W.L. Gore & Assoc. paid out the $208.9 million in enhanced damages it owed to C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) in the decades-long stent graft patent war between the 2 companies.
In January a federal appeals court upheld a judgment of willful infringement against Gore, tacking on an extra $205 million to the $854 million Gore already owed Bard for trespassing its stent graft patents. Today Bard said it received the willfulness damages payment May 1.
Gore had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a rehearing and an en banc rehearing, but was rebuffed without comment in April. Gore could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case dates all the way back to the early 1970s, when a Gore engineer named Peter Cooper, invented a key claim in the patent, Gore alleged.
But Judge Mary Murguia of the U.S. District Court for Arizona initially ruled that the patent was invented by Dr. David Goldfarb, who later assigned it to Bard. Her 1st decision boosted Bard’s $185.6 million jury award to $371.2 million, prompting Gore to appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Murguia in February 2012 (sending BCR shares up 2%) and affirmed that judgment in June 2012. Gore’s subsequent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2012 was denied early in 2013. That July, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office upheld the validity of the Bard patent.
But in 2012 the Federal Circuit bench tasked Murguia with reviewing her willfulness finding. In October 2013 Murguia upheld that ruling, finding Gore’s infringement willful and declining to revisit her decision on enhanced damages and legal fees and denying Gore’s bid for a new trial. Gore appealed again to the Federal Circuit, which once again affirmed Murguia.