Abbott (NYSE:ABT) claimed a legal win over Medinol after Holland’s highest court upheld its win in a patent infringement case involving coronary stent technology.
Medinol sued Abbott in a Dutch court, alleging that all of Abbott’s bare-metal and metal-based drug-eluting stents infringe "certain of Medinol’s European stent design patents," Abbott said in a regulatory filing. Medinol lost that case and appealed to the Dutch Supreme Court, according to the filing.
"In April 2014, the Dutch Supreme Court rejected Medinol’s appeal, resulting in a final determination that Abbott’s stents do not infringe Medinol’s patents," Abbott said.
Medinol has a long history of suing the largest names in the stent business. The Tel Aviv-based company sued Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) in 2001, winning a $750 million settlement in 2005. But that case wasn’t closed until 2011, when the companies agreed to canceled some provisions of the 2005 settlement and release each other from all claims in the case. Medinol paid Boston Scientific $104 million as part of that deal in January 2011.
And last year, the company accused Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Cordis stent-making arm of violating 4 patents with the Cordis Cypher and Cypher Select stents – 2 years after Cordis ceded the field in the coronary stents arena.
Medinol launched a clinical trial of its NIRsupreme stent coated with Ariad Pharmaceuticals’ (NSDQ:ARIA) ridaforolimus drug in January.