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Editor: Marc Jay Bern
Profession: Defective Medical Device Lawyer

Category: Medtronic Lawsuit News

In an ongoing patent battle between Medtronic Inc. and Boston Scientific Corp. a federal court judge threw out two of three patents, a decision that cut the damages Boston Scientific would have to pay by nearly 90 percent.

A jury had found that Boston Scientific infringed three Medtronic patents for balloon catheters and systems to insert heart stents that prop open arteries after they are cleared of fat. The jury originally awarded $250 million, an amount later reduced to $186 million.

In his ruling, the judge said an in-house Medtronic agent purposefully withheld information about earlier inventions, called prior art, that could have affected analysis by the patent examiner.

The judge rejected Medtronic's argument that information was insignificant and said the action "exceeds that of gross negligence."

Medtronic's patent agent "cultivated deliberate ignorance of what a reasonable examiner would consider material art," Ward ruled. "To hold otherwise would condone, and in fact encourage, those with a duty of candor to act in such a manner."

The only appropriate punishment, he said, is to prevent Medtronic from enforcing the patents - against Boston Scientific or any other company.