US 9795772

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number and check for any litigation or CAFC activity.

US Patent 9,795,772 B2 — Verification and Summary

Source note: My searches returned the Google Patents record and the Justia record for this exact number, plus general CAFC 2026 coverage. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, PTAB proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal naming U.S. Patent 9,795,772. I cannot affirmatively prove a negative, so treat "no litigation found" as a search result rather than a certified clearance. Everything below is grounded in the authoritative full text supplied.

Bibliographic data

Inventor discrepancy to flag literally: the front page lists Christina Rauff Hansen, but the USPTO assignment records in the same document show Palle M Hansen as an assignor (William Cook Europe APS). I am not auto-correcting either name — the two identifiers differ and I have no authority to reconcile them.

Abstract (verbatim gist)

A drug delivery device (10) includes an expandable element (12) formed of a braided structure having a body portion (16) and first and second end cones (18, 20). The end cones attach at their necks (22, 24) to a catheter assembly (14). The expandable element expands to a vessel-contacting configuration in which the body portion contacts the vessel wall. Bioactive agent (28) covers at least the outer surface of the body portion. The end cones have an open structure permitting unrestricted blood passage in the deployed configuration, so blood flow is maintained during agent administration. The element can be radially contracted by longitudinal extension, both for endoluminal delivery and for retrieval after administration.

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — Single expandable frame element

A vascular delivery device for delivering a bioactive agent to a vessel wall, comprising:

1. Expandable frame element — a body portion formed of at least one braided or knitted wire, plus first and second end portions also formed of at least one braided or knitted wire. The body portion radially expands from contracted to deployed, and has an open interior and an outer surface.
2. Open end structure — the end portions have an open structure allowing passage into the open interior of the body portion (i.e., perfusion path).
3. Catheter assembly — the frame is disposed on a catheter assembly, with the two end portions connected to it.
4. Bioactive material — disposed at least on the outer surface of the body portion.
5. Weave density limitation — the body portion, when expanded, has a knit or braid weave that is tighter than the weave of the first and second end portions.
6. Two-element catheter + actuation geometry — the catheter assembly includes first and second catheter elements each attached to a respective end portion, movable toward and away from one another to cause radial expansion/contraction; movement toward each other → longitudinal contraction + radial expansion, and movement apart → longitudinal expansion + radial contraction.

Note: claim 1 recites "catheter assembly" rather than the "carrier element" language used in the pre-grant published application — a claim-drafting distinction worth noting.

Claim 14 — Dual expandable frame elements with interposed sleeve

A vascular delivery device comprising:

1. First and second expandable frame elements, each with a body portion and first/second end portions, each formed of at least one braided or knitted wire (same general architecture as claim 1);
2. Catheter assembly on which both frames are disposed, the end portions of each frame connecting to the catheter assembly, with the two frames adjacent one another in the longitudinal direction;
3. A sleeve positioned between the two frames, and the sleeve is slidable over the frames on the catheter assembly;
4. Bioactive material on the outer surface of at least one body portion;
5. Same weave-density limitation — body portions have a tighter knit/braid weave than the end portions.

Dependent claims: 2 (body portion hollow), 3 (cylindrical), 4 (tapering end portions with narrow end at catheter and wide end at body), 5 (conical end portions), 6 (self-supporting frame), 7 (telescopic catheter elements), 8 (expansion device within frame), 9 (expansion device is an inflatable balloon), 10 (balloon expands frame; frame stays expanded after deflation), 11 (bioactive = paclitaxel), 12 (bioactive = sirolimus), 13 (body portion material from spring steel / shape-memory alloy / Nitinol); 15 and 16 mirror 11–12 for the claim-14 family.

Plain-language overview

The patent covers a temporary, retrievable drug-delivery scaffold that is not left in the patient. A braided or knitted wire cage has a dense central "body portion" coated with drug that presses against the vessel wall, flanked by two open, cone-shaped ends that let blood keep flowing past the device. Because flow isn't occluded, the device can dwell at the treatment site longer than an occlusive balloon. The cage is deployed and collapsed purely by longitudinally pushing/pulling two catheter members relative to each other (shorten = expand, lengthen = collapse), which also allows withdrawal without a second procedure. Claim 14 extends this to two (or more, in the disclosure) axially adjacent cages separated by a slidable sleeve, permitting multi-zone drug delivery — optionally with per-zone different agents, and optionally with an inflatable balloon inside each cage for simultaneous angioplasty.

Uncertainty / limitations

• No CAFC 2026 or PTAB activity for 9,795,772 was located in these searches; I did not have direct access to a live PACER/docket query tool, only general web search.
• The inventor-name discrepancy (Christina Rauff Hansen vs. Palle M Hansen) is unresolvable from the supplied record; it may reflect a coverage-capturing or indexing difference rather than a prosecution change.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 9795772 specifically.

Let me run additional targeted searches.

Conclusion: No litigation involving US 9,795,772 identified

I ran multiple targeted searches (patent number alone, patent number + "litigation/lawsuit/complaint/defendant," owner name "Cook Medical," and the patent title) and found no district court case, Federal Circuit appeal, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding in which U.S. Patent No. 9,795,772 is identified as an asserted patent or patent-in-suit. I cannot identify any plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome for this patent because no such case appears in the sources searched.

