US 12156669

US patent 12156669 (US12156669B2) is titled "Single insertion delivery system for treating embolism and associated systems and methods". It was assigned to Inari Medical Inc. The inventors are Richard Quick, Benjamin Edward Merritt, Paul Lubock, and John Coleman Thress. The patent was filed on July 25, 2023, and issued on December 3, 2024.

The abstract describes systems and methods for the intravascular treatment of clot material within a human patient's blood vessel. The method involves engaging an interventional device of a catheter system with clot material and withdrawing it through a guide catheter. In some embodiments, the catheter system includes an attachment/valve member coupled to the guide catheter's proximal portion. The method can include unsealing this attachment/valve member to facilitate withdrawing the interventional device without significant retention of clot material. The guide catheter can then be resealed and aspirated before a new interventional device is advanced to engage and remove more clot material.

Overview of Independent Claims:
I am unable to provide a plain-language overview of each independent claim as the claims section was not present in the provided patent text.

Legal Status and Litigation:
The patent is currently active, with an anticipated expiration date of January 25, 2039.

The patent family is involved in litigation:

• A PTAB case, IPR2026-00169, has been filed and is currently pending.
• A US case (5:24-cv-03117) was filed in the California Northern District Court.
• The first worldwide family litigation has also been filed.

Known litigation involving US patent 12156669 as of April 26, 2026:

1. PTAB Case

   • Plaintiff(s): Unified Patents
   • Defendant(s): Inari Medical Inc (as the current assignee of the patent, it is the likely patent owner and thus defendant in an IPR)
   • Jurisdiction: Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)
   • Case Number: IPR2026-00169
   • Filing Date: The case number IPR2026-00169 suggests a filing year of 2026.
   • Outcome/Current Status: Pending

2. US District Court Case

   • Plaintiff(s): Not explicitly stated in the provided information.
   • Defendant(s): Not explicitly stated in the provided information.
   • Jurisdiction: California Northern District Court
   • Case Number: 5:24-cv-03117
   • Filing Date: The case number 5:24-cv-03117 suggests a filing year of 2024.
   • Outcome/Current Status: Litigation

3. First Worldwide Family Litigation

   • Details for this case (plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, and outcome/status) are not explicitly provided in the patent text or search snippets, beyond a link to Darts-ip, which is inaccessible for direct analysis.

Proceedings overview

There is one active AIA trial proceeding on US patent 12156669, currently in the "Pending" status for institution. This indicates that the patent has not yet been challenged through to a Final Written Decision at the PTAB, and its claims remain untested in this forum.

IPR2026-00169 — Imperative Care, Inc. v. Inari Medical Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2025-12-16
• Status: Pending. The petition has been filed, and the PTAB is currently reviewing it to determine whether to institute a trial.
• Judge panel: Information regarding the assigned judge panel for IPR2026-00169 is not yet publicly available in the search results.
• Petition grounds: The specific claims challenged, prior art references cited, and statutory bases (§ 102 / § 103 / § 112) for the petition in IPR2026-00169 are not publicly detailed in the provided search snippets.
• Institution decision: A decision on institution for IPR2026-00169 has not yet been issued. The statutory deadline for an institution decision is typically six months from the petition's filing date (June 16, 2026).
• Final Written Decision (if issued): Not applicable; the proceeding is pending institution.
• Settlement / termination: Not applicable; the proceeding is pending institution.
• Appeal: Not applicable; the proceeding is pending institution.
• Defensive value: As this IPR is still in the pre-institution phase, it offers no immediate defensive value in terms of claims being invalidated or sustained. The outcome of the institution decision will be the next critical milestone.

Strategic summary

Currently, all claims of US patent 12156669 are UNTESTED by a Final Written Decision from the PTAB. There are no claims that have been canceled or sustained in an AIA trial. The patent remains active, and its claims have not been narrowed through any inter partes review proceedings to date.

The estoppel landscape is undeveloped since no institution decision or Final Written Decision has been issued. If IPR2026-00169 is instituted, Imperative Care, Inc. (and its privies) would be estopped under § 315(e)(2) from raising any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised during the IPR. However, for other potential defendants, all prior-art grounds remain available.

There is no pattern of multiple IPR filings on this specific patent by the same petitioner, nor has the patent owner (Inari Medical Inc.) had the opportunity to pursue PTAB appeals aggressively as no FWD has been issued. Unified Patents is listed as a petitioner in one of the general litigation entries, but not specifically for IPR2026-00169 according to the "PTAB proceedings on file" section.

