US 8398466

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including any litigation/docket activity.

Let me dig into the litigation/PTAB angle and any 2026 appellate activity.

Search results — US 8,398,466 B2

Important scoping note: I searched for the exact number 8398466 / 8,398,466 in USPTO/PTAB/Google Patents/litigation-docket sources. I found no CAFC 2026 docket, appeal, or oral-argument entry involving US 8,398,466. I also found no IPR petition naming the '466 patent itself as the challenged patent. The only 2024-row PTAB proceedings that surfaced (Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC v. Sung, Chien-Min, IPR2024‑00533/‑00534/‑00535) reference 8398466 only incidentally — e.g., in a continuity/family listing in a file-history exhibit ("110 07/05/2008 PAT 8398466 which claims benefit of 60/976,198 09/28/2007 and is a CIP of 11/560,…"). I cannot confirm from the available results that the '466 patent is at issue in any live 2026 appellate proceeding. Treat that as unverified, not as a finding that no such case exists.

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain (per Google Patents reassignment records): Ritedia Corporation (2011) → Michael Sung (2013) → Kinik Company (2014, Chien-Min Sung's interest; and again 2021 for both inventors' interests).

Caution on dates: Google's family table displays "2005-05-16" as a priority date in some rows for application 12/168,110, which conflicts with the patent's own Priority Claim section (CIP of 11/560,817, filed 2006‑11‑16, plus provisional 60/976,198, 2007‑09‑28). The 2005‑05‑16 value appears to be a database artifact from a related family; the specification text is authoritative here.

Abstract (as issued)

"A CMP pad conditioner comprises a plurality of abrasive segments. Each abrasive segment includes a segment blank and an abrasive layer attached to the segment blank, the abrasive layer including a superhard abrasive material. A pad conditioner substrate is also provided. Each of the plurality of abrasive segments is permanently affixed to the pad conditioner substrate in an orientation that enables removal of material from a CMP pad by the abrasive layer as the pad conditioner and the CMP pad are moved relative to one another."

Independent claims — plain language

The patent has 10 claims total, with two independent claims: claim 1 (apparatus) and claim 10 (method).

Claim 1 — CMP pad conditioner (device)

1. A plurality of abrasive segments, each made of:

• a segment blank (a carrier body), and
• an abrasive layer whose abrasive material is individual abrasive grits attached to the segment blank by a brazing alloy; the abrasive layer contains a superhard abrasive material.

1. A pad conditioner substrate.
2. Each abrasive segment is permanently affixed to that substrate by an organic material layer (i.e., the segment‑to‑substrate bond is an organic bond such as epoxy, not brazing) — note this is a different bond chemistry from the grit‑to‑blank braze.
3. The segments are oriented so that the abrasive layer can remove material from a CMP pad as the conditioner and pad move relative to one another.
4. Leveling limitation (the key narrowing element): each abrasive layer has an abrading surface or point, and those surfaces/points are leveled relative to one another so that none protrudes above another by more than about 30 microns.

Claim 10 — Method of forming a CMP pad conditioner

1. Obtain a plurality of abrasive segments, each with (a) a segment blank and (b) an abrasive layer of individual abrasive grits attached by a brazing alloy, the layer including a superhard abrasive material.
2. Position the segment(s) on a face of a pad conditioner substrate in an orientation enabling pad‑material removal as the conditioner and pad move relative to one another.
3. Permanently affix the segment(s) to the substrate with an organic material layer.
4. Same leveling limitation as claim 1: abrading surfaces/points leveled so no one protrudes above another by more than about 30 microns.

Drafting note (literal reading): claim 10 recites "obtaining a plurality of abrasive segments" but later refers to "the at least one abrasive segment." That antecedent mismatch is in the issued text and should be noted rather than silently corrected.

Dependent claims 2–9 add: radial distribution about a substrate face (2); segments differing in geometric configuration, abrasive‑layer material, or abrasive profile (3); arrangement that uniformly distributes drag forces across segments (4); longitudinal axis of each segment aligned along a substrate radius (5); at least one abrading point at greater elevation than an immediately adjacent one (6); a long list of specific organic binder resins — amino, acrylate, alkyd, polyester, polyamide, polyimide, polyurethane, phenolic, phenolic/latex, epoxy, isocyanate, isocyanurate, polysiloxane, reactive vinyl, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, phenoxy, perylene, polysulfone, ABS, acrylic, polycarbonate, and mixtures (7); PCD blades as the abrasive layers (8); and a cutting face angled at 90° or less relative to the finished CMP pad surface (9).

Technical context from the specification

The disclosure frames the invention around a "mosaic" approach: instead of brazing ~10,000 loose diamond grits directly onto a large disk (where substrate distortion and grit‑size/orientation scatter leave only ~1% of diamonds actually engaging the pad), discrete abrasive segments are built individually and then set in a retainer ring on a flat mold, with epoxy cast around them so the tallest diamond tips are leveled by the mold. Reported result: engagement ratio over 50%, longer disk life, shallower/less dense pad grooves, better slurry retention, lower cost of consumable/ownership (CoC/CoO), and less wafer scratching. Examples cover (1) epoxy‑cast leveled diamond grit, (2) radially arranged leveled serrated PCD blades, and (3) a hybrid of both with blade tips ~20 µm higher than organic‑segment tips. This leveling narrative is what the "no more than about 30 microns" claim limitation captures.

Uncertainty statement

• Assignee: "Kinik Company" is the current assignee of record per Google Patents reassignment data; FreePatentsOnline lists the assignee at issue as "Sung Chien-Min; Sung Michael" (the original individual assignees). Both listings are reconcilable by the 2014/2021 assignments, but I did not independently verify the USPTO Assignment database.
• CAFC 2026 activity: Not verified. No search result tied US 8,398,466 to a 2026 Federal Circuit docket. I cannot rule out a pending appeal, but I found no evidence for one, and I will not state that one exists.
• PTAB activity: The '466 patent does not appear as the challenged patent in the Samsung Austin Semiconductor IPRs that surfaced; it appears only within continuity exhibits. Whether the '466 patent has been asserted in district court was not established by these searches.
• Priority date: The patent's own text (CIP of 11/560,817 filed 2006‑11‑16 plus provisional 60/976,198 filed 2007‑09‑28) conflicts with a "2005‑05‑16" priority value shown in one Google family table; I did not resolve which date a court or the Office would treat as the effective filing date for any particular claim.

Primary sources: the patent full text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8398466/en; RPX Insight record at https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US8398466B2](/patent/US8398466B2); FreePatentsOnline at https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8398466.html; and PTAB/docket exhibits at docketalarm.com (IPR2024‑00533/‑00534/‑00535).

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8398466. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper into specific litigation databases and case references.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 8,398,466

Bottom line

I found no litigation (district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit) in which U.S. Patent No. 8,398,466 has been asserted. Based on the public records I was able to reach, the '466 patent does not appear as an asserted patent in any case. It appears only in related-patent family documents (file histories, claim charts, and IDS/citation lists), which is different from being asserted.

Because I could not directly query the paywalled litigation portals (Lex Machina, Docket Navigator, PACER) within the search steps available, I flag below what I can confirm and the adjacent matters that a reader might confuse with '466 litigation.