What I checked and what came back

Important disambiguation (interpreted literally per your instruction)

The searches did surface several documents referencing a "'772 patent," but none of these is US 9,795,772 — they are different patents that happen to share the last three digits:

• U.S. Patent No. 5,665,772 — Novartis, everolimus/Zortress®/Afinitor® ANDA litigation (e.g., Novartis v. Par, D. Del. C.A. No. 1:14-cv-01289), including IPR and § 315(e)(2) estoppel briefing. Different patent, different technology.
• The "’772 Patent" in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. American Airlines (E.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-00980) — a routing-network/update-message patent. Different patent.
• A "’772 patent" in P.I.C. International v. MiFlex 2 SPA (S.D. Cal. 3:17-cv-00556) — a low-pressure scuba diving hose. Different patent.

Also note: the PTAB petition that appeared in the results challenged U.S. Patent No. 7,944,577 ("'577 Patent"), which is not US 9,795,772.

Context on the patent itself (relevant to why no litigation is plausible)

• Patent: US 9,795,772 B2, "Endoluminal drug delivery device."
• Assignee/current owner: Cook Medical Technologies LLC (originally assigned from Cook Incorporated and William Cook Europe APS).
• Inventors: Steen Aggerholm; Christina Rauff Hansen (listed in the grant record); Sean D. Chambers is also named in the assignment history. (Note: the grant record lists Palle M. Hansen in the reassignment data but the Google Patents inventor field lists Christina Rauff Hansen — I am reporting the record as-is and flagging the inconsistency rather than correcting it.)
• Priority: GB 1414547.8, filed 2014-08-15 (corresponding GB2529249B). US application 14/724,047 filed 2015-05-28; granted 2017-10-24.
• Status: Active; adjusted expiration 2035-12-16. No IPR, PGR, or reexamination appears in the record.
• The only related document the record shows is a "Cited By" reference — US 11,638,654 B2 (Cook Medical Technologies LLC, "Detachable and retrievable stents for therapeutic agent delivery") — which is a later Cook patent citing this one, not litigation.

Caveats

My searches rely on publicly indexed sources (Google Patents, court-opinion repositories, and litigation-report pages surfaced by web search). I did not have direct access to Docket Navigator, the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or RPX/Insight in this session, so this is not a certified clearance search. A definitive negative should be confirmed against:

• Unified Patents litigation portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
• PACER / CourtListener RECAP (party search for "Cook Medical Technologies" as plaintiff)
• Docket Navigator or Lex Machina

Bottom line: no litigation involving US 9,795,772 is known to me based on the searches performed. I am stating this as a "not found" rather than asserting the absolute negative that none exists.

I'll verify the structured data against public sources before writing.

No hits yet. Let me run more targeted queries on the patent's family and any litigation that could have spawned an IPR.

PTAB proceedings on file — verification result

Bottom line: there are no AIA trial proceedings on this patent. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns an empty AIA-trial set for US 9,795,772 B2, and my independent web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or related Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent or its UK sibling GB 2529249 B. I searched PTAB-style queries against the patent number, the title ("Endoluminal drug delivery device"), the assignee (Cook Medical Technologies LLC / Cook Incorporated / William Cook Europe ApS), and the named inventors (Stefan Aggerholm, Christina Rauff Hansen, Sean D. Chambers). Nothing matched.

Caveat on the negative finding: PTAB E2E and the ODP trial dataset are the authoritative sources, and I was working from search-engine results rather than a live PTAB E2E docket query. I cannot rule out a very recent, not-yet-indexed filing, and I could not complete a CourtListener docket sweep in this session. Treat the negative as high-confidence but not court-certified — confirm with a direct PTAB E2E patent-number search at https://ptab.uspto.gov before relying on it in a brief or an IPR-estoppel analysis.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled/terminated, 0 institution denials. The defensive posture this creates is the opposite of "hardened" — it means every one of the 16 claims of US 9,795,772 is untested at the PTAB, including independent claims 1 and 14, and no petitioner has ever been estopped or even put Cook to the cost of a preliminary response. For a defendant, this is a patent with a clean, unlitigated PTAB history — no adverse FWD to work around, but also no free road map, no narrowing amendment, and no canceled claims to point to.

Per-proceeding detail

None to report. There are no proceeding numbers to analyze, and I will not manufacture any. For completeness on the near-misses that are in the record but are not AIA trials:

Strategic summary

Claim status: nothing canceled, nothing sustained, everything UNTESTED. Claims 1–13 (claim 1 independent; 2–13 depending from it) and claims 14–16 (claim 14 independent; 15–16 depending from it) are all live and unadjudicated. The patent is in force with a listed adjusted expiration of 2035-12-16 — roughly seven months beyond the twenty-year date of the 2015-05-28 US filing, consistent with a patent term adjustment award (I did not verify the exact PTA figure against the face of the patent). Maintenance fees for the 4th and 8th years were paid (2021-03-11 and 2025-04-08), and a security interest in the patent was recorded to Wilmington Trust, National Association as collateral agent on 2024-02-28 — the patent is pledged collateral, which in practice makes Cook less likely to abandon it and more likely to defend it if challenged.

