Boston Scientific lawsuit

by Tracey_E
2014-09-29 11:09:55
General Posting
2499 views
7 comments

ouch
http://www.law.com/sites/articles/2014/09/25/boston-scientific-socked-with-309m-verdict/?cmp=social_20140929_32474326

7 Comments

Well

by Grateful Heart - 2014-09-29 07:09:27

A very special thank you to the late Dr. Michel Mirowski.

Grateful Heart

Mesh

by Gotrhythm - 2014-09-29 11:09:19

From what I could tell by googling "Boston Scientific Lawsuit," it looks the device in question is vaginal mesh, not pacemakers.

Can't read article

by WillieG - 2014-09-29 11:09:35

When this comes up and ad covers the story and there is no place to X out of it. Tried both iPad and home computer. Will try again later. As I have a Boston Scientific pacemaker, I am curious. Thanks for posting info and I will try to find it another way that copy and paste.

Wilma

no, it's icd

by Tracey_E - 2014-09-29 12:09:15

It's an article about icd's, not the mesh. Wilma, I have a login with them, maybe that's why I'm seeing the article?

Here ya go:
By inventing the implantable cardioventer defibrillator (ICD), late physician Michel Mirowski saved tens of thousands of lives and earned millions of dollars in patent licensing fees for his familyâs company, Mirowski Family Ventures LLC. Now the Mirowski legacy also includes a gargantuan jury award, thanks to a verdict reached Tuesday in a case involving claims against Boston Scientific Corp.

Siding with MFVâs lawyers at Williams & Connolly, a state court jury in Maryland awarded the company $309.3 million after a two-week trial. The jury found that by quietly settling disputes with rival St. Jude Medical Inc. in 2006, Boston Scientific breached a prior agreement to cooperate with Mirowski in all litigation over the ICD patents it was licensing from him.

Mirowski, who died in 1990, is credited with inventing the ICD in the 1970s while working at Baltimoreâs Sinai Hospital. In 1973, he licensed to Medrad Inc. key patents on his work that were set to expire in 2003. Medrad eventually became Guidant, which Boston Scientific acquired in 2006. Mirowski, and later MFV, received a 3 percent royalty on Guidantâs ICD sales.

The licensing agreement stated that Boston Scientific would work together with MFV on any patent litigation against infringers of Mirowskiâs patents. In 2002, they jointly brought infringement claims against St. Jude, which was trying to muscle its way into the growing ICD market.

MFV and Boston Scientific won a $140 million verdict against St. Jude in Indiana in 2002. However, it emerged after the 2002 trial that Boston Scientificâs key expert witness gave false testimony about whether heâd been an expert witness in other litigation matters. A judge wrote in 2006 that the expert âdeliberately liedâ and that Boston Scientificâs trial attorneys âmade no reasonable effort to address the problem when it arose during trial.â In 2006, the company ended up settling the Indiana case against St. Jude and a related case in Delaware as part of a larger licensing deal between the two companies.

The Mirowski family brought its lawsuit against Boston Scientific in Maryland state court in 2013, alleging it had been deprived of a say in the St. Jude deal, and that valuable infringement claims in Indiana and Delaware had been traded away. MFVâs lawyers at Williams & Connolly alleged that Boston Scientific benefited handsomely from the deal and was able to minimize the damage from its lying expert.

Boston Scientific, represented by Arnold & Porter, removed the case to federal court. But U.S. District Judge William Quarles Jr. in Baltimore remanded the litigation back to state court earlier this year, ruling that Boston Scientific waited too long to seek removal and was improperly âtesting the watersâ in state and federal court.

Tuesdayâs verdict was first reported after Boston Scientific disclosed it in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The jury awarded MFV $86.5 million in royalties, $142.6 million for the damages it claimed in the Indiana lawsuit, $80.2 million related to the Delaware litigation and prejudgment interest.

David Kiernan of Williams & Connolly was lead trial counsel for MFV, squaring off against Matthew Wolf of Arnold & Porter.

Kiernan said heâs pleased with the verdict and that itâs âfully supported by the facts and the evidence.â Boston Scientific vowed an appeal in its regulatory filing.

Read more: http://www.law.com/sites/articles/2014/09/25/boston-scientific-socked-with-309m-verdict/#ixzz3EiYKLWDQ

Article

by WillieG - 2014-09-29 12:09:31

Thanks for adding the information. Interesting, but not a problem with the pacemaker that I have. Appreciate your input, as always!

Thanks for clearing this up

by Gotrhythm - 2014-09-29 12:09:45

So, the lawsuit was about patent infringement by Boston Scientific--not about danger to PM recipients.

Appreciate you for getting us the facts.

Article

by WillieG - 2014-09-29 12:09:52

Thanks for adding the information. Interesting, but not a problem with the pacemaker that I have. Appreciate your input, as always!

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