Boston Scientific Corp. announced that a jury in Delaware found that one of the company’s cardiovascular stents infringed on a patent held by Johnson & Johnson. Monetary damages will be determined in a later hearing and there are likely to be post-verdict motions and hearings, as well as an appeal.
During an earlier trial of the case in late 2000, J&J asserted that Boston Scientific’s NIR stent infringed six claims from four different patents. The jury found that one of those claims infringed and awarded damages of $324.4 million. The other five claims were found to be either invalid or not infringed. In March 2002, the judge set aside the damage award, and held that two of the four J&J patents had been obtained through inequitable conduct in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It’s likely that J&J will ask the court to reinstate the $324 million damages award.
For an interesting PowerPoint of the effects of litigation on the stent market by Hannah Yun, see here.
It illustrates how litigation costs of $400K to $48 million are quite small in comparison to the $300 million to over a $1 billion in revenues a company can receive from stent sales (2003).