Important distinction — the "Sung v. Samsung" case does NOT assert the '466 patent

There is well-documented, active litigation brought by the inventor of the '466 patent, Chien-Min Sung, but it asserts different patents in the same family, not '466:

• Case: Chien-Min Sung v. [Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%20Ltd.), Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., and Samsung Austin Semiconductor, LLC
• Court / No.: E.D. Tex., 4:23-cv-00752-SDJ
• Filed: August 21, 2023
• Patents asserted: U.S. 8,974,270; U.S. 9,138,862; U.S. 9,724,802 (per Stanford NPE database listing and the complaint/summary; '466 is not among them)
• Status: The docket is reported "Open"; a jury trial was scheduled (per PTAB filings referencing a June 1, 2026 trial date in a parallel matter).
• Accused instrumentalities: Third-party CMP pad conditioners (3M, Saesol, Shinhan, Abrasive Technology, EHWA) used by Samsung in wafer fabs.

Sources: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[271585](/patent/271585) ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/4:23-cv-00752/sung-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd

Why '466 appears in search results (but is not asserted)

The '466 references surface in these non-assertion contexts:

1. PTAB IPRs against sibling patents, not '466. Samsung Austin Semiconductor filed IPR2024-00533 (challenging U.S. 8,974,270) and IPR2024-00535 (challenging a related Sung patent). The '466 number appears in the file histories and exhibit lists of those proceedings — e.g., as an item in a PTO search string ("...8398466").PN. and as an ancestor noted in the '704 application file history ("PAT 8398466 which claims benefit of 60/976,198"). It is a cited relative, not the patent under review.

   • Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00533/Samsung_Austin_Semiconductor_LLC/docs/02-29-2024-Petitioner/Exhibit-1003 (file history)
   • Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00535/Samsung_Austin_Semiconductor_LLC_v._Sung_Chien-Min/ (Ex. 1057)

2. Patent-family/prosecution documents. The '466 patent shares priority (via U.S. 11/560,817 → U.S. 7,762,872) and continuous-in-part lineage with the '270, '802, '862, '934, '787 patents. Google Patents and the IPR exhibits cross-reference '466 throughout this family.

3. ITC/abrasive-industry material. The Kinik/3M CMP pad conditioner ITC publications (e.g., Inv. No. 337-TA-... , USITC Pub. 3530) and other CMP slurry/pad disputes reference pad conditioners generally but do not identify the '466 patent as asserted.

Patent status (context for the absence of litigation)

• Assignee chain: originally Chien-Min Sung (individual) → Ritedia Corporation (2011) → Michael Sung (2013) → Kinik Company (2014 and again in 2021).
• Legal status (per Google Patents legal events): "PATENT EXPIRED FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES," effective 2020-10-25 (event code LAPS/EXP/STCH, "Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee").
• Note the Google Patents header also displays "Expired - Fee Related, expires 2029-12-29," which reflects an adjusted expiration (max term) rather than actual maintenance — the operative status event is the 2020 lapse. This lapse would independently explain why no one has asserted '466.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8398466](/patent/US8398466)/en (Legal Events, Assignments)

Caveats on this report

• I am reporting only what the searches returned. A negative finding from a limited search is not the same as a certified "no litigation exists." The authoritative checks I could not complete within the step budget are: (a) a direct Lex Machina / Docket Navigator "patent → cases" query on 8,398,466; (b) a PACER full-text search; (c) the Unified Patents litigation portal case list. I did not obtain confirmatory "no results" screens from those specific systems.
• I verified the number literally as 8,398,466 (US12/168,110; US20090068937A1) and did not substitute any similar number.
• Given the patent lapsed in October 2020 and the only Sung-family enforcement campaign I located (Sung v. Samsung, E.D. Tex. 4:23-cv-00752) asserts '270/'862/'802 rather than '466, my working conclusion is that there is no known litigation involving U.S. 8,398,466.

If you want certainty, the next step would be a direct patent-number lookup in Lex Machina or Docket Navigator (or a PACER docket search for "8,398,466"), which are the systems designed to answer exactly this question and which my toolset could not fully access here.

I'll start by checking for any AIA trial proceedings on US 8,398,466 through web search, since the structured ODP block reports none.

Let me dig into a potentially relevant proceeding I spotted (IPR2024-00535, Samsung v. Sung) and search PTAB E2E directly for this patent.

Key lead: a Kinik v. Sung IPR series and a Sung v. Kinik Delaware litigation listing '466 among the parents. Let me chase whether an IPR was actually filed against '466 itself.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 8,398,466. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO ODP canonical list) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent, and my web searches did not surface any petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision directed to the '466 patent. On the current record the breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied — every one of the patent's 10 claims (1–10) is untested at the PTAB.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this is not a "claims canceled, troll has no case" situation — the '466 has never been through an AIA trial at all. But it is also not a hardened patent: the reason no IPR exists appears to be ownership and timing, not the strength of the claims. The '466 is now assigned to Kinik Company — the same entity that has petitioned against the related Sung patents — and the patent's Google Patents status is "Expired - Fee Related" (adjusted expiration 2029-12-29), which is itself a threshold defense worth checking before anything else.

⚠️ Important caveat on scope: my searches surfaced substantial PTAB activity on sibling/child Sung patents (the '802, '270, '862, '699, etc.), and the '466 is named as a parent patent in Sung–Kinik litigation papers. None of those proceedings is against the '466. I am flagging them below only so you are not blindsided by family-level history — do not treat them as proceedings on this patent.

Related PTAB proceedings on sibling Sung patents — NOT on the '466

These are provided for context only. Each is directed to a different patent number.

IPR2021-00638 — Kinik Company v. Chien-Min Sung (U.S. 9,724,802)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2021-03-10
• Status: Terminated-Settled (decision date 2021-08-27)
• Judge panel: Jason W. Melvin (writing), Phillip J. Kauffman, Timothy J. Goodson
• Nature: Kinik challenged all of claims 1–21 of the '802 patent on § 102/§ 103 grounds over the "146 Publication," "298 Publication," Taiwan 113 Publication, and the '862 file-history art. The petition expressly framed the dispute around the Sung–Kinik joint venture agreements (1996–2011) and listed U.S. Patent Nos. 7,762,872, 8,398,466, 8,974,270, and 9,138,862 as the "Parent Patents" being litigated in Taiwan. This is the clearest evidence that the '466 was in the family dispute — yet Kinik chose to petition on '802, not '466.
• Defensive value for '466: none directly. But it confirms Kinik has both the motivation and the family-level prior art to attack the '466 lineage, and it identifies a JV-agreement/ownership theory as an alternative (non-PTAB) line of attack.

IPR2024-00533 — Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC et al. v. Sung (U.S. 8,974,270)

• Filed: 2024-02-29
• Status: FWD issued; appealed (Federal Circuit No. 2026-1197 — appeal dismissed by joint agreement, per the CAFC order at https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/26-1197.ORDER.3-9-2026_2658180.pdf)
• Context: Filed in response to Sung v. Samsung Electronics, E.D. Tex. No. 4:23-cv-00752 (2023-08-21), asserting U.S. 8,974,270, 9,138,862, and 9,724,802.

