A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a lower court’s ruling on the claim construction in a patent infringement dispute between the inventor of a vascular stent patent and Endologix (NSDQ:ELGX) acquisition TriVascular Technologies.
In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a Patent Trial & Appeal Board ruling that the patent was not invalid due to obviousness. The appeals court found that TriVascular didn’t demonstrate that the patent, held by Shaun Samuels, was invalid because of obviousness, nor did they find that the board was in error in its claims construction process, according to court documents.
Samuels sued TriVascular in May 2013 and later added co-founders Michael Chobotov, Robert Whirley and Joseph Humphrey to the suit, according to court filings. After a claim construction ruling by Judge Edward Chen, the parties agreed that the construction precluded Samuels from proving infringement. In December 2015, the parties agreed to dismiss the Samuels lawsuit but preserved his right to appeal the claim construction ruling.
In a Nov. 3 per curiam ruling, the Federal Circuit upheld Chen’s disputed claim construction, ruling against Samuels’ appeal, according to the documents. The appeals court did not elaborate on its decision.
Endologix and TriVascular closed their $211 million merger in February.