PTAB tosses out Covidien patent in surgical shears spat with J & J ’ s Ethicon

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has thrown out Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) subsidiary Covidien‘s patent on electrosurgical shears in a spat between the company and Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Ethicon Endo-Surgery subsidiary, according to court documents released this week. The patent relates to a bipolar electrosurgical shearing instrument used to seal and cut blood vessels or vascular tissue, designed to use “both mechanical clamping action and electrical energy to coagulate, cauterize and/or seal tissue,” according to court documents. The Board ruled in an inter partes review that Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon subsidiary showed that, through combinations of earlier inventions and publications, the invention would have been obvious. “We determine that Petitioner has met its burden of proving the unpatentability of claims 1-13 of the ‘536 patent by a preponderance of evidence,” board judges wrote. The decision is the most recent in a long-running patent infringement war between Covidien and Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery unit over surgical shears, which appeared to be over last month after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case. Covidien in August asked the Supremes to hear its appeal of a December 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which overturned a $177 million award to Covidien in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut. There, Judge Janet Bond Arterton had rule...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tags: Legal News Patent Infringement Surgical Covidien Ethicon Endo-Surgery Johnson & Johnson Medtronic Source Type: news