is a Cook hemostasis-valve prosecution, it is the most likely reference to disclose the relative-position and cavity/angle limitations and should be prioritized over the long tail of historical citations.
3. Verify the granted claim text (the analysis above uses the published claim set of US 2015/0305859 A1 as a proxy). Confirm whether the grant added, amended, or renumbered claims, and confirm the total claim count and the absence of a method claim.
4. Confirm Hartley's record status (cited-by-examiner vs. cited-by-applicant) to calibrate § 325(d) risk.
5. Confirm whether Schaffer (US 5,429,616), Wong (US 2011/0144592), and Myers (US 9,216,277) are of record on the '813; I verified their content and their relevance to this field, but only Myers is plausibly on the face from the evidence I saw.
6. Check the '813's immediate family (continuation US 15/960,899 → US 2018/0243085 A1). An invalidity or FTO conclusion addressed only to the '813 does not clear the continuation, which shares the same specification.

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Bottom line

The '813's independent claims are directed to a filament-cinch sleeve valve — a mechanism Hartley (US 2003/0116731 A1), a reference of record on the '813's own face, disclosed in 2003 with the same housing/rotary-actuator/sleeve/aperture/wrap architecture, the same "range of diameters … self sealing" objective, and even the same detent-based position feedback. The remaining claim limitations are (i) an anchoring choice between the two relatively-moving bodies, (ii) a relative axial position that is the predictable by-product of cinching a compliant sleeve, and (iii) a set of expressly optional structural refinements (protrusions, grooves, angled cavities) that the specification itself presents as design variables. On the record available, claims 1–20 are vulnerable to § 103 rejection over Hartley alone or Hartley in view of Myers/Wong, with the relative-position limitation (claims 1, 2, 12, 20) being the single point at which Cook has a genuinely arguable, fact-dependent defense.