IPR2024-00535 — Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC et al. v. Sung (U.S. 9,724,802)

• Filed: 2024-02-29; Instituted: 2024-09-18; FWD: 2025-09-17 (claims unpatentable); status "Final Written Decision – Appealed"
• Panel: Barry L. Grossman, Frances L. Ippolito, George R. Hoskins
• Grounds: § 103 over Tsai (2012), Sung'026 (US 2007/0060026), Sung'146 (US 2012/0302146), and related CMP-dressing literature.
• Note: The '802 patent is a child (via CIP chain) of the '466 (13/797,704 file history lists "12/168,110 07/05/2008 PAT 8398466" in its priority chain). Art used against the child is therefore highly relevant to, but not dispositive of, the '466.

Additional family/kin signals (lower confidence — verify before relying):

• Kinik Company v. Chien-Min Sung, IPR2014-01523 (2014) appears in practitioner dockets (procedure/withdrawal issue) but I could not confirm the challenged patent number; do not assume it is the '466.
• A PTAB proceeding on U.S. 8,777,699 (the "699" patent) resulted in all instituted claims (1–12 and 17–19) held unpatentable per a WIPStudy case note; that is a different patent from the '466.
• Related district-court matters: Sung v. Kinik, D. Del. 1:14-cv-01027 (filed 2014-08-08, stayed 2016-01-20 pending Taiwan litigation) and Sung v. Kinik, D. Del. 1:20-cv-00247-RGA (filed 2020-02-20).

I flag all of the above because they establish a pattern — but I will not represent any of them as a proceeding on the '466.

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '466. No claim has been canceled, narrowed via certificate, or adjudicated by the PTAB. All of claims 1–10 survive as issued — untested, and therefore neither confirmed nor weakened by any AIA outcome. If you are facing assertion of the '466, the PTAB gives you no ready-made invalidity judgment to point to, and no IPR certificate to cite. Any printed claim numbers you're shown (1–10) are the original, never-litigated claims.

Estoppel landscape. Because there is no IPR/PGR on the '466, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to the '466 at all. Estoppel is patent-specific: grounds raised (or reasonably raisable) by Kinik or Samsung in the '802/'270 proceedings do not bar those parties — much less you — from raising the same or different art against the '466. Practically, this cuts both ways: (a) you keep the full universe of prior art available for an IPR or district-court invalidity defense on the '466; but (b) you also have no petitioner-side work product from the family to lean on, and if you file the first IPR you bear the full cost of the § 102/§ 103 case. Watch privity/RPI issues only if a petitioner in the sibling IPRs is your privy — otherwise the '466 is a clean slate.

Pattern signals. (1) The same patent owner/inventor, Chien-Min Sung, has been sued or sued repeatedly over this family, and the family has generated repeated IPRs (Kinik 2021; Samsung 2024). (2) Ownership has shifted decisively toward Kinik — Google Patents lists Kinik Co. as current assignee following reassignments (RITEDIA 2011 → Michael Sung 2013 → Kinik 2014, 2021). That matters strategically: the classic adversary (Kinik) is now potentially the rights-holder, which changes who would file an IPR against the '466 and who would defend it. (3) I found no evidence of a defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain. (4) The patent is recorded as "Expired - Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of 2029-12-29 — if maintenance fees truly lapsed, enforceability (and the ability to recover damages) may be a threshold issue, though lapsed patents can sometimes be revived, so this must be verified against USPTO maintenance-fee records rather than assumed.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the maintenance-fee status first. The structured data shows "Expired - Fee Related." Pull the maintenance-fee history (USPTO Patent Center / E2E) for US 8,398,466. If the patent lapsed and was not revived, an assertion may be defective on its face — cheaper and faster than any PTAB route. Do not assume, however: confirm the maintenance window and any petition to revive.
2. Confirm zero PTAB activity independently at USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) and via the ODP proceedings endpoint, then re-check in 30–60 days. My searches found no '466 petition, but PTAB filings are indexed with a lag; a recently filed petition would not yet appear.
3. If you are a defendant and want PTAB relief, act on the § 315(b) clock. There is no FWD to cite and no estoppel protecting you, so an IPR must be built from scratch. Serve-date + 1 year is a hard bar — calendar it immediately.
4. Mine the sibling IPR record for your own petition. The Samsung IPRs (IPR2024-00533 / -00535) and Kinik's IPR2021-00638 already assembled CMP-conditioner prior art — Tsai (2012), Sung'026, Sung'146, the '862 file history, Taiwan 113 Publication, and the 28x/29x publications. That art is not estopped as to the '466, and because the '466 is an earlier-filed parent (priority 2006-11-16; application 12/168,110 filed 2008-07-05) you must re-check every reference's § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(b) date — several references that worked against the 2014-priority '802 will be too late to touch the 2006/2007-priority '466. This date problem is the single biggest trap in the family.
5. Do not over-claim the record. No FWD addressed any claim of the '466; no claim number of the '466 has been canceled; no petition has been instituted or denied. Any statement to the contrary is unsupported by the ODP data or by the public record I could reach.

Confidence statement: High confidence that the ODP canonical list shows no AIA proceeding on the '466, and that no public search result ties a specific IPR/PGR/CBM number to the '466. Lower confidence on the completeness of the related-family list above (notably IPR2014-01523's patent number), which I could not fully verify and which should be confirmed on PTAB E2E before being cited in any filing or opinion.

I'll research the assignment record and cross-reference the parties. Let me run several searches in parallel.

Let me dig into the assignment records, litigation history, and NPE databases.

I have enough to reconstruct the chain. One important source limitation up front, per the "don't fabricate" rule: the assignment-record reel/frame numbers and the recorded correspondents were not retrievable from the sources I could reach. Google Patents mirrors the USPTO assignment events (parties, dates, conveyance type) but does not expose reel/frame or correspondent. I therefore report the events with the data I actually have and flag the gaps rather than invent reel/frame IDs.

Inventors

Unusual patterns:

• The application was filed unassigned by an individual, even though contemporaneous Sung-family patents (e.g. US 8,777,699; US 8,531,026) named RiteDia Corporation as assignee. Ownership of this patent therefore started fragmented outside any corporate vehicle.
• Interests were split between two individuals and two companies over the next decade (see timeline), and the operating partner (Kinik) only assembled complete ownership in 2021 — after roughly seven years of litigation with the inventor.
• ⚠️ A "Michael Sung" appears on Patent Leaderboard as an SAP SE inventor; that is almost certainly a name collision, not this co-inventor. Treat any "Michael Sung / SAP" cross-reference with suspicion.

Original assignee

• Named on the issued patent: Google Patents renders the original assignee as "Individual" — i.e. no corporate assignee at issuance; the patent issued to the inventor(s) personally. (Assignee of record at grant: Chien-Min Sung / Michael Sung as individuals.)
• Who actually commercialized it: the claims are embodied in Kinik Company products — the DiaGrid®, Pyradia®, O-Pyradia®, CVD-WAVE® and equaDia® CMP pad conditioners (diamond disks) sold to semiconductor fabs (SEMI member profile; Kinik investor deck). Kinik is a listed, operating Taiwanese manufacturer (Taipei Exchange ticker 1560), primary business grinding wheels and diamond tools, with >50% Taiwan share in CMP conditioners.
• Current status: Kinik operating (not acquired/dissolved/bankrupt). The patent itself is Expired – Fee Related, adjusted expiry 2029-12-29 (per Google Patents legal status).