Estoppel landscape: there is none, in either direction. Because no IPR was ever instituted and no FWD ever issued, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone. Any defendant facing assertion today can raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, on any prior art, before the PTAB and in district court, without worrying about what a predecessor petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised. Conversely, Cook is not estopped from anything either. The one timing trap to check is § 315(b): if your client has already been served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '772 patent more than one year ago, the IPR door is closed and you are limited to § 282 district-court invalidity defenses plus an ex parte reexam. I found no complaint asserting this patent, so on the present record the § 315(b) clock has not started — but verify service dates yourself.

Pattern signals: there is no pattern, and that itself is the signal. Cook is a serial PTAB petitioner against Boston Scientific (IPR2017-00133/00134/00135, IPR2017-00435/00440, and the Cook Group I appeals at Nos. 19-1370 et al.), but as a patent owner on the '772 patent it has never been hit. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain. The forward citations run to Cook's own continuation (US 11,638,654 B2) and to a Boston Scientific lineup case, i.e., the family is being extended, not attacked. This is the profile of a patent that has not yet been asserted — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs, so the absence of any petition is a meaningful tell that no one has yet had a commercial reason to kill it.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant (or evaluating whether to become one):

1. This patent has never been to the PTAB — an IPR is a fully open option. Independent claims 1 and 14 are both pure § 103 targets: claim 1 requires (a) a braided/knitted expandable frame with a body portion and two end portions, (b) the body weave tighter than the end weave, (c) a catheter assembly attached to both end portions, and (d) the longitudinal-contraction-causes-radial-expansion mechanism; claim 14 adds only (e) a sleeve between two adjacent frame elements, slidable over them. There is no chemistry, no unpredictable art, and no means-plus-function limitation — this is a mechanically simple claim set.

2. Attack the record art head-on, but expect a § 325(d) fight. The 11 references of record (EP 0518704 A1 temporary stents; US 2001/0035456 Lennox; US 2002/0010418; US 2002/0090388 Humes; US 2006/0259005 Angioscore; US 2007/0207179 Andersen; US 7,641,844; US 8,226,603 Abbott; WO 2012/097287 Innovia "Endoluminal drug applicator"; EP 2,732,798 Bentley InnoMed temporary stent; US 2013/0287003) are all before the examiner, and the UK search/exam report of 2015-02-13 is in the file as NPL. Relying solely on that art invites a Becton, Dickinson v. Bard (Advanced Bionics) § 325(d) discretionary denial. Best practice: lead with art that is not of record — pre-2014-08-15 published drug-coated balloon/cage systems and braided temporary-stent disclosures — and frame the record art as a secondary ground.

3. Priority date discipline. Priority is 2014-08-15 (GB 1414547.8, filed 2014-08-15). Any § 102/§ 103 reference must predate that date (or qualify under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) AIA provisions — this patent is post-AIA, filed 2015-05-28, so AIA § 102 applies). PGR is time-barred (grant 2017-10-24 plus 9 months is long past), and the CBM transitional program is closed to new petitions, so IPR is the only AIA vehicle available.

4. Pull the Certificate of Correction dated 2018-04-24 before you chart a single claim. A post-grant certificate means some claim text in the printed patent is not what is in force. Chart against the corrected claims only — this is a classic source of a self-inflicted invalidity-contentions error.

5. Fintiv/§ 314(a) is favorable to institution right now. I found no parallel district court case asserting the '772 patent. With no co-pending trial date to weigh, a well-drafted petition faces no meaningful discretionary-denial risk on § 314(a) grounds. If you are served, that calculus can flip — and if you intend to petition, do it before the § 315(b) one-year date measured from service.

If you are Cook (or a licensee holding the patent): the flip side of a clean PTAB history is that the claims are untested. Claims 1 and 14 are broad and read on a large swath of the braided/knitted temporary endoluminal drug-delivery space. Before asserting, consider a validity scrub against the WO 2012/097287 (Innovia) and EP 2,732,798 (Bentley InnoMed) references already of record, and against the Boston Scientific "unsupported structure" family (US 12,485,255 B2), which the record shows is a live competitor track.

Closing honesty note: the strongest, most defensible statement I can make is that as of the sources available to me, no AIA trial proceeding on US 9,795,772 has ever been filed or instituted. The absence is itself the answer — and, per the operating rule, the correct default here is "no PTAB activity on file." Verify via PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov) and CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) docket searches on the patent number and on "Endoluminal drug delivery device" before you rely on this anywhere it counts.

I'll verify what I can from the record before writing. Let me run a few targeted searches.

Let me probe for the correspondent of record and any litigation or financing context.

