Petitioner cites patents assigned to USSC, including Young (Ex.1009), Viola (Ex.1008), Mastri1 (Ex.1015), and Milliman (Ex.1011) (collectively, “USSC patents”), as supposedly showing the prevalence of I-beams in endoscopic staplers allegedly “affirming” the obviousness of adding an I-beam to Green-209.
Even if considered, the Reply leaves the rest of PO’s analysis unchallenged, see POR, 41-44, and, perhaps more importantly, also fails to properly address Petitioner’s burden to affirmatively demonstrate why a POSA would have been motivated to add an I-beam to McGuckin to improve shell alignment and stability.
Petitioner also states that “a POSA knew that a distally actuated ramp-knife assembly would not necessarily be pulled by a cable,” Reply, 20, and proposes yet another modification, a “longitudinally rigid and laterally flexible drive bar[].” Ex.1025, ¶43.
Petitioner also glosses over situations in which, even if only diseased tissue is clamped within the curved portion of the jaw, the full cutting stroke sends staples into the body with no way to retrieve them, potentially causing serious injury to the patient.
Finally, Petitioner points to a single sentence in McGuckin stating that the invention “is not limited to any particular or specific direction [or] orientation” as apparently supporting its reimagining of the knife blade assembly.