Assignment timeline

Source note: dates/parties below are the USPTO assignment events as mirrored on the Google Patents legal-events tab. Reel/frame and recorded correspondent were not obtainable from the sources I could access and are marked (not retrieved). Do not treat these as reel/frame citations.

1. 2011-09-20 (executed) / recorded n/d — Reel not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
   • Assignor: Chien-Min Sung
   • Assignee: RITEDIA CORPORATION (Hsinchu Industrial Park, Hukou, Hsinchu County, Taiwan)
   • Correspondent: (not retrieved)
   • Context: Founder transfers the patent into his Taiwanese diamond-technology company — internal/family restructuring, not an arm's-length sale.

2. 2013-06-24 (executed) / recorded n/d — Reel not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
   • Assignor: RITEDIA CORPORATION
   • Assignee: SUNG, MICHAEL
   • Correspondent: (not retrieved)
   • Context: Internal reorg — Ritedia pushes an interest to co-inventor Michael Sung; ownership again fragmented.

3. 2013-03-19 — (no assignment; grant event) U.S. patent issues.

4. 2014-05-27 (executed) / recorded n/d — Reel not retrieved

   • Conveyance: "Agreements Affecting Interest" (i.e. a JVA/licence-type instrument, not a plain assignment)
   • Assignor: SUNG, CHIEN-MIN, DR.
   • Assignee: KINIK COMPANY
   • Correspondent: (not retrieved)
   • Context: Kinik records an interest flowing from the 1996–2011 joint-venture agreements (JVAs) — a defensive/own-use filing by the operating partner, not an NPE transfer.

5. 2014-08-08 — (litigation) Sung v. Kinik Company, D. Del. 1:14-cv-01027 (later dismissed/stayed; re-filed as 1:20-cv-00247). The litigated "Parent Patents" include US 8,398,466 (IPR2021-00638 petition).

6. 2021-08-18 (executed) / recorded n/d — Reel not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
   • Assignor: SUNG, MICHAEL
   • Assignee: KINIK COMPANY
   • Correspondent: (not retrieved)
   • Context: Settlement consolidation — Kinik cleans up the last stray interest as the Sung–Kinik dispute winds down.

7. 2021-08-18 (executed) / recorded n/d — Reel not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
   • Assignor: SUNG, CHIEN-MIN
   • Assignee: KINIK COMPANY
   • Correspondent: (not retrieved)
   • Context: Same — final conveyance of the inventor's retained interest to Kinik; Kinik becomes sole owner.

(Related, not an assignment of this patent: PTAB IPR2021-00638, Kinik v. Sung — dismissed 2021-08-27 on settlement, the settlement being the Taiwanese IP-Court agreement that appears to underlie the 2021-08-18 conveyances; and IPR2024-00535, Samsung Austin Semiconductor v. Sung, Chien-Min.)

Correspondent / repeat-player note (partial): although assignment-record correspondents were not retrievable, the prosecution correspondent of record for this Sung patent family is a recurring repeat player — Thorpe North & Western, LLP, P.O. Box 1219, Sandy, UT 84091-1219, which handled related application 13/797,704 and the Sung portfolio generally. Litigation counsel likewise recur: Timothy Devlin (Devlin Law Firm) for Sung and Baker & McKenzie LLP (Brian McCormack) for Kinik in IPR2021-00638. These are prosecution/litigation counsel, not confirmed as assignment-record correspondents, so I do not score them as an NPE signal.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8398466
    2008 : Filed by Chien-Min Sung as individual
    2011 : Interest assigned to Ritedia Corporation
    2013 : Patent issued
         : Interest assigned to Michael Sung
    2014 : Kinik interest recorded under JVA
         : Sung sues Kinik in Delaware
    2021 : Michael Sung conveys to Kinik
         : Chien-Min Sung conveys to Kinik
         : Kinik IPR dismissed on settlement
    2024 : Samsung IPR filed against Sung

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The chain runs between two named individuals (Chien-Min Sung, Michael Sung) and two named operating companies (Ritedia Corporation, Kinik Company). No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" suffix; no registered-agent service address; counterparties are a Taiwan industrial-park company and a listed public manufacturer. (Caveat: Ritedia's product-vs-holding status could not be independently confirmed, but nothing in the record shows a single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC.)

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. None of the assignees (Ritedia, Kinik, the Sung individuals) matches the listed NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). Kinetic detail in the opposite direction: the operating company is Kinik, and the individual inventor is the one who sued (Sung v. Kinik, 2014/2020), which is the inverse of an NPE pattern.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (not verifiable). I could not retrieve assignment-record correspondents, so I cannot confirm recurrence on the reel/frame entries themselves. The prosecution firm Thorpe North & Western recurs across the Sung family, and Baker & McKenzie / Devlin Law recur in the litigation — but a single/limited appearance in prosecution or litigation is not the recurring-assignment-correspondent signal, so this stays unclear.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. The conveyances span 2011 → 2013 → 2014 → 2021, roughly a decade, not <24 months. No chained LLCs sharing a correspondent address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present (inverse pattern). The 2014-05-27 Kinik interest recording is ~2.5 months before Sung filed suit on 2014-08-08, but it moves to the defendant, not to a plaintiff asserter. The 2021-08-18 conveyances post-date the 2021 settlement. Neither supports an arranged-to-assert theory.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 or patent-sale proceeding appears for any party.

7. Privateering — unclear, likely absent. Classic privateering is operating-co → NPE. Here the flow is closer to the reverse (inventor's company Ritedia → operating manufacturer Kinik). Kinik is an operating company shipping the claimed device.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. Chain terminates at Kinik Company, an operating manufacturer, not at RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: the chain terminates at Kinik Company, a listed Taiwanese manufacturer that ships products embodying the claims (DiaGrid/Pyradia/equaDia CMP pad conditioners), and it consolidated full ownership via the 2013-06-24, 2014-05-27, and 2021-08-18 recorded events rather than routing the patent through any licensing-only vehicle. The litigation of record — Sung v. Kinik (D. Del. 1:14-cv-01027; 1:20-cv-00247) and IPR2021-00638, with US 8,398,466 named among the litigated "Parent Patents" — is a joint-venture ownership dispute between the inventor and the operating partner, not an NPE campaign; PTAB IPR2021-00638 was dismissed on settlement 2021-08-27, coinciding with the 2021-08-18 conveyances to Kinik. Confidence caveat: the absence of reel/frame numbers and recorded correspondents (not retrievable here) means signals 3 and 4 are unverifiable from primary records — those gaps, not the naming, are what keep this from being a clean high-confidence call.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center (search patent number 8398466) — this is the source that will supply the reel/frame and correspondent fields that were missing above.

I'll start by verifying the patent record and gathering the citation data before analyzing prior art relevance.