US 9795772 B2 — Assignment / Ownership Reconstruction

Patent: US 9795772 B2, "Endoluminal drug delivery device"
App. No. US 14/724,047 · Filed 2015-05-28 · Priority GB 1414547.8, 2014-08-15 · Granted 2017-10-24
Assignee of record on the face of the patent: Cook Medical Technologies LLC (Bloomington, IN)
Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9795772) — mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Data caveat up front. The reel/frame numbers, conveyance types, assignor/assignee names, execution dates and recording dates below come from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events/assignment record for this patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9795772B2](/patent/US9795772B2)/en). The correspondent of record field was NOT retrievable from the sources available to me. I am not going to invent attorney/firm names for those fields; wherever the correspondent is unknown I say so explicitly rather than filling it in.

Inventors

Discrepancy worth flagging (not silently corrected): the Google Patents bibliographic "Inventor" field lists "Christina Rauff Hansen", whereas the recorded assignment names "Palle M. Hansen" as the co-assignor from William Cook Europe APS. A Certificate of Correction was recorded 2018-04-24 (see legal events), which is consistent with an inventorship/name correction. Per the operating rules I report the identifiers literally rather than auto-correcting them; the assignment record and the front-page inventor list disagree on this name.

Unusual-pattern check: All three inventors assigned to Cook Group entities within about three weeks of the 2014-08-15 GB priority filing (execution dates 2014-07-23 through 2014-08-06). That is a routine pre-filing corporate inventor-assignment cadence — not a signal of inventors "departing within 12 months" ahead of a fire-sale. No inventor-departure or portfolio-liquidation pattern is evidenced.

Original assignee

Cook Medical Technologies LLC (Bloomington, Indiana) — named assignee on the issued patent.

• Line of business: Cook Medical Technologies LLC is the intellectual-property-holding subsidiary of Cook Group Incorporated / Cook Medical, a large privately held medical-device manufacturer (endovascular, peripheral intervention, urology, OB/GYN, critical care, endoscopy). It is an "LLC," but it is not a shell: it is the ordinary assignee-of-record entity for Cook's global patent portfolio.
• Products embodying the claims: Cook's endovascular/interventional catheter business is the operating business behind this family; no evidence was found of a specific commercial product marketed under the "endoluminal drug delivery device" claim set. The patent describes an experimental/small-vessel (cerebral, ~2.7 Fr) drug-delivery frame, so commercial embodiment is unclear.
• Current status: Operating (major privately held manufacturer). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition-of-the-patent-holder on record. The 2015-05-28 family assignments show the IP being consolidated into CMT LLC from Cook Incorporated and William Cook Europe APS — normal intra-group reorganisation.

Assignment timeline

All four 2014-dated records were recorded together on 2015-05-28, the same day the US application was filed. Note that every one of them sits on the same reel (035735) at different frames — i.e. a single batch recordation, typical of a corporate filing package.

1. 2014-07-23 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-28 — Reel 035735/0525

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Chambers, Sean (Sean D. Chambers)
• Assignee: Cook Incorporated (Bloomington, IN)
• Correspondent: not retrieved from available records.
• Context: Inventor-to-employer assignment (employment/obligation-to-assign).

2. 2014-08-06 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-28 — Reel 035735/0386

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignors: Aggerholm, Steen; Hansen, Palle M
• Assignee: William Cook Europe APS (Denmark)
• Correspondent: not retrieved.
• Context: Inventor-to-employer assignment (Cook's European operating entity).

3. 2014-08-07 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-28 — Reel 035735/0468

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: William Cook Europe APS
• Assignee: Cook Medical Technologies LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved.
• Context: Internal corporate reorganisation — IP pulled up into the group's central holding company.

4. 2014-08-15 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-28 — Reel 035735/0662

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Cook Incorporated
• Assignee: Cook Medical Technologies LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved.
• Context: Internal corporate reorganisation — US operating entity's rights consolidated into Cook Medical Technologies LLC (completes the chain of title to CMT LLC).

5. 2024-02-27 (executed) / recorded 2024-02-28 — Reel 066700/0277

• Conveyance: Security Interest (Security Agreement) — not an assignment of ownership
• Assignor / grantor: Cook Medical Technologies LLC
• Assignee / secured party: Wilmington Trust, National Association, as Collateral Agent (Delaware)
• Correspondent: not retrieved.
• Context: Securitization / collateral pledge. The US-9795772 record is one of a large batch of Cook patents pledged as Article 9 collateral to a notes/collateral agent to secure a Cook financing. Title did not move; CMT LLC remains owner of record. The same Wilmington Trust "as Collateral Agent / Notes Collateral Agent" template appears across many corporate patent security agreements (e.g. Sotera Health, Medline filings), which is the standard indenture-collateral pattern rather than an NPE transaction.

