Federal Circuit revives ultrasonic surgical patent row
Medical device makers Ethicon Endo-Surgery, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, and Covidien will head back to a US court after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived their patent dispute concerning ultrasonic surgical devices.
The dispute is focused on four design and two utility patents.
The surgical devices cut through tissue and blood vessels using ultrasonic energy generated by vibrating blades. The heat generated helps the blood to coagulate and seal any gaps in the vessel, preventing any bleeding.
Ethicon sued Covidien for patent infringement in 2011 at the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio after Covidien started selling its own line of ultrasonic surgical devices.
But the district court disagreed with Ethicon’s claims and in January 2014 it issued a judgment of non-infringement.
On the question of utility patent number 8,182,501, the district court said it was invalid on the grounds that it was indefinite. The court said that utility patent number 5,989,275 had not been infringed.
The four design patents were deemed to be “functional” and not infringed.
But a three-judge panel at the federal circuit ruled differently on Friday, August 7, and revived the case.
Judge Raymond Chen, writing the opinion, said the ruling of indefiniteness concerning the ‘501 patent was incorrect because “the specification provides sufficient guidance to a person of ordinary skill in the art”.
In relation to the ‘275 patent, he added that the district court “improperly resolved genuine disputes of material fact” when “questions of fact remain”.
On the four design patents, Chen concluded that the district court correctly ruled on their non-infringement because the “claimed ornamental designs are plainly dissimilar from the ornamental design of Covidien’s accused products”.
Chen remanded the case back to the district court to decide on the infringement of patent numbers ‘501 and ‘275.
Neither Ethicon nor Covidien had responded to a request for comment at the time of publication, but we will update the story should either party get in touch.