Recommended next steps

For any party facing assertion of US patent 12156669, the immediate next step is to closely monitor IPR2026-00169. The institution decision is anticipated by June 16, 2026. A decision to deny institution would bolster the patent's perceived strength, while a decision to institute would open a trial, creating uncertainty around the challenged claims. Accessing the petition, once public, would reveal the specific prior art and arguments being used by Imperative Care, Inc.

Inventors

• Richard Quick: Inari Medical Inc.
• Benjamin Edward Merritt: Inari Medical Inc.
• Paul Lubock: Inari Medical Inc.
• John Coleman Thress: Inari Medical Inc.

It is generally presumed that inventions made by an employee in the course of their employment are owned by the employer, especially if the employee's role involves innovation or research related to the company's business. Given that all listed inventors are associated with Inari Medical Inc., it's highly probable they were employed by Inari Medical Inc. at the time of filing.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Inari Medical Inc.

Inari Medical Inc. is a medical device company focused on developing products to treat patients suffering from venous thromboembolism (VTE), specifically deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). Their product portfolio includes catheter-based mechanical thrombectomy systems like the ClotTriever and FlowTriever systems, the InThrill system, and the RevCore thrombectomy catheter. These products are designed to remove large clots from vessels and often eliminate the need for thrombolytic drugs.

Inari Medical Inc. was acquired by Stryker Corporation on February 19, 2025, for approximately $4.9 billion. Upon completion of the merger, Inari became a wholly owned subsidiary of Stryker. Prior to the acquisition, Inari Medical was a publicly listed company on NASDAQ (NARI).

Assignment timeline

• 2023-09-06 (executed) / recorded 2023-09-06

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: INCEPTUS MEDICAL, LLC
  • Assignee: INARI MEDICAL, INC.
  • Correspondent: Not specified in the provided patent text.
  • Context: Internal reorg (Inari Medical was formerly known as Inceptus Newco1 Inc.)

• 2023-09-06 (executed) / recorded 2023-09-06

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: QUICK, RICHARD
  • Assignee: INCEPTUS MEDICAL, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not specified in the provided patent text.
  • Context: Assignment from an inventor to an entity that later assigned to Inari Medical.

• 2024-03-07 (executed) / recorded 2024-03-07

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: LUBOCK, PAUL, MERRITT, Benjamin Edward, THRESS, JOHN COLEMAN
  • Assignee: Inari Medical, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not specified in the provided patent text.
  • Context: Assignment from inventors to the operating company.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12156669
    2018 : Priority date
    2019 : Original application filed
    2023 : Filed by Inari Medical Inc
         : Inceptus Medical assigns to Inari
         : Quick assigns to Inceptus Medical
    2024 : Inventors assign to Inari Medical
         : Patent granted
    2025 : Inari acquired by Stryker
    2026 : IPR filed (Pending)
         : Infringement suit filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The assignments show transfers from inventors and an earlier entity (Inceptus Medical, LLC) to Inari Medical, Inc., which is an operating company with a product portfolio. Inari Medical Inc. itself was later acquired by Stryker Corporation, another operating company.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Inari Medical Inc. is a medical device company that develops and sells products. The current owner, Stryker Corporation, is also a global leader in medical technologies. There is no evidence of a known NPE in the chain.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The provided patent text from Google Patents lists "USPTO Assignment" as a link but does not detail correspondent information for the listed reassignment events. To fully assess this, a direct search on the USPTO Assignment Center would be needed.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. The assignments occur over a period of time (September 2023 to March 2024) and primarily involve the transfer of inventor rights and a legacy entity's rights to the main operating company, Inari Medical, Inc.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The patent was granted on December 3, 2024. The US litigation (5:24-cv-03117) was filed on May 22, 2024, which is before the patent granted. The IPR (IPR2026-00169) was filed in 2026. The assignments to Inari Medical from inventors and Inceptus Medical occurred in 2023 and early 2024. There is no evidence of an assignment within 6 months before the first infringement suit that would suggest a pre-litigation transfer to enable assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Inari Medical Inc. was acquired by Stryker Corporation in February 2025. This was a strategic acquisition, not a bankruptcy fire-sale.

7. Privateering — Not present. The current litigation involves Inari Medical, Inc. as the plaintiff against Imperative Care, Inc., which appears to be a competitor in the medical device space. Inari Medical ships products embodying the claims.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The current assignee is Stryker Corporation, an operating company. The ongoing litigation involves Inari Medical (now a Stryker subsidiary) asserting patents against a competitor.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion. The patent was originally assigned to Inari Medical Inc., an operating company that developed and commercialized medical devices for treating venous thromboembolism. The patent was subsequently acquired as part of a larger acquisition of Inari Medical Inc. by Stryker Corporation, another major medical technology company. The ongoing litigation, Inari Medical, Inc. v. Imperative Care, Inc., et al. (5:24-cv-03117), filed in May 2024, shows Inari Medical (or its successor, Stryker) asserting the patent against a competitor, which is characteristic of an operating-company assertion.