No subsequent assignment, release, merger, or change-of-name record appears for this patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9795772
    2014 : Inventors assign to Cook units
         : Cook units consolidate into CMT LLC
    2015 : US application filed 28 May
    2016 : Pre grant publication
    2017 : Patent granted 24 Oct
    2018 : Certificate of correction
    2024 : Security interest to Wilmington Trust

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. Every assignee in the chain is a Cook Group operating entity: Cook Incorporated (reel 035735/0662), William Cook Europe APS (reel 035735/0386/0468), Cook Medical Technologies LLC (reels 035735/0662, 035735/0468, 066700/0277). No "IP/Holdings/Licensing/Ventures" licensing vehicle, no single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent-service address appears. CMT LLC is a corporate IP holder inside an operating group, not a shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity. The only non-Cook name anywhere in the record is Wilmington Trust, N.A., as Collateral Agent (reel 066700/0277, 2024-02-28), which is a bank acting as security trustee — an inherently non-asserting role.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT VERIFIABLE. The four 2014 assignments all sit on one reel, 035735 (frames 0525, 0386, 0468, 0662), all recorded 2015-05-28 — i.e. a single batch filing by one recording agent, which suggests a single correspondent. However, the correspondent-of-record name/firm was not retrievable from the sources available to me, and no correspondent can be shown to recur across any other patent chain. Per the rules, I am not treating a single unverified, un-named batch as a finding. This signal is genuinely unclear, and I decline to name an attorney I cannot cite.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Four assignments executed over ~3 weeks (2014-07-23 → 2014-08-15) and all recorded the same day, entirely within one corporate family (Cook Incorporated / William Cook Europe APS → Cook Medical Technologies LLC). No chained LLCs, no common-principal shells, no <24-month hop sequence between unrelated owners.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No infringement suit naming US 9795772 was found in the sources checked. The nearest Cook enforcement activity located concerns a different patent (US 8,709,027, the GI bleeding-clip patent in Cook Group Inc. v. Boston Scientific Scimed, IPR2017-00133/-00134, Fed. Cir. 19-1370) — Cook was the petitioner there, and that patent is unrelated to '772. There is no assignment within 6 months of any suit on '772 because no such suit was found.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 of Cook Medical Technologies LLC or Cook Group is evidenced. The 2024 record (reel 066700/0277) is a grant of a security interest, not a sale or court-supervised disposition. Cook remains an active, privately held manufacturer.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer to an NPE asserting on a sponsor's behalf; no SEC/Patent-Progress/EFF coverage located; no NPE transferee exists in the chain.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Cook Medical Technologies LLC, an operating-company IP holder (subject only to the Wilmington Trust collateral lien).

Verdict

Insufficient data (no NPE pattern present; no assertion activity evidenced).

Justification: The ownership chain is a clean intra-group consolidation — inventors → Cook Incorporated / William Cook Europe APS → Cook Medical Technologies LLC (reels 035735/0525, 035735/0386, 035735/0468, 035735/0662, all recorded 2015-05-28) — followed by a single security-interest pledge to Wilmington Trust, N.A., as Collateral Agent (reel 066700/0277, executed 2024-02-27, recorded 2024-02-28) that does not transfer title. All eight NPE signals are either not present or unverifiable, so there is no basis to call this an NPE/troll chain; the only reason I do not return "operating-company assertion" is the absence of any evidence that this specific patent has been enforced. Confidence: moderate that this is a wholly non-NPE holding; low on assertion activity, because it was not possible to confirm the correspondent of record or run a full litigation sweep from the sources available.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 9795772 (reel/frame cross-check: 035735 frames 0386, 0468, 0525, 0662; 066700/0277).

I'll research US Patent 9795772 and its cited prior art references.

I have the full citation list from the primary source. Let me examine the most relevant cited references in detail.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9795772 B2

1. Confirmation of the Subject Patent

The number 9795772 resolves literally to US 9795772 B2, per the authoritative full text and the USPTO-mirrored records:

Independent claim 1 requires the combination of: (a) a braided/knitted body portion; (b) braided/knitted first and second end portions with an open structure allowing passage to the open interior; (c) a catheter assembly with first and second catheter elements movable toward/away, where that longitudinal movement causes radial expansion/contraction; (d) bioactive material at least on the outer body surface; and (e) a body weave tighter than the end-portion weave. Claim 14 repeats (a), (b), (d), (e) and substitutes two longitudinally adjacent frames joined by a slidable sleeve.

2. The Cited Prior Art (11 references, per USPTO/Google Patents citation list)

All were cited by the examiner. Publication dates (with one noted caveat) precede the 2014-08-15 priority date, so each is available as § 102 prior art.

3. Reference-by-Reference Assessment (claim mapping)

1. EP 0518704 A1 — "Temporary stents and method of manufacture" (Scimed).
Discloses a temporary stent with an "elongate perfusable vessel supporting portion" configurable between a reduced (delivery/removal) size and an expanded size, plus "perfusable end portions (30, 34) connected to and forming ends of the vessel supporting portion and adapted to allow fluid flow therethrough." Braided resilient metallic wires are disclosed, with an actuator portion for adjusting length. §102 relevance: potentially anticipates claim 1's "expandable frame with open-ended structure allowing passage to the open interior" and the deployment/retrieval concept, and claims 2–6 to the extent of hollow/tapered end portions. Weakness against grant: the reference's wires are coated with a polymeric material, and no differential braid density (tighter body weave) or drug coating is shown, so it does not appear to anticipate the full claim 1 combination or claim 14.

