A Medical Device Daily

ev3 (Plymouth, Minnesota) said it agreed in principle to resolve patent infringement and other litigation with the Regents of the University of California (Oakland, California) and Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts).

The company said it would make a one-time payment of about $11.7 million to the University of California and a one-time payment of about $3.7 million to Boston Scientific. The payments, along with attorney fees and other litigation expenses, will result in a $20.2 million special charge in 3Q07. All claims against ev3 will be dismissed and the company will not have to stop selling any of its existing products or make any future royalty payments.

Products involved in the litigation include embolic protection devices and certain detachable embolic coils.

The litigation included patent infringement claims by the University of California against ev3; assertions by ev3 of non-infringement, invalidity of the patents and inequitable conduct in the procurement of certain patents; assertions of violations of federal antitrust laws by ev3 against the University of California and Boston Scientific; patent infringement claims by ev3 and Boston Scientific against each other related to embolic protection devices; and a claim by Boston Scientific against ev3 for misappropriation of trade secrets.

ev3 develops endovascular therapies.

In other patent news:

• VISICU (Baltimore), a healthcare information technology and clinical solutions company focused on critical care, reported two developments regarding its intellectual property portfolio.

First, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a reexamination certificate allowing all 26 amended claims of the VISICU patent. This patent describes a system and method for providing continuous, expert network critical care services from a remote location, which has demonstrated success in reducing hospital mortality rates and length of stays for the sickest patients, according to the company.

Second, VISICU was granted a new patent on August 14 titled, “A Telecommunication Network for Remote Patient Monitoring.”

• District Judge Maxine Chesney of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has issued several pretrial orders relating to the patent infringement lawsuit by VNUS Medical Technologies against Diomed (Andover, Massachusetts), AngioDynamics (Queensbury, New York), and Vascular Solutions (Minneapolis).

The original trial start date for Oct. 29 was delayed; a new start date has not been set due to time constraints of the court (Medical Device Daily, Oct. 24, 2007).

In the recent rulings, Chesney denied both VNUS’s motion for a pretrial ruling that the patents were infringed and the defendants’ motion for a pretrial ruling on patent validity. She also denied Diomed’s request for summary judgment that its alleged infringement was not willful, potentially subjecting Diomed to treble damages should the jury find at trial that Diomed has willfully infringed VNUS’ patents. By denying the summary judgment motions, the judge did not resolve any of the underlying issues, but ruled that the jury should decide them, Diomed noted.