The U.S. Supreme Court dashed the last hopes of W.L. Gore & Assoc. its long-running patent war with C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) over vascular graft technology.
Last October Gore asked the Supremes to consider its appeal of a $186 million patent loss to Bard.
Today the high court denied that bid, whereupon Bard promptly filed a motion to compel payment in the U.S. District Court for Arizona, according to a regulatory filing.
Gore alleged that 1 of its engineers, Peter Cooper, invented a key claim in the patent in the early 1970s, according to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed with the high court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Judge Mary Murguia of the U.S. District Court for Arizona in February 2012 (sending BCR shares up 2%) and affirmed that judgment in June 2012. Murguia ruled that the patent was invented by Dr. David Goldfarb, who later assigned it to Bard. Gore wanted the Supremes to rule that the patent was the joint invention of Cooper and Goldfarb, according to court documents.
The appeals court’s decision in June overturned a portion of its prior ruling that Gore pay C.R. Bard $371 million for infringing a vascular graft patent, ordering the lower court to reconsider its decision that the infringement was willful. Murguia’s decision had boosted Bard’s initial $185.6 million award to $371.2 million, prompting Gore to appeal (her reconsideration of the willfulness issue is still under way). Gore then appealed to the Supreme Court in October 2012.
