A federal judge in Delaware ruled that two separate juries will decide the damages in a case involving three patents for coronary stents made by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Cordis Corp. and Boston Scientific Corp., after the companies agreed to a $716 million settlement last week.
Cordis won its June 2005 lawsuit against Boston Scientific, which accused the Natick, Mass.-based stent pioneer of infringing two of its patents (known as the “Palmaz ‘762” and “Gray ‘406” patents) with its Express, Taxus Express and Liberté stents.
BSX won the suit it filed in July 2005 over the so-called “Jang ‘021” patent, which the Cordis Cypher and BX Velocity stents were found to infringe, but a federal court threw out its allegation of infringement of the “Ding ‘536” patent.
Damages in both cases were never assessed, leading Judge Susan Robinson of the U.S. District Court for Delaware to rule that separate juries will make those determinations.