A Medical Device Daily

Sutura (Fountain Valley, California), a developer of minimally invasive vascular suturing devices, reported it has settled a patent infringement lawsuit against Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Illinois). Abbott has agreed to pay Sutura $23 million. The settlement also provides for a cross license of the Hathaway patents, licensed to Abbott by Indiana University, and the Sutura Nobles patents.

"We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Abbott and resolved this patent infringement dispute with them," said David Teckman, president/CEO of Sutura. "We now look forward to moving on with our continued enhancement of Sutura's product line of vascular suturing devices, in particular the Sutura EL device."

Sutura filed the suit against Abbott and its Perclose unit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In its complaint filed Dec. 21, 2006, Sutura asserted that Abbott and Perclose were infringing on Sutura's patents for vascular and cardiovascular suturing.

The Sutura SuperStitch vascular suturing device is a suture based device and is covered by numerous patents dating back to 1999. "We believe that Abbott and Perclose have gained well over $500 million in Closer related revenue at our expense," Teckman said at the time. "We believe the Closer line of devices has directly hindered the sales growth of the SuperStitch products offered by Sutura."

In its case against Abbott, Sutura sought unspecified damages, and a court ordered injunction barring Abbott and Perclose from making, using, importing, selling, or offering for sale any device that infringes Sutura's patented SuperStitch technology.

Sutura has developed a line of minimally invasive vascular suturing devices to suture the puncture created in arteries during open surgery and catheter-based procedures. The company's line of SuperStitch medical devices provide sutured closure of the arteriotomy site using the existing catheter sheath introducer or cannula during fluoroscopically guided procedures and directly through the open arteriotomy during open surgical procedures.