A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado awarded $4.38 million in attorney fees, costs and expenses to BrainLAB (Munich, Germany) for a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Medtronic (Minneapolis).

The court ruled that BrainLAB was entitled to recover the amount from Medtronic and its law firm McDermott, Will & Emery (MWE), previously stating that "Medtronic's and MWE's pursuit of meritless litigation to eliminate competition in the medical products market requires remediation." BrainLAB was represented in the case by the law firms Renner, Otto, Boisselle & Sklar and Baker & Hostetler.

The patent infringement lawsuit filed by Medtronic against BrainLAB in 1998 was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in Denver in February 2006, which ruled that BrainLAB products do not infringe any of Medtronic's patents in the suit.

The court concluded that a September 2005 verdict, which found that BrainLAB had infringed four patents held or licensed by Medtronic, was in error and could not be supported by evidence. Medtronic's award of $51 million in damages was overturned in the process.

In February 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the dismissal. The District Court determined in February that BrainLAB was entitled to its attorney fees and expenses.

The dispute is over medical products that use acoustics to let surgeons track the precise location of instruments while they are in a patient's body during operations. Medtronic claimed that several BrainLab products infringed its patents.

BrainLab, which develops image-guided systems that provide real-time information used for navigation during surgical procedures, has U.S. headquarters in Westchester, Illinois.

Medtronic and its law firm may appeal the decision.