USPTO Assignment Center search for US12156669

To identify the most relevant prior art for US patent 12156669, I will first search the USPTO database for the patent and then examine its cited references.

Most Relevant Prior Art for US Patent 12156669

US patent 12156669, titled "Single insertion delivery system for treating embolism and associated systems and methods," cites U.S. Pat. No. 9,526,864 as a key piece of prior art.

Prior Art Reference: U.S. Pat. No. 9,526,864

• Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 9,526,864, filed Jun. 9, 2015, and titled "RETRACTION AND ASPIRATION DEVICE FOR TREATING EMBOLISM AND ASSOCIATED METHODS."
• Publication/Filing Date: Filed on June 9, 2015. The publication date is not explicitly stated in the provided text, but it is referred to as an "issued" patent, implying it was published.
• Brief Description: US 9,526,864 discloses retraction and aspiration devices, catheter systems, and tubing systems for treating embolism. The present patent, US 12156669, states that its clot retrieval system (including the RA device 100, catheter system 200, and tubing system 300) "can be the same as or similar to" those disclosed in US 9,526,864. This indicates that US 9,526,864 describes foundational components and methods for retraction and aspiration in embolectomy procedures.
• Potential Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102: Without access to the specific claims of US 12156669, it is difficult to definitively state which claims are potentially anticipated. However, given the explicit statement that the current patent's core components (RA device, catheter system, tubing system) can be "the same as or similar to" those in US 9,526,864, it is highly probable that any claims in US 12156669 that broadly cover these fundamental elements, their general structure, or their combined operation for retraction and aspiration in embolism treatment, could be anticipated by US 9,526,864. This would particularly apply to claims describing the overall system architecture and the basic functions of simultaneously retracting a portion of the catheter system and aspirating through it, as these are directly mentioned in the description of how the present patent relates to US 9,526,864.

I am unable to provide further prior art analysis or an overview of the independent claims of US patent 12156669, as the claims section was not included in the provided patent text. Similarly, without the full text of US 9,526,864, a detailed analysis of specific claim anticipation is not possible.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103

A claimed invention is considered obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. This analysis often involves combining elements from multiple prior art references. The examiner must demonstrate a motivation to combine these references to achieve the claimed invention.

Unfortunately, the full claims of US12156669B2 were not provided in the prompt, which are essential for a detailed obviousness analysis. However, based on the provided patent summary and the disclosed prior art, a preliminary analysis can be conducted.

Disclosed Prior Art in US12156669B2:

The patent itself references U.S. Pat. No. 9,526,864, filed June 9, 2015, and titled "RETRACTION AND ASPIRATION DEVICE FOR TREATING EMBOLISM AND ASSOCIATED METHODS." This patent is incorporated by reference in its entirety within US12156669B2. This means that the teachings of US 9,526,864 are considered part of the prior art for US12156669B2.

Additionally, provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 62/554,931, filed Sep. 6, 2017, and titled "HEMOSTASIS VALVES AND METHODS OF USE," which is reproduced in Appendix D, is also incorporated by reference.

General Teachings of US 9,526,864 (Based on description in US12156669B2):

The description within US12156669B2 states that its "RA device 100, the catheter system 200, and the tubing system 300 can be the same as or similar to one or more of the retraction and aspiration devices, catheter systems, and tubing systems disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,526,864." This indicates that US 9,526,864 likely describes a retraction and aspiration device, a catheter system for embolism treatment, and a tubing system for aspirating material. Key features mentioned in relation to the RA device 100 and catheter system 200 (which are similar to those in US 9,526,864) include:

• A retraction and aspiration (RA) device that is coupleable to a catheter system and operable to simultaneously retract a portion of the catheter system and aspirate through it.
• A catheter system comprising an outer guide catheter, a delivery sheath slidably received within the guide catheter, and an elongated pull (and/or push) member slidably received within the delivery sheath.
• An interventional device coupled to the push member, housed within the delivery sheath, and configured for clot removal.
• A tubing system fluidly coupled to the RA device and catheter system for directing aspirated material (blood and clot).
• A clot reservoir in the tubing system to capture clot material while allowing blood to flow through.
• One-way valves to control fluid flow and prevent backflow.
• A mechanism to generate negative pressure for aspiration.

