A Medical Device Daily

VNUS Medical Technologies (San Jose, California) reported that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has decided to allow a second continuation patent application related to the patents in the VNUS patent infringement lawsuit against suppliers of endovenous laser products.

This comes on the heels of the USPTO's decision last month to allow VNUS a separate patent application, also filed as a continuation of one of the patents in the lawsuit.

The newly allowed VNUS patent application was filed as a continuation of VNUS's U.S. patents Nos. 6,258,084 and 6,752,803. The continuation patent uses the same patent specification as the '084 and '803 patents and is published as patent publication number 2004/0243201.

VNUS has sued several endovenous laser manufacturers — Diomed Holdings (Andover, Massachusetts), Angiodynamics (Queensbury, New York), and Vascular Solutions (Minneapolis) — for infringement of VNUS patents including the '084 and '803 Patents (Medical Device Daily, Nov. 22, 2006). That lawsuit is scheduled to begin trial against Angiodynamics and Vascular Solutions on June 23.

Diomed filed for bankruptcy and has entered into an asset purchase agreement with AngioDynamics (MDD, April 14, 2008).

The newly allowed patent application contains claims that recite methods of administering fluid around a hollow anatomical structure, such as a vein in a lower limb, and applying energy from an elongate member to the hollow anatomical structure. The elongate member may be a fiber optic and the energy may be light energy. Significantly, while the application was under examination, VNUS submitted for review the references that the defendant laser companies cited during the patent litigation in their attempt to challenge the validity of the '084 and '803 patents.

Brian Farley, VNUS president/CEO, said, "This is more great news for VNUS. The decision by the patent office to allow yet another continuation of our litigated patents — again after we provided the references cited by our competitors — only bolsters our confidence that the court will find our patents valid. The newly allowed claims provide additional, meaningful breadth to our patent position and will be a significant asset for protecting our endovenous ablation technology."