Smith & Nephew (NYSE:SNN) saw its $4.7 million patent infringement victory over Arthrex overturned in federal appeals court Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington reversed a February 2010 Texas jury verdict that found that the Naples, Fla.-based Arthrex infringed on a patent held by Smith & Nephew’s Andover, Mass.-based endoscopy division. The court said that SNN “presented insufficient evidence at trial to support a finding that the RetroBut- ton® device infringed Claim 8 of U.S. Patent No. 5,645,588 (’588 patent).”
The dispute began in 2007, when SNN sued Arthrex in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, accusing it of violating a pair of patents covering techniques for attaching anterior cruciate ligament grafts to bone. The companies agreed to dismiss the charges relating to one of the patents, according to court documents, but allowed a jury to decide about the other patent.
That decision went against Arthrex to the tune of nearly $5 million, after the jury found that its RetroButton femoral fixation device infringed the remaining patent covering Smith & Nephew’s EndoButton fixation device. The jury later added nearly $473,000 in pre-judgment interest, for a total award to Smith & Nephew of nearly $5.2 million, according to court documents.
