Medtronic sues Guidant in Ireland in ongoing stent patent infringement battle

By Lisa Kerner

Erie, Pa., March 28 - Medtronic, Inc. said it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Guidant Corp. in the High Court in Dublin, Ireland, alleging that the Guidant Multi-Link Vision and Xience V coronary stents infringe patents under exclusive worldwide license to Medtronic Vascular from evYsio Medical Devices, a private Canadian company.

According to a company news release, Medtronic is seeking monetary damages and an injunction against the Vision and Xience stents.

The lawsuit in Ireland is one of four patent infringement actions against Guidant products involving the evYsio patents, Medtronic said.

Medtronic's latest lawsuits against Guidant follow other legal developments involving Medtronic's vascular business.

On March 23, Medtronic announced an independent arbitration panel found in favor of the company in a case in which Cordis Corp. of Johnson & Johnson alleged that the Medtronic Driver stent and several other Medtronic stents infringed some of Cordis' patents.

A U.S. District judge recently upheld a previous verdict that Medtronic's GFX and Microstent II products infringed on Cordis' Plamaz-Schatz patents.

On March 1, Medtronic filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Boston Scientific, alleging that the Taxus Paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent system infringes Medtronic's Fitzmaurice and Anderson patents.

"We value the strength of our intellectual property portfolio and we will continue to pursue legal actions against products that we believe infringe our patents, such as the Guidant Vision and Xience stents and the Boston Scientific Taxus stent," said Scott Ward, Medtronic senior vice president and president of Medtronic Vascular, in the release.

"Because of the industry's intensely competitive environment, we will be tenacious in protecting and enforcing our patent rights. Our strong preference is to resolve these matters without litigation. However, if that is not possible, then we are prepared to assert our rights in court."

Medtronic is a medical device company based in Minneapolis.

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