Let me dig into the specific prior-art references cited against this patent and the key family members.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,398,466 B2

1. Confirmation of the patent being analyzed

Per my search of the patent record (Google Patents / USPTO data, fetched 2026‑09‑29):

The operative independent claims are 1 (apparatus) and 10 (method), with dependent claims 2–9. Claim 1 requires: (a) a plurality of abrasive segments, each with a segment blank; (b) an abrasive layer of individual abrasive grits attached to the blank by a brazing alloy, the layer including a superhard material; (c) a pad‑conditioner substrate; (d) each segment permanently affixed to the substrate by an organic material layer; (e) an orientation permitting CMP‑pad material removal during relative motion; and (f) abrading surfaces/points leveled so that no point protrudes more than about 30 microns above another.

2. Important scope caveat before the per‑reference analysis

The authoritative record I retrieved lists "Citations (302)" for US 8,398,466 — i.e., the examiner/applicant cited roughly 302 documents. Only a subset of those 302 citations is reproduced in the material available to me (the front‑page U.S. patent citations are truncated after the ~24 pre‑1963 U.S. documents, and the forward "Cited By (29)" list is separately provided).

• I therefore cannot enumerate and individually analyze all 302 references without the complete IDS/front‑page list. The authoritative sources to pull the full list are the USPTO PatentCenter/IFW "References Cited," the Google Patents "Citations (302)" pane, and Espacenet's "Also published as / Cited documents."
• The analysis below covers (i) the front‑page citations I can see, (ii) the most technically relevant references I could identify and verify in the record/family/prosecution history, and (iii) the transparent categorisation of the remaining bulk. I flag clearly where I am generalizing rather than quoting a verified citation.

Also note: many of the 302 references are the inventor's own earlier patents/applications (heavy self‑citation). These can still be §102(a)/(b)/(e) art, and they additionally raise obviousness‑type double‑patenting concerns, which are §101‑based and not strictly §102.

3. Most relevant prior art, with citations, dates, descriptions, and §102 claim mapping

(A) US 7,762,872 B2 — Sung, "Superhard cutters and associated methods"

• Citation / dates: US 7,762,872 B2; App. 11/560,817; priority 2004‑08‑24; filed 2006‑11‑16; granted 2010‑07‑27. (This is the parent CIP named in 8,398,466's priority claim.)
• Description: A cutting device with a base carrying a solidified organic material layer in which a plurality of individual polycrystalline cutting elements are secured, each having a substantially matching geometric configuration, with cutting tips aligned in a common plane.
• Potential §102 relevance:
  • Claim 1 — anticipates the "organic material layer permanently affixing segments" element (d) and the leveling element (f) (common‑plane alignment); it is a strong §102 or at‑minimum §103 reference, though it does not clearly show a distinct "segment blank carrying brazed grits."
  • Claim 3 (matching geometric configuration of segments), Claim 4 (uniform drag‑force distribution — expressly described), Claim 6 (tip‑elevation variation).
  • Caveat: as the parent, this is the §102(e)/double‑patenting reference most directly tied to 8,398,466.

(B) US 2007/0060026 A1 / US 7,651,386 B2 / US 8,414,362 B2 — Sung, "Methods of bonding superabrasive particles in an organic matrix"

• Citation / dates: US 2007/0060026 A1, published 2007‑03‑15; priority 2005‑09‑09 (App. 11/223,786); granted as US 7,651,386 B2 on 2010‑01‑26; related US 2008/0292869 A1, US 2010/0221990 A1 (later US 8,414,362).
• Description: Superabrasive particles secured in a continuous solidified organic material layer with tips protruding to a predetermined/leveled height — expressly reciting tip protrusion of "less than about 30 microns" above the organic matrix, arranging particles to uniformly distribute drag/frictional forces, and using the same lists of resins (epoxy, polyimide, polyurethane, etc.) recited in claim 7.
• Potential §102 relevance:
  • Claim 1(f) — the "no point protrudes more than about 30 microns" limitation is disclosed almost verbatim (<30 microns tip protrusion).
  • Claim 1(d)/Claim 7 — organic‑matrix retention and the identical resin list.
  • Claim 4 — uniform drag‑force distribution language.
  • This reference is directed to particles‑in‑matrix (not segments‑on‑a‑blade), so it is closest to a §103 combination with a segment‑based reference, but it directly reads on the numeric leveling limitation.

(C) US 7,494,404 B2 — Sung, "Tools for polishing and associated methods"

• Citation / dates: US 7,494,404 B2; App. 11/825,518; priority 2006‑02‑17; granted 2009‑02‑24 (family: US 7,241,206; US 7,285,039; US 7,393,264; US 2007/0215486; US 2006/0068691).
• Description: CMP/polishing tools with leveled particle tips, organic/inorganic matrices, and discussion of tip‑height variance < 50 µm being unacceptable for delicate dressing — i.e., the problem 8,398,466 solves.
• Potential §102 relevance: Claim 1(f) (leveling rationale/limits), Claim 6 (elevation variation), Claim 4 (force distribution). Primary value is as a §103 reference supplying the leveling motivation.

(D) US 2006/0258276 A1 — Sung, "Superhard cutters and associated methods"

• Citation / dates: US 2006/0258276 A1; published 2006‑11‑16 (App. 11/357,713‑family / priority 2005‑05‑16).
• Description: Cutting device whose cutting‑element peaks are aligned in a common plane; cutting edges may meet at ~90°, and the tool is used to plane/dress workpieces.
• Potential §102 relevance: Claim 1(f) and Claim 9 (cutting face at 90° or less relative to the finished surface), Claim 6 (common‑plane/elevation alignment). Directly relevant background for the "leveled tips" concept.

(E) US 8,398,463 B2 — Bajaj (Applied Materials), "Method and apparatus for CMP conditioning" — sibling number, NOT the same patent

• Citation / dates: US 8,398,463 B2; App. 12/636,644 filed 2009‑12‑11; parent US 7,762,871 (filed 2006‑03‑06); provisional 60/659,384 (2005‑03‑07).
• Description: CMP pad conditioning apparatus.
• §102 caveat: I note this only to prevent confusion — it is an unrelated patent that happens to have an adjacent number. Its own filing date (2009) post‑dates 8,398,466's 2006 priority and it is not prior art to 8,398,466. However, the Bajaj/Applied Materials family (e.g., US 7,762,871) may appear among the 302 citations and would be the art to check. Do not treat 8,398,463 as the reference.

(F) US 7,063,599 B2 — Kramer (Micron Technology), "Apparatus, systems, and methods for conditioning chemical‑mechanical polishing pads"

• Citation / dates: US 7,063,359/7,063,599 B2; filed 2005‑01‑25 (continuation of 09/943,774, 2001‑08‑30); granted 2006‑06‑20.
• Description: A CMP pad conditioner with abrasive elements carried on a supporting substrate, FIG. 10 showing a 90° cutting angle; abrasive elements oriented to remove material from a pad.
• Potential §102 relevance: Claim 1 preamble (CMP pad conditioner with abrasive elements on a substrate) and Claim 9 (90° cutting face). Weak on the brazing/alloy + segment‑blank + organic‑mount combination.

(G) US 2008/0014845 A1 — Yilmaz et al. (Applied Materials), "Conditioning disk having uniform structures"

• Citation / dates: published 2008‑01‑17 (filed 2006‑07‑11).
• Description: A CMP conditioning disk having uniform abrasive structures (uniformity of the conditioning elements and their engagement with the pad).
• Potential §102 relevance: Claim 1(f) (uniform/leveled structures) and Claim 4 (uniform distribution of load/drag). Primarily a §103 reference.

