A Medical Device Daily

Shares of Stryker (Kalamazoo, Michigan) dipped on Monday as the maker of surgical and orthopedic products said that it too was among the major orthopedics firms that have received a subpoena from the Department of Justice as part of an antitrust investigation.

Earlier in the week, three other firms – Zimmer, DePuy and Biomet (all Warsaw, Indiana) – reported receiving similar subpoenas (Medical Device Daily, June 27, 2006).

Stryker said the subpoena requests documents going back to 2001 regarding possible violations of federal criminal law and antitrust laws relating to the manufacture and sale of its implant products.

Stryker said it would cooperate fully with the DoJ.

The company's shares declined $2.69, or 6%, to $42.19 during afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has traded between $39.74 and $56.32 during the past 52 weeks.

In other legalities, Health Discovery (HDC; Savannah, Georgia) reported that it has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Ciphergen Biosystems (Fremont, California) and Equbits (Livermore, California) in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas. HDC charges that Ciphergen and Equbits have infringed three of its U.S. patents, covering various aspects of its Support Vector Machine technology.

HDC seeks injunctive relief from further infringement, compensatory damages, enhanced damages, reasonable attorneys' fees, prejudgment interest, and other associated costs. It is represented by Powell Goldstein (Atlanta) and the Roth Law Firm (Marshall, Texas).

“These actions are one step in HDC's efforts to protect its valuable intellectual property,” said Stephen Barnhill, MD, chairman and CEO of HDC. “While we intend to continue biomarker discovery and our other operational initiatives, we will actively pursue any company that does not respect our IP rights.”

HDC develops pattern recognition technology and a biology-oriented biomarker and pathway discovery company. Its pattern recognition tools have application potential in radiology, Internet search and spam, homeland security and financial futures.