Gore must cough up fees to cover pursuit of sanctions in stent graft spat with Bard

A federal judge in Delaware yesterday ordered W.L. Gore & Assoc. to cough up some of the legal fees C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) incurred in defending itself against Gore’s bid for sanctions against Bard’s lawyers in their long-running war over stent graft patents. Gore alleged that the Bard legal time conspired to sit on an expert witness report from 2009 that was used in another battle in the stent graft fight, “only to spring it on this court at the last minute in order to ‘blow up’ the trial,” wrote Judge Leonard Stark of the U.S. District Court for Delaware. Gore also claimed that counsel for Bard allegedly lied to Stark about when the report was received and gained improper access to sealed documents at the courthouse in Maryland. But, Stark wrote, he was persuaded by Bard’s “corroborated” and “entirely plausible” explanations and found Gore’s conspiracy accusations “entirely implausible.” Bard’s request for attorneys’ fees “may well be a request that should be granted” because Gore’s sanctions motion “leveled serious (but unsupported) accusations of misconduct against highly-experienced attorneys,” the judge wrote. “Bard’s fees motion presents a very difficult decision. On the 1 hand, the court credits Gore’s counsel’s repeated representations that it brought the sanctions motion ‘in complete good faith’ and...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tags: Legal News Patent Infringement Stent Grafts C.R. Bard W.L. Gore & Associates Source Type: news