General Teachings of US 62/554,931 (Based on description in US12156669B2):

The description in US12156669B2 explicitly states that "the attachment member 1108 can be, for example, a garrote valve (e.g., a hemostasis valve) as disclosed in provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 62/554,931." This indicates that US 62/554,931 describes a hemostasis valve that can be used as an attachment/valve member in a catheter system. Specific features mentioned include:

• A housing with a proximal and distal opening, defining a first lumen.
• A branch portion defining a second lumen branching from the first lumen.
• A compliant tubular member extending through the first lumen, defining a central lumen.
• An actuation mechanism (e.g., buttons, filaments) to collapse and seal the tubular member to maintain hemostasis around devices inserted through it.
• The ability for the tubular member to move between a collapsed/sealed state (minimum diameter) and an expanded/unsealed state (maximum diameter).
• The ability to provide a continuous lumen of generally constant diameter when open to prevent clot material from getting stuck.

Potential Obviousness Combinations (Illustrative, pending full claims):

Given the descriptions, a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSA) in intravascular medical devices would likely have been motivated to combine the teachings of US 9,526,864 and US 62/554,931.

Combination 1: US 9,526,864 + US 62/554,931

• Motivation to Combine: US 9,526,864 describes a comprehensive retraction and aspiration system for embolism treatment, including a catheter system and aspiration capabilities. However, a common challenge in such systems, particularly during multiple passes of an interventional device, is the risk of clot material being stripped and remaining in the guide catheter's proximal components, leading to reintroduction of contaminants. A POSA would be motivated to improve the hemostasis and clot retention prevention at the proximal end of the guide catheter in the system of US 9,526,864 to facilitate smoother, cleaner, and safer multiple passes of the interventional device.
• Obviousness Argument: The hemostasis valve described in US 62/554,931 specifically addresses the problems of maintaining hemostasis around varying diameter devices and providing a smooth, consistent lumen to prevent clot stripping during withdrawal. A POSA would recognize that integrating the garrote valve of US 62/554,931 as the attachment/valve member (e.g., attachment member 208, 408, or 1108) in the catheter system of US 9,526,864 would directly address the problem of preventing clot retention and reintroduction during repeated device deployment and withdrawal.
  • The attachment member 1108 in US12156669B2, directly linked to US 62/554,931, provides a "continuous lumen of generally constant diameter" when open to prevent clot material from getting stuck and minimizing the risk of reintroducing clot material. This directly maps to the problem identified in the background of US12156669B2, which US 9,526,864 alone may not fully resolve.
  • The ability to unseal and reseal the attachment member, as taught by US 62/554,931, would allow for the easy withdrawal and re-insertion of the interventional device (as described in US 9,526,864) without requiring the complete removal of the guide catheter, thereby enabling the "single insertion delivery system" claimed by US12156669B2.
  • The "large diameter" of the second lumen in the attachment members (e.g., 442, 1381), which helps inhibit clogging, is a predictable design choice for fluid aspiration systems and would be obvious to a POSA when improving an aspiration system like that in US 9,526,864.

Combination 2: US 9,526,864 + General Knowledge of Medical Device Valves/Inserts

• Motivation to Combine: Even without explicit mention of US 62/554,931, a POSA would understand the need to manage fluid flow and device passage at the proximal end of a guide catheter in a multi-pass thrombectomy system. The problems of maintaining hemostasis, preventing clot stripping, and facilitating device exchange are well-known in interventional cardiology and radiology.
• Obviousness Argument: The use of various valve inserts (like the first valve insert 650 and second valve insert 860 in US12156669B2) within an attachment member (like 408) to either create a continuous lumen or to better seal around a guidewire during aspiration would be an obvious design choice for a POSA aiming to refine the system of US 9,526,864.
  • The first valve insert 650, creating a constant diameter lumen to shield the interventional device from the main valve and prevent clot stripping (as described in US12156669B2), is a logical solution to the problem of clot retention at the attachment point, which would be apparent to a POSA familiar with existing hemostasis valve designs and their limitations.
  • Similarly, the second valve insert 860, described as a Tuohy Borst Adapter for sealing against a guidewire to improve aspiration efficiency, is a known type of medical connector that a POSA would readily incorporate into an aspiration system like that of US 9,526,864 to enhance its performance.

Conclusion (Pending Full Claims Review):

Without the full text of the claims, this analysis is limited. However, based on the provided summary and the detailed descriptions of the prior art incorporated by reference, there is a strong prima facie case for obviousness of certain aspects of US12156669B2. The core inventive concept of a "single insertion delivery system" that allows for multiple passes without full guide catheter removal appears to be achieved through the synergistic combination of a retraction/aspiration system (taught by US 9,526,864) and an improved hemostasis/access valve that minimizes clot stripping and facilitates device exchange (taught by US 62/554,931 or through general knowledge of such devices). A POSA would have been motivated to combine these known elements to address the well-understood problems of clot reintroduction and procedural efficiency in multi-pass thrombectomy procedures.