(H) JP 2007‑044823 A — Soken, "CMP pad conditioner…"

• Citation / dates: JP 2007‑044823 A; published 2007‑02‑22.
• Description: A CMP pad conditioner for semiconductor planarization.
• Potential §102 relevance: Claim 1 preamble (general CMP pad conditioner). Background art only; unlikely alone to anticipate.

(I) US 7,594,845 B2 — 3M Innovative Properties, "Abrasive article and method of modifying the surface of a workpiece"

• Citation / dates: priority 2005‑10‑20; granted 2009‑09‑29.
• Description: Abrasive article with precisely shaped abrasive composites in a binder.
• Potential §102 relevance: Claim 3 (geometric configuration of abrasive elements). Background/§103.

(J) US 7,306,338 B2 — Abrasive Technology, Inc.

• Citation / dates: granted 2007‑11‑27.
• Description: Abrasive tooling (diamond CMP conditioner art).
• Potential §102 relevance: Background to Claim 1 preamble / Claim 8 (superabrasive/PCD abrasive layers). §103.

(K) The pre‑1963 U.S. front‑page references (≈24 visible)

Examples verifiable in the record: US 1,875,XXX‑series "emery grinding wheels" (1877‑02‑20); US 1,854,071 (Behr‑Manning, 1932‑04‑12); US 2,033,991 & US 2,185,XXX (Carborundum Co.); US 2,078,354 (Norton Co., 1937‑04‑27); US 2,315,870 (Minnesota Mining & Mfg, 1943‑05‑04).

• Description: Elderly coated‑abrasive / bonded‑abrasive manufacturing art (coating apparatus, granular coated webs, open‑spaced fabrics).
• Potential §102 relevance: These are cited to show the general state of abrasive fabrication (e.g., binder‑held grit, coated webs). They do not anticipate claims 1 or 10; at most they support §103 by showing resin‑held abrasive webs. There is no reasonable §102 anticipation by these references.

4. Summary mapping table (§102 candidates)

Overall §102 conclusion: No single identified reference discloses all of claim 1 simultaneously — specifically the combination of (i) a segment blank carrying brazed superhard grits, (ii) that segment mounted to the substrate via an organic (epoxy/resin) layer, and (iii) ≤30‑micron tip leveling across segments. The realistic posture is §103 obviousness built from the Sung organic‑matrix leveling art (A/B/C/D) combined with segment/brazing art — which is precisely the theory litigated in the related IPRs (e.g., Kinik v. Sung, IPR2021‑00638; Samsung v. Sung, IPR2024‑00535/00533) against the Sung "leveled tips" family. The §102(a)/(b) self‑citation references (A–D) are the closest to a genuine single‑reference anticipation of the leveling/organic‑matrix limitations.

5. Limitations of this analysis (stated explicitly per operating rules)

1. The complete set of 302 citations was not available in the retrieved text. I analyzed the subset I could see plus the most relevant references I could verify. I did not individually review all 302.
2. Dates should be confirmed against the USPTO/Espacenet record before being relied on; I interpreted all identifiers literally and did not auto‑correct any number.
3. §102 vs §103: My "potentially anticipates" entries are legal‑conclusion‑free technical reads; whether a reference anticipates requires element‑by‑element comparison against the exact claim language and the correct priority date (Nov 16 2006 for common subject matter; Jul 5 2008 for new CIP matter).
4. I did not obtain the full text of several references (e.g., US 7,306,338, US 7,594,845, JP 2007‑044823) from primary sources in this session; their descriptions here are from secondary/title‑level data and should be verified.

If you can supply the full "References Cited" list (or the USPTO IFW IDS/892 forms) for US 12/168,110, I can extend this into a complete reference‑by‑reference §102/§103 chart.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior-art references actually cited on the US 8,398,466 page, and verify some key ones.

Let me pull more of the actual cited-art list for this patent and check the parallel IPR/related art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,398,466 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

A. Bottom line

Claim 1 is a combination claim: it stacks three separately-known features onto a CMP pad conditioner — (i) a plurality of discrete abrasive segments each having a segment blank carrying a superhard grit layer, (ii) two different bond chemistries used at two different interfaces (a brazing alloy for grits→blank; an organic material layer for blank→substrate), and (iii) abrading points leveled to within ~30 µm. Every one of those three features is either disclosed, or rendered obvious as a predictable arrangement of known elements, by the art already on the face of this patent. The strongest § 103 case is:

US 7,762,872 B2 (and its publication US 2007/0249270 A1) + US 2007/0060026 A1 + the admitted brazed-diamond-conditioner art of the '466 specification itself (and/or the 1930s–1950s resin-bonded-abrasive lineage cited on the face of the patent).

I flag up front the material caveats: (1) the fetched page truncates the "Citations (302)" list — only the earliest ~25 entries (1877–1962) are readable, so I could not verify every reference the examiner actually cited; (2) I could not verify a single on-page reference that expressly brazes grits to a segment blank in a CMP conditioner, which is the crux of claim 1. My analysis says so rather than papering over it.

B. The claims and the effective date problem

Claim 1 requires:

Claim 10 is the method counterpart (same 1a–1c, plus positioning and "permanently affixing … with an organic material layer," plus 1g).

Effective date. The '466 claims § 119 benefit of provisional 60/976,198 (Sep. 28, 2007) and is a CIP of 11/560,817 (Nov. 16, 2006, now US 7,762,872). The segment blank + brazing alloy attached grits architecture and the 30 micron leveling limitation do not appear to be described in the parent (which is directed to "individual polycrystalline cutting elements … secured in the solidified organic material layer," per the US 7,762,872 abstract). If claim 1 is entitled only to Sep. 28, 2007 / Jul. 5, 2008, then a much larger body of art qualifies — including the Oct. 2007 publication of the inventor's own US 2007/0249270 A1. A thorough § 103 case should be run against the Sep. 28, 2007 date, which is what I assume below.

PHOSITA. A mechanical/materials engineer with CMP consumables experience: familiarity with resin-bonded vs. brazed vs. electroplated diamond tooling, with pad-conditioner design, and with the known problem that grit-tip height scatter reduces the number of working diamonds.

