J&J wins stent patent appeal over Boston Scientific, Medtronic

Court patent battle over BMS ends. Source: NY Times

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., has upheld two separate 2005 jury verdicts that found Medtronic and Boston Scientific infringed coronary stent patents owned by Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) subsidiary Cordis.

Cordis said it now intends to ask the U.S. District Court in Delaware to reinstate the damages judgments of $271 million against the Minneapolis-based Medtronic, and $324 million against Boston Scientific, plus interest.

The Miami Lakes, Fla.-based Cordis also noted that injunctive relief was not relevant, because Medtronic’s GFX and Microstent II bare metal stents (BMS), and Boston Scientific’s NIR BMS are no longer on the market.

The Natick, Mass.-based Boston Scientific acknowledged that the court “found that the NIR stent infringed one claim of a patent owned by Johnson & Johnson…The Appeals Court remanded the case back to the [Delaware] District Court, noting that the District Court still has to determine damages and may need to revisit the issue of validity in light of a revised claim construction.”

Both patent infringement cases were originally tried in 2000, with Cordis receiving favorable jury verdicts. Following procedural rulings and appeals, both cases were retried in March 2005 and Cordis prevailed, leading to the current federal appeal.