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16 October 2020AmericasMuireann Bolger

Federal Circuit resuscitates Snyder’s heart valve patent

A medical device company, St. Jude Medical, part of Abbott Laboratories, failed in its bid to invalidate a patent for an artificial heart valve at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday, Thursday, October 15.

In 2016, Robert Snyder, founder of healthcare device company Snyders Heart Valve, sued St. Jude for infringement at the US Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He accused the company of using technology covered by his patent for artificial heart valves and their catheter delivery system in its own products.

St. Jude responded by filing two petitions at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2017, which argued that the disputed patent was invalid according to prior art, and requesting an inter partes review of Snyder’s US patent No. 6,540,782 at the USPTO’s appeal board.

In May 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) delivered a mixed ruling, only partially upholding the patent. While it agreed with St. Jude that “a relevant skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine” the earlier patents, it found that the company failed to prove that a relevant artisan “would have made the particular combination it proposed”.

The PTAB did, however, conclude that parts of the patent were anticipated by an earlier patent.

Snyder had argued that his artificial valve can be inserted without requiring the removal of the damaged valve, whereas the earlier patent cited by St. Jude as anticipating Snyder’s patent requires the removal of the valve. However, the board found that the claim language in Snyder’s patent failed to clarify this distinction.

Both parties appealed against the findings. However, this week, the Federal Circuit found in favour of Snyder and reversed the board’s claim construction that invalidated parts of the patent.

It held that “the claim’s reference to repairing a damaged heart valve, without any reference to removal, suggests that the native valve remains,” and added that “the specification stresses that the artificial heart valve it discloses can be inserted without removing the native valve and that this is an improvement on the prior art”.

The Federal Circuit also found that St. Jude had once again failed to establish the overall invalidity of the patent based on prior art, stating that: “St. Jude has not demonstrated the unreasonableness of the board’s determination that St. Jude did not adequately or persuasively establish the motivation to make the particular combination it proposed in arguing obviousness.”

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More on this story

Americas
25 March 2021   Snyders Heart Valve has been successful in reviving patent claims in an on-going dispute against St Jude Medical.
Medtech
7 October 2021   The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that claims of a patent covering an artificial heart valve were erroneously held to be unpatentable by the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in a blow to a medical device company owned by Abbott Laboratories.
Americas
3 November 2020   Health technology company Philips has accused Boston Scientific of infringing six patents through the sale of its Polaris guidance system and related medical devices.

More on this story

Americas
25 March 2021   Snyders Heart Valve has been successful in reviving patent claims in an on-going dispute against St Jude Medical.
Medtech
7 October 2021   The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that claims of a patent covering an artificial heart valve were erroneously held to be unpatentable by the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in a blow to a medical device company owned by Abbott Laboratories.
Americas
3 November 2020   Health technology company Philips has accused Boston Scientific of infringing six patents through the sale of its Polaris guidance system and related medical devices.