C. Prior art available from this record

1. Categories of art on the page

• "Citied By" (29) — almost all later Sung-family and Applied Materials filings (2013–2024), i.e., not prior art to a 2007/2008 claim. The useful third-party entries are US 2010/0105295 A1 (Sumco Techxiv, polishing pad seasoning), US 2015/0044950 A1 (Tera Xtal, sapphire dressing particles), JP 5255860 B2 (Nippon Steel & Sumikin, polishing cloth dresser), KR 101339722 B1 (Ehwa Diamond, CMP pad conditioner).
• "Families Citing this family" — includes US 2007/0060026 A1 (Methods of bonding superabrasive particles in an organic matrix, priority Sep. 9, 2005) and the brazed-diamond-tool family: US 9,238,207 / US 9,221,154 / US 9,199,357 / US 9,409,280 / US 9,868,100 ("Brazed diamond tools…," priority Apr. 4, 1997) and US 9,463,552 ("Superabrasive tools containing uniformly leveled superabrasive particles," priority Apr. 4, 1997).
• "Citations (302)" — visible portion is the coated-abrasive/resin-bond lineage: US 1,854,071 A (Behr-Manning, Method of manufacturing abrasives), US 1,988,065 A (Carborundum, Manufacture of open-spaced abrasive fabrics), US 2,033,991 A, US 2,035,521 A, US 2,078,354 A (Norton, Abrasive article), US 2,268,663 A (J K Smit & Sons, Abrasive tool), US 2,876,086 A (3M, Abrasive structures and method of making), US 2,952,951 A (Simpson, Abrasive or like materials and articles).
• References expressly incorporated by the '466 description (§ "Suitable reverse casting methods…"): U.S. App. Ser. Nos. 60/992,966; 11/804,221; 11/805,549; and, for electrodeposition, 11/292,938; for cutting elements, 11/357,713; for vapor deposition, 11/512,755; and 60/988,643, 60/987,687.
• Applicant's own admissions in the '466 specification (usable as evidence of the state of the art): commercial diamond pad conditioners "contain about ten thousand diamond grits," substrate distortion and grit-size/orientation scatter put tips "at different heights," and "only about 1% of the protruded diamond can be in engagement with a pad," risking catastrophic wafer scratching. The spec also states that brazing a consolidated diamond body to a tool body (diamond saw segment practice) and organic binding of blanks to a substrate are known techniques.
• Prior art keywords on the page: abrasive, resins, pad conditioner, segment, pad — consistent with an examiner search of resin-bonded and segment-type conditioners.

D. Combination 1 (primary): US 7,762,872 / US 2007/0249270 A1 + US 2007/0060026 A1 + admitted brazed-conditioner art

What US 7,762,872 discloses (parent of the '466; publication US 2007/0249270 A1): a cutting device comprising a base with a solidified organic material layer disposed thereon, and a plurality of individual polycrystalline cutting elements secured in the solidified organic material layer, each having "a substantially matching geometric configuration." Its sibling disclosures (US 2006/0258276 A1, "Superhard cutters…") add that the peaks of the cutting elements "can be aligned in a common plane" — the definitional equivalent of the claim's "leveled relative to one another."

• Maps 1a (plurality of discrete abrasive bodies), 1b (each body has a support structure), 1d (base/substrate), 1e (permanent affixation by an organic material layer — literally claimed in the reference as the "solidified organic material layer"), 1f (relative motion to remove material), and the concept underlying 1g (tips aligned in a common plane).
• Missing: the "segment blank" as a distinct carrier, the brazing alloy bond at the grit interface (1c), and an express numeric 30 µm tolerance.

What US 2007/0060026 A1 discloses (Sung, published Mar. 15, 2007 — > 1 year before the Jul. 5, 2008 filing, so § 102(b) art even under the most restrictive date theory): bonding superabrasive particles in an organic matrix, including the "reverse casting" approach in which particles are held in a mask/spacer layer, the organic matrix is cast and cured around their protruding portions, and the mask is removed. The method inherently sets the particle protrusion (tip height) by the spacer thickness, i.e., it levels tips.

What supplies the brazing element (1c). The '466 specification itself recites as known: "the consolidated body can be attached (e.g., by brazing) to a tool body; such as the round blade of a saw," and it expressly identifies brazing, sintering, electrodeposition and organic bonding as interchangeable attachment options for abrasive layers. The brazed-diamond-tool family in the "Families Citing this family" list (e.g., US 9,463,552, uniformly leveled superabrasive particles; US 9,221,154, Brazed diamond tools) confirms that brazing superhard grits while controlling tip height was a mature, dated (1997-priority) technology. The earliest coated-abrasive citations (US 1,854,071; US 1,988,065; US 2,876,086) independently establish the generic expedient of bonding a plurality of discrete abrasive structures in a resin/organic matrix on a backing.

Resulting § 103 rejection. It would have been obvious to:

1. take the organically-bonded, common-plane-levelled discrete cutting-element array of US 7,762,872 / US 2007/0249270 A1,
2. mount the discrete elements on segment blanks (a pure design choice — the blank simply is the "base" of the reference narrowed to a handling-sized carrier, and the '466 itself concedes the modular advantage: "performing the attachment method on distinct, easily handled segment blanks can improve costs, efficiencies and integrities"),
3. bond the superhard grits to the blanks with a brazing alloy because brazing was a known, higher-strength alternative to organic bonding expressly enumerated in the art and self-evidenced by the patent's own "brazing" definition ("creation of chemical bonds between the carbon atoms of the superabrasive particles/materials and the braze material"), and
4. cast the blanks into an organic (epoxy) layer on the substrate exactly as taught by the parent, leveling the tips against a flat mold as taught by US 2007/0060026 / the '466's own reverse-casting discussion.

The only residual issue is whether "no abrading surface or point protrudes above another by more than about 30 microns" is a patentable numerical limit. It is not, on this record: it is a result-effective variable the art already optimized. The '466 specification admits the problem and quantifies the target (tips leveled so as to be about 20 microns higher in its own Example 3; tips varying "less than about 20 microns" in the sibling US 2013/0303056 claim set). Where the prior art teaches the general condition (leveled/aligned tips) and the improvement is a matter of degree with a recognized trade-off, the burden shifts to applicant to show criticality — a burden the '466 does not carry.

E. Combination 2: Kinik / Sumco / Tera Xtal-type segment conditioners + brazed-grit segment blanks

If the "Citations (302)" list (which I could not fully read) contains the segment-type Chinese/Taiwanese/Japanese conditioner art that the family's later IPRs relied on, the case gets even cleaner: US 9,067,302 B2 (Kinik, "Segment-type chemical mechanical polishing conditioner") and the Kinik US 2015/0283671 A1 / US 2015/0283672 A1 ("…having different heights") show plural polishing units on a base plate with an adjustable-thickness adhesive layer securing the units, with defined tip height differences. The Taiwan composite-conditioner publications discussed in the PTAB record (TW 2010/38362 A1 and TW 2011/00198, per the Kinik IPR-2021-00638 declaration, Ex. 1003 ¶¶ 45–47) expressly disclose "a base plate; a plurality of polishing units … a bonding layer and a plurality of polishing tips that are bonded in plane by the bonding layer; and an adhesive layer … to secure the polishing units on the base plate, wherein a height difference between the first and second highest tips … [is] less than 10 μm, 20 μm, and 40 μm."

Caveat: these Kinik/TW documents post-date the '466 priority date and I could not confirm they appear in this page's 302-entry citation list. They are cited here only as corroboration that the "segments + adhesive layer + leveled tips" architecture was known; they should be date-checked against the Sep. 28, 2007 / Jul. 5, 2008 dates before being used.

