Medtronic wins patent suit against Medgraph at Federal Circuit

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit gave victory to Medtronic yesterday in a patent litigation against Medgraph, a company that produces patient data software.

The case was an appeal by Medgraph from the US District Court for the Western District of New York after the company lost a suit in the district court.

Medgraph is the owner of the two patents involved—US numbers 5,974,124 and 6,122,351—which cover a method for improving and facilitating diagnosis and treatment of patients.

The software company sued Medtronic in December 2009 for alleged infringement of the ‘124 patent.

Followed by this, Medgraph filed an amended complaint in October 2010 to assert that Medtronic also infringed a claim of the ‘351 patent.

In August 2012, Medtronic filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement of all claims of the asserted patents.

The district court later dismissed the claims of infringement.

On appeal, Medgraph argued that the district court’s decision should be vacated and remanded for proceedings, and that the court’s finding of non-infringement was in error because the court improperly interpreted a claim.

The Federal Circuit noted that the appeal arises in part from “the fact that Medgraph’s suit coincided with a multi-year process of judicial reconsideration by this court sitting en banc and by the Supreme Court of the relevant governing law, in a series of five appellate decisions, which the parties refer to as ‘the Akamai cases’”.

In its decision, the Federal Circuit agreed with the counterclaims by Medtronic and stated that a remand is unnecessary in this case, and that the district court correctly construed the claim.

It added: “We have considered Medgraph’s remaining arguments but find them to be unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.”