A Medical Device Daily

The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware has ruled that Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (Indianapolis), a subsidiary of Guidant, now owned by Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Illinois), did not commit "inequitable conduct" in obtaining the Lau stent patents.

The court's ruling completes the liability phase of the patent infringement proceeding brought by Guidant against Medtronic Vascular (Minneapolis), while the damages phase remains to be conducted.

Medtronic said it will appeal these findings of liability to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

Medtronic said the decision has no bearing on an ongoing reexamination of the Lau patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In February 2006, the patent office granted Medtronic's Request for Reexamination for each of the four Lau patents, finding that "substantial questions exist" regarding the validity of the Lau patent claims in view of prior art submitted by Medtronic with its Request for Reexamination.

It said the USPTO is now considering whether the Lau patents should have been granted in the first instance. Until this reexamination is concluded, its potential impact upon the claims relating to the Lau patents remains unknown.

In other patent news:

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company; Franklin Lakes, New Jersey) said it has been informed by bioMerieux SA (Paris) that it is initiating an arbitration proceeding with the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris against GeneOhm Sciences Canada (Ontario), a BD subsidiary.

According to the letter, bioMerieux seeks in the arbitration proceeding to terminate a sublicense agreement under which it granted certain patent rights to the subsidiary. The patent rights relate to a method for the detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA).

BD said that though it has not yet received the pleadings in this matter, it believes that there is no basis to terminate the sublicense agreement, and GeneOhm Sciences Canada intends to vigorously defend its position in the arbitration proceedings.

Separately, BD said it received a letter from bioMerieux invoking the dispute resolution clause of a separate license agreement between BD and bioMerieux, under which bioMerieux grants patent rights to BD for certain licensed fields relating to BD's products. In the letter, bioMerieux alleges that sales of BD's products have been made in non-licensed fields and that such sales constitute a material breach of the license agreement.

bioMerieux requests compensation for any non-licensed sales, as well as cessation of all future sales in non-licensed fields, contending that there has been "no material breach of the agreement" and will follow the dispute resolution provisions to resolve the matter, while vigorously defending its position with respect to the alleged breach.