2. US 2001/0035456 A1 — "Localized delivery of drug agents" (Lennox).
Delivery of a drug agent locally to a vessel wall from an intraluminal catheter. Relevant only to the bioactive-material limitation of claims 1 and 14 (element (d)); provides no braided frame, no open end-cone, and no two-element longitudinal actuation.

3. US 2002/0010418 A1 — "Methods and apparatus for sclerosing the wall of a varicose vein" (Syntheon).
Concerns delivering a sclerosing agent into a vein wall; broadly relevant to the drug-to-vessel-wall concept of claims 1/14, but the device architecture (vein-sclerosing tool) does not map to the braided frame-plus-open-end-portion structure.

4. US 2002/0090388 A1 — "Intravascular drug delivery device and use therefor" (Humes).
An intravascular device for delivering drug to the vessel wall. Relevant to the bioactive-material / vessel-wall-contact limitations (claims 1, 14); not to the braided-frame and differential-weave limitations.

5. US 2006/0259005 A1 — "Methods and systems for delivering substances into luminal walls" (Angioscore).
Involves a scoring/balloon apparatus to deliver substances into luminal walls. Of note for claims 8–10 (the "expansion device/inflatable balloon disposed within the frame element" and balloon-assisted expansion): this reference is the examiner's likely support for the balloon-expansion concept, but claim 8 requires the expansion device be within the expandable frame element, which the reference does not clearly show.

6. US 2007/0207179 A1 — "Medical Device" (Andersen).
A percutaneously deliverable medical device (family of WO 2005/037339). Broadly relevant to expandable intraluminal devices and localized drug application; no clean mapping to the claimed open-ended braided frame or the two-catheter longitudinal actuation.

7. US 7,641,844 B2 — "Method of making a fiber-reinforced medical balloon" (Cook Inc.).
A manufacturing reference for fiber-reinforced balloons. Relevant only tangentially to claims 9–10 (inflatable balloon aspects); no anticipation of any independent claim.

8. WO 2012/097287 A1 — "Endoluminal drug applicator and method of treating diseased vessels of the body" (Innovia/Pinchuk). ⭐ Most pertinent cited reference.
Discloses: an expandable stent fixed to an elongate flexible member; a generally tubular expanded structure; a porous mesh carrying a therapeutic agent transferred to the treatment site by contact; and — critically — a first catheter longitudinally displaceable within a second catheter, where the device is expanded "by moving the first catheter proximally relative to the second catheter" and collapsed by moving it distally. The mesh "defines distal and proximal openings that allow for fluid flow through the stent-graft when expanded." §102 relevance: this reference reads on the actuation structure of claim 1 (two relatively movable catheter elements causing radial expansion/contraction), the open-end fluid-flow limitation, the therapeutic-agent-on-mesh limitation, and the general architecture of claim 14 (two expandable frames on a catheter). Distinguishing features favoring patentability: the Innovia mesh is a porous polymeric mesh/stent-graft, not a braided/knitted wire frame, and it does not disclose the tighter body weave relative to the end portions, nor the slidable sleeve between two adjacent frames. Under a strict element-by-element test it does not fully anticipate claim 1 or claim 14, and would be more naturally an obviousness (§103) reference.

9. US 8,226,603 B2 — "Expandable member having a covering formed of a fibrous matrix for intraluminal drug delivery" (Abbott).
Discloses an expandable member bearing a fibrous matrix that carries drug for intraluminal delivery. Relevant to the bioactive-material-on-expandable-member limitation (claims 1, 14); no braided/knitted frame with open end cones or the dual-catheter longitudinal actuation.

10. US 2013/0287003 A1 — "Cell search method, forward link frame transmission method…" (ETRI).
This is a telecommunications/wireless-communications reference with no relevance whatsoever to an endoluminal drug delivery device. Its appearance in the citation list is anomalous (consistent with a citation-list/ID-artifact). It anticipates no claim of US 9,795,772.

11. EP 2732798 A2 — "Temporary stent" (Bentley InnoMed GmbH). ⭐ Highly pertinent.
Discloses a temporary, retrievable stent for applying medicaments to a vessel wall, with a mesh structure delimited by webs/nodes; drug stored in recesses on the outer (vessel-facing) side; preferably self-expanding (shape-memory, e.g. Nitinol); and means at the proximal end for attaching an extraction (retrieval) device. Drugs specified include rapamycin and paclitaxel. §102 relevance: potentially anticipates claim 1's vessel-wall drug-delivery concept and the temporary/retrievable nature, claim 6 (self-supporting/expanded), claims 11–12 (paclitaxel / sirolimus), and the multi-element configuration of claim 14. Distinguishing features: this stent is a laser-cut tubular mesh with drug in recesses, not a braided/knitted wire with a tighter body weave than its end portions, and it lacks the two-catheter longitudinal radial-actuation of claim 1.

4. Conclusion — Most Relevant Prior Art

• Closest overall art: WO 2012/097287 A1 (Innovia) — it is the only cited reference that combines an expandable intraluminal frame, relatively movable catheter elements producing radial expansion, open proximal/distal ends permitting fluid flow, and a therapeutic agent delivered by contact to the vessel wall; it bears directly on the actuation and perfusion limitations of claims 1 and 14.
• Second: EP 2732798 A2 (Bentley InnoMed) — strongest on the temporary/retrievable drug-delivery stent aspects and on the specific agents named in claims 11–12.
• Third: EP 0518704 A1 (Scimed) — anticipates the "expandable, perfusable body with open end portions" concept of claim 1.

