A Medical Device Daily

Kinetic Concepts (San Antonio), a developer of wound care and therapeutic surfaces, reported receiving a patent from the Japan Patent Office relating to relating to its V.A.C. Therapy technology. Japanese Patent No. 3,766,934, licensed by KCI from Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), covers the treatment of wounds using subatmospheric pressure.

Catherine Burzik, president/CEO of KCI, said, "Recently we announced that Japan's Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency had approved the study design for V.A.C. Therapy, and trials are underway in 11 hospitals there. This patent protection moves us closer to our objective of serving the needs of the Japanese market, which we estimate to be a sizable opportunity."

KCI currently operates in the U.S. and 17 foreign countries.

In other patent news: MediTract (Chattanooga, Tennessee), a contract management service serving healthcare, reported being awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,194,677 for its document management system, TractManager. The company said the patent broadens protection of its TractManager process for converting and managing electronic documents.

Thomas Rizk, CEO and chairman of MediTract, said, "Through TractManager, our customers gain control of contracts and documents, allowing them to devote more time to mission-critical tasks. The present invention relates to organizing and providing access to documents in a way that greatly facilitates storage and organization of the documents and information concerning and contained in these documents."

Rizk also said that the company has selected Perkins Coie to serve as MediTract's primary intellectual property counsel.

MediTract says its clients are hundreds of hospitals and healthcare systems at thousands of locations nationwide.