Cordis Corp., a Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) company, announced Tuesday that the U.S. District Court in Delaware has awarded about $1.2 billion to the company in a patent infringement lawsuit against Medtronic Inc. (MDT) and Boston Scientific Corp. (BSX).
The company sued Medtronic and Boston Scientific for infringing its Palmaz balloon expandable stent patent. The case relates to Boston Scientific's NIR stent and Medtronic's GFX and Microstent II stents.
The Palmaz balloon stent is an expandable, intraluminal stent, which can be inserted into a body passage, and is capable of supporting an intact vascular graft. The stent is a thin-walled, generally tubular member having a plurality of rigid support tabs spaced uniformly around the perimeter of the two ends of the stent. The stent is designed to overcome several disadvantages of prior art balloon expandable stents.
Both patent infringement cases were originally filed in 2000, with Cordis receiving favorable jury verdicts at that time of $324 million against Boston Scientific and $271 million against Medtronic, prior to the addition of interest.
After a series of procedural rulings and appeals, both cases were retried in March of 2005, with Cordis winning the verdict again. Juries in 2000 and 2005 found that Boston Scientific's and Medtronic's bare metal stents infringed Cordis' Palmaz patent.
In January 2007, a federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., upheld the jury verdicts. At that time, Cordis said it would ask the Delaware judge to reinstate damages.
On September 15, a Delaware federal judge granted the company's motion for final judgment against Medtronic and Boston Scientific in the patent litigation.
In its final judgment, the court awarded about $1.2 billion, including accrued interest, to Cordis against the two companies. Medtronic was ordered to pay about $521 million and Boston Scientific about $703 million.
JNJ closed Tuesday's regular trading session at $69.28, up $2.38 or 3.56%. However, in the after-hours, the shares lost 68 cents. MDT ended Tuesday's regular trading session at $50.10, up 74 cents or 1.50%. BSX finished Tuesday's regular trading session at $12.27, up 43 cents or 3.63%.
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