No single cited reference discloses the complete combination of claim 1 or claim 14 — in particular the braided or knitted wire frame with a body weave tighter than the end-portion weave together with the two-catheter longitudinal expansion actuation (claim 1) or the slidable inter-frame sleeve (claim 14). The cited art is therefore best characterized as §§ 102/103 prior art that individually anticipates discrete dependent claims (e.g., §§ claims 11–12 by EP 2732798; claim 6 by EP 0518704/EP 2732798) rather than an entire independent claim; a § 103 combination of WO 2012/097287 + EP 0518704 + EP 2732798 would be the more likely validity challenge. US 2013/0287003 A1 (ETRI) is not relevant prior art.

Caveats: These are analytical assessments of anticipation relevance, not legal conclusions. I could not retrieve the full text of US 2006/0259005 A1 (Angioscore) or US 2002/0010418 A1 in this session; their mappings above are based on title/abstract-level information and should be verified against the full documents for a definitive § 102 element-by-element comparison. The status and citation data are drawn from the provided authoritative patent text and the USPTO-mirrored Google Patents record.

I'll analyze the obviousness of US 9,795,772 using the prior art cited on the patent page. Let me first verify the disclosures of the key cited references through targeted searches.

Let me verify the remaining key cited references to ground the combination analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,795,772 B2 ("Endoluminal drug delivery device")

Assignee: Cook Medical Technologies LLC · Priority: 2014‑08‑15 (GB 1414547.8) · Filed: 2015‑05‑28 · Granted: 2017‑10‑24
Governing law: AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103 (application filed after 2013‑03‑16); Graham v. John Deere, KSR v. Teleflex, MPEP 2141–2143.
Source of record used: the "Citations (11)" prior‑art list on the patent page — https://patents.google.com/patent/US9795772/en

Note on method: the page lists 11 cited references. Ten are in the endoluminal vascular‑device field; one, US20130287003A1 (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, "Cell search method, forward link frame transmission method…"), is non‑analogous art and plays no role. The analysis below maps the claim limitations to the references I was able to verify in full text, and cites those texts.

1. Legal framework applied

Under Graham/KSR, the question is whether the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a PHOSITA at the effective filing date. Critically, KSR holds that:

• A combination is obvious where the references are from the same field of endeavor, address the same problem, and the combination yields only predictable results; and
• "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill."
• A motivation to combine may be found in the nature of the problem, the express teaching of the references, or common knowledge/design incentives — no express "combination" teaching is required.

2. Claim 1 — primary combination

2.1 The primary reference: EP 0 518 704 A1 (Scimed Life Systems, pub. 1992‑12‑16)

This is the single most important reference and was cited against the application. Its text and its US family member US 5,222,971 disclose a removable, temporary, braided‑wire vessel support whose every mechanical limitation of claim 1 is present:

Assessment: EP0518704 teaches or suggests every structural and kinematic element of claim 1. The only limitations that could even be argued to be missing are (i) the differential braid density between body and end portions and (ii) drug on the outer surface of the body portion specifically. Both are addressed below.

If one concludes the end‑region "spaced‑apart wires for blood flow" discloses the differential density, the claim is anticipated under § 102 by EP0518704. Assuming arguendo it is not, the differential density is at most a predictable design choice (denser braid = greater radial force and drug‑contact area; looser braid = greater perfusion), squarely within KSR's "predictable variation" and "obvious to try" rationales. The '772 specification itself concedes only ordinary trade‑offs: "a thicker wire providing greater opening force, but at the expense of … reduced compressibility."

2.2 The secondary references supplying the drug‑delivery teaching

Any one of the following cited references supplies the "bioactive material disposed at least on the outer surface of the body portion" element, and each is in the same field and directed at the same problem (restenosis/localized drug transfer at a vessel wall):

2.3 Motivation to combine — express and inherent

A PHOSITA would have been motivated to apply the drug‑delivery teaching of § 2.2 to the braided temporary stent of EP0518704, with a reasonable expectation of success:

1. Same field, same problem. All references address endoluminal/localized delivery of a bioactive agent to a vessel wall to treat restenosis/tumors, and all identify the same deficiency of the prior art (drug‑coated balloons: ischemia, poor transfer, flaking; drug‑eluting stents: permanent foreign body).
2. Express teaching in the primary reference. EP0518704 itself states it is "desirable to have the ability to deliver medicines to the vessel … while the stent is in place" and discloses a slow‑release drug‑containing wire coating. Improving that coating to an antiproliferative is the stated purpose of the reference.
3. Express teaching in the secondary references. EP2732798 is directed to exactly this improvement — making a removable mesh scaffold drug‑bearing, while noting the drawbacks of permanent drug‑eluting stents. WO 2012097287 is directed to exactly the '772 advantage — a drug‑bearing mesh that leaves the lumen open for perfusion while in contact with the wall.
4. The '772 device's asserted advantage is the natural, expected consequence of the combination. The patent's stated benefit — "blood can continue to flow through the vessel, through the open braiding structure of the end cones" — is precisely the function already attributed to the perfusable tapered ends in EP0518704 and to the mesh openings in WO 2012097287. No new or unexpected result is produced.
5. Concentrating the drug in the vessel‑contacting body portion is a predictable optimization. The body portion is the only part that abuts the wall (as the '772 specification concedes: "the body portions … will come into abutment with the vessel wall"), so placing drug there and leaving the end cones open/undosed is the obvious allocation of the drug reservoir.

