The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office handed Palomar Medical Technologies Inc. another win in its ongoing hair removal patent infringement crusade against Candela Corp., Syneron Inc. and Tria Beauty Inc.
The patent office confirmed the validity of all claims in its re-examination of the second of two optical hair removal technology patents. The office upheld the Burlington-based cosmetic laser device maker’s first patent in June.
Palomar said the USPTO affirmed 14 of the second patent’s existing claims (the other eight claims were not under dispute) and two more it added for the re-examination.
The company is suing Syneron for willful infringement of the just-affirmed patent and both Candela and Syneron for willful infringement of both patents in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.
Both cases were stayed pending the outcomes of the patent office re-examinations. Now that they’ve both come out as wins for Palomar, the company said it requested that both suits start up again.
Candela and Syneron are not the only companies Palomar is going after for infringing its optical hair removal technology. In late June, Palomar slapped Pleasanton, Calif.-based Tria Beauty Inc. with a patent infringement suit, alleging it violated one of the two patents.
And the European Patent Office upheld the patents in May as “novel and inventive” over its competitors’ intellectual property.
After the EU ruling, CFO Paul Weiner told MassDevice that the decision bolstered Palomar’s claims in other infringement suits, especially ones against Candela and Israel’s Syneron.
CEO Joseph Caruso said the USPTO ruling reinforces the strength of the family of patents. While several competitors licensed the technology from Palomar, he said, others chose to use it without a licensing agreement — just the thing the patent system is designed to prevent, Caruso added.
Palomar, which bought exclusive licenses to the patents from Mass. General Hospital in 1995, was the first company to land Food & Drug Administration approval for a device using the technology, the first to bring a high-powered optical hair removal device to market and the first to land FDA approval for a similar, over-the-counter device for the consumer market, he said.
