A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

A judge in a California district court last week vacated a $420 million damage award against Nellcor (Pleasanton, California), a unit of Tyco International (Pembroke, Bermuda) in a lawsuit brought against it by Masimo (Irvine, California).

In her ruling, Judge Mariana Pfaelzer said that the damages were not sustainable, based on the proof in the case. She vacated some of the findings and ordered a new trial on damages. No date was set for the retrial.

The judge did affirm various charges vs. Nellcor.

A jury had found against Nellcor in a dispute related to the marketing of pulse oximetry systems and awarded $140 million in damages, an amount that was automatically trebled to $420 million under the state's antitrust statute.

Masimo had charged that Tyco Healthcare (Mansfield, Massachusetts) and Nellcor, a unit of Tyco's Mallinckrodt (St. Louis) business, had used their market position to keep hospitals from purchasing Masimo's products.

Tyco said that it had made no provision in its consolidated financial statements for the damage award.

In other legalities: SonoSite (Bothell, Washington), which refers to itself as the leading developer of hand-carried ultrasound systems, reported that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, has granted its motion for summary judgment of invalidity against Neutrino Development, a patent holding company.

SonoSite said that, based on a ruling of invalidity, the court reversed its earlier finding that SonoSite infringed Neutrino's U.S. patent No. 6,221,021 (the '021 patent).

In the ruling issued on Tuesday, the court found that Neutrino improperly amended the '021 patent in violation of U.S. patent law to include a claim of a component being hand-held which was not in the original patent application. In a final judgment, the court declared the claims being asserted against SonoSite in the '021 patent are invalid, and vacated and set aside its earlier ruling on infringement, dismissing Neutrino's claims and causes of action "with prejudice."

Neutrino filed its original complaint against SonoSite in U.S. District Court in Houston on July 24, 2001, alleging that SonoSite's hand-carried ultrasound products infringed the '021 patent, titled "Method and Apparatus for Penile Hemodynamic Stimulation, Monitoring and Drug Delivery Acceleration." The patent was filed on May 30, 1999, amended by the plaintiff in May 2000 and issued to Neutrino on April 21, 2001.

"This is a major victory for SonoSite and we are very pleased that the judge agreed with us that our products do not infringe Neutrino's patent," said Kevin Goodwin, SonoSite president and CEO. "We look forward to having the distraction of this unfounded lawsuit behind us and continuing to develop products that are changing medical practice by bringing the benefits of ultrasound visualization to the point of patient care."