2.4 Representative claim‑1 combination

Primary: EP 0 518 704 A1 (braided, dual‑catheter, radially expandable temporary vessel support with perfusable tapered ends).
Secondary: WO 2012097287 A1 (drug‑bearing mesh with proximal/distal perfusion openings; two‑catheter displacement mechanism).
Further secondary (drug/chemistry): EP 2732798 A2 (drug‑in‑recesses on a removable nitinol/spring‑steel stent; paclitaxel, rapamycin).

This three‑reference combination renders claim 1 obvious.

3. Claim 14 — the multi‑element combination

Claim 14 requires (i) first and second expandable frame elements disposed adjacent one another longitudinally, each with the body‑portion / open‑end‑portion architecture and the tighter body weave; (ii) a catheter assembly to which both are connected; and (iii) a sleeve positioned between the two elements, slidable over them.

This is likewise obvious:

• Two expandable elements on one shaft is a predictable scale‑up to treat longer lesions. The '772 specification itself asserts no more than that the "length of the body portion(s) … is preferably chosen for the particular treatment." WO 2012097287 discloses an elongated stent‑graft treatment zone; EP0518704 discloses the braided frame; forming two adjacent drug‑delivery zones from a common braid is a mere duplication of parts (KSR; MPEP 2144.04 — duplication of parts with no unexpected result).
• The sleeve between them is the conventional constraining/segmentation element. A radially constraining sleeve or sheath over an expandable endoluminal frame is disclosed or rendered obvious by the cited art itself: US 20010035456 (Lennox) claims a "tubular sheath … over said coating," and WO 2012097287 discloses "A sheath covers the first catheter … The stent‑graft is supported in its collapsed configuration within a distal portion of the sheath." A PHOSITA would recognize a sleeve placed at the junction of two braided zones as an obvious way to maintain the device radially constrained between drug‑delivery segments, with a reasonable expectation of success.
• Notably, claim 14 omits the telescoping dual‑catheter expansion limitation of claim 1, so it is broader and even more readily met.

Representative claim‑14 combination: EP 0 518 704 A1 + WO 2012097287 A1 + US 20010035456 A1 (sheath) + a drug‑coating reference (EP 2732798 A2 / US 8,226,603 B2).

4. Dependent claims

Each dependent claim therefore falls with the independent claim it depends from.

5. Possible rebuttals and objective indicia

Arguments a PHOSITA/patentee might raise, and why they are weak:

1. "No motivation to modify a temporary stent into a drug‑eluting device." — Contradicted by the references themselves: EP2732798 is expressly directed to a temporary drug‑delivery stent, and EP0518704 states that delivering medicine while the stent is in place is desirable. This is an express motivation, not hindsight.
2. "Different physical principles — a balloon vs. a braided frame." — WO 2012097287 bridges this by using an expandable stent/mesh frame (not a balloon) as the drug carrier, preserving lumen patency.
3. "The specific 'body‑dense/ends‑open' braid was not suggested." — It is the direct and expected consequence of EP0518704's stated function for the tapered regions ("relatively large openings … to facilitate blood flow therethrough"), and of the conceded trade‑off between opening force and perfusion stated in the '772 specification itself. A PHOSITA optimizing a braided temporary stent would arrive at it by routine design.
4. Secondary considerations. No unexpected‑results, long‑felt‑need, or industry‑praise evidence appears on the face of this record, and any such evidence would require a nexus to the claimed combination. The results recited in the specification (perfusion through open end cones; drug concentrated in the wall‑contacting body portion) are the predictable results of the combination and therefore cannot carry a nexus.

6. Bottom line

Confidence and caveats. I verified the full text of EP0518704A1/US 5,222,971, WO 2012097287A1, EP 2732798A2, US 20010035456A1/US 6,280,411, and US 20070207179A1 via the searches above. I did not retrieve the full texts of US 20020090388A1 (Humes), US 20020010418A1 (Syntheon), US 8,226,603 B2 (Abbott), US 20060259005A1 (Angioscore), US 7,641,844 B2 (Cook) or US 20130287003A1 (ETRI) in this session, so those are characterized only at the level of the titles/abstracts shown on the patent page; any of them relied on above should be re‑verified against full text before being asserted. Also note that the '772 claims as granted read on "vascular delivery device" and "catheter assembly," which are narrower wordings than the original "carrier element" language in the published application — the mapping above is against the granted claim text reproduced on the page. This is an analyst's obviousness assessment, not a legal opinion or an Office action.