F. Dependent claims 2–9 and claim 10

• Claim 2 (radial distribution) — obvious; the '466's own FIG. 1 and the page's Kinik/segment art show radial/annular arrays; rotating conditioners inherently call for radial placement.
• Claim 3 (segments differing in geometric configuration, abrasive material, or profile) — obvious over US 7,762,872's "substantially matching geometric configuration" (a reference teaching uniformity renders mere variation an obvious alternative), and over the "hybridized abrasive surface" concept in the sibling US 2009/0093195.
• Claim 4 (uniform drag-force distribution) — a result, not structure; obvious as an expected consequence of even spacing, which the '466 spec itself calls a design technique.
• Claim 5 (longitudinal axis along a radius) — pure geometric design choice, shown in the '466's own FIG. 1.
• Claim 6 (one abrading point higher than an immediately adjacent one) — obvious; stepwise/cascaded heights are show in the '466's own FIG. 5 and are precisely what Kinik's "conditioner having different heights" claims.
• Claim 7 (long resin list) — obvious; US 2007/0060026 A1 and the '466 specification itself recite the identical list of amino/acrylate/alkyd/polyester/polyamide/polyimide/polyurethane/phenolic/epoxy/etc. resins.
• Claim 8 (PCD blades) — obvious over US 7,762,872 (polycrystalline cutting elements of PCD/PcBN) combined with the '466's own blade embodiments.
• Claim 9 (cutting face ≤ 90°) — obvious; the '466 concedes 90° and ~60° are conventional, and beveling a cutting edge is a routine mechanical expedient (and the spec expressly says the same angle can be obtained by tilting a normal segment).
• Claim 10 (method) — obvious for the same reasons; the method steps ("positioning … permanently affixing") are the inherent, conventional practice of assembling a segmented conditioner.

So the only claim with any meaningful § 103 vulnerability question is claim 1 (and, via incorporation, claim 10).

G. Motivation to combine — the KSR rationales

1. Same field, same problem, same art. US 7,762,872, US 2007/0060026 and the '466 are all directed to dressing CMP pads for the semiconductor industry. US 2007/0060026 identifies the problem as producing "superabrasive tools … suitable to groom the CMP pads used for the delicate polishing applications."
2. The references are aimed at the very defect the claim cures. The '466 (and US 2007/0249270 / US 2006/0258276) states that grit-size and orientation scatter places cutting tips at different heights so that "only about 1% of the protruded diamond" engages the pad. A PHOSITA seeking to raise the working-crystal count has an explicit, articulated incentive to level tips and to use a common plane (US 2007/0249270) or a flat leveling mold (US 2007/0060026 / 60/992,966).
3. Explicit interchangeability of attachment chemistries. The '466 specification announces as a premise of the invention that organic bonding, brazing, sintering and electrodeposition "can be used interchangeably herein," and that attachment of the layer to the blank "can differ from, or can be the same as," attachment of the blank to the substrate. A reference that lists alternatives and says they are interchangeable is a textbook case for § 103 (a mere substitution of known elements, each performing its known function).
4. Predictable results / obvious to try. Using a braze at the grit interface for high-strength carbide-bonding retention and an epoxy at the substrate interface to avoid the thermal distortion of a large disk (the '466 itself notes the "distortion of the substrate, particularly when the disk is manufactured by a high temperature process (e.g. by brazing)") is exactly the kind of "design incentive created by market demands" and "arrangement of old elements" reasoning endorsed in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). The '466 is, on its face, a duck built from two known ducks: it pairs a low-temperature organic bond for the large-area joint with a high-temperature braze for a small, separately-manufacturable joint.
5. Modularization motive is supplied by the reference itself. The stated advantage — attaching "distinct, easily handled segment blanks" rather than the whole disk — is a manufacturing-labor rationale that a PHOSITA would find obvious given the existing practice of fabricating discrete diamond segments (e.g., saw segments) and subsequently affixing them to a tool body.
6. No teaching away. Nothing on the page teaches that brazing and organic bonding are mutually incompatible at different interfaces; the reverse is stated.

H. Where the § 103 case is weak — the honest assessment

• No single reference on the face of the page discloses grits brazed to a segment blank in a CMP conditioner. The examiner presumably cited something for this; I could not read items ~26–302 of the citation list. Any final rejection must be anchored on that specific reference.
• Inventor-styled art. Several of my primary references are Chien-Min Sung's own publications. For a Sep. 28, 2007 or Jul. 5, 2008 effective date: US 2007/0060026 A1 (published Mar. 15, 2007) qualifies as § 102(b) art; US 2007/0249270 A1 (published Oct. 2007) does not, and, being Sung's sole-inventor work while the '466 names Sung and Michael Sung, it is arguably a different inventive entity ("by others," MPEP § 2132) but not with any margin of safety. Counsel should treat the brazing/leveling legs of the rejection as resting on third-party art.
• Secondary considerations are available to applicant. The '466 specification reports that its mosaic disk "can be pressed against the polishing pad with the same fixed load," that the "engagement ratio can be over 50%" (vs. ~1% admitted for conventional disks), that "disk life can be greatly extended," pad life lengthened, grooves shallower, slurry retention improved, and CoC/CoO reduced. A patentee can argue nexus and unexpected results against a claim reciting the ≤ 30 µm leveling limitation. Counter: the reported engagement-ratio benefit is exactly what the leveling feature would predictably produce, so nexus may be found but the degree is unlikely to be "unexpected."
• Claim 9 / "cutting face" ambiguity. The '466 has an internal inconsistency: the summary and FIGS. 3A–3C speak of "cutting face 26" as part of abrasive layer 12f, while the description in places writes "abrasive layer 12f" and, twice, "abrasive layer 12g/14g." This matters only if a § 112 or claim-construction fight is contemplated; it does not defeat the § 103 analysis.
• Record truncation. The "Citations (302)" list as fetched shows only 1877–1962 United States patents (US 187,593 through US 3,067,551) — mostly coating apparatuses and coated-abrasive webs (Behr-Manning, Carborundum, 3M, Norton). Standing alone, that lineage supports only the generic "plurality of discrete abrasive structures in a resin binder on a backing" concept and would not by itself render claim 1 obvious; it must be combined with the CMP-specific and brazing-specific references named above.

I. Recommended rejection formulation

1. Claim 1 — obvious under § 103(a) over US 7,762,872 B2 (or its publication US 2007/0249270 A1) in view of US 2007/0060026 A1, and further in view of the brazed-superabrasive tool art cited on the face of the patent (e.g., the US 9,238,207 / US 9,221,154 / US 9,463,552 brazed-diamond family, if their 1997 priority is confirmed as an earlier effective date), and in further view of applicant's admissions in the '466 specification that brazing and organic bonding are known and interchangeable attachment mechanisms.
2. Claims 2–6, 8, 9 — obvious over the same combination; additionally over the radial/segmented-conditioner art in the citations (Kinik-type segment conditioners, if date-qualified) and over the '466's own figures.
3. Claim 7 — obvious; the recited resin species are disclosed verbatim in US 2007/0060026 A1 and in the '466 specification itself.
4. Claim 10 — obvious over the same combination applied to the method steps.

Lowest-hanging fruit for an invalidity challenge: the ≤ 30 µm leveling limitation (claim 1 element 1g) and the two-bond-chemistry limitation (1c + 1e). Both are functional/expedient choices whose results the art expressly sought and the specification admits were known problems. The hardest element to meet on this page's record is 1c's "individual abrasive grits … attached to the segment blank by a brazing alloy" — that is where the prior-art search should concentrate, and where I cannot, on the material I could actually read, give